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	Good conversation can be difficult to find. In our newest blog feature we&#39;re calling &#39;Conversations,&#39; we invite knowledgable Au Sable alums, faculty, or staff with personal experience and a special interest in a particular area of Christian environmental stewardship to discuss their thoughts, insights, and experiences.&nbsp;</p>
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	In our first post, Dave Timmer and Brook Wilke discuss their work tending local farms and running their community farmers markets. &nbsp;In their first of three conversations, they describe farm life, their farmers markets, and the unique leadership role each of their churches have played in organizing their local farmers market.</p>
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	<strong><img alt="" src="{filedir_5}dave-timmer-headshot-150x150.png" style="float: right; width: 100px; height: 100px; " />Dave Timmer</strong>: Brook, it&#39;s been awhile, huh? &nbsp;Probably 5 or 6 years. It is great to be in touch again. I thought it would be good to take a little time to get reacquainted (for us, and for those who are the flies on the wall for our conversation). I really appreciated our connection when I was in Ann Arbor. We met through Emily (your wife) while she and I were at the University of Michigan for grad school. The <a href="/alumni_and_grad_fellows/#GradFellows">Au Sable Grad Fellows</a> program was just getting off the ground, and Emily and I both had taken the Au Sable Winter Stream Ecology course for a January Term while we were at Calvin for our undergrad. The fellows program was a natural fit. You were going to Michigan State and since they didn&#39;t have a fellows program you were involved in ours. I thought it was impressive that you later got the fellows program started there as well. Looking back, I feel that the fellow program provided great community and both intellectual and recreational stimulation.</p>
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	<img alt="" dir="" id="" lang="" src="{filedir_5}Brook-Wilke.jpg" style="float: right; width: 100px; height: 142px; " /><strong>Brook Wilke</strong>: Dave, it&rsquo;s great to connect this way. Thinking back to our days in Ann Arbor reminds me of the positive impact that Au Sable has had on my life. Rolf Bouma, the program leader, was gracious enough to allow me to attend a Graduate Fellows Retreat in the winter of 2005, a year before I started graduate school, and the rest was history. You&#39;re right, the community of people that were and are a part of the graduate fellows program is phenomenal and I&#39;m grateful for the entire experience and the people, like you, that I met. The people in this community are the ones that you never forget, the people that you can go to for advice and friendship at any time, even if it&#39;s years down the road without seeing each other. Thus, here we are today having this conversation.</p>
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	<strong>Dave</strong>: The graduate school experience is a terrific setting to explore faith, justice and stewardship - the fellows program provided an effective avenue for that exploration. But enough history&hellip; on to the topic at hand.</p>
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	Since grad school, I&#39;ve occasionally heard what you and Emily were up to. I left Ann Arbor in 2005 but it looks like we&#39;ve been involved in some similar types of work - we both are working the earth in some way and involved in strengthening our local food systems. &nbsp;</p>
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	<strong><img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Wilke-Farms-goats-pigs-200pxl.jpg" style="float: right; width: 200px; height: 150px; " />Brook</strong>: That sounds about right. We moved to the Richland, MI area in 2006 to allow me to pursue my doctorate in agroecology at the Kellogg Biological Station (KBS), and Emily immediately landed a job with the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy. During those years, we started growing organic vegetables for our own family and for the cafeteria at KBS. These efforts continued to expand year by year, and a move down the road to our current <a href="http://wilkefarms.weebly.com">11 acre farm</a> brought us the flexibility to incorporate rotationally grazed livestock, including chickens, meat goats, pigs, and now sheep, all of which are marketed locally directly to consumers (<a href="http://wilkefarms.weebly.com">wilkefarms.weebly.com</a>). We&#39;re reaching the point where the farm is &quot;full&quot; at least to sustainably raise our livestock on the available forage (see photo right), and we&#39;re now exploring the use of some land owned by neighbors who are eager to have someone graze their pastures.</p>
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	<strong>Dave</strong>: It also seems that our conservation work (and background), our farming work, and our community work are all tied together. Where I see the results of this coming together is that we both were involved in <img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Five-Loaves-Farm-3-200pxl.jpg" style="float: right; width: 200px; height: 149px; " />starting a farmers market. &nbsp;Mine, the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lynden-Farmers-Market/160191960710268">Lynden Farmers Market</a>, is a baby. We&#39;re just about to begin our second year. It has been an interesting experience. We started it as a natural extension of <a href="http://fiveloavesfarm.blogspot.com/">Five Loaves Farm</a>, our food growing project at <a href="http://www.arocha-usa.org/">A Rocha USA</a>&nbsp;(see photo right). Through Five Loaves Farm (on a small scale), we are continually experimenting with ways of providing access to locally grown, healthy produce to everyone. We&#39;ve done this through food bank gardens, church gardens, plot-style gardens, and educational workshops. Basically, we&#39;re working to strengthen our local food system. Lynden, WA is an agricultural community, but we didn&#39;t have a market. So we figured we better start one. For me, starting a farmers market has stretched me more than my other work. Starting a farmers market tends to be more community development rather than conservation, but there is a connection.&nbsp;</p>
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	<strong>Brook</strong>: I had a similar experience. In 2008, a grassroots <a href="http://richlandfarmersmarket.weebly.com/">Richland Farmers&#39; Market</a>&nbsp;was born out of a social justice committee at a local church. We started attending&nbsp;as a vendor that summer to sell extra produce, and by the following year, I was in charge of organizing vendors for the entire market, and then was a co-market manager by 2010. I argue that our market is very successful for a smaller town; last year we averaged 25 vendors per week throughout the summer ranging from full time farmers and bakers to part time gardeners.&nbsp;</p>
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	<strong><img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Farmers-market-church-200pxl.jpg" style="float: right; width: 200px; height: 150px; " />Dave</strong>: I find it intriguing to hear that your market began from a church committee. Good for them! It is something I&#39;ve been seeing around the country. Churches tend to grasp the food justice thing. The number of gardens starting on church properties is fantastic. There is probably no better way for a church to get out of their building. This is how we started Five Loaves Farm - I thought we (at my church) should do something productive with our large backyard. It was just being mowed and nothing else. So, I met with the leadership and got their support. We tilled it the next spring. That was 2008. Now we&#39;re producing food on 5 different properties, we hire a full-time farmer every season, and last year we started the Lynden Farmers Market. Last year, we held it on our church property. We averaged 10 vendors per week and learned a lot. This season we are moving it to a city-owned lot directly downtown where we think the customer traffic (drive-by and walkers) will be greater. I&#39;m looking forward to it.</p>
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	<strong>Brook</strong>: Your farm looks amazing, and you have five sites and a full time farmer. Wow! Do you have visions of adding &quot;two fish&quot; similar to Will Allen and <a href="http://www.growingpower.org">Growing Power farms</a>&nbsp;in Milwaukee? They have done a lot to promote inner-city farming in Milwaukee and the idea has been spreading.&nbsp;</p>
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	<strong>Dave</strong>: I hadn&#39;t seen what Will Allen is doing there with Growing Power. I love the full approach (meat, bees, mushrooms, etc.). It is inspiring to see this focus on food (and full access to it) springing up all around the country. It is a powerful movement.</p>
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	<strong>Brook</strong>: Your efforts also remind me of our time in Ann Arbor, when the backyard of our church (University Reformed) was converted into a community gardening site as part of Project Grow Community Gardens (projectgrowgardens.org). I remember that first year well. It was like growing a garden on the Lake Michigan beach; the site was previously a playground and apparently had once been filled with sand. &nbsp;Other than converted sandboxes, what opportunities do you see at your church?</p>
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	<strong>Dave</strong>: I&#39;ve been thinking of bringing in bees to Five Loaves - one idea I had with bees is to put them up on the church&#39;s bell tower. There is a lot of activity around the church and farm so we don&#39;t have a good place on the ground where I can guarantee they won&#39;t get messed with. The bell tower doesn&#39;t get much use anymore - might be a good place for some hives. I still have a dream of a property with an onsite caretaker where we can start raising animals&hellip;we&#39;ll start with a chicken tractor. Perhaps some aquaculture as well, though I&rsquo;m not sure what I think about aquaculture in salmon country. God is thinking, &quot;I send the healthiest, best tasting, most beautiful fish right to your doorstep every year, why do you need to keep them in pens&hellip;.Oh yeah, those dams.&quot;</p>
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	By the way, I&#39;d like to see your farm sometime - maybe eat some bacon as well. &lsquo;Til next time&hellip;</p>
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	<em><strong>Dave Timmer</strong> took Winter Stream Ecology during a very snowy January (1999) and was part of the first group of <a href="/alumni_and_grad_fellows/#GradFellows">Au Sable Grad Fellows</a> at the University of Michigan. After several years in the conservation field, he is now the Stewardship Director for A Rocha USA in NW Washington. This work includes watershed restoration, conservation science projects and managing Five Loaves Farm. Through Five Loaves Farm, A Rocha is working on ways to build a stronger local food system, including the establishment of the Lynden Farmers Market.</em></p>
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	<em><strong>Brook Wilke</strong> was born and raised on a grain and livestock family farm in Nebraska. He earned a Bachelors degree in biology/ecology from Nebraska Wesleyan University and a Ph.D. in agroecology from Michigan State University. Wilke is an Au Sable Graduate Fellow alumnus and helped start the <a href="/alumni_and_grad_fellows/#GradFellows">G</a><a href="/alumni_and_grad_fellows/#GradFellows">raduate Fellows program</a> at Michigan State. Currently, he manages the Richland Farmers&#39; Market in Richland, MI and operates Wilke Farms in Plainwell, MI where his family produces organic vegetables and free range pork and eggs.</em></p>
