The Why behind the Show

About Daniel Jolley and the Inspiration.

Daniel Jolley grew up in the small mountain town of Groton, Vermont. With a population of 900, agricultural animals outnumbered people and his family grew chickens, turkeys, goats, pigs, miniature horses and alpacas. At age 9 he planted his first 40ft garden and excitedly followed in his footsteps of his grandparents who grew and canned vegetables. With the help of his family at age 12 he built his first greenhouse and actively started growing plants to sell. He learned how to set up automatic watering systems and lights to help with cold northeast springs. By the time he was 14 he took a job at 4 Corners Farm in Newbury VT as a strawberry picker and quickly became part of the general crew all across the farm as he was able to keep pace with the migrant workers. At the same time, he seasonally started working at Windy Ridge Orchard in NH during apple harvest season and continued that for the next 5 years during the months of September-Mid October.

Once able to drive, he started working year round at 4 Corners Farm with the dairy operation in the winter and then with greenhouse operations in early spring. He quickly worked his way up and by the age of 17 was charge of the strawberry harvest operations.. An entrepreneur at heart, he once  also knocked on almost every farmer’s door in the Groton,VT area looking for land to rent for his own micro farm and planted a couple acres of squash. He also started 5,000 strawberry plugs using rooting compound and runner clips on his own and sold them at the local farmers markets. At one point he planted over 2,000 flower bulbs for spring cut flowers and his fascination with growing things and working at the farm continued to grow. (pun intended).

At age 17, back at 4 Corners Farm he was in charge of the greenhouse operations and was a part of all the produce at the farm and worked with tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, raspberries, peppers, summer squash, potatoes, blackberries, lettuce, cabbage, peas, green and yellow wax beans, onions, asparagus, rhubarb, broccoli, fresh cut flowers and more. He worked with the packaging and delivery of products to wholesale accounts and learned skills like speaking working Spanish with migrant workers, splitting honey bee hives, or the safety and science of chemical spraying. Working with heavy equipment, keeping food safety standards and running the day to day of the farm in top condition gave him the knowledge that is the basis of the Farm to Fair Show today. This real work experience almost became a full time career when he was asked to be a part of the future of the farm as its possible new owner.

But, knowing the work required at the largest strawberry farm in Vermont at the time, and realizing it would lock him down 12-14 hours a day as a full time farmer at age 20, he declined and found himself full time in the fair and festival industry. (But more on that later). Since much of the agricultural realm is seasonally busy more or less, he was also able to work at a Christmas Tree Farm-Mountain Star Farms in NH and cut and loaded trees on tractor trailers for sale all across the US. He also spent many February-March months harvesting sap and boiling maple syrup using both buckets and lines. Many spring seasons in his 20s he independently commercially foraged fiddlehead ferns and morel mushrooms and sold them to local co-ops and shipped them down to Boston. Growing up being homeschooled he was given the flexibility to pursue his interests and filled much of that time with agricultural work. In the next few years he followed his dreams and heart in other ways and went to Ambassador Baptist College for International Missions and started following his other passion (performance entertainment) full time in the Fair and Festival world. Working first as a clown, which he did at 5-6 fairs annually as a teenager and then as Pirate Character www.piratmandan.com doing as many as 30-35 fairs each year. Now, after 13 years of full time entertainment he is combining the information and passion of agriculture with his enjoyment and skill of entertaining in the Agricultural Fair setting to create the Farm to Fair Show. This new show option has been on his mind for many years and he is excited to showcase the real life knowledge about this important topic of agriculture to the patrons who are interested about our farms and the future of our food.