She is a CEO who brakes for salamanders, has bottle-fed rescued squirrels and spent her vacation building furniture for a rural school in Costa Rica. She believes in the future and in the people who will build it. A former distance-learning professor at Tulane University with a master’s in environmental health & safety, she turned an interest in forest conservation and endangered species into a growing, local business. She delivers rainforest statistics at breakneck speed, but knows how to slow down and appreciate the beauty of a newly finished piece of heirloom furniture.
The percentages on this map represent decreases in wildlife populations since 1970. Globally, the average drop in numbers of mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles was 68%. What does this have to do with sustainable furniture, you ask? Read on. Ref: WWF Living Planet Report 2020.
Wood Furniture’s Journey to Your Home Starts in a Forest
In 2005 Ken and I founded VWS to be a force for change in the area of forest and wildlife conservation. I grew up spending a lot of time outside in nature, always on the look out for anything that moved. In the evenings I’d be reading National Geographic or watching Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom on TV. My dream was to do something to help protect wildlife. Later on, after learning that 80% of the world’s land animals live in the woods, forest conservation and planting trees became my passion. Read More
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Vermonters are serious about growing food! If you’ve ever visited our showroom in Vernon, VT, you may have walked through the wooded trails, gardens, and fruit and berry orchard–what’s been collectively called our “food forest” here at Stonehurst. This time of year, we are busy at work collecting the last of the harvest and processing seeds for next year’s crops.
Did you know that some crops, like garlic, benefit from overwintering in the ground? This week we turned over the garden beds and added an insulating layer of leaves for garlic and shallots. Individual cloves of seed garlic will turn into full heads of garlic by mid-summer, with no maintenance or watering.
Spacing out garlic and shallots to overwinter in-ground
Vermont Furniture Makers, there’s never been a better time to grow your business. Learn about today’s trends and resources to help you grow. Illustration by Trevor Guido-Williams.
It has been more than a year since the COVID-19 pandemic started causing chaos and it has been tough going for everyone. We deeply appreciate and cherish all our past, present, and future customers. We apologize for the delays that Covid-19 is causing. Like all of us here at VWS, our Customer Service Representative, Brian Doherty, feels your pain. He asked me to post some common Q&A about how things are going.
At Vermont Woods Studios we were founded on an environmental mission: forest and wildlife conservation. We all grew up learning about monarchs in school. Now as adults we work to conserve their habitat here in Vermont and in Mexico where the butterflies over-winter (see above). The 2020-2021 Monarch Butterfly Report shows we have a lot of work to do.