de•fi•ANt

Adjective
showing a daring or bold resistance to authority or to any opposing force.

The Defiant Farmers

Hi. We're Sarah Tarkington and Bob Gross.

Sarah moved westward from northern MI to attend Northland College in the 2000s and stayed to make a home & life with Bob in the Chequemegon Bay. She has wanted a farm since she was little, making list after list of the animals she would collect while sitting at her grandma’s kitchen table after school -she hasn’t crossed all the animals off that list yet, not by a long shot. She studied Environmental Science with a concentration of Sustainable Agriculture in college and immersed herself in the rich local food scene of the Cheq Bay area after graduation. She worked for 7 years @ Hermit Creek Farm in Highbridge, WI and owes so much knowledge building and learning experience to the great work of Landis & Steven Spickerman. An older sister, she is a natural manager and is the big picture planner, details diva, and plant (cat) lady of the operation. In her off-farm work, she continues to be involved in various aspects of the food system. She also teaches yoga and spends a lot of time shopping for a horse.

Bob is a Wisconsin native and spent lots of wonderful childhood time at his grandparent’s organic dairy farm in Coon Valley, WI: petting calves, loving Rusty the farm dog, and skiing the steep coulees. He loves wild places and wildlife, and has a passion for adventure. Sarah has (sort of) convinced him farming is a grand adventure. He is the marketing guru and the mechanical and infrastructure point person. He is a husband working hard to support a wife’s dream on many, many levels.

The Defiant Field

Our Defiant Field is west of Washburn, Wisconsin, nestled at the edge of the Chequamegon Nicolet National Forest-near the Big Lake in the Big Woods. Our farm is a 20 acre parcel that includes a mix of sugar bush, wood lot, field and pasture. We focus on mixed veggie production, pastured eggs, occasional pastured pork shares and sometimes sweet treats of farmstead honey & maple syrup. We see lots of stars, we sometimes hear wolves howl and we have bad internet. We believe in nourishing the land and feeding the soil & soul. The farm is home to two bad dogs, a small herd of bad dairy goats, an ever-increasing amount of laying hens, many defiant honeybees, a couple sassy barn cats, a field of good food and a small cabin and two defiant humans.* (*All of these amounts are subject to change and do frequently.) We don’t spray, we practice regenerative and organic food production techniques and we delight in growing food for ourselves and our community, building soil and supporting flourishing wild ecosystems.