Raw Dairy initiative - Barn Raising - Field Days

This summer Sustainable Settings is designing and building a barn to house it’s new “cow share” raw dairy on it’s ranch just outside of Carbondale. We are extremely grateful to the following people, businesses and foundations who so far have committed to funding this important addition to local food security: Adam Lewis, Branden Cohen, our anonymous donors, Xcel Energy, Alpine Bank, Valery and Kearns Kelly, Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell, Lynda and Stewart Resnick, Kelli and Allen Questrom, Susan Farver Donor Advised Fund of the Aspen Community Foundation, Michele and Jacques Stoerr, Paula Brittain and Sharon Hoffman.

We are also receiving overwhelming support for this project from local businesses. Local engineering and fabricating firms, contractors, architects and agricultural advisors are offering their generous support of in-kind services.

Schmueser Gordon Meyer, Meyer’s Architectural Metal, Wodehouse Builders, and Cole West Inc, are some of the local companies that have pledged their expertise to help raise this barn.

With only $30,000 remaining to raise, local donors still have the opportunity to join in to help make this dairy a reality. This close to our fundraising goal we have moved into the final design process, started to work with Pitkin County on permitting, begun pasture renovations and are interviewing contractors. Please call if you would like to pledge your support either financially or with hands-on help!

Barn Raising!

The raising of Sustainable Settings’ Green Built Solar Dairy Barn will be a wonderful community effort! Some will dig the foundation and cut and stand the frame. Some will help house the timber framers and cook food to feed the crew. Some will bring gifts of music. Others will dance as we celebrate the various stages. This incredible community effort is crucial to building a living facility.

 

Raw Dairy Barn

Understanding that one organism’s waste is another’s food we are building systems into our green built solar dairy barn and pasture ecosystem that are restorative while producing food and shelter for people. Harvesting Nature’s intelligence by modeling our designs to run on the sun and recycle “wastes”, we are creating a “solar microenterprise”. This barn and pasture system are designed to be a living system, one that models an important new economic model as we transition to a solar economy.

We invite you to take part in the creation of this example of a living food producing system, a merger of state-of-the-art green development and sustainable agriculture; one that:

• harvests the genius of this special place

• runs on the sun’s energy, producing it’s own energy and food
• recycles wastes into appropriate nutrient cycles regenerating healthy soil, air, and water resources
• is a replicable model of a financially sustainable micro-enterprise for other farmers and ranchers
• is an educational facility that teaches about the revolution in whole systems thinking and models a hopeful future as we find our way out of this fossil-fueled interlude
• combines all of the above in the development of a crucial facility that helps build a more food secure future locally.

Want to get involved? Call us soon to see how you can help develop this local agricultural facility that will provide fresh whole food to our valley community, one that demonstrates how our buildings can be designed and operated as living entities that feed their surrounding landscape instead of burdening the owner and the site they live on.

To help support Sustainable Settings’ Raw Dairy Initiative or to sign up for a share of raw milk call 970-963-6107 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Field Days

As we design and build the structures, agricultural and energy systems
we will host field days to share our systems with the community
at different stages of construction or implementation.
Those interested can call to get on the list for Field Day excursions!