Urbavore Urban Farm

01/16/2025

Another BIG WIN TODAY at City Hall!! The City Planning Commission voted 6 to 1 to recommend our Master Plan Development Re-zoning (MPD) for the second time (after Council sent us back to the beginning with impossible requests). We couldn’t destroy the farm and fulfill those unreasonable requests so we went back to CPC with the SAME thoughtful plan as before, and we nailed it! Don’t get me wrong, it was a nail-biting hearing and both Dan and I nearly had a heart-attack listening to comments and sentiments by City Staff, but in the end the Commissioners voted with logic and rationality!! *Funny how every non-politicized group tends to vote in our favor.🤨 Anyway, a big THANK YOU is owed to our amazing PRO BONO lawyer, Kristen Ellis-Johnson, whom without we’d already be out of biz as we’ve accumulated over 1 million dollars in legal services!😳 Another big thanks to our incredibly talented and compassionate architect, Jeremy Knoll from who has been such a pleasure to work with and a continuous proponent of ecologically driven, community centered design. He’s a very patient & gentle person who is a breath of fresh air amongst all the (sometimes outspoken) egos in the room! And of course, BIG THANK YOU to our die-hard supporters - people who have literally been at every hearing keeping Dan and I half-way optimistic with their unceasing dedication to our family and our rights as citizens and business owners. NONE OF THIS IS EASY!! In fact each and every hearing chips away a little piece of our soul even when the outcome is in our favor. This hearing was really hard for some reason, maybe because Dan and I have just experienced the massacre of our chickens by cruel neighbors and the refusal of those responsible to compensate us or even acknowledge it was their dogs. That coupled with staged incidents by these same neighbors and further attempts to undermine our credibility and put us at risk. Yesterday, I almost packed up the kids and the dogs and moved into my parent’s house!!! Yup, things are bad. But I digress.😖 NEXT UP: we likely head to FULL COUNCIL for the 3rd time with the MPD (maybe next Thursday) so please stay tuned!!!🙏💚♻️🌎

01/15/2025

Please…pretty please! Tomorrow 9am. Damn, I’m sick of this…😖

01/14/2025

This is my son Percy, hiding behind a “support sign” at our last hearing while he played games on his phone.😖 Yup, for the record, my 13-year-old is pretty self-absorbed and I’m not sure if he really cares if the farm is saved or not.😂 But really, you and I do care so PLEASE attend yet another hearing tomorrow (Wednesday) at 9am at City Hall on the 10th Floor. We will be presenting the Master Plan Re-Zoning proposal to the City Planning Commission for the 3rd time. As you know, Council has sent us back to the beginning of the re-zoning process after months and months of hard work and progress. This Committee voted 5 to 1 to approve our plan back in September. I don’t think they’ll be happy to see us again!! Our 3rd District Reps asked us to make impossible changes to our plan (including moving the new drive entrance to a location that destroys a huge portion of the farm as well as moving the compost site altogether). This was not a reasonable or manageable ask, so we are simply going back with the very same plan as before. Will they approve this plan that they approved before? One would think - but council pressure may prove otherwise. Let’s hope this body remains apolitical, eh?!🙏 The more supporters who show-up the better. PLEASE BE THERE if you possibly can! While proving our innocence at the BZA was HUGE, we must pass this plan in order to protect ourselves and our businesses from future scrutiny. Not to mention, the Plan is just SUPER COOL!!!😎 💚♻️

01/14/2025

Howdy Dear Supporters! Things aren’t looking too hot over here…still finding dead chickens and spending lots of time nursing survivors. But mainly, I want you to take note of our upcoming HEARING in front of CITY PLANNING COMMISSION this WEDNESDAY at 9am at City Hall on the 10th Floor!! 🥳 As with all our (endless) hearings, it is SO IMPORTANT that we flood the room with supporters!! I know this all seems never-ending, and I am certainly a broken record asking for your continued support, but we MUST KEEP KEEPIN’ ON and showing our City that they can’t simply swoop down and destroy a farm, family, and resource that does so much for KC! Please keep fighting with us!! We’ll see you Wednesday at 9am as we go back to the beginning with our Master Plan Development re-zoning proposal - a proposal that this commission approved 5 to 1 back in September!😖 Please share and come if you can!!!

01/10/2025

A DAY OF CARNAGE. You guys won’t even believe what I’m about to tell you…I hardly believe it myself. While I was sending out press releases this morning I hear my employee shrieking. I ran outside in the snow (half dressed) to find blood, feathers, and chicken carcasses EVERYWHERE!! There were two huskies running around. One quickly left the property, and the other one I was able to catch and bring into my house (my dogs were trying to attack her!) until I could get the half-alive birds dealt with and then figure out the owner. I just wanted her safe - despite what she’d cost me! The electric fencing around my two flocks of birds were failing due to the deep snow. The huskies must have jumped the fences in both flocks and caused such a ruckus that live birds (and dead ones) were all over the place- outside the fencing. It took us a very long time to drudge up all the dead birds, gather the living ones that had escaped, and find all the injured ones (lots with broken legs or flesh wounds). It was SO AWFUL, and I was having trouble breathing I was so mortified. The death toll ended up being 42 birds with another 10 injured, who likely won’t survive. The vast majority of these birds were 5 months old - they were just about to start laying. We have significant money into them already, and they represent the majority of my egg production for next season! Dan is crunching the numbers now but it looks like we are out about 2000 dozen eggs over the course of the next 19 months which should have brought in $15,000.00!! Now here’s the real kicker: turns out the dog belongs to one of the main opposing neighbors - someone who has done everything they possibly can to destroy our life and farm, and even tried to cut-off access to our home thru the legal right-of-way. We are so financially & emotionally drained from two years of fighting these very people, and this is truly salt in an open festering wound!!! I am having a minor panic attack as I type. What more can befall us? I get it: dogs escape, it is their nature to kill, and in any other circumstance I would be DEVASTATED, but I’d let it go and not ask for compensation from the neighbor/dog owner. But this is different…😖

01/10/2025

Just a reminder: We will be at this Saturday’s from 9 to noon! We’ve got golden yolks galore from pasture-raised, organic-fed hens, unctuous pastured pork, and delectable winter roots and tubers. Please place your orders at the link in profile by tomorrow morning at 7am. 🤪Sometimes when I make these posts that are truly just “normal” farm product promotion related, it feels really weird! To think that two years ago, my main worry was selling enough product to stay afloat!!😳 I welcome that worry!! It’s something I can handle!😅 I still can’t BELIEVE that we’ve been absolved of our “crime”!!! (And I’m super pi**ed and want restitution 😤)

01/09/2025

🎶For she’s a jolly good fellow (the blonde of course😂)…she’s a jolly good fellow🎶…you know the rest!! Alright KC, shower this chica with some LOVE!!! Without .0 and Stinson Law Firm, Urbavore and would be no more!!! This badass female has put in HUNDREDS of hours towards the Urbavore saga. This equals close to (or more than) 1 MILLION DOLLARS in FREE LEGAL SERVICE!!! Can you even wrap your head around that??? I can’t. This thing is far from over though!! Catch Lawyer Kristen in action this coming Wednesday in front of the City Planning Commission. After that we head to Neighborhood Planning & Development Committee (sure to be terrifying😬), and after that we head to the full City Council for what we hope will be the once and for all VOTE on our hard-won Master Plan Development Re-zoning proposal. Stay tuned for specific times and dates, but mark your calendars for CPC on the 15th!

01/09/2025

A few victory photos…yup, you heard me right…VICTORY PHOTOS!🥳 In short, the BZA determined that the composting was NEVER a violation. After nearly TWO FREAKING YEARS of fighting to prove our innocence, our appeal was finally granted!! The Board also decided that the remaining 3 violations were rather minor & arbitrary (I agree) and so they’ll be “continued off docket” with the goal of the MPD making them obsolete should it pass. This is also very good news!! I can’t express to y’all just how SIGNIFICANT this is for us as a family, a business, and a community. It’s just MASSIVE!!! And yet at the same time (while I should be feeling LOADS of relief) I can’t help but feel like something else is festering in the background…like we “killed the monster” and yet another is spawning behind our backs. Point is, there are powerful forces that want to see us fail. That’s why this drug on as long as it did! Those forces won’t give up & I’m sure they have many more tricks up their sleeves. Regardless, we MUST push our hard-earned MPD proposal through City Council before we can finally rest. As you know, Council has sent us back to the beginning so we have 3 hearings coming up for the MPD - City Planning Commission a week from today! Please attend!! IN THEORY this win at BZA should make it QUITE EASY for Council to vote in favor of our MPD (which heartily addresses all neighbor concerns). Their hesitation before was “voting on a plan that condones a violation” (sentiments of our 3rd District reps as well as ) but now it has been determined that the composting was NEVER a violation & staff erred. Part of me desperately wants to believe that now we have nothing to worry about, but I’m not naive. Council approves MPD’s that codify violations all the time, so that couldn’t possibly be the true reason the aforementioned reps don’t want the plan to pass. I don’t expect to get honest answers from anyone, but I do hope that those in opposition will suddenly find it most beneficial to ALL parties involved to approve a plan that makes robust improvements based on the concerns of a few, while evolving a farm and compost operation loved by the masses!🙏💚🌎

01/07/2025

Please note the TIME CHANGE!! And pretty please brave the cold to show your support!! This is a CRITICAL HEARING for your bedraggled farmers and composters. It is also (almost to the day) our 1-year anniversary of this circus.🤡 🤪😳You may recall, we did this last year during a snow storm on January 9th. Our full case was heard but facts were ignored and no ruling was made on the composting use approval. During the course of 2024, we went back to the BZA multiple times to request continuances as we created a costly Master Plan Development Re-zoning proposal (to the tune of about 65k) that was supposed to solve all our problems. Now Council has refused to honor our submitted Master Plan Development “as is” and vote on it in any reasonable time frame. SO we are finally back to SQUARE ONE and our case will be heard regarding the “original sin” (as our supporters like to put it😂) which is the erroneous compost violation that was issued by the City in May of 2023. PLEASE READ the Op Ed that came out in the today (link in profile or see my previous post) detailing the wrongs committed by KCMO and how this sets a dangerous precedent for all small businesses in the City. It’s tragic, and we need YOU by our side tomorrow at 1:30 pm!💪🙏♻️🌎

01/06/2025

BEWARE SMALL BIZ OWNERS!!! Jen Schroeder, an attorney & engineer who owns two small KC businesses, really hits the nail on the head in her opinion piece that appeared in today’s online. It will appear in print tomorrow, just ahead of our (ever important) BZA Hearing which determines the legality of the compost business we’ve invested half a million dollars into (based on City approval in 2021). Link to article in profile, or read the slides. Please SHARE and TAG PUBLIC OFFICIALS like the Mayor, , , , , and all the others! To date, NO ONE but Eric Bunch seems to recognize that we had EXPLICIT City Approval before we expanded our compost operations. After TWO YEARS of attempted communications, meetings, hearings, and heart-felt pleas - THEY STILL won’t listen to us!!! I am a desperate woman. Please make sure they read this article!!!🙏💚🌎♻️

01/02/2025

💪💪💪🙏 PLEASE SHARE! .wallington

01/01/2025

This New Year’s Eve I am choosing to cast my anger & sadness aside (drinks are helping 😂) and focus on our vast accomplishments in the face of hardship. In the last 12 months, we’ve composted over 1,400,000 POUNDS of KC metro food scraps, we’ve grown over $300,000 of nutrient-dense food, and we’ve educated hundreds of school-aged children during tours, field days, and special workshops. We’ve also tirelessly advocated for our basic rights as a family and survival as a business. We’ve attended DOZENS of hearings, we’ve rallied THOUSANDS of supporters, we’ve raised tens of thousands of dollars in funds, and we’ve poured our very hearts and souls into saving our beautiful livelihood while feeding 135 families each and every week through our Community Supported Agricultural program. Our neighborhood has risen to support us, and through these struggles we’ve created tighter bonds with our community. At great expense of both time & dollars we’ve created a Master Plan Development that not only clearly addresses the concerns of a few neighbors, but creates a 30-year vision for the farm that focuses heavily on community benefit and deep sustainability. Through all these intense triumphs and struggles we have felt unsure of ourselves, our future, and our purpose, and we have almost given up many times! BUT, more importantly, we have come to understand the depth of our community relationships here in KC. The gratitude I have for all of you (architects & lawyers included🥳) is richer than my beloved compost-enhanced soil. THANK YOU!🙏 We still don’t know what next year brings, and our New Year kicks off with 3 hearings in January alone.😞 Instead of dwelling on that though, I think I’ll pour myself another drink. Cheers to dirt!!! Happy New Year friends.💚 (and may our public officials make some drastic resolutions that involve SAVING URBAVORE FARM…🙄)

12/25/2024

For those of you who celebrate today, Merry X-mas!! Don’t forget to COMPOST your spent Christmas trees! We have a fundraiser in our highlights with the details!! *If you live in midtown, Waldo, or Brookside our lovely supporter Jonathan has three dates when he will pickup your trees and drop them at . Check-it out! Urbavore receives $5 per tree for our legal fund!!🎄♻️🌎🥳

12/21/2024

Last chance to load up on local ingredients for your holiday table!! We’ll be at from 9 to noon today!! Pastured Eggs, Pork, Sweet Potatoes, Winter Roots & Gourmet Spuds. 🍠🍳🥓😋

12/19/2024

12/18/2024

LAST CHANCE to STOCK-UP on URBAVORE VITTLES until mid Jan! We’ve got EGGS, sweet taters, multi-colored spuds, winter roots & pastured pork. Place your orders for at the link in profile. Put local ingredients on your holiday table. Support your farmers, your gut, and the planet.🌎 💚♻️⁣
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And now for an ugly update: Your flailing farmers are unbelievably worn down...living in a constant state of trauma & upheaval. We desperately wanted a ruling on the Compost prior to the Holidays/New Year. As it stands, our “Happy New Year” will be greeted with FOUR HEARINGS (maybe more depending on the actions of our reputable leaders).⁣⁣⁣
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I don’t want to get too personal or project the worst, but I feel like I have to be honest about where we’re at. I’m having some health problems - nothing crazy...just severe chronic stress (lol), lack of sleep, and all the awful crap that goes along with pre-menopause. Dan is doing better than me, but not by much. Then there’s the kids, but I won’t go into that. I think the worst of it is that we have to make a decision on whether we go into production next year or not, and we feel like we aren’t able to responsibly commit to farming next year with all the uncertainty coupled with the fact that we aren’t mentally well. Neither one of us has the energy to run the farm AND save it simultaneously. We’ve done that for two solid years now, and we can’t do it for a third. We had hoped to be done with this nightmare far before we hit the deadline for “next season’s planning”, but that deadline has come & gone. We really can’t put off this decision any longer. It’s AGONIZING cuz no matter what we choose to do, it puts us in a really bad position. I wish someone far wiser than me would just tell me what to F’n do! I’m seriously at a loss. I also recognize it isn’t good to make decisions in the heat of STRESS, but when will that stress end? It’s our life at this point, and it will likely get worse. We fully expect some crazed neighbor to throw a lawsuit at us. We also expect that we will end up pursuing some nasty litigation with the City. Really guys, is there an end in sight? I’m not so sure. (more in comments)

12/17/2024

FUNDRAISER: “SAVE URBAVORE” Holiday Tree Pick-Up!!! ⁣⁣
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From Jonathan in KC:⁣⁣
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“On this Giving Tuesday, I’ve been reflecting on where I can wisely spend money and energy this holiday season. There are many charities and organizations that do great work in our shared communities, and I’d like to point out some great folks that need their community support right now. I spoke with Dan at Urbavore Urban Farm this morning to seek his permission to not only raise awareness for their cause, but also to help fundraise to help save their farm. After Christmas, my son and I will be collecting Christmas trees to take to for 3 consecutive weekends, beginning on Saturday, December 28th. I have set up a SignUp Genius for Midtown, Brookside, and Waldo neighbors where you can select a date and time for curbside tree pickup.⁣⁣
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The total cost for each tree will be $15, with $5 of the proceeds from each tree to be donated to Urbavore Urban Farm. I will accept Venmo, PayPal (friends and family option, please), or Cash payment. Please help me in supporting these good stewards in a time of need. And please remember to be kind to your neighbors.”⁣⁣
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SAVE URBAVORE HOLIDAY FUNDRAISER TREE PICKUP⁣⁣
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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28⁣⁣
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080449A9AA2EA20-53750075-save #/

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SATURDAY, JANUARY 4⁣⁣
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080449A9AA2EA20-53750195-save #/

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SATURDAY, JANUARY 11⁣⁣
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080449A9AA2EA20-53750321-save #/

(Payment arrangement made after pickup is completed-Venmo/PayPal/Cash⁣⁣
accepted-$15 per tree, from which $5 for each tree donated to Urbavore Urban Farm)⁣⁣

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*Please see comments for Jonathan’s eloquent response to a flood of comments on Facebook…

12/14/2024

This is an interesting story. And it ultimately has nothing to do with the snake (which is a juvenile Reticulated Python by the way, and carries the title of the “longest” snake in the world, but not the “largest” which belongs to the Anaconda). Anyway, I have a little hobby of rescuing large (often feared) snakes from shelters or reptile owners who can no longer care for them. *These beautiful animals are kept securely (and LEGALLY) in my home in appropriate habitats where they can thrive as best as possible in captivity. This python (I call her Circe after the Greek Nymph/Goddess/Witch) is a recent and VERY LUCKY find, but the reason behind her former owner’s release of such a coveted beast is anything but lucky. In fact, it is downright abominable. Francesca - a Hispanic, trans woman living in downtown KC - felt that she had no choice but to leave the country after Trump won the election. She frantically made arrangements to move to Bristol in the UK where she had a couple friends and could obtain a 6-month visa. She was tense, almost trembling when I picked up her beloved pet-snake on a cold Saturday evening as she told me her story. She felt as if she were as hunted and feared as this beautiful serpent you see in my hands. She said she “knew history” and her kind could easily be eradicated just as Hi**er eradicated “the Jews”. Although I agree conceptually (and had mourned the freedom of so many the moment the election results came in) it hit me HARD watching this woman in REAL TIME fear for her life and her basic rights! She was so vulnerable on that cold night - giving up an animal that she loved, and that she shared a unique connection with. *For those of you who don’t understand: reptile lovers form DEEP bonds with their scaly friends. Holding a serpent is on par with a good therapist!😂 Anyway, I just feel compelled to share Francesca’s story. I feel honored to give her coveted pet a good home, and I feel ASHAMED that this country can no longer be a good home for this flesh & blood human-being who deserves every right that so many Americans take for granted.