Farm Food Forest at the Schoolhouse: Week 10

Hello there! Thanks for joining us for another edition of our Farm Food Forest blog. We have been moving along and getting used to the chillier weather here at the Schoolhouse and at Bread and Butter Farm!

This post will recap week 10 of our FFF program here at the Schoolhouse Learning Center and Story Time: November 23rd-25th!

Let's jump right in!

Week 10:

Let's catch up with Story Time...

We headed to Audubon for the turkey program this week! We had so much fun following the turkey tracks, building nests and looking for bugs to eat. We learned that baby turkeys are called "polts" and that while they build their nests on the ground, they like to sleep high up in the trees. After the program, we stayed for a while and in the woods we found some shelters and a fire pit!

Back at school we added more to our wind mobiles and painted oak leaves!

Learning about turkey tracks!

We found some feathers!

If you look closely you can find a turkey's nest!

How about the elementary school?

Nari's class spent their time in the farmyard at Bread and Butter during their field day this week!

The weather today felt like winter is approaching! We bundled up and arrived at the farm ready to move around to stay warm. We found some pumpkins that were getting soft and brought them over to feed the pigs. We also went with Corie to get extra apples and some pig grain to feed them as well. We went over to the round bale of mulch hay and brought bundles of it into their pen. We had to do it with a lot of teamwork to get it over all of the electric fences and then stuff it under their shelter for them to snuggle to keep warm with. The pigs were very excited to have all of the attention. We noticed a lone chicken wandering out of the chicken fence and that led us to the chicken coop that was behind the greenhouses. We went in and picked up the chickens, looked for any more eggs for the day and found hidden tomatoes and gourds to give to the them. Corie had a project inside the coop which entailed taking out the old bedding and bringing it over to the compost pile. They then spread fresh wood shavings on the floor. It smelled so fresh! We had some snack after washing our hands and then Corie took us into the greenhouse. The temperature was so much warmer inside! She had us count out 24 rubber bands into piles and told us that that number is really important to farmers that sell wholesale because that number is what is in a case of bunches of parsley ( for example). She had us help her harvest parsley that was then going to be brought to Healthy Living to sell. We had to be careful to pick the healthiest stems and to then make sure there were enough in the bunch before we rubber banded them. We were able to harvest a whole case of parsley for her! Go Alphas! We then had to rush back to the bus and had a bread treat on our way back to school.

Working together to move these apples...

We made an assembly line to pass the hay!

Corie divides apples into many buckets...

What a great shot!

Danielle's class was in the forest! What were they up to?

It was our first truly cold day of Forest this morning! With the sun behind the clouds, we each chose to stand in one of the cardinal directions as always to give ourselves a moment to check in with our energy.

North- Calm
West-Peace
East-Energy
South-Focused

Together we answered some seasonal questions:
1) What critters have been making their way south?
2) What is a new constellation you’ve noticed?....ORION!
3) WHERE has the sun been rising?
4) What time of day has the sun been setting?

Making our way to Turkey Field we were each asked to find and collect one twig with a bud from any tree or shrub along the way. Once we made it to the Field we each took a moment to describe our twig in three words. Examples from the class include: “Fat, fuzzy, many.” Or “small, sharp, open.” This was all to get us ready for TWIGONOMETRY! Twigonometry will be a winter challenge that has us learning to be able to identify as many of the local tree buds as possible. Tree buds are the ONLY sure fire way to recognize a tree at any given point in the year. It’s a really fun skill to have too!
For starters, here are three VERY common buds you’ll see around these parts:
Common buckthorn: bud is pointy, buds are ALTERNATE (not directly across from one another) right up close to the twig, look kind of like ram horns
Honeysuckle: buds are OPPOSITE (directly across from one another), always angled out at about 45 degrees, kind of resemble helicopter wings!
Boxelder (in the Maple tree family): pubescent (covered in fuzz), buds are opposite, fat and pumpy shaped!

Once we finished our brief intro to Twigonometry, we played some fast-fire rounds of Fish and Otter to get our bodies warm and then made our way to enter the forest. We spoke about trust and responsibility in the forest and how this is a place where deep respect between one another and our surroundings is such an important part of creating a strong community and enjoyable experience..is in fact at the foundation of building a connection with the land.

Once at base camp, we had our snack and reacquainted ourselves with Fallen Oak since it had been a few weeks since we were last there with Danielle’s class. Some of us worked on getting the fire going with birch bark and a couple different styles of fire building: teepee, log cabin, and lean-to. What does a fire need in order to grow? Slow, steady feeding and OXYGEN! While staying warmer by our fire, we listened to the legend “Owl and The Acorns” which tells why the acorns of the red oak trees are bitter and their leaves have pointy lobes vs the white oak trees with sweeter acorns and smooth-lobed leaves. Owls can be wise but also have room for making mistakes like all of us ;)

After our story, we had more time to explore and experiment with smothering the fire and creating smoke for roasting our snacks. Some people chose to spend a lot of time mining over at Fallen Oak. It’s amazing that there is still so much to discover in her root ball! So much we have yet to see and understand. Some people even chose to make a HUGE pile of leaves and create cool and creative ways to jump and fall into it.

Finally we gathered back together in order to find our sit spots, some being in trees, some under leaves, and some just underneath a tall trunk, where we sat in silent awareness. It’s always such a privilege to do Sit Spot. Finally we circled up and shared our gratitude for the morning and headed back to Schoolhouse.

Fish and Otter never fails to warm our bodies!

Staying warm by the fire!

Hey there!

Taking a break from our leaf pile jumps!

In the kitchen, the Omega Sages helped out a ton!
Lately, the kitchen has been going through some changes! Chef Zach has been ordering lots of bulk foods and reorganizing where things go and decided what we do and don't need. One of our tasks in the kitchen today was to make labels for the bulk food containers. We each picked from a long list of the different types of items you can find in the kitchen and created a label that will be in the kitchen for a long time! We researched from a book titled The Spice and Herb Bible as well as did some research on the computers.
Here are some fun facts!
-"Dill" is derived from the old Norse word "dilla" which means "to soothe or lull"
-The black beans actual name is the "black turtle bean" but some reason 'turtle' has been omitted
-The Ukraine produces the most sunflower seeds annually
-The origin of paprika goes back 7,000 years!

In addition to labeling for bulk foods, we peeled, chopped, pureed and cooked pumpkins to store in the freezer. We were going to use the pumpkin puree for pumpkin butter but decided to store it and use it another time during the winter, probably for school lunch!

The last thing we did in the kitchen this week was help Zach with preparing hot lunch for the day.

Since we had to multiply our recipe for the whole school, we used a bit of math to figure out how much rice milk we needed.

The Herb and Spice Bible was super helpful when looking for information. MC works on his paprika label here.

We got really into dicing our pumpkins into very small pieces. We have worked a lot with knives this fall and in future FFF field days, chef Zach is confident that we can start new recipes that will require new types of knife skills.

How about a Delta update too?

This week, we took a trip to Red Rocks! We measured the circumference of the Wolf Tree (pictured below) to estimate its age based on diameter and then comparing it to the diameter of other trees in the forest. By looking at this information, we can take a look at the history of the forest and pasture clearings in this region of Vermont. The Wolf Tree is a large, gnarly pine tree originally left at the edge of a pasture for shade. It grew this large and in this shape because of unobstructed sunlight. We will soon be reading a seven days article about it as well.

Our plot project at Bread and Butter has been moving right along. This week we brought several bags of leaves over and tore open the bags and spread them to add another layer to our lasagna garden plot. We covered the leaves with a layer of compost and more wood chips. We are working steadily to obtain more materials either by donation or by collecting natural materials.