This Valentine’s Day feature introduces a fellow who personifies passion and commitment. While we won’t focus on his love life, that’s certainly a beautiful scene: Shelby Howland met his wife, Donovan Drummey, through Morris dancing. They share their Goshen home with two well-loved canines. Drummey is a wildlife biologist working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with the goal of protecting species of greatest concern.
“Meaning, basically, pre-threatened species,” said Howland. “Donovan works to prevent them from becoming threatened or endangered.”
I met Howland, 35, through Barnfest, the annual event hosted by Fabric of Life, Becky Ashenden’s Shelburne-based organization. Ashenden is known far and wide for expertly promoting textile arts, music, and sustainable living. She’s a master of yesteryear skills, and when Howland showed up at Barnfest to teach people how to sharpen tools and kitchen implements, it was clear that he’s cut — with very sharp scissors! — from the same cloth. We’ll take a brief tour of Howland’s remarkable life and principles.
Through his business, Village Earthwright in Williamsburg, Howland offers many services, including those related to foundation site work, land clearing, and stone walls. In facilitating water management, he changes people’s landscapes “so that water doesn’t go into their houses or over their driveways.”
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His work in wetlands restoration “can be complicated,” he said. “There’s a lot of permitting, but I love that work.” He does trail building, and related a scenario where a boardwalk had sunk: “We installed helical piles into a swamp. Working in the winter with tiny machines and going down 50 feet, we managed to build a walkway through a marsh.”
Thinking outside the box is familiar to Howland, who took an unconventional journey through academia and learning. Growing up in Shelburne Falls and Plainfield, he attended Mohawk Regional School and the Putney School for one year each, before heading to North Star Self-Directed Learning for Teens. “I did a number of things as a teen,” he said, “including farming, computer jobs, and stone work.” His multidisciplinary upbringing was influenced by the fact that each of his parents is highly respected in their fields.
Sarah “Sadie” Stull was a timber framing contractor for decades and helped other women learn trade-related skills; she also engaged in homesteading. Howland’s dad, Steven, possesses abilities that span centuries: he restored his 1820s farmhouse, and has worked in high-level digital realms. Some readers may recognize Steve Howland’s name due to his fiddling and contra dance calling acumen.
At 18, Shelby Howland worked with a local excavator before embarking on a new path: “I got rid of my laptop and cell phone, sold my motorcycle, and bought some pigs,” he said, describing how he got into old-style farming with his mom. “We cleared a half-acre of rocks and stumps using only hand tools,” he said. “For three years, we grew and ate pretty much all of our own food, including pigs, cows, and chickens.” His mom’s 1812 home had no running water. “We had a composting toilet and no internet,” said Howland, who refers to himself as “a doomer,” given that he’s acutely aware of climate change and believes “it’s valuable to cultivate self-sufficiency and not be completely reliant on modern society.”
Farming, timber framing, and woodworking led Howland to the practice of sharpening. “When I was young, my bedroom was my wood shop,” he said. “I swept my way to bed every night. I learned that sharpness is super important. Using a dull tool doesn’t work. And when you do all your weeding with hoes, they must be sharp.” Howland enjoys teaching others how to sharpen tools, knives, and even cheese graters. “Sharpening came into play with scything,” he said. “That’s how people cleared land hundreds of years ago.”
Although Howland uses many different types of sharpeners, he noted that regular folks can get by with readily available apparatuses. “If you cut fish for sushi, you need a really nice edge,” he said. “But if you’re just cutting vegetables, a carbide sharpener is fine. If you sharpen frequently, diamond grit kitchen steel is good.” Sharp tools are safer than dull ones, he said, but warned: “Don’t stand a bagel on its side and try to slice it with a sharp knife you use for meat,” he said. “Lay the bagel down, and cut it that way.” For garden tools, he uses a file. “It’s important to sharpen hatchets, axes, hoes, loppers, shears, pruners, shovels, all that stuff.” To sharpen a chainsaw, he uses a raker file. Scissors are in a class of their own: “They have a single macro bevel, and the [two parts] bypass each other. If you sharpen the non-bevel face, they stop pushing on each other.”
About ten years ago, Howland and his brother, Wynter, took over their mother’s longtime thriving business, Village Carpentry. Four years ago, Shelby Howland shifted to what he does now and loves taking on different projects, whether it’s building a large-scale swale system to manage water according to permaculture principles, putting in a shallow irrigation well for a farmer, or constructing a mile-long deer fence around a chestnut orchard. “We did the fence job in nine working days,” he said. “We split rot-resistant locust posts for tens of acres.”
Howland’s philosophies don’t fit into any box: “I’m anti-ivory-tower, pro-science, and pro-higher-education,” he said, adding, “Experts in their fields are experts, sure, but that doesn’t make them superior people. Engineers must be trained, and doctors, too, but being a carpenter is just as important as being a doctor.”
When he’s working professionally, Howland possesses both musical proclivities — he attends pub sings and plays traditional folk music of Quebec and the British Isles — as well as welding skills, but we’re out of space, dear readers, so if you want to learn more about this remarkable fellow, check out villageearthwright.com. It’s inspiring to hear about someone who lives and loves so warmly and well.
Eveline MacDougall is the author of “Fiery Hope” and receives messages at eveline@amandlachorus.org.