Honoring Life that Feeds Us at Harmony Farm
How Brandi Bonde’s heart-first approach to her New Glarus, WI farm led to on-farm harvest, water restoration, and women supporting women in farming.
Story + Photography by Sarah Carroll
On a Saturday at the crack of dawn, the skyline the palest pink, residents of New Glarus, WI are warm in their beds. But not Brandi Bonde, who opens the gate, walks past the barn down a sloping pasture, and stops to soak in the expanse of dewy wetland before her. This is how Brandi of Harmony Farm starts her day, reflecting on the interconnectedness between her sustainable, heart-first farm and the lands that nourishes it.
It’s only after soaking in the quiet beauty of the wetlands that comprise part of her 10-acre regenerative meat goat, sheep and chicken farm that Brandi enters the barn to start the morning’s duties. Her affectionate grass-fed, grass-finished goats and doe-eyed dairy cow greet her as a best friend, vying for pats and scratches. Brandi demonstrates a deep connection with animals, and all her decisions on the farm stem from an appreciation for her livestock and the land.
“I started farming because I wanted to have a closer relationship to my food. I wanted to know how it was raised, how it was treated, what it was fed, the whole process. And for me, the best way to do that was to do it myself,” Brandi reflects. “I feel like the animals are happy here, and that makes me happy.”
This sense of connection is at the forefront of Brandi’s practices that give her goat herd an entire lifecycle on the farm, an uncommon practice. “I really wanted to live and farm from my values, and part of that - hugely- is animal welfare. My animals are born on the farm, they live here, I make their lives the best as I possibly can.”
Unlike the widespread practice of slaughtering animals off-farm, Brandi is a champion of the growing trend of on-farm harvest. Traditional slaughter, where animals are loaded onto trucks and transported off-farm for harvest, can be stressful to animals. It’s a common juncture in the animal agriculture process for animal welfare best-practices to be compromised. Instead, Brandi partners with Natural Harvest, a division of Prem Meats in Spring Green, WI, which brings a mobile slaughterhouse to the farm so Brandi can ensure her goats spend every moment of their lives at ease.
“If I raise them here, I want them to die here,” Brandi explains. “If I raise them with respect, I want them to die with respect. Anything less than that doesn’t honor the life that feeds me and feeds people.”
Brandi’s become a visionary in how this animal welfare practice could spread. “I’m working with a couple of other women who have spearheaded this new mobile slaughter unit idea to get another one off the ground, to support our farmers who also feel this is important.”
Brandi pats Milkweed as her calf, Maestro, looks on from the next pasture. Milkweed arrived in Brandi’s care after a friend’s organic dairy production went out of business. In the climate of today’s Farm Crisis, farms have been going bankrupt at alarming rates, affecting farming and rural communities in personal and often devastating ways. When Brandi’s friend sold off her herd, Milkweed hit the jackpot for her final home on Harmony Farm, and grazes peacefully between millings and giving Brandi giant licks. Brandi now barters Milkweed’s raw, unpasteurized milk with other members of her community, as Wisconsin laws prevent her selling raw milk.
Despite the allure of lush solitude on Harmony Farm, Brandi isn’t one to keep her wisdom of values-driven farming to herself. She’s a passionate part of Soil Sisters, a group of over 20 sustainable and regenerative farms in Wisconsin, many of which are organic farms, which offers immersive farming and culinary experiences. This summer, Brandi hosted a Soil Sisters event at Harmony Farm.
“Soil Sisters supports female farmers by helping them get started and offering support, guidance and community,” Brandi explains, which is vital because approximately 1 in 3 farmers are women- and growing. Yet women often face patriarchal barriers in agriculture. “It’s safe and nonjudgmental. None of us came here knowing it all, and we really want to foster a movement of locally raised food.”
The stream separating the pasture and barn from the expansive wetland at the back of the property is bubbling, cool, and clear. But it wasn’t always that way- the stream used to be muddy and eroded, and the land was invaded by weed trees like box elder.
Thanks to grants from Trout Unlimited and Green County, Brandi’s restored the trout stream, wetland, and prairie. Her goats now enjoy the nutritious mineral content from the thriving land. And with the restoration, magnificent wildlife has returned- nesting cranes, bobcats, foxes, eagles, turtles and monarch butterflies. “As we’ve healed the land, we’ve really seen this ecosystem heal and regenerate itself. It’s been beautiful.”
Brandi ships goat meat sausage, brats, hot sticks and other delicious offerings across Wisconsin, and makes weekly deliveries for customers in Madison and Middleton, WI. And her neighbors lack not for pastured eggs, which Brandi sells from top of the farm driveway. Her products are also proudly featured at The Heights Kitchen, a thoughtfully-sourced, Parisian-style bistro on Madison’s west side.
All animals fed, watered, and patted, Brandi sits on a bench at the center of a meditation labyrinth near the barn and smiles, contemplating the effect the farm has on her. “It increases my physical and emotional health, being able to tend to this. Having my land, water, and animals healthy leads me to greater health, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. And I wanted to open that to more people.”
