About Phoenix Farm
trough creeky valley
Huntingdon County, southcentral PA
Foothills of the southern Alleghenies
Former shared hunting grounds of:
the Southern Haudenosaunee (Iroquois),
Eastern Omamìwìnini (Algonquin),
Northern Tsilagi, Tuscarora, and Shawnee people.
The land at Phoenix Farm has been deeded to the Dubetz family since 1928, and was unceded shared hunting grounds of eastern Omàmiwinini, southern Haudenosaunee, northern Tsalagi, Tuscarora, and Shawnee first nation people. From what we can tell, the valley our farm is located in was most likely along a migratory route of the woodland buffalo, elk, and the many indigenous people that tracked and hunted these life giving animals seasonally.
Immigrants fleeing multiple fronts of persecution in eastern Europe, Theodore and Orina (Warzach) Dubetz, made their way across the Atlantic of their own volition, and eventually landed in Trough Creek Valley. Theodore, along with a number of his sons, was a coal miner at Rocky Ridge, and in 1928, he and Orina had saved enough money on a coal miner's wages to buy this farm from the Taylor family. Ten years later, Trella's father, Jack, was born in one of the little bedrooms on the second floor of the farmhouse.
These rolling 86 acres of Appalachian foothill cover meadow, stream, ridged woodland, and contains a huge spectrum of native edible and medicinal plants as well as a plethora of wildlife.
From fall 2019 to fall 2020, approximately 2400 plants were placed in the ground via agroforestry buffers, to be cultivated for future native food sources. Some of these native species include, black raspberry, high bush blueberry, serviceberry, gooseberry, persimmon, quince, pawpaw, hickory, beechnut, chestnut, sugar maple, black locust, elderberry and more.
**These plants are dedicated to the original people of this place,
all of our ancestors of yesterday, as well as those generations to come.**
Currently we are:
Building and visioning to build a collaborative and equitable farm team
Planning a homestead garden and learning more preservation techniques
Welcoming our first greenhouse and chicken coop! (the chickens will arrive the end of May)
Offering Grow It Yourself classes
Offering Native Plant and Environmental Awareness workshops
Offering Eco-Art classes
Planning Culture and Identity Healing Gatherings
Immigrants fleeing multiple fronts of persecution in eastern Europe, Theodore and Orina (Warzach) Dubetz, made their way across the Atlantic of their own volition, and eventually landed in Trough Creek Valley. Theodore, along with a number of his sons, was a coal miner at Rocky Ridge, and in 1928, he and Orina had saved enough money on a coal miner's wages to buy this farm from the Taylor family. Ten years later, Trella's father, Jack, was born in one of the little bedrooms on the second floor of the farmhouse.
These rolling 86 acres of Appalachian foothill cover meadow, stream, ridged woodland, and contains a huge spectrum of native edible and medicinal plants as well as a plethora of wildlife.
From fall 2019 to fall 2020, approximately 2400 plants were placed in the ground via agroforestry buffers, to be cultivated for future native food sources. Some of these native species include, black raspberry, high bush blueberry, serviceberry, gooseberry, persimmon, quince, pawpaw, hickory, beechnut, chestnut, sugar maple, black locust, elderberry and more.
**These plants are dedicated to the original people of this place,
all of our ancestors of yesterday, as well as those generations to come.**
Currently we are:
Building and visioning to build a collaborative and equitable farm team
Planning a homestead garden and learning more preservation techniques
Welcoming our first greenhouse and chicken coop! (the chickens will arrive the end of May)
Offering Grow It Yourself classes
Offering Native Plant and Environmental Awareness workshops
Offering Eco-Art classes
Planning Culture and Identity Healing Gatherings
ABOUT Trella Dubetz
Artist. Healer. Mama~ Land Tending
Throughout my life I (Trella : she/they) have worn the robes of artist, student, survivor, waitress, dyslexic empath, New Age follower, New Age revolter, healer & holistic practitioner, entrepreneur, insider, outsider, dog mom, human mom, ancestral excavator, spiritual seeker, extrovert, (now) introvert, social and political volunteer, educator and a couple of other costume changes that I'm forgetting at the moment.
Since the turn of the millennia, or about the last 20yrs, I dedicated a whole lot of time to supporting people's physical and energetic healing through a holistic practice, that centered on Upledger CranioSacral Therapy, greater somatic awareness, and restorative energywork. Throughout most of those decades, I was honored with holding the mantle of motherhood for an incredible and loving child that is now on the verge of adulthood, -and I was also dreaming, sometimes doubting, but continually praying to be shown a way to return to the homestead of my grandparents, so that I could co-create a space of restoration, nourishment, and collaborative equity.
In 2014, Life began to move with enough resources that I could spend more time on the farm, and begin the long process of clearing and cleaning- bringing it up to a neutral starting point. As the layers of generational debris, 50+year old manure, and ancestral grief began to move out and build our compost pile, I could see on the horizon when the building could actually begin. 2023 would be the year that I could save for, with my daughter off to college by then, I could live on farm full-time, and figure out how to move the whole gorgeous and overwhelming thing forward.
When the coronavirus pandemic stopped our world in spring of 2020, I temporarily shuttered my close-quarters office. I packed up my daughter, elderly mother, and dogs, and figured we might as well quarantine on the farm. I could task myself with some preparatory farm start-up projects, and plant a big ol' garden while we waited for what we thought would be a month or so, for the pandemic to move through. By summer 2020, I knew that things would not be back to any semblance of pre-covid normality for at least another year, and so I permanently closed my practice, and devoted myself fully to building the farm, and supporting it in its start-up phase and beyond.
As it is for so many, the time between March 2020 and March 2021 changed so much within me. While I leaned into the privilege of having a very rural, safe place to retreat to, I watched in horror and dismay as our national numbers of cases and death grew. I stood by in prayer as a dear friend fought for her life, and blessedly won. I listened to stories of friends losing their parents and grandparents. I sent donations to community after community in hopes that the little drop would find a larger wave of support for those most in need. The pandemic has been horrendous for all of us, and more so for many BIPOC and poor communities, and within those 12 months, I finally sobered myself from any last remaining thread of making a life that was not directly related to the land. I always knew, but now had a very deep embodied and undoubtedly clear understanding in the forefront of my life, that creating life on the farm would be tikkun olam, my dot on the map dedicated to the repair of our world.
Since the turn of the millennia, or about the last 20yrs, I dedicated a whole lot of time to supporting people's physical and energetic healing through a holistic practice, that centered on Upledger CranioSacral Therapy, greater somatic awareness, and restorative energywork. Throughout most of those decades, I was honored with holding the mantle of motherhood for an incredible and loving child that is now on the verge of adulthood, -and I was also dreaming, sometimes doubting, but continually praying to be shown a way to return to the homestead of my grandparents, so that I could co-create a space of restoration, nourishment, and collaborative equity.
In 2014, Life began to move with enough resources that I could spend more time on the farm, and begin the long process of clearing and cleaning- bringing it up to a neutral starting point. As the layers of generational debris, 50+year old manure, and ancestral grief began to move out and build our compost pile, I could see on the horizon when the building could actually begin. 2023 would be the year that I could save for, with my daughter off to college by then, I could live on farm full-time, and figure out how to move the whole gorgeous and overwhelming thing forward.
When the coronavirus pandemic stopped our world in spring of 2020, I temporarily shuttered my close-quarters office. I packed up my daughter, elderly mother, and dogs, and figured we might as well quarantine on the farm. I could task myself with some preparatory farm start-up projects, and plant a big ol' garden while we waited for what we thought would be a month or so, for the pandemic to move through. By summer 2020, I knew that things would not be back to any semblance of pre-covid normality for at least another year, and so I permanently closed my practice, and devoted myself fully to building the farm, and supporting it in its start-up phase and beyond.
As it is for so many, the time between March 2020 and March 2021 changed so much within me. While I leaned into the privilege of having a very rural, safe place to retreat to, I watched in horror and dismay as our national numbers of cases and death grew. I stood by in prayer as a dear friend fought for her life, and blessedly won. I listened to stories of friends losing their parents and grandparents. I sent donations to community after community in hopes that the little drop would find a larger wave of support for those most in need. The pandemic has been horrendous for all of us, and more so for many BIPOC and poor communities, and within those 12 months, I finally sobered myself from any last remaining thread of making a life that was not directly related to the land. I always knew, but now had a very deep embodied and undoubtedly clear understanding in the forefront of my life, that creating life on the farm would be tikkun olam, my dot on the map dedicated to the repair of our world.