{"id":177,"date":"2017-11-13T16:06:48","date_gmt":"2017-11-13T16:06:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/fall-2017-volume-2-issue-2\/177-2\/"},"modified":"2017-11-13T16:46:48","modified_gmt":"2017-11-13T16:46:48","slug":"177-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/fall-2017-volume-2-issue-2\/177-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Focus: Andi Cooley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meet Andi Cooley. Horticulturist, farmer, veteran, teacher, mother, soldier – you\u2019ll see her wearing numerous hats \u2013 from camo to straw and everything in between.\u00a0 Having devoted 23 years of service to our country\u2019s military, Andi and her family wanted to find a way to get back to the land, so they began turning their property into a sustainable paradise, creating a 1000+ square foot garden and orchard, growing everything from greens to berries, tomatoes to peas.<\/span><\/p>\n

Andi studied Horticulture at NCTC to learn how to grow her own vegetables and fruits and then took classes in agriculture and farm and ranch management to explore animal husbandry.\u00a0 \u201cThese classes taught me everything from soil conservation to pasture management, and how consumers make decisions.\u00a0 I love to see how the various subjects overlap.\u00a0 After all, you can\u2019t grow cows without knowing plants\u201d said Andi.\u00a0 \u201cThe classes are giving me the background that I need to successfully manage my farm and have opened my eyes to new, exciting ideas.\u201d\u00a0 In addition to taking classes at NCTC, Andi and her husband, Rob, were chosen to participate in the Armed to Farm program, a special sustainable agriculture training for military veterans.\u00a0 Although Andi is still an active reservist in the Army, deploying, in fact, in January 2018, she continues to take NCTC classes.<\/span><\/p>\n

This past year, Andi and her family applied her training and now sell their garden produce as well as fresh, free-range eggs at a local farmer\u2019s market which they helped establish in their small community.\u00a0 \u201cPeople seek out our watermelon and go crazy for our purple hull peas!\u00a0 It makes me happy to see how people get excited about produce that is grown locally, in their own neighborhood,\u201d Andi says with a smile.<\/span><\/p>\n

After her deployment, Andi hopes to expand her produce business.\u00a0 \u201cI am excited for the next step in my career as a farmer.\u00a0 My mom has older friends who want to pay me to deliver my veggies to them, which I hope to accomplish in the near future,\u201d remarked Andi.\u00a0 \u201cI love to serve my country, and now I want to serve my local community in a unique way \u2013 growing produce from my garden, using rainwater that I\u2019ve collected and compost that my chickens help make.\u00a0 And more importantly, I believe that we all need each other in our community, to take care of each other and learn from each other.\u00a0 Education is so important and makes me happy.\u00a0 I always tell people, \u2018Just take a class that interests you.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meet Andi Cooley. Horticulturist, farmer, veteran, teacher, mother, soldier – you\u2019ll see her wearing numerous hats \u2013 from camo to straw and everything in between.\u00a0 Having devoted 23 years of service to our country\u2019s military, Andi and her family wanted to find a way to get back to the land, so they began turning their… read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"article_type":[],"class_list":["post-177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horticulture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/fall-2017-volume-2-issue-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/fall-2017-volume-2-issue-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/fall-2017-volume-2-issue-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/fall-2017-volume-2-issue-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/fall-2017-volume-2-issue-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/fall-2017-volume-2-issue-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180,"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/fall-2017-volume-2-issue-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions\/180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/fall-2017-volume-2-issue-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/fall-2017-volume-2-issue-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/fall-2017-volume-2-issue-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/fall-2017-volume-2-issue-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nctc.mycareerfocus.org\/fall-2017-volume-2-issue-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}