Hey folks, welcome back. This is Andy with the Poor Proz Almanac. You can find us on Spotify, iTunes, and wherever you get your podcasts.

In today's episode, we interview Steve Gabriel, an ecologist, forest farmer, and educator

living in the Finker Lakes region of New York State, where he manages Wellspring Forest Farm.

His farming framework is based on the ecology of where he lives. He also utilizes

his extensive knowledge in silvo pasture at the Cornell Small Farm Program as an agroforestry

extension specialist. In this conversation, we start talking about what it's like to put in

silvo pasture systems, but end up diving into some really deep conversations

about our role, particularly as white people, managing lands that aren't ours. So hopefully you guys

enjoy this conversation. It was really great, and I'm looking forward to having Steve back on in the

future. Steve, thanks so much for taking some time to chat with us.

First, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Yeah, sure.

I hail from the Finger Lakes region in New York, which is a beautiful place right in the middle

of the state that we now call New York State.

And it is a really unique ecosystem, lots of rolling hills and a pretty large cluster of lakes that really affects the

climate and the weather around here. So we have people growing grapes on the shores of the lakes,

and we have hilltops like our farm which can be pretty cold and windy

but we my wife and i and my son aden steward about 20 acres here with our farm and then i also

work part-time for the cornell small farms program helping other farmers get started and

specifically work a lot with

mushroom growers and in agroforestry in that capacity.

So busy on the land and I'm blessed that when I'm not at our place, I get to help others figure out how to do that for themselves.

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