The Farmers
Andrea, Jason, Sierra, and Phoenix Townsend
After 10+ years working for and managing farms in Pennsylvania, the Finger Lakes, and California’s Central Valley, Jason and family settled into Oneida County. Jason is a farmer with a passion for producing high quality, sustainable, local food as a foil against corporate, resource-depleting, nutrient-poor food. He is also an ecologist and teacher. Andrea is a professor at Hamilton College and her research focuses on wildlife disease and animal behavior. Sierra and Phoenix are dancers, actors, musicians, and sometimes farmers. We have two properties — a largely wooded 10-acre property in Clinton where we have greenhouses, a maple syrup operation, and do some woodland farming, and a larger, open, 12-acre property that we lease on a slope of Paris Hill on the Sauquoit/New Hartford border. There we have a 500-tree organic orchard and grow ~ 3 acres of organic vegetables each year. We also have a nursery of certified organic fruit trees for bare root planting in the Spring. The rest of the land is kept in cover crop to renew organic matter. We are very happy to be a part of the Utica community and thankful for the chance to grow our family here in a beautiful part of the world.
Jackie, Farm General Manger
Jackie has been a manager at KIngfisher Farm for 3 years now and it is doubtful the farm could continue to exist without her. Jackie has been farming for greater than 10 years. She also has her own homestead with goats, chickens, forest gardens, and German shepherds. She is an outstanding chef and enjoys cooking gourmet meals on a weekly basis.
Andrew, Field Manger
Andrew Sblendorio is the owner of Andrew's Nursery, a plant nursery specializing in bare-root trees, shrubs and perennials: www.andrewsblendorio.com/andrewsnursery. He also works with home owners and land stewards to develop and establish ecologically conscious landscapes. He loves local foods, supporting herbalists, and taking on diy projects.
Sandor
Sandor is now a senior at Proctor High in Utica. He is a hard-working farm helper and enjoys practical jokes around the hot pepper patch. Sandor always wears shorts, a t-shirt, and running shoes to the farm, no matter what the weather, and always has a great attitude.
Andreas
Andreas (on the left) is a Hamilton College chemistry major and aspiring distiller of traditional Czech spirits. He is an amazing farm worker who runs when others walk. He divides his time between Atlanta, New York and spending time with his extended family in the Czech Republic.
Maddy
Maddy is a current PhD student in socio-cultural anthropology at Indiana University. She studies everything from the everyday to the supernatural in contemporary America. During her moments of crisis and doubt, Maddy is prone to farm work as a way to connect to herself and to reality. This first bout of self-reflective farming took place while on hiatus from Reed College; Maddy worked on an orchard in Germany and a vineyard in France. While floundering between college and graduate school, Maddy had the luck of working on Kingfisher Farm and once more finding reality in the dirt. She hopes to live out her golden years in a post-capitalist agrarian utopia.
Martha
Martha is a Hamilton College grad and itinerant farmer living in upstate NY. She is interested in religion, philosophy, food, and the religion and philosophy of food.
Jennifer
Jenifer is a graduate of Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Biology, now a bookseller, farmer, student, and traveler by turns. Pictured above on a farm in Taiwan, she spent a year after college travelling the world and working on farms in six countries. Her interest in sustainable agriculture hearkens back to her upbringing on a Sauquoit organic farm, though she now lives in Clinton. Jenifer has been helping on the farm since summer of 2018 and is loving the opportunities to get her hands dirty and be involved in the local foodshed.
Crystal
Crystal is a junior at Hamilton College studying Biochemistry and Chinese. She enjoys the outdoors and is inspired to have her own vegetable garden one day. Her favorite activities around the farm are picking berries, harvesting, and, surprisingly, hand-weeding. And she absolutely loves bread!