Colene Reed

Colene is a Michi-gander by birth and a silly goose by nature. A Western Michigan University graduate (BA Biology) she earned her way by working at farms that teach people how food is produced. After spending time in Vermont as an apprentice at Shelburne Farms, an education non-profit on a working farm, she returned to Michigan and ran a diversified, grass-based livestock business for some years. In 2013, she hauled buns (her many rabbits) to Vermont a second time to join the Merck Forest and Farmland farm team as the Assistant Farm Manager. It is there that she learned to drive draft horses and start a bulldozer in negative 10 degrees Fahrenheit weather. She worked at goat dairies, artisan caramel making, relief milked for cow dairies, and Vermont Organic Farmers as an organic inspector. Most recently she was the Pasture Program Assistant at the University of Vermont Extension in the Center for Sustainable Agriculture, working closely with the Vermont Grass Farmers Association. She is grateful for the opportunity to be back caring for an agriculture landscape that engages the curiosity and appreciation for the natural world and the food system that sustains at Farm and Wilderness.