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