JERICHO, Vt. (WCAX) – When you arrive at the homestead of Birch Hill Sugarworks in Jericho, there is no driveway up to Ann Gnagey and Tom Baribault’s log cabin. Instead, a path framed by native plants and edible berries leads to their home, where they have lived since 1990.
They have 60 acres of sugar bush and make about 100 gallons of syrup each season. The couple raised three boys in this house, which has electricity and is heated by three woodstoves — minimizing their use of fossil fuels. Both biologists, Gnagey and Baribault do everything they can to live sustainably and reduce their carbon footprint.
Seven Days’ Eva Sollberger spent a Sunday afternoon with the couple touring their verdant homestead and learning about the many projects they’re juggling.
Eva: We are here in Jericho at Birch Hill Sugarworks. And today we’re going to get a tour from Ann and Tom and find out about what it’s like to live sustainably off the land.
Ann: There’s two that are ripe. Sustainable living. And there’s three basic tenants. One is to use power from the sun.
Tom: Energy from the sun.
Ann: Recycle nutrients.
Tom: Biodiversity.
Ann; Biodiversity. This is called boneset here.
Tom: Honeybees and native bees. They all love it. This tree was only ten feet tall when we moved here.
Eva: In 1990 Tom and Ann moved to Jericho with their three boys and bought a log cabin surrounded by pasture. 34 years later, they have transformed their homestead.
Ann: We wanted to show our kids how to grow food. We wanted to teach them respect for the land. It was a way of life, and we just.. I didn’t think of it as sustained, environmentally sustainable, whatever. It was just the way you should live. These are blackcurrants.
Tom: We rely on them in June and early July.
Ann: It’s kind of tight in here, but.. Our son says, why don’t you make the path bigger? We said, well, you know, then we have to lose our.. We got this mindset. You got to have your lawn just like perfect. It’s a reflection of your character. And like, who would want to have this place? Because it looks like the people don’t care, but it’s quite the opposite.
Tom: So we experiment with what will grow where. It’s a blend of food for us, a habitat for insects that will support songbirds, native birds.
Ann: So when it’s raining out there, we can come in here and work.
Eva: Nice!
Tom: We purchase grain and we purchase oil and dairy.
Eva: So where are you getting the rest of your food that you’re eating?
Tom : From the land here.
Ann: From here, yeah. I think it’s when the trucks stop, because they will.
Tom: You really do tune in to the weather conditions. And what we were doing in 1995 has really changed drastically. The weather is so unpredictable.
Ann: Hey chickies! Hey chickies! Hiya Hawk, how you doing? Good chickies.
Eva: So you have electricity?
Tom: Oh, yeah, we net meter into the grid.
Ann: Oh, these are the runner beans. These are the scarlet runner beans.
Tom: We grow citrus, too, as one of our novel enterprises. And we’re growing turmeric and ginger.
Tom: We have a spring too, we’ll show you.
Ann: Spring that we dug up there. It’s solar hot water so it’s direct from the sun. The sun heats the water. This is the sugar house.
Eva: And how many gallons approximately are you..?
Ann: 100.
Tom: All of us know how to go down this trail. In the pitch dark at three in the morning.
Ann: Everybody has 24 hours a day. And if you spend that time not in the present, you rob yourself of becoming whole. And we keep track of which peppers we, we grow and what the germination rate was.
Eva: You haven’t sat down once since I got here!
Ann: Well we don’t sit down during the day.
I think I’m..just feel an urgency that we have to do this. And if we show people how to do it and they understand the urgency, then maybe they’ll change some of the things they do.
Ann: Hi Lucy!
Tom: They’re going to come out and forage.
Eva: Thank you Ann and Tom. And we will get stuck in Vermont with you again real soon.