Bruce Bacon (1940 - 2017)

Bruce Bacon

I first met Bruce Bacon in 1984, and since then and through his Garden Farme, I learned about soils, fruits, salads, vegetables, organics, permaculture, sustainable ag, arbor care, tree propagation, prairie restoration, forest management, wetland preservation, weeding, mulching, woodchipping, landscaping, woodstove heating, bee keeping, domestic geese, sandhill cranes, the I-Ching, cooperatives, collaboratives, allies, CSA's, resistance, revolution, kitchen table philosophy... and the list goes on.

Bruce was the local city's Fire Marshal (instead of issuing 100 burning permits a year, he got a wood-chipper to turn the brush piles into mulch) & Environmental Specialist in 1994, when he subscribed me to the IOS newsletter & talked me into driving to the Morton and attending the 1st IOS Conference. (As I recall, it was from Bruce's Farme and that conference seed exchange that a Quercus ellipsoidalis originated and now has a home in the Buckingham Palace Garden?)

Bruce often kicked himself for not being able to attend any of the other Triennial Conferences, especially when he'd send me off to one, and especially when I had the privilege of attending them all and gave him report backs. Though Bruce's face may be an unfamiliar one to past IOS Conference attendees, he was definitely there and present with the Great Oaken Spirit (in the Dakotah language, Wakan Utuhu Tanka). I will always remember him as the one who introduced me to his Garden Farme, the IOS, and the whole world of Oaks.

Click here for a video on Bruce aired on CBS Minnesota. 

Long live Bruce Bacon!

Quercusly, Dan Keiser