Neighbors rally to keep Clover Valley farm running during daughter’s illness

When Claire and Pete Landē spent 22 days at Children’s Minnesota with their 14-month-old daughter, Sive, neighbors kept the Lakewood Township farm running. The support was practical, not symbolic: people tended crops, cared for the family’s Gotland sheep and four lambs, and hauled products to market so Farm Landē could keep bringing in income while the family focused on medical care.

Sive’s illness moved fast. Claire Landē first noticed vision issues near the end of April, the family went to an ophthalmologist, then an MRI led to a diagnosis of a brain tumor. During the hospital stay in St. Paul, Sive underwent two brain surgeries. The family said she is doing well, a hopeful sign after a stretch that pulled them away from the farm at the height of a busy season.

The response showed how fragile a small farm can be when one family member is suddenly out of the loop. Farm Landē operates on 10 acres in Lakewood Township, and Claire and Pete moved there in 2020 after buying the property from Kathy Jensen of Talmadge Farms. The farm’s mission is to build community and ecological resilience by growing native perennials alongside food, and it grows more than 50 native perennials using organic and regenerative methods, including no-till whenever possible. That kind of operation depends on constant attention, from plants that need watering and weeding to livestock that need daily care.

What filled the gap was a rural network that knew exactly where help was needed. People with plant knowledge took over the growing spaces, those with animal experience handled the sheep, and others brought Farm Landē goods to markets so sales did not stop entirely. That response fit the spirit of the Clover Valley Farm Trail, the farm network that began in 2023 between Duluth and Two Harbors and later counted 10 community farms within about a ten-mile radius. The trail typically runs Sundays from late May or Memorial Day weekend through early October, from noon to 5 p.m., and it has become part of the North Shore farm economy that links producers, customers and neighbors.

For St. Louis County’s small farms, the Landē family’s experience is a reminder that the line between a functioning season and a lost one can be thin. In this case, it was held together by people who showed up with the right skills at the right moment, keeping one family farm moving while a child got the care she needed.