Happy Dancing Blog

Jim Chamberlin, Happy Dancing Turtle’s Conservation Technician, also operates a 109-acre diversified farm and forestry operation near...

Jim Chamberlin, Happy Dancing Turtle’s Conservation Technician, with his wife, Audra, operates a 109-acre diversified farm and forestry...

The numbers are sobering: According to the Environmental Defense Fund , 160 billion pounds of food goes uneaten every year in the United...

Sustainable agriculture gives me hope. What gives me hope is the knowledge that much of what ails us and the planet we are part of can be...

For eight weeks, from late April to mid-June 2023, Happy Dancing Turtle was fortunate to host the We Are Water MN exhibit on the Hunt Utilities Group Resilient Living Campus. The experience of having a museum-quality exhibit on campus plus the events, collaborations, and conversations that arose during that time continues to inform Happy Dancing Turtle’s work to grow good stewards of the planet.

Understanding your watershed, and how water moves through it, can connect us to the landscape. Knowing what is upstream from you makes you realize the vulnerability and dependence you have on those upstream who care for the land. And knowing that your actions affect others downstream can create a shared responsibility to protect water resources on your property.

Jim Chamberlin, Happy Dancing Turtle’s Conservation Technician, also operates a 109-acre diversified farm and forestry operation near...

Groundwater supplies 75% of Minnesota’s drinking water and 90% of water used for agricultural irrigation. Among the key messages about groundwater are several that definitely apply to those who live in Minnesota:

I believe we as humans have an innate connection to fire. Anyone who’s warmed their hands by the campfire on a cold evening knows well the connection I speak of, the dance of the fire as if it is a living thing. Indigenous Americans understood this as well as any.

In the fall, once the gardens are put to bed, many of us feel the urge to “clean up” our yards. We tend to label fallen leaves, pine...