HSF Education: Fall Homeschool Class Bonus Week

As the solstice approaches, we appreciate that we have firewood stacked and ready for a long winter, yet when the days are nice it is always a good idea to use that time to put some up just in case. So we spent just a tiny bit of time stacking some wood. We then retired to the house to work on several projects that pulled together many of the things we worked on over the course of the fall.

We carded the wool we had washed and used it to make wool dryer balls and we also experimented with some dyed wool that we used for felted soaps. We made a dandelion salve from dandelions steeped in sunflower oil which we added to melted beeswax and coconut oil - it makes a wonderful hand salve for gardeners in the summer months and those with dry skin in the winter. We also did a little baking - bringing everything full circle by using the Plum Jam from our first week to make peanut butter and jam thumbprint cookies.

HSF Education: Fall Homeschool Class Week 8

This week we spent our outside time putting many of the garden beds to bed and covering them up so they would be ready for spring planting. Though it is not exciting work with many people is goes quickly and it let us get to the exciting part of our day: homemade breakfast tacos.

We made the tortillas from scratch - soaking and grinding the corn, pressing the tortillas and cooking them on a hot skillet. We filled our tacos with diced potato, a duck egg scramble and spicy greens harvested from under row cover in the garden.

HSF Education: Fall Homeschool Class Week 7

The October snow reminds us that winter will freeze the ground soon and it’s time to bring the animals a little closer to the farm.  We started the day moving the portable fences to storage, which will get stuck in the ground if not tended to. This was a good opportunity to observe all the pig tracks in the mud and how Bumble and Bee really excavate an entire area for delicious treats on the ground! 

Our wool from last week is ready to be processed. Before we could bring it inside to wash it we needed to skirt it, we have to removed any debris in the wool and remove parts of the wool that are not useful for products. When we got inside there was a fire roaring in the wood stove and it was time to wash the wool. Wool washing is a very interesting and delicate process - you have to be careful not to agitate the wool or you will felt it! Call us overachievers, but alongside the washing, we made time for a homemade caponata and breadmaking.  Still lots to do this time of year!

HSF Education: Fall Homeschool Class Week 6

What on the farm is soft, crimp, warm, elastic and fire resistant?  Answer: Wool.

Sheep Shearing day at HSF today! Did you know there are methods of shearing that date back to the 1800s?  Today we got to spend some time observing sheep shearing and watching hoof trimming Thank you Rich for sharing your knowledge of sheep with us as you worked!

The cold early morning turned into a sunny late morning and we planted garlic in the sunbeams.  Back in the dirt again, we made space for things to pop up in spring. Your food lesson today, sponsored by garlic, is:

“Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian;

Wine and tarragon make it French.

Sour cream makes it Russian;

Lemon and cinnamon make it Greek.

Soy Sauce makes it Chinese;

Garlic makes it good.”

– Alice May Brock

HSF Education: Fall Homeschool Class Week 5

The weather is getting colder, and the forest is ablaze with color.   Watching the seasons change on the farm is an education in itself. The September duties are different than the October duties & so on, but one thing remains constant on the farm: The animals need to eat.  Amy’s gardens are still filled with food suitable for the pigs, goats and rabbits. It’s educational to learn about which animals eat the mulberry leaves, the kale, squash, beets and the hickory nuts.

HSF Education: Fall Homeschool Class Week 4

When I was a little girl, my mom and I were driving on a quiet, rural road.  Unexpectedly and without commentary, she pulled the car over, got out and walked over to a mound of dirt in a farm field.  She started digging with her clean hands. I cocked my head. What IS SHE DOING? Then she pulled out a potato, turned around and smiled at me.  This little memory remains in my mind and I remember the joy I felt that random day we picked a couple of potatoes. Why is harvesting potatoes so rewarding?  Today at HSF, we harvested potatoes and found the same joy I experienced years ago. Digging in dirt, we found the potatoes in all shapes and sizes, sharing ooohs and aahhhs of our biggest and smallest finds! We used our potatoes and some leeks we harvested to make a delicious potato-leek soup!

Later, we spent time in the forest near the pigs, the pigs are part of a system of animals used to helping to reclaim the oak savanna forest.  Bumble and Bee(the pigs), play a major role in this reclamation clearing out invasive ground plants. They move around the forest in paddocks made of portable electric fence.  Then when they clear and area, logs and sticks are collected into piles to clear the ground floor for planting seeds.

HSF Education: Fall Homeschool Class Week 3

Today we got scientific..  We pulled up chairs and observed 77 chickens in their environment.  We observed their diet, their breed, their behavior and their biology.  From eggs to bones, indoors and outdoors, we looked at every part of the chicken today and their prevalence in our lives.  We collected laid eggs, we made a killer frittata and also boiled down a chicken stock with vegetables from the garden, then we even ground up dried up chicken bones and spread their bone meal in the garden bed to nourish the soil for next years plants.  Thank you, chickens. You do a lot for us.

HSF Education: Fall Homeschool Class Week 2

I always feel like I’m “saving the Earth” when I plant a tree.  Today, we looked at the symbiosis of a food forest system: Tall trees, small trees, shrubs, herbs and ground cover.  Then we contributed to the system by planting fruit trees near the herbs and other edibles that rest on a slope, so water naturally moves toward them.  We’ll continue to watch this area grow as we move through the seasons.  

Later in the morning, we harvested concord grapes from the vine.  These are my favorite fruit with perfect sweetness and a matching tartness.  Around the table we sat and cut them open to remove the seeds and prepared them for baking.  We each went home with a bag of muffins.

HSF Education: Fall Homeschool Class Week 1

WHAT AM I?

I appear dead before I am alive 

Although often quite small, inside my skin a tree can live

 I can survive hundreds of years without food or water 

I can be as small as dust or as large as a football 

Humans and animals eat me

 I can fly, swim and hitch a ride

 I can survive freezing, fires and intense droughts 

What am I? (answer at the end)

The sound of the brown bags crunching in our hands was oddly memorable.  We labeled each bag for each way Seeds Travel (by Wind, by Exploding, by Animals, Hitchhikers, Floaters) and then we hunted the forest for wild seeds and collected them in their respective, crunchy brown paper bags.  This time of year the jewel weed seeds peak and their herbaceous green seed pods explode with even gentle touch. What fun we had exploding pods, picking off hitchhikers, collecting cute acorns and finding jackpots of hickory nuts.  Later in the morning when we harvested and slurped down cherry tomatoes, we took notice that we also eat seeds without much notice sometimes. Tomato seeds are tricky to save, but we learned the trick today and it involves mold! We also harvested plums from the small plum grove and took our bounty to the kitchen where we learned how to make plum jelly.  Everyone took a jelly jar home.   

Answer: A seed