by Michelle Sharp
A real live wool baroness—right here in Minnesota!
Theresa Bentz of Get Bentz Farm builds an interactive agricultural experience in the hills outside Northfield. Grass-fed
sheep battle invasive species, on-farm fiber art days encourage community, discard wool becomes garden food and two city kids experiment daily with their hypothesis about a different way to live and work.
After years working in higher education and corporate careers, Jake and Theresa cut a new path for their family. “Although I was guaranteed a paycheck working for somebody else, I wasn’t guaranteed satisfaction, respect or to be valued for the commitment I gave,” reflects Theresa. “If I worked 80 hours a week teaching, no one would pat me on the back. I decided to work for myself and set my own standards. That understanding took away the fear of starting our own business.”
A NEW SPACE
At the start, the farm focused on pasture-raised direct-to-consumer sheep and lamb meat sold at farmers markets. They raise their flock following sustainable practices of rotating pastures and allowing the sheep to browse a diverse array of plants. Their lamb is regularly on Northfield’s Ole Store’s menu, including custom lamb brats.
Persistent drought conditions in Minnesota forced the decision to reduce the size of their flock. Diving headfirst into fiber art production and agritourism allowed their farm to expand its available products while maintaining a sustainable presence on their land. When guests come to the farm they meet the sheep, visit the natural dye garden, walk in the pasture and see the on-site mill. Being at the farm allows guests to appreciate the cycle that produces both the meat for their meals and the textiles that clothe them. 
YOU CAN’T HAVE YARN WITHOUT FARMS
Being recognized as an agricultural producer when the farm shifted into fiber arts proved to be a challenge. “I had to fight pretty hard to get into farmers markets and not be seen as a crafter,” states Theresa. “Textiles are agricultural products. The yarn that makes the cloth that makes your clothing, unless it’s polyester, came from an animal. We’ve largely become very disconnected from our textile production just like we have with large scale food production. When I speak at knitters guilds, agricultural conventions or wellness centers, I bring it back to where these items come from. It wakes people up as to why I’m a farmer selling textile products.”
Theresa reflected on the fact that textiles used to be a form of currency. In fact, the tremendously wealthy and influential Medici Family gained their fortune through the production and sale of wool. During the two global world wars, women knitted morse code messages into socks and scarves sent to the front. There’s a tremendous creative space in fiber arts, which are enjoying a resurgence in respect. “Grandma skills” are trending with crocheting, knitting and upcycling textiles to make something new all having active followings on line and in real life.
BUILDING BADGER FACE FIBER
As the baroness of Get Bentz Farm, Theresa uses both wool from her flock and fleece purchased from shepherds throughout the region to create her signature products. “I love that I’ve become a producer of yarn in our industry,” smiles Theresa. “I enjoy having control over the end product. I get to collaborate with others to create something that 
people use.”
In 2024 Get Bentz established a new product line, Badger Face Fiber, named for an esteemed founding member of their flock. Being a part of the “yarn beast” as Theresa calls it, allows her to create and facilitate others’ creations. “I love the creating part. I love getting in there and having all this raw material for me to make something,” explains Theresa. “It’s really, really cool when people show me what they’ve made from a product we created. They know that our yarn will never be the same twice because the animals are different every time you shear. We’re all learning to appreciate the variability.”
Get Bentz and Badger Face customers know to purchase the yarn for their full project up front. Once a particular batch is gone, it’s gone.
GROWING WITH RBIL
Get Bentz is a graduate of the 2024 cohort of the Rural Business Innovation Lab. Founded by CEDA, RBIL is a cohort-based, entrepreneurial program that redefines the narrative of rural decline. Each cohort builds a peer network dense with ideas, expertise and resources that help rural small businesses start and scale their work within their communities. Working in both Minnesota and Wisconsin, RBIL supports rural businesses in their growth to become sustainable drivers of economic health.
The content and interactions of the RBIL program helped Theresa recognize what she did and, perhaps even more 
importantly, what she did not want to do during a big year of growth for their farm business. “The coaches at RBIL helped me push myself into areas where I didn’t think I was going to be comfortable,” says Theresa. “I bought a Yamper because we identified that I didn’t have a good place to sell my yarn on the farm. It’s turned out to be really fun. Our yarn camper is a mobile yarn mobile. We now are able to participate in events where we wouldn’t have otherwise because of building this mobile interactive space.”
Theresa also emphasized how the RBIL program helped organize her thoughts about the business. “Knowing about the resources available is so important,” states Theresa. “Also the coaches helped us sort out what parts of our business we wanted to scale up and what was as big as we want it to be.”
GET IN TOUCH
Sign up for the monthly Get Bentz newsletter, which includes the perspective of the flock itself, at https://getbentzfarm.com
View upcoming classes and on-farm events, browse the fibers, woolen products and locally-processed meats available. Find Get Bentz at the Linden Hills and Mill City Farmers Markets.
Follow @getbentzfarm on Facebook and Instagram for Theresa’s sustainable fashion inspiration, sassy sheep and life on the farm.
Contact Cameron Payne cameron.payne@cedausa.com at RBIL to learn more about the program. Visit https://www.cedausa.com/ruralinnovation/ for a program overview.
Follow Meet the Minnesota Makers @meettheminnesotamakers on Ambit, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
This story was originally published to Meet the Minnesota Makers and is shared with permission. The link to the original article can be found here.
Minnesota soil turns out to have just the right qualities for growing high-quality ginseng.
Tyler started working with ginseng by going out into the woods each fall with his grandfather to transplant roots and select which ones to harvest. Tyler learned how to clean and dry the roots to prepare them for sale—often to destinations in New York City and San Francisco.
since educating market visitors about ginseng and sharing their harvest in both whole roots and ground powdered form.
Roots are typically at least six years old before being dried and processed into powder, the most typical way that people use the prized root. The longer it grows, the stronger its potency. Ginseng plants thrive in shaded conditions, making them an ideal agroforestry crop. A drought resistant plant, dry summers make for steady growing conditions. Winters without snow cover, however, pose a challenge as turkeys and other critters dig up the plants.
The garlic lifestyle is the cornerstone of the Olberding Family’s Rustic Roots Farm in Alexandria, Minnesota.
syrup, planted asparagus, powdered garlic to reduce food waste, established mushroom logs, built a farm stand, and created custom spice blends using their garlic powders.
entrepreneurial program that redefines the narrative of rural decline. Each cohort builds a peer network dense with ideas, expertise, and resources that help rural small businesses start and scale their work within their communities. Working in both Minnesota and Wisconsin, RBIL supports rural businesses in their growth to become sustainable drivers of economic health.
The program tailors itself to fit a range of business types including farms with value-added products that depend on direct-to-consumer sales like Rustic Roots. “I know we accomplished a lot more in this past year than we would have if it was just us doing it on our own,” shares Julie. “Having guidance from our coaches and professional experts is so helpful. The networking of our peers continues to be incredible. We’re all in the weeds together. It offsets the isolation of running your own business where everything can simply feel so hard.”
Sign up for their newsletter at 
On a gentle slope in southern Minnesota that Rachel Davis’ grandparents called Poverty Knob, Kalvin, Rachel and their children raise a myriad of mushrooms at their ten acre certified organic solar-powered farm. Now the fourth generation to steward the land, their innovations in sustainable practices make year round fresh produce feasible in a responsible fashion.
LeRoy, a town of approximately 900, coming home offered an opportunity to build their dream life within their community.
Kalvin, a trained carpenter, converted the farm’s garage into an insulated production space for 150-200 pounds of mushrooms weekly. Their outdoor forest farming space provides fertile growing space for more mushrooms, ferns and art installations.
“We were really excited about the prospect of having personalized coaches to help our business scale up. RBIL helped us to achieve so much more than we initially had thought we would get out of this experience.”
Kalvin’s personal favorite mushroom that they grow is their chestnut. Gently fried, it adds a delightful crunch on top of a Ramen bowl. “It gives a squid or calamari vibe,” says Kalvin. His favorite to forage is hen of the woods. Kalvin describes it as the chicken leg as opposed to the chicken breast-like flavor found in the colorful chicken of the woods mushroom. “The best way to prepare hen of the woods is deep fried in a beer batter with a side of garlic aioli. It may not be the healthiest, but it’s so good.”
Visit
What happens when two friends—one a shepherd frustrated by seeing sheared wool treated
as a waste product and the other a teacher and librarian concerned by the decimation of the world’s peat bogs, a natural carbon sink—join forces?
The pellets themselves are one hundred percent wool. Sheared wool direct from a sheep goes into the shredding machine, nicknamed Wilma. Wilma, courtesy of her nine whirling blades of death, shreds the wool into little bits that resemble popcorn kernels. These kernels become pellets courtesy of Betty, the pellet mill. Betty compresses the kernels to create the pellets.
ght of 150-200 pounds. “There’s some entertaining wrestling that goes on as we wrangle the wool,” laughs Karen. “It’s taller than both of us! Sometimes I do wonder how we ended up here as we’re grunting and groaning to load the wool.”
moisture back to your plants. If the soil is too wet with the inundation of too much rainwater, the pellets can pull moisture away from the roots.”
Karen.
Purchase woollets wool pellets directly from Elaine and Karen at 