I showed up at my first NOFA-VT winter conference at University of Vermont in 2010. Not knowing a soul, I wandered over to a young farmers’ gathering that evening, where I spotted two familiar faces from Manchester. Bonnie and Oliver Levis were sitting on the floor surrounded by a cluster of their toddlers and other young farmers. I awkwardly approached and greeted them all. Oliver or Bonnie—I forget who—motioned for me to join them. An act of hospitality I’ve never forgotten, a reflection of their welcoming and easy spirit. In Bonnie and Oliver’s world, there’s always room on the floor, at the table, or on the lawn at one of the festive, funky summer concerts they host at their Manchester farm. The artful, hand-painted sign outside their barn reads, “Earth Sky Time – A Community Farm.” It’s more than a slogan—it’s an ethos that permeates their approach to life.
GROWING A FAMILY FARM
After graduating from Cornell (Oliver focused on agriculture while Bonnie studied early childhood development), the young couple married in 2000 and moved back to Manchester in 2004 where Oliver had grown up. The farm they started on his family property evolved quickly, which is no surprise: whatever Bonnie and Oliver do, they go big and with purpose. Including raising their four kids—Guv, Talula, Eden, and Elijah. Oliver’s father, Albert Levis, and Bonnie’s parents, Andrea and Harold Aronowitz, also live on the family farm.
Oliver is the visionary, Bonnie the organizer. They immerse themselves in shepherding projects that grow the farm, while still keeping the atmosphere spirited. During those early years, Oliver and his crew built high-tunnel greenhouses, barns, cabins, and treehouses. They made permanent beds for veggies, flowers, and fruits. They put in a commercial kitchen and developed value-added products primarily from surplus farm produce. After a couple of years of baking sourdough bread and the veggie burgers in a gas convection oven, it was time to go wood-fired.
Research led Oliver to Orchard Hill Bakery in Alstead, New Hampshire that worked with the oven he hoped to order, a massive Llopis made in Spain. “We made a bucket of veggie burger batter, went over to Orchard Hill, and baked a batch in their oven to see how they would come out,” Oliver recalls. Success. Noah Elbers, Orchard Hill’s baker, became Oliver’s bread mentor, and in 2011, a crew from Barcelona arrived at Earth Sky Time and installed the handsome black oven with its 12-foot rotating concrete hearth. That oven, fueled with scrap wood from the farm’s sawmill operation, runs six days a week in summer, generating several thousand loaves of sourdough bread each week in more than a dozen varieties. It also roasts the vegetables that form the basis of some of their spreads. And anything else that could benefit from the steady heat of a wood fire.
Oliver dove in to the art of sourdough, taking workshops offered by The Bread Bakers Guild of America. He shares what he learned and trains the bakery crew to prepare and shape the organic sourdough. The crusty European-style loaves are both chewy and airy, with an incomparable tangy flavor thanks to the long, slow, cold ferment. Meanwhile, Bonnie manages the commercial kitchen at the heart of the farmhouse. The kitchen hums with activity from early morning through evening as the team produces the farm’s popular hoomoos, szchug, saag, pestos, and other seasonal veggie spreads. The kitchen crew also prepares the communal meals that sustain around 20 folks who live and work at the farm from April through November.
“People come here and quickly realize they can do a bit of everything: farming, cooking, baking, milling and construction, retail, music and art, whatever else they want to create.” –Bonnie Levis
A HAVEN FOR CREATIVITY
During the last two decades, folks have shown up to apprentice at Earth Sky Time. They assume they’ll learn about working the land, but most have no idea how many other opportunities they can explore on the farm. “People come here and quickly realize they can do a bit of everything: farming, cooking, baking, milling and construction, retail, music and art, whatever else they want to create,” Bonnie says. Thanks to her logistical mind, she finds a way to tap in to each person’s interests and talents, matching them with projects that need doing. Oliver adds, “They learn how to feed themselves with whatever vegetables we have, and they learn to build stuff using whatever we have in our salvage piles.” Oliver proudly refers to himself as a salvage engineer, an organized hoarder. “I can tell you exactly what’s in every pile around the farm.” When you look around the various structures, you’ll start to notice they feature secondhand windows, doors, beams, and lighting fixtures.
Earth Sky Time grows 6 acres of certified organic vegetables, 1½ acres of pick-your-own berries and flowers, and several high-tunnel greenhouses bursting with tomatoes in summer and greens through the cold months. “In 2018, we bought 200 acres just south of us on Route 7A,” Oliver says. “That allowed us to expand our field crops and up our agricultural game.” Earth Sky Time is a fixture at farmers’ markets in Manchester; Dorset; Londonderry; Ludlow; Cambridge, NY; and Williamstown, MA. Local restaurants and stores rely on their bread and produce, which Bonnie and Oliver also contribute to local food pantries and nonprofits. “We’re happy that people can enjoy our products who might otherwise not get to eat them,” Bonnie says.
Levity Mountain, as the property is known, has an event barn and an 18th-century farmhouse available to rent for gatherings. The steep hillside also has a densely packed forest of eastern white pine. True to fashion, Oliver figured out how to log it and mill the timber for rough-cut boards used throughout the farm. He added an electric sawmill that’s powered by solar panels on top of the farm’s millhouse. The pine lumber milled on site helped build the farm’s spacious new retail store designed by Bonnie and Oliver’s oldest son, Guv, who is studying mechanical engineering at UVM. Guv and Oliver are more like working partners or peers than father and son, having collaborated on numerous design-build projects on the farm over the years. The retail store is stocked with produce from their farm and products from other local farms, in addition to bulk staples that include flour, brown rice, oats, sugar, and olive oil.
ECSTATIC DANCE PARTIES
To fully appreciate Earth Sky Time, you need to experience one of their Sunday evening summer concerts. When Oliver and Guv built their first barn in 2013, they added a stage and a large open interior space. (The barn also houses woodworking and metal workshops and studios for music and ceramics.) The following summer, he started to organize concerts. “I wanted to bring people together to enjoy interesting bands, world cultures, and musical genres that they might not have experienced.” Think dance party more than singer-songwriter venue. The concerts have become legendary for their organic, spontaneous, ecstatic revelry. The events draw people of all ages and backgrounds who gather on the lawn in chairs or on blankets to listen to music, dance, and enjoy freshly made farm pizza and salads. “We keep ticket prices low so there’s no barrier to entry,” Bonnie adds.
Reflecting on the farm’s evolution, Oliver says, “I love all aspects: growing food, baking, working with wood, having a retail space where people can get food or a coffee, running a music venue. These are all part of our identity.” Bonnie agrees. “I can have a long day in the kitchen but then go pick blueberries and jump in the pond. I appreciate the variety and wouldn’t choose another lifestyle.” Another cherished tradition? They head out on family adventures—swimming, hiking, picnicking—nearly every Saturday, just to spend quality time off-farm enjoying each other’s company. Oliver says, “We put the emphasis on living and working together and having fun. Those factors often take precedence over productivity.” Bonnie and Oliver believe that personal fulfillment comes through engaging in meaningful work, nourishing the body, and embracing creative outlets. “If you can check off those three boxes, you’re probably leading a pretty good life,” he concludes.
With this commitment to working hard and valuing the creative and zany, Bonnie and Oliver Levis will continue to cultivate farmers, bakers, cooks, sawyers, welders, artists, musicians, and neighbors. In other words, a community.
