Board and Staff
Clay Erskine
Clay Erskine serves on the Polum Bolum board and also serves as the Polum Bolum Farm Manager. He is the Chairman of the Canyon Soil and Water Conservation District and I sit on the Idaho State Department of Agriculture’s Organic Advisory Council. Clay grew up surrounded by the beauty of nature – his father was a National Park Service Ranger. Clay knew early in life that he needed to be outdoors while he worked. For his first career, Clay worked as a ski and snowboard instructor – something he still enjoys doing during the winters at Bogus Basin Mountain Recreation Area. Clay attended Boise State University and majored in Biology. It was not until after he married Josie and traveled the world that he found his true love of farming. Clay is passionate about his soil, his plants, and his trade – so much so that when spring hits, Josie considers the farm his first wife, and she moves to second place!
He/him
Farm Manager + Board Treasurer
Marsing, ID
Tim Andreae
He/him
Board President + Deer Songs Facilitator
Boise/Marsing, ID
Tim Andreae is a therapist, musician, writer and creative organizer, living and working in the Treasure Valley for more than twenty-five years. He bought the then defunct Deer Flat Mercantile in 2019 and is a founder of Polum Bolum and the Deer Songs Residency program. He has been an employee and then a friend of Peaceful Belly farm (now Polum Bolum) since its inception almost 25 years ago. On the board of the Snake River Alliance since 2012, in 2014 he created a project called Holding What Can’t Be Held in which he invited artists to join him in contemplating the radioactive waste buried at the Idaho National Laboratory. He has worked as a licensed counselor for the past twelve years.
Teal Gardner
She/her
Program Manager: Deer Songs Residency and The MERC
Educator: Nature-based arts workshops
Boise, ID
Teal Gardner is an artist and educator who has lived on the Snake River Plain since 2016. She is the Residency Manager for the Deer Songs Residency Program, and The MERC, and teaches natural materials creative workshops including those with fibers and clay.
Dría de Dochas
She/her
Board Member
Meridian, ID
I am an artist, educator, and community organizer focused on creating opportunities for marginalized voices to be amplified especially regarding our positioning within the climate crisis and interrelated issues. I’m thrilled to be working on the Deer Songs Residency Program as part of the Polum Bolum board, working to provide space for diverse perspectives to reflect on what it means to be in collaborative practice with the land and with an extended community here in Huston.
Megan Dixon
She/her
Board Member
Caldwell, ID
Megan is a Senior Lecturer in geography, environmental studies, and writing at The College of Idaho where she has worked since 2008. Other involvements in Idaho have included the Coordinating Team of the Boise River Enhancement Network and the board of the Idaho Conservation League, as well as support for the Idaho Organization of Resource Councils. She gives an annual presentation about Lake Lowell and the Canyon County canal system for the Deer Flat Master Naturalists program, and has acquainted several groups of students with the natural history of the Sawtooth Valley as part of an off-campus winter program in Stanley. She lives in Caldwell with her son Rowan, with a garden of rotating vegetables and pollinator-friendly flowers.
Josie Erskine
She/her
Creative Connector + Board Secretary
Marsing, ID
Josie Erskine was born in Idaho, Josie loves to get her hands dirty. Flowers excite her and the sight of rows of veggies makes her giddy. She always needs to activate her creative side and finds no better place than the garden and the kitchen to do so.
Josie is an inspired educator who is exceptionally gifted in sharing the awesome wonders of plants and pollinators with visitors to the farm. She loves to cook and is passionate about creating elevated comforting cuisine with the food grown on the farm.
Josie is a visionary leader, with tangible dreams for an abundant world that surges with life, and feeds everyone.