The Windstone Story
Learning to Live Differently
Windstone Farms is the product of my journey to live within the Earth's limits while loving the life I create and sharing it with you! Welcome to the journey!
ABOUT WINDSTONE
Welcome to Windstone, a family farm run by the Lehrman’s – Amber, Jacob and Raven.
​We weren’t always farmers – far from it! Back in 2003, Jeremy and Amber were just typical young parents moving into their first house and marveling at their toddler son, Jacob. You may relate to the feeling of looking at your new baby’s face and wanting to give them the best of everything. For us, that started with the best food. There was just one problem - we couldn’t afford the organic food in the store or at the farmer’s market.
Amber’s family had always had a garden so we decided to start a small garden in our suburban yard. If we couldn’t buy it, we would grow it! Of course, we had never grown anything before so we had a lot to learn. Our first 4x12 raised bed eventually grew into an urban homestead that provided 80% of our vegetables (over 1200 lbs/year). We also planted fruit trees, had chickens, built a cob pizza oven and built a solar mass greenhouse. The adventure had begun!
Somewhere along the way we discovered a few things. First, we discovered that we loved growing food and we loved sharing that food with others. We also loved sharing why we grow the way we grow – completely free of all sprays and modeled as closely on a natural ecosystem as possible. Our urban garden was on multiple garden tours and we hosted groups to share our vision of sustainable food production in the city. We discovered that talking to people about our garden was just as much fun as growing the garden!
Second, we discovered that we really wanted to do this growing stuff thing full time – we wanted to farm. After several years of looking, in April of 2012 we bought 40 acres between Perry and Lawrence and started creating a new and bigger dream – Windstone.
It hasn’t been easy though. We spent 6 years building our own off-grid home out of stone and timber and many times we wondered if we would make it through. We moved multiple times with our kids and spent months camping at the farm while working on the house. Camping with no running water or electricity and two pre-teens gave us a real appreciation for modern conveniences! You can read about some of that process on our old blog: www.thelehrmans.blogspot.com . The house was completed in May of 2019 and we are finally turning our attention back to growing food and creating the natural homestead of our dreams.
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Our Vision
Our vision for Windstone is to have a natural farm modeling the permaculture ethics of Care for Earth, Care for People and Care for the Future. We want to both produce abundant delicious food that you can afford and share our passion for growing it.
We also want to show what a lifestyle truly lived within our ecological limits looks like. Beyond that, we want to show that living within the earth’s limits is fun, rewarding and full of joy.
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If you want to hear about new developments, get early invites to our future workshops and farm open houses, be the first to hear about new products and classes as we roll them out, then sign up for our email list below. We look forward to sharing Windstone with you!