Blake was born in Pittsburgh and studied Music Composition at Carnegie Mellon before obtaining his 200 Ton International Yacht Captain’s License. He later Co-Founded a non-profit, wrote the theme music for an Off-Broadway Musical, was a Creativity Director at Skyscraper, Inc., a Fortune 500s Market Insights firm and Founded the Kingfly Spirits, an internationally acclaimed craft distillery and events space in Pittsburgh. Danielle, originally from Fairview, PA spent her youth laser focused on perfecting her ballet pedagogy. At age ___ she was hired into the Corps d’Ballet of the PIttsburgh ballet Theater where she would enjoy a ____ year career, dancing not only in Pittsburgh but in various US Cities and as far as Israel.

They met as competitors on the sailboat race course on Presque Isle bay in Erie, PA and despite the unsettled issue of who won more races, married in 2017. Since then the debate has only lingered.

In 2022 they welcomed Nova Louise into their life and back-burner dreams to put family and quality of life foremost were brought front and center. A chain of serendipitous circumstances brought Ridgemead Farm closer each day - coincidences and unlikely turns of events launching a bold, new venture - not a business, but a new persepctive and a new way of life.

• Dynamically sustainable management of our time, our surroundings, our ecological and social impacts, and the overall quality of life for our nuclear and extended families.
  

• Restoration and long-term stewardship of the historic Ridgemead BioDynamic farm through the ethical, Management Intensive Grazing of pastured ruminants (think hooves) and poultry (of all kinds).
  

• Create regeneratively planned and managed nutrient cycling allowing us to become maximally self-sufficient on property - utilizing the least amount of outside inputs (and reliance) as possible.
  

• Provide nutrient dense food security for ourselves and our community.
  

• Repair the native, local ecosystems, build soil, and sequester carbon rather than degenerate ecosystems, destroy soil, and expel carbon.
  

• Educate our community about Regenerative Agriculture and Real Food Diets.
  

• To accomplish all of the above through a thoroughly integrated, multi-faceted system of Regenerative Enterprises including:
  
  - human-scale Permaculture Design,
  - Holistic Management,
  - Keyline Design and water management,
  - Agroforestry;
  - Intensively Managed Livestock exclusively on natural pasture,
  - No-Dig and No-Spray Market Gardening;
  - Mushroom and Microgreen cultivation,
  - Sustainable Flower Growing;
  - Apiary, Maple Grove, and Orchard Cultivation,
  - Scenic Trail creation and maintenance,
  - On-Farm Community Events,
  - Archery and Flintlock Hunting,
  - Event Rentals, and Farm Stays (Agri-tourism)
  - On-Farm Processing, Canning, Cooking, and Distilling Facilities.

As Joel Salatin so aptly noted in his brilliant book “The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs,” “At the end of this transaction it’s easy to not eat responsibly because we see nothing, hear nothing, know nothing. We bear no responsibility for our decision because they’re out there somewhere. We don’t internalize our decisions because we’ve externalized our living.”

Each one of us eats daily, and our eating comes from the agriculture industry - the single largest industry the world has ever known, with the most caustic inputs and long-lasting, eco-system changing outputs of any industry in history. How we eat matters - where our food comes from, how it was produced and raised - by what ecological, ethical, psychological, spiritual, social, and financial standards did it come to be? What are the outputs of the produce? What are the hidden costs? How much waste is there in the process, the end result?

The unnoticed backbone of our lives is the kind of food we eat, where it comes from, and how it is produced. Still more poignantly, the backbone of our morality is the set of choices we make surrounding what and how we eat.

Again we defer to the luminescence of Salatin’s words “We don’t expect someone to deplete the aquifer in Colorado to grow genetically modified grain saturated with herbicides and pesticides to ship with militarily purchased oil to a feedlot that pollutes the air and water to be slaughtered by disrespected workers to be transported via refrigerated truck belching diesel fumes across the country to the burger joint near where we work so we can conveniently and thoughtlessly eat a $1 burger - even if such convenience “gives” us a few more minutes time.”

Instead, it is our responsibly to provide our family and our community with a better option - one which shows the most humble respect for God’s creation, both planetary and bodily.