When we began Ripples in 2011, we knew we wanted to combine learning from others + sharing to help others. Our 2025 tours included a dog training biz owner interested in learning about composting toilets, staff from one of our favorite Fayetteville shops, 3 Canadians interested in seeing our lifestyle, a new farmer getting started on rainwater harvesting (helping her choose a cistern and setup options) and a young couple currently building their cabin with sustainable utilities and small space design features similar to ours – we also visited their build site to identify plants and answer off-grid utility questions so they can hopefully avoid the pitfalls we’ve faced. Reaching up to those ahead of us, reaching back to pull others up.

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Commercial and residential development have increased along the farm’s boundaries. In 2024, Greenland annexed two of the parcels, in a 40-year-plus hypothetical development plan for their city to expand. Our team attended many months of meetings with Greenland’s planner and city council, to explain that the farm is protected in perpetuity, regardless of ownership, by a conservation easement held by NWA Land Trust which would block their development dreams here. Through this collaboration, Greenland assigned a “PZD” or “Planned Zoning District” label to the farm using the text of NWALT’s conservation easement in order that no future conflicts regarding land use would arise.

In addition to Greenland, there were several regional and Fayetteville-based maps that needed corrected which showed the farm as “unprotected.” After months of work with various groups, these maps now show the easement and conservation value of the farm for our regional planners to see and set realistic expectations as NWA continues to grow and accommodate diverse goals.

We actively watch out for signs of development, such as highways, road expansions and water lines which may be planned through the farm, and write letters to relevant planning entities and partner organizations to protect historic sites, wildlife habitat sensitive areas, large trees, two watersheds, and more.

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Students have enjoyed staging their homework and dissertation projects here at the Historic Johnson Farm. In the past, this has included research on skinks and springs, and more. Recently we had graduate students survey the mammals, which included resident black bears, bobcats and grey foxes! Architecture students visit the Johnson Barn here during the first week of the fall semester. They take measurements, learn the history, review the 1930s schematics drawn by Ben F Johnson III, and create digital models and a wooden frame model of the barn for their final project.

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We keep a record of events that happen at the farm in a digital private monitoring log for the team, as well as a spreadsheet of important contacts. Trail cameras help us keep an eye on the property even while we’re asleep or absent. These cameras have photographed beautiful wildlife, homeless encampment, trespass, and activity of surveyors scouting a path for a highway that might cut through the preserve (oh no!). They are our early warning system. click here to close

To preserve the farm’s history, farm owner Anne (Johnson) Prichard hired Amanda to digitally scan vast collections of photographs, letters, and papers, and research the Johnson farm and family for various Flashback journal articles published by the Washington County Historical Society and available online at the links below:
Historic Johnson Farm Part I

Historic Johnson Farm Part II

Mail Clerk to Marine in WWI

Sisters Travel ‘Round-the-World in 1928 Part I

Sisters Travel ‘Round-the-World in 1928 Part II

Holly Hope with the Arkansas Preservation Program in Little Rock worked with us to nominate the farm as a District for the National Register of Historic Places in 2019, and Rieff’s Chapel Cemetery was listed in 2020. Professional archivist Tony Wappel has organized the archives into files and boxes, around 85 of which were donated by Anne in 2025 to UA Fayetteville Mullins Special Collections and easily found for research open to the general public using the following identifiers:

Rieff’s Chapel School District Records (MC 2718)

Benjamin F. Johnson II Papers (MC 2716)

Benjamin F. Johnson IV Papers (MC 2717) finding aid currently being digitized at Special Collections

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We pick up litter along Pear Lane and at Rieff's Chapel Cemetery and orchard areas. There are at least several illegal dumps to report each year, including groupings of torn trash bags or very large items like mattresses and appliances. If possible, we clean up the trash ourselves with the help of Fawn, the farmhouse tenant, and put it out with the weekly trash pickup. When necessary, we call Andrew Coleman with Washington County. We keep an eye out for drug paraphernalia or meth lab activity, and have had to report large amounts of syringes and other signs of drug use to the Sheriff’s office (we took a class on spotting meth waste and using caution when picking up litter) click here to close

Wooden nest boxes for birds is a Johnson Farm tradition that began around the 1930s before the pergola was constructed. Amanda became certified to identify nests and count eggs and fledglings as a nest box monitor through the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s NestWatch citizen science program. Len White and Jay Richard Jones volunteered to help restore the existing bird boxes given by the late Carl Koffler to farm owner Anne (Johnson) Prichard as a Valentine’s Day gift. Monitoring (as opposed to setting up a box and letting it alone) increases the survival rate of birds who use the boxes by decreasing predation and disease. Keeping count of species also helps ornithologists understand population trends and prevent extinctions. During the nesting season, Amanda cleans the boxes, refreshes the marker numbers, applies wasp and ant preventatives, checks each box every few days and submits data on all nests (successful and unsuccessful) to the lab via their website. The main nesting bird species include eastern bluebirds, Carolina chickadees, tufted titmouse, and (on human structures) Carolina wrens. click here to close

We’re extraordinarily lucky to have a good team of partners to help us out! We’re not a non-profit, just private land with a conservation easement held by the NWA Land Trust, who are fun and reliable to work with. We also work with Audubon, Ozark Bird Conservancy, Beaver Watershed Alliance, Beaver Water District, Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, the University of Arkansas Fayetteville, and others.

Sometimes we have meet-ups with visiting “-ologists” (people who study something like lizards or wildflowers) to help them document a rare species or support conservation work here. We also keep a bioinventory slowly growing to include as many of the farm’s plant and animal species as possible. The farm hosts the rare Stinging Rose Moth caterpillar and the Slender Glass Lizard, to name a couple. According to Herps of Arkansas, this legless snake-look-alike lizard is considered rare by the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission and has been identified as a species of greatest conservation need by the Wildlife Conservation Strategy group.

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Amanda loves to draw, so in 2014 she began printing her drawings on sustainable paper as a fundraiser for Ripples projects. We incur fees for solar hosting this website, for example. Many aspects of sustainable living projects are not cheap (tools, native plants, etc). Greeting card sales help offset the financial impact of doing these projects, but Amanda also designs cards because she’s passionate about uplifting and connecting people with her art. “I hope my drawings bring people joy or make them giggle or feel loved by someone thinking of them!”

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We are here to help welcome visitors and answer any historical or ecological questions regarding the farm (if we know the answers). This has included friends of the owner, curious people driving by, representatives from local non-profits, and even a drone film crew! Whether it’s looking up a historical document, or giving a visitor a tour, it’s fun to connect visitors with nature and history. Annual or semi-regular events like the Audubon Christmas Bird Count are hosted at the farm with much fun for all!

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Because this is a conservation area, every effort is made to ensure the protection of all native species. Ryan and Amanda socialize feral cats, trap them in humane cages, socialize them, and adopt them out to good families where they will receive proper love and medical attention. Feral cats and kittens at the farm have died from tick-born Bobcat fever, and are fecund, subsidized predators who kill more for entertainment than necessity. We also document wildlife killings and rehabilitate injured wildlife with the help of a licensed rehabilitator.

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To keep roads and pathways clear, Ryan occasionally has to chainsaw or remove downed limbs and trees blown over in storms. The neighbors always jump in with larger machinery when a really large tree falls! Amanda picks up smaller branches weekly on walks. Keeping roads clear helps visitors to the cemetery and maintains access to the farmhouse.

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Welcome! From August 2012 through March 28, 2021, the “Making Ripples” column was published in the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Sunday newspaper’s What’s Up insert as well as online with the Fayetteville Free Weekly. Its goal was to promote awareness of sustainable living and making a difference (“making ripples”) in the world. We hope it helps readers achieve their own goals and make a difference in their own way. Read the columns archived here.

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In 2018, we built a native plant greywater mulch basin after the tiny house had been delivered and installed. The native plants include four Dwarf Little Henry Sweetspire bushes, and several swamp milkweeds (asclepias incarnata). The mulch is cypress chips. As of 2021, it’s still doing its job filtering greywater from our sinks and shower, and from the urine diverter in the Separette Villa composting toilet.

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In some areas, the farm has become encroached upon by bush honeysuckle, callery pear, and other non-native invasive species that rapidly colonize open spaces, blocking out sunlight and resources so that native plants can’t grow. A healthy ecosystem depends on a diversity of native plants that evolved with native pollinators and wildlife. Certain species of invasive non-native plants also make it harder to walk woodland areas due to undergrowth, inhibits the reproduction of toads, increases the concentration of tick-borne illness, creates a fire hazard, and other problems (such as a proliferation of thorny vines which my bleeding limbs can attest!). This is a lifelong, multi-generational project in which many hands have worked to cut back invasives.

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As a protected private property with a conservation easement held by the Northwest Arkansas Land Trust, the farm is a fantastic place to release native wildlife that has been rehabilitated. Here, they are at less risk of construction, pond draining, cars, cats, dogs, lawnmowers and other hazards. As of 2026, these healthy native wildlife have been released:

Red-eared Slider (adult and juvenile)
Three-toed Box Turtle (adults)
Musk Turtle (one adult)
Snapping Turtle (juvenile)
Opossum (juvenile)
Groundhog

We invite any type of licensed rehabilitator or apprentice to contact us and we can help you locate the right habitat here for your releases: MakeSomeRipples@Gmail.com

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So far we have removed two invasive non-native non-fruit-producing Bradford Pear trees with the help of our friend Sim with NWA Land Trust, plus a few saplings. We plan to replace all Bradford Pears with Serviceberry and other native trees. This will take some time as there are many of them!

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Ryan & Amanda occasionally offer presentations in person or online. In the past, Amanda gave a presentation on the Historic Johnson Farm archives for the Fayetteville Public Library via Zoom (see the YouTube video here) and she was also a “human book” on the subject of moving off-grid for the Human Library event. We also did a workshop clinic at Packrat Outdoor Center about living off-grid in a tiny house. In spring 2021, we offered a Zoom/in-person hybrid class through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Most of the time we do small group or family tours on topics such as solar, composting toilets, and more.

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