Blog for 11.1.11

            Today the Junior High came for stewardship. There is an animal care group, a facilities group, a maple syruping group, a trail management group, and bird/bee care group, among others. The animal care group cleaned the chicken coop, the facilities group finished replacing the plastic on the greenhouse, the maple syruping group hauled firewood for the fire that we will boil the maple sap in to make syrup, the trail management group managed the trails and the bird/bee care group winterized the bee hives so that the bees do not die in the winter.  The day was a great success. 

Simon

Photos from Halloween Event Prep

Pumpkin Seed Harvest

Our friends Ken and Jay have a business pressing and selling pumpkin seed oil. For the past couple years we have grown some of the naked-seed pumpkins and they come over and harvest the striped pumpkins and run them through a machine to process the seeds. They were here on Saturday with a crew.

Halloween Bash

The first annual Halloween Bash at the Land School this Saturday was a great success. It started with pumpkin carving and “ghoulish games” such as pumpkin bowling and pumpkin bocce ball, followed by a potluck dinner. The rest of the evening was filled with scary stories and chatting around a bonfire, and a haunted hike around the property. The hike was scary especially for the little kids, but there was a certain element of horror you got just from walking in the dark, and even the adults were a little jumpy after that. There was hot apple cider, s’mores, crunchy leaves, jack-o-lanterns, ghosts, and it turned out to be a perfect Halloween and fall event. 

Dorothy and Pheobe

October 31st

            Today is Halloween! Our Halloween bash was a big success! We had our regular day of re-doing the greenhouse and picking potatoes. At 5:00 we got our costumes on and set off for bowling in Menomonie. There we had pizza and bowled for a couple hours. We were planning to go trick-or-treating but realized that there was a curfew at 7:30. We were all disappointed, but Donna and Kate took us out to a town called Boyceville. Not many houses were still open but we got some candy. When we arrived back at the Homestead we were planning to go outside and look at the stars but what we didn’t know is that someone (Donna) was outside with the chainsaw reving it. Of course there was no chain but just the sound made us jump. All and all it was a great Halloween and we all had a bunch of fun. 

Lilly

Halloween Party Thanks

Thank you to everyone who came out and helped make our first ever Halloween party great.

Thanks to the Farm Stay 1 students for all their hard work throughout the set-up, party, and clean-up.

Thanks to Sara N., Dave Z, and Anne for their help with the haunted hike, costume contest and the scary stories.

Thanks to the JH students who came and made improvisational contributions to the haunted hike.

Thanks to all the LCS families who attended and brought their joy and energy to the party.

Andy

Sunday October 30th

Today is the 30^th of October. As you can imagine, for those of us at the farm it’s rather hectic.  Yesterday was the Halloween Bash, and tomorrow is Halloween, when some combination of Kate, Andy, or Donna will take us to a small town to go bowling and trick or treating.  The aftermath of this will be eleven 12-13 year olds hyped up on sugar for the next few days.  As the Farmstay comes to a close, emotions run high and more drama is inevitable. Hope to see everyone soon!

--Emma