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We have maxed the registrations for this April Retreat but are excited to be able to offer the same series again in November 2024 and January 2025 sessions.Thanks for the great responses! Go to the Farm Labor Dashboard Events page, then scroll down for those listings grab your spot!
Spring is the perfect opportunity before the busy season starts to step back, reflect and learn how to better care for our physical and mental health. Join this unique, virtual series for woman-identifying farmers to connect and learn together on key elements of body mechanics. Back by popular demand -- the pilot for this series sold out in 2023.
This peer learning series will start with three back-to-back daily 90-minute sessions in April. Led by and for women farmers, these sessions serve up a combination of practical information, movement and connection with other women sharing similar experiences.
Key Topics
- Building flexibility & strength
- Understanding muscles & joints
- Preventing & managing injury
- Dealing with chronic pain & conditions
- Cultivating rest & recovery
This series takes a proactive and positive approach to aging: We’re all on the journey of getting older, whatever age we may be at now. Let’s celebrate the bodies and abilities we have and learn together how to best care for ourselves to keep our hands in the soil for as long as we choose.
Attendees will identify benchmarks and develop a personal action plan to best prepare and protect that most important tool -- ourselves! -- for the next growing season and beyond. Everyone will also have the opportunity to connect with women sharing similar experiences, from farming while pregnant to self care during menopause or managing chronic illness.
All women-identifying farmers are welcome, wherever you are on your agriculture journey.
Presenters
Laura Fredrickson-Gosewisch
Laura is a NCBTMB Board Certified Massage Therapist practicing 12 years as well as a Minnesota-based vegetable farmer and Executive Director of West Side Farmers Market in Minneapolis. With a specialty in managing chronic pain, injury recovery, and prevention, she brings a passion for supporting women farmers in understanding and taking charge of proactively caring for their body.
Ellen Petrick
Ellen recently moved full-time to her Wisconsin farmstead and following her dream of a diversified homestead complete with goats, chickens and an abundant garden and orchard. Ellen brings a deep professional background in body mechanics to her new role as farmer, with over 25 years working as an exercise physiologist, health coach, and fitness educator. She is a certified Exercise Physiologist with the American College of Sports Medicine and has a Masters Degree in Exercise with physical disability and chronic disease, something she personally manages, too.
Lisa Kivirist
A national advocate for women in sustainable agriculture, Lisa is the author of the award-winning book, Soil Sisters: A Toolkit for Women Farmers and leads the Soil Sisters project at Renewing the Countryside. She is the co-author with her husband, John Ivanko, including Homemade for Sale, Farmstead Chef, Ecopreneuring and Rural Renaissance. For over twenty five years, Lisa and her family have run Inn Serendipity Farm and B&B in Wisconsin.
Follow-up Monthly Learning Circle Discussions
On-Going Learning Circles are planned for after the retreat as optional check-ins for attendees to learn more and share collaboratively.