“How an individual cares for land has an impact on the overall health of our ecosystems and our communities,” said Adirondack Land Trust Conservation Program Director Chris Jage. “Brett’s hands-on experience balancing human needs, forest condition, and soil health will get us all thinking about what we can do in our own backyard.”

McLeod will share his endeavors to create a 25-acre woodland homestead in the rugged Adirondack Mountains. He began this project in 2004 with a plan scratched into the mud, gradually building a small, diversified farm that produces vegetables, fruit, syrup, livestock, and lumber for shelter, fences, and firewood.

Sign up for this free virtual event at adirondacklandtrust.org/event/woodland-homestead/.

“Woodland homesteading shows us the power of what’s possible with our own two hands and a scrap of land,” says McLeod. “Everything I do can be shrunken down in scale and put into practice.”

McLeod is a professor of forestry at Paul Smith’s College and the author of The Woodland Homestead: How to Make Your Land More Productive and Live More Self-Sufficiently in the Woods. He likes to relax by reading a good book or chopping wood — sure signs of a dynamic storyteller ready to entertain and inform with the highs and lows of his homesteading endeavors.

The Adirondack Land Trust works to forever conserve the forests, farmlands, waters, and wild places that advance quality of life and ecological integrity in the Adirondacks. Since 1984, the land trust has protected 28,332 acres at 108 sites in 43 towns and 11 counties throughout the Adirondacks, including ongoing conservation partnerships with 89 private landowners.