Tuesday, March 8th

By Alice

Today, Tuesday the eighth, we started on a good foot, most of us having got a good night’s sleep after a long day Monday of yawning and blinking back sleep from tired eyes. I started my day by going out to the Farmstead with two thirds of the group to do Farm Chores. Today’s group was larger than normal, because my group, who had been doing Farm Chores since the beginning of the Farm Stay, was teaching the second group how to do the chores so that we could trade off/transition smoothly. We fed and watered the llamas and sheep first, then watered and fed the chickens. Some of the chickens that had been making nests (and spending the night) in the Red Barn took off immediately after we opened the chicken coop door. They scurried up the path made by our boots to the barn, looking over their shoulders at us all the way like misbehaving children. We then collected eggs from the chickens (one off from a dozen!) and headed back to the Homestead for breakfast.

At breakfast, the group finished a delicious loaf of “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes” from the night before, so good that when I decided to make a copy of the recipe to bring home, everyone that heard me asked if I would make a copy for them as well.

We had an early and smooth transition from breakfast to math, very improved from yesterday, when some alarms did not go off and the schedule lagged ten minutes behind.

After math we worked on Occupations/Community Work. Donna’s group made a delicious lunch of risotto, and Andy’s group, after a long conversation on education and our complaints about it, headed to the Long Barn. Andy’s occupation group had been working on permanent directions/trail marks/signs for the Land School’s trails, so we worked on making the wooden sign frames- sawing wood, smoothing it with a planer, drilling the signs, nailing the signs together, and sanding the final product.

After lunch, we began to work on our Micro-economy crafts and food for the Pancake Brunch on Saturday. Lately, we’ve been getting to taste test people’s projects- chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, banana bread, granola… it’s all been delicious.

For “Physical Expression” we went outside onto the driveway and played broomball- it started as an organized game, but gradually evolved into something else, which involved people screaming as they barreled towards the person who had the ball, Annie turning into a snowman (or snow woman, if you insist on being politically correct), and everyone on the Blue Team leaving except for Andy (who had to leave for raising his broom too high) and Jahlil, the goalie. The Red Team won the game after we scored a goal against an almost nonexistent Blue Team.

            After chores and dinner (enchiladas), we had a focused study hall, when Doug arrived. We closed the day listening to some of Katie’s music-  Pachelbel’s Cannon and Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World.