Farmstay 2 - Day 7

By Nuria

            Today the day began like all of the others, except that instead of 4 people going to do farm chores there were 8 because we switched who was going to do farm chores. Then it was make-your-own breakfast. Then came math- where most of us were doing practice sheets. After, we split up into 2 groups; Donna’s group went to the red barn and carried 100 bales of straw into the barn. Andy’s group mapped out where they would put new signs to put on the trails, and then went on a few of the trails. After Donna’s group was done with carrying the straw they came back and made a delicious Risotto for lunch. Right after lunch we began to work on our Microeconomy Crafts. Each group worked hard and deserved a break, we went over to the pond and played broomball, most people enjoyed it while others would rather have been playing soccer. Many people fell down on the ice and brooms were scattered on the ice. It was really fun but also tiring. We came back and did our daily chores and then cook crew began to prepare a meal of: chicken, vegetables, and bread. We then enjoyed a cake made by Helen and began study hall. We had our evening meeting and went off to our dorms for bed. Overall it was a wonderful day full of laughter and fun.

Day 6 of Farmstay 2

Making Candles

Making Soap

Making Ornaments

by Helen

We started today like any other, with a simple breakfast consisting of eggs, toast, bacon and cereal. After breakfast we ventured into the classroom and began a quiet math period. Later we split up into occupations groups, the fiber arts group learned how to make hats, and Andy’s group carried 109 bails of hay into the barn. Lunch, we ate lentil soup and home made bread. After lunch clean up we began to work on our separate crafts for the awesome craft fair coming up. Each of us is making something totally unique and special. Before daily chores we all enjoyed a game of soccer and football. We ended the day by watching to interesting movie, Pirates of Penzance, some of us enjoyed it but other were not so interested. Overall we had a cold, snowy wonderful, exciting day.

A Typical Sunday

By Raven

We started out our wonderful Sunday with farm chores at 8:45 (it was pushed back because it’s a weekend) and a brunch made by A.J, Nùria, Yonci and Sam. For brunch we had pancakes, bacon, sausage, vegetarian bacon, and pannakouken also known as Dutch Babies. Everything tasted absolutely wonderful, especially after a harsh taste of the cold whether! Following brunch and the clean up time, we played ping-pong and other games in the basement, and then the whole group went sledding! Everyone gathered sleds from the shed, and headed out to Strawberry Hill. Aside from the long trek up the hill, sledding was highly enjoyable and frankly quite entertaining! Although some people’s sleds had a mind of their own, and plowed straight into thorn bushes, some people had very successful runs, complete with epic high-speed jumps! Also while we were at the hill, we had a visit from Jen, Pippa, Pearl, and Suzie, who distracted us for about fifteen minutes with playing! After Jen and the dogs left, most of us felt tuckered out and decided to head home (not Katy, Yonci or Nùria, they stayed for another half hour!) When we returned, everyone was excited to have ice cream treats and hot cocoa, and to play card games like spoons! After a very long and suspenseful game of spoons that Nùria won, people sort of went their own ways until dinner when we had Spaghetti, bread and carrots. Now it’s time for homework, winding down for the upcoming school week is en route!

Susie the wonder dog

 

Susie in our bathroom (Photo credit: Jen Bush)

Many of you know the story of our puppy, Pippa. Short version: Jen was driving home one night from her class in New Richmond and she saw a small dog walking along the highway. She stopped and found that the dog was friendly and so she took the dog in her car to the nearest farm to return the dog to safety. Jen discovered that the dog, Susie, a 2 year-old Corgi, had recently birthed a litter of 7 puppies, and was probably taking herself for a little walk to get a break. The family was obviously overwhelmed. This was Susie’s second litter of puppies, having mated with the family’s male black lab both times. Jen was offered her pick of the litter for returning the mama. At the time we were not looking for a puppy, instead we had been thinking about adopting a rescued adult dog. But since the pups were newborn, we had some time to think about it. After a while we realized that they were going to have a hard time re-homing that many puppies; and we accepted that one of these puppies could be the rescue dog we had been looking for. So when the family had weaned the pups, Jen and I visited and brought home the female runt, who became our Pip.

A couple weeks ago I was driving home from delivering the Holiday Baskets, when I saw Susie out on the highway again. I stopped and brought her back home. In my conversation with the teenage son, I learned that they still had one pup left. That week chance encounters helped us find a home for Pip’s sib, a stout little male pup, who was christened Kip. Then last week, Jen got a phone call. It turns out that they decided that they could not keep Susie, and they thought of sending her to us. Jen went right away, having bonded with Susie when she first interacted with her. When Jen got there, the situation was clear. Going into the cold part of winter Susie was outside, because the lab was inside, and they did not want anymore puppies. And she was going into heat. She needed a warm place away from male dogs, and ultimately a place where she could be spayed and live inside with a family.

We are not that place, although it has been fun having a little pack of dogs with us now when we go for walks. Susie is sweet, quiet, and loving. She is active and playful, but also has the mellow nature of an adult dog (contrasted to our puppy Pippin!). She knows how to walk on a leash and is potty trained. She is essentially a perfect dog in need of a home. Let us know if you are interested in adopting her.

We are hoping that now that the source of the puppies is in our possession that there will be no more pleas from us to consider adopting a puppy. We are not intentionally running a rescue. Really.

Trees and Wreaths, oh my!

Wow. What a couple of days!

In a normal year, we would go to the Conklin Tree Farm on the Friday or Thursday before the Saturday of the tree sale and load the trees onto the trailer and then drive them in on Saturday morning. We've come to rely on the preparation done by the Conklins - the trees would all be stacked up, baled and ready for us to load. It would take about an hour to load and then we'd be back home eating a hot lunch and proud of ourselves for loading the trees.

This year we got a call last Monday from Roger Conklin telling us that he was short of help and would not have all of our trees by Friday. Well, that gave us an idea. What he needed was labor, and what we had was eleven Farm Stay 2 students arriving on Wednesday. So Donna and I proposed to Roger that we bring our crew over on Thursday afternoon and help bring in the trees, and then come back on Friday to load the trees. Roger accepted this as a solution and we came over on a beautiful Thursday afternoon. It was a big job, but by the end of the afternoon, we were only half done. By the end of the day we had a new appreciation for how much work goes into harvesting and baling the trees.

So we went back with half of the crew on Friday morning and helped bring in the rest of the trees. There were almost 40 Balsams left to drag out of the woods and five more Frasers. The day started well. The Balsam is lighter than the Fraser, and we all appreciated the relief. We quickly had the trees lined up along the field road. Roger got the baler ready and we started baling the trees. But then the baler ran out of twine. Roger phoned back to the wreath shop for more twine and then we waited. And waited. And waited. Our crew took advantage and played some more thicket. I got impatient and hungry. It was lunch time. Finally, the twine came and we were back in beeswax. We made short work of the baling and then loaded the trees onto the trailer. Then we had the last five Fraser firs to load - the five biggest! Easily those are 50 to 60 pound trees and took three people to load on the top of the trailer. Then we drove up and loaded the wreaths and garlands and checked the tire pressure on the loaded trailer. By the time we were driving home to the Land School it was almost 2 pm. We were hungry and tired, but triumphant - and we had a hot meal waiting for us. Homemade french fries, fresh bread, Land School squash soup. We made a decision to have me go into Lake Country on Friday afternoon to try to beat the worst of the snowstorm. We didn't quite miss the snowstorm. In fact by 6 pm Friday, the snow was coming down pretty fast. But we made it and then watched the snow pile up overnight.

Saturday morning was bright and beautiful. LCS alum Katie, alum Kilian, and his friend Oscar all came over to help unload the trailer and set up the stand. LCS students Ruby, Serena, Lucia, and Dorothy helped measure and label trees and put bows on wreaths. By mid-morning the customers were coming pretty steady. With a fresh coat of snow, the city looked ready for winter holidays, and people were in a great mood. The trees were fresher than ever and wreaths were beautiful, as usual. Just at the right time, LCS parent Kerri Westenberg arrived to help welcome people and check them off as they took their trees and wreaths.

By the end of the day, we had an empty trailer and tired bodies. Thanks so much to everyone who worked, who purchased, and who brought all of their great energy to this important Land School event.

Tree coming through the baler.

Tree ready to bale.

Farmstay #2—Day 2 Blog

by Yonci

On Wednesday, December 1^st, the 2^nd Farmstay of the year arrived at the Land School, ready for challenge, adventure and learning. It’s the second day, and we’re almost accustomed to the busy schedule of Land School Life. Our vigorous day started bright and early with getting oriented on Farm Chores. We learned how to feed the chickens, llamas and sheep. It was our dear friend Kumar’s fourteenth birthday, so we started with a special breakfast of French toast, made by Helen, then followed by an hour of math. Then, we did Scenarios, an entertaining way to act out an emergency and what to do, followed by Occupations. Occupations are the Land School jobs that are done by Andy and Donna. Andy was working on some directive signs that were to go on the trails, and Donna was working on creating new chef hats and napkins out of different fabrics. The rest of the Farmstay chose which one they wanted to do, and basically helped in accomplishing those jobs. After an hour of trekking and sewing, we sat down to delicious chili and cornbread, the chili made by exquisite master chef Andy, using garden tomatoes and onions. 

Following lunch, we started our main event of the day. Andy will soon be selling holiday trees at the LCS campus. So, members of Farmstay 2 helped to retrieve some of the trees needed. We started at 1:30 pm, learning how wreaths were made. Then, we moved on to the dirty work, the hauling of trees to a spot in the road, where Donna would count and mark them. Some farmstayers hauled smaller trees by themselves, one even hauled it on her head.  This hard work lasted about and hour, and as the trees were being scanned for small bits of grass and leaves, Donna yells “THICKET!” As the farmstayers ran and jumped into the trees and bushes, they began the game of Thicket. Thicket can occur anywhere, anytime. I’d use up half the page if I explained what Thicket is, but I can say that it was great fun. After about an hour and a half of that, we started to bind the trees so they could all fit when we pick them up to be sold. We ended our holiday tree experience with packing up a few more trees and hanging out in smaller groups. We came back to the Homestead, anticipating delicious tacos, made by the farmstayers. It was a great way to end the day. 

Hauling the trees.

Baling the trees.

The baled trees waiting to be loaded.


Photo Credits: Kumar

Welcome Farm Stay 2!

Today marks the beginning of Farm Stay 2. Eleven Junior High students arrived at just before noon today to begin a 15 day experience on the farm. As they got off the bus, the sense of anticipation was bouncing off of them like a hundred tennis balls. There are 6 students who are brand new to the Farm Stay, and as they piled into the Homestead building one could see that there was a little trepidation mixed in with the glee.

Right away we divided into mentor groups and went on a hike. There was a gentle snow falling and everyone got to put on the full array of snow gear for the first time. My group witnessed something I had not seen before. Right in the middle of the trail there was a little fuzzy caterpillar on top of the snow. There was fresh snow, so obviously this caterpillar must have gotten there somehow today. We picked it up and it was alive and moving slowly. Hmmm. We tried to set it down in a place off the trail sheltered from the wind. Later we scared a big owl, which flew away ahead of us.

After the hike, the students had Science with Doug and got to try on the snowshoes, visit the bird blind, and learn how to monitor the weather and phenology. Later, they got to pick their daily chore job, and we had a great dinner of roast chicken and land school broccoli, squash, and potatoes. Tonight we’ll go over the rules and schedule and do some more unpacking before lights out.

Tomorrow we go over to Conklin's Tree Farm to help harvest the holiday trees.