12-08-2010

By Eleanor

The day began for me at about eight in the morning. The night before after a long session of stargazing, I had forgotten to set an alarm for my roommate, Anna, (who also was not on farm chores in the morning) and myself. Fifteen minutes later I was in the dining hall eating a quick breakfast of a chunk of bread from the previous nights dinner, before cleaning the dishes and high-tailing it to Science with Doug.

The first thing we did in Science was discuss what we saw the night before when we were stargazing. It had been a cold December night but we saw several shooting stars, the Great Square of Pegasus, Cassiopeia, and many, many more constellations. Everyone had numerous questions about the night sky and the universe that were all answered to our likings. We then moved on to talking about Project Feeder Watch, the bird blind and the area in which the bird blind is, and the birds we were likely to see at the feeders during the winter. All the eighth graders (including myself) were immediately saying the names of the birds that popped up on the slides like a test to see how many of the seventeen or so we could identify. It was both a fun and educational experience for our group.

We then moved outside and walked to the bird blind where we saw eight chickadees, two downy woodpeckers, fifty-five goldfinches, three white-breasted nuthatches, two blue jays, two red bellied woodpeckers, and one hairy woodpecker. I had never seen a hairy woodpecker before except for in pictures so it was fun to see it and all the goldfinches that were feeding both the ground and on several of the feeders. Doug had hoped we would see about eight different species of birds, but the seven we saw were beautiful and it was a pretty good day for the bird blind.

As soon as we returned to the homestead, we put on our snowshoes. We were efficient but effective and got out of the door in good time and had a nice twenty minute snowshoe hike down to Strawberry Hill via the Sunlit Maple trail and up the Winding Ridge trail which was quite hilly and difficult to navigate on the extra long feet, but Doug told us we handled it magnificently and was excited that we all very much enjoyed our little hike.

By the end of our morning, everyone was a little tired and definitely hungry. It was time for lunch so we ate, and ate, and ate before splitting up into our mentor groups. In Donna’s mentor group, we went down to the end of the road by the Farmstead and traveled down the Solar System Trail. For every eight inches we took, it was one million miles in space. We talked about every single planet (including Pluto) and the asteroid belt. The facts that were told were common yet extremely interesting and I knew that everyone in the group wanted to learn more about the planets and their moons by the end of the hike when we walked down the driveway to the homestead.

We then transitioned into a Council Meeting, which was described as a more formal community meeting. We all sat in chairs in a circle in the dining hall and discussed about the farm animals, facilities, upcoming events, and things that were major and that either needed improvement, things that were soon to change, and announcements about the rest of the day and about how the craft fair was going to work. The meeting lasted about an hour and I thought that the leader, Helen, did a great job keeping everyone on task and keeping the meeting going in a short amount of time.

For the last two hours of our school day, we had a chance to get more work done on our Micro Economy projects. There are five groups out of our eleven students and we are making an assortment of items and foods. My partner, Adhina, and I are making soap of all shapes and smells, and we decided to add into our mix some ornaments made out of egg shells. I personally thing that the de-gooing of the egg is gross but necessary for our project. In saying that, I much more like making the soap and waiting the long forty-five minutes until it is solid and we can ooh and ah all we want at it.

The time came too soon for us to do our daily chores (which lasted shorter than they usually do), and then the beloved free time in which you can sleep, read, call home, or simply hang out with the rest of your Farm Stay group. It also happened to be dinner-on-your-own night, so I made macaroni and cheese with Adhina which was quite tasty and not a hassle to clean up. I later called a few of my friends via the student phone; then came time for homework. We are forty-five minutes into our homework time and behind me are the Morris dancers with their violin and banging of the sticks. I love watching them practice but it is a little scary to be typing on the computer and having them only a few feet behind me with four foot long sticks.

Now I must bid thee ado and finish my other homework and let the Morris dancers beat their sticks and play their violins. Have a nice day and stay tuned for more blogs in the next few days!