When life gives you downed timber...make a barn. That’s in a nutshell what Grand Traverse Resort & Spa and Human Nature School in Cedar are doing. A severe September storm downed some 65 trees on the 900-acre resort property in Acme. Among them were several large evergreens, from which staff were able to cull four 12-foot white pine logs and 12 ten-foot spruce logs. The resort donated them to the Cedar nonprofit, founded 10 years ago to facilitate connections to nature and community. The school offers several programs based around the region’s flora and fauna, including strategies for living sustainably, natural building, responsible water use, perennial gardening, and gathering and preparing wild plants to use as food, medicine and tools.

Matt Miller, co-founder of Human Nature School, says the donated logs will be used to help build a barn, with the white pine logs milled to create siding and the spruce logs used for barn doors. The barn will enable the school to further focus efforts in regenerative agriculture, farming and grazing practices that help reverse climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity.

Paul Galligan, director of golf and grounds at the Acme resort, says this is the first such donation in the resort’s history, and he’s excited that it will become part of an ongoing effort to give people a greater connection to nature. The barn is expected to be finished in the spring.