Our founders are James and Joyce Skeet who do everything from education to writing grants to feeding the goats. They are the heart of all we do. 

James’ Diné (Navajo) clan name means “Red Cheek, Born of Leaning Tower”. He is full of energy, life, and wisdom.  James worked for NGOs fostering childhood development and then served as a financial watchdog for the tribal government. In all of his systematic work with programs and regulations, he began to seek ways to express his spiritual understanding that “all things are sacred”. 

Joyce Skeet broke from her career in social services for similar reasons. She grew up as a Mennonite in Pennsylvania Dutch Country, and learned rapidly that growing conditions in New Mexico were vastly different than she had encountered at home, where she had tended a 2-acre garden and raised pigs organically. When she applied what she knew to the arid soils of New Mexico, “whatever I did just didn’t work. My whole background had been focused on dominating plants, dominating nature,” she lamented. In her new home, people cautioned that she should listen to the plants. In time she learned that she was only one part of a much bigger whole; an equal to the plants, and equal to the soil. 

Joyce and James’ quest took them to a small plot of tribal land on a high plateau in New Mexico that James’ grandfather, Money Skeet, had farmed half a century earlier.