Skip to main content

Angela's Story


NORTHERN HARVEST: TWENTY MICHIGAN WOMEN IN FOOD AND FARMING
Wayne State Press Catalog: Northern Harvest

ANGELA MACKE

Until I heard Angela talk as part of a team of discussants about biodynamic farming following one of the foodie movies in Michael Moore’s 2015 film festival, I was unaware that she had created an extraordinary tea farm, the only certified organic and Demeter biodynamic tea farm in the country, here in northern Michigan. That was the moment when I first dreamed of this book, wanting to celebrate her achievement and that of the other women whose stories are told here.

Born in Adrian, Michigan, Angela’s childhood was also in Hawaii, a place she later returned to and where she first began to learn about holism, about meditation and yoga and holistic health.
“When you look at the globe [Hawai’i] is like the center of the universe . . . I remember in the hot tub there was somebody from Alaska, somebody from Japan, somebody from San Francisco, somebody from Australia. It was just the melting pot.”

When she and her husband moved to Traverse City she was still working as a nurse. The herbs and the tea were not intended to become a business until Amanda Danielson and others began to request them and to urge her to expand what she was doing into a business.
“In 2005 we were certified organic, and in 2006 we had our website.”

To read more of Angela’s story and the stories of 19 other amazing women in food and farming, Northern Harvest is available now from your favorite bookstores. 

Angela’s farm right now is closed to the public while we wait for the coronavirus to abate, but here is the website so that you can order her extraordinary teas:

 lightofdayorganics.com/order/
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dos manos in Matamoros

Dos manos      Before the trip to Brownsville, Texas, to help prepare and serve food to asylum seekers held in the tent city across the river in Matamoros, Mexico, Marti told us to bring fanny packs or other bags that would leave our hands free. Whether chopping vegetables or serving from the trays of hot food to the 1,000+ men, women, and children of every age, we would need both our hands , dos manos , at all times. How did we come to be there and why were we doing this? Hunger and homelessness exist inside our nation’s borders, both in cities and rural areas. Tightrope, the new book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, describes families shattered by what the authors call “death by despair.” Donating to good causes and volunteering at soup kitchens are not uncommon, and churches and other organizations strive to meet the need on a daily basis. Still, the need that drew a dozen women in their 60s, 70s and 80s to this community just across the Texas...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sailing and Bailing

  Messing around in boats Seems like this summer that means bailing rather than sailing, three little boats awash with rain water needing emptying over and over, a repetitive domestic chore like folding laundry or emptying the dishwasher.   Decades ago I delegated bailing boats to my three kids; decades later to my two resident grandsons.   Bribes in those days were easy, homemade cookies warm from the oven or maybe a trip to Moomers for the ice cream President Biden enjoyed on his visit last week. I used to dislike bailing.   I also disliked emptying dishwashers.   I was happy to fill the dishwasher as a way of cleaning up the kitchen surfaces, but I always got the children or someone else to do the emptying, just as I got children to bail the boats. Oddly, now, I enjoy sitting in the dinghy or in one or the other of the two sunfish and dipping the bucket over and over into the accumulated rain and emptying it into the lake.   Much of my life in reti...
4 comments
Read more

CHAPTER TWO OF THE ADVENTURES OF BRIOCHE

  THE ADVENTURES OF BRIOCHE: CHAPTER TWO   In this sad and difficult year of deaths and distancing, rescue shelters across the country have emptied and breeders had more demand than they could supply for canine or feline companions to help deal with the unprecedented isolation and losses. Brioche was born in July and yes, I decided last spring to seek out a puppy to accompany me in this year of the quarantine and then, most likely, for the rest of my life. A mere 3 pounds when she joined me in September not quite yet 8 weeks old, Brioche now weighs in at a whopping 8 lbs. and has reached the advanced age of 7 months.  Although I was raised in a family with many dogs and always had a dog (and sometimes a litter of puppies) while I was raising my own children, once my nest was empty and work was fulltime and often required lots of travel, I gave up on living with a dog and for many years starting in the late 80s had cats instead. But now after a hiatus of almost 40 ye...
3 comments
Read more