Farm Food Forest at the Schoolhouse: Week 6

Greetings! Welcome to the sixth week recap of our Farm Food Forest program here at the Schoolhouse Learning Center.

This week, we are lucky to be able to borrow a cider press from Shelburne Farms and with the truckload of apples we have (thanks to the Lutters family!) cider is abound! We will be making cider until late next week. A big thank you to all the families that have brought in plastic containers for storing cider!

Let's see what Story Time has been up to this week!
We played a really great game of camouflage in the tall grass this week and were able to sneak up on Elliot without him noticing!

Both the Wild Grapes and Dragon Flies were able to join Emily this week to press cider. We learned all about the press, and everyone got a chance to feed the press and crank the wheel that chews up apples. When the cider was made, we were able to drink it at lunch both days!

We also spent lots of time in the forest this week as well!

Being very sneaky!

Can you see us at all?

Ivy talks all about bees with us!

A rotting log is a great sensory experience for us! What critters are hiding in the crevices of this stump?

Wild Grapes work hard for their cider!

Nari's class spent their FFF field day in the forest!

After a rainy Fall night, the sun rose and the Alphas gathered at the forest entrance.

Standing in a quiet line, we listened to the strong southerly wind and then soon began our Woolly Bear hunt! Through the colorful fallen Maple and Ash leaves we searched, but alas did not find one….other than the invisible woolly bear friends we made (go ahead and ask your Alpha about that ). We sat down together and learned about the old legend that, just by looking at those fuzzy friends, can tell us if we’ll have a long and cold winter or a short and mild one!

The legend specifically looks at the size of the brown band on the Woolly Bear’s body (this band also dictates how OLD the bear is). If the band is long = cold, long winter. If it’s short = mild, short winter….although scientifically, it actually seems that this band tells us more about the previous winter than the upcoming one….but we won’t get into details!

Running to Turkey Field, we dropped our packs and played Woolly Bear-Robin! It was a SUPER cool game where the woolly bear in the middle of the circle was blindfolded and had to sense where in the circle the chosen “robin” was staring them down! It was a game which allowed us to hone in on our senses other than sight and it certainly highlighted the fact that we all emit energy. We thought about how when we enter a field, the other creatures there can pick up on the energy we give off. It was INCREDIBLE to see how accurate the Alphas were in sensing where the Robin was in the circle while wearing a SUPER thick blindfold!

Before entering the woods we made sure to pause briefly and request our permission to enter the forest. We stopped and silently heard a welcoming answer, perhaps it was when the wind blew the branches inward towards the trees, and together walked to Fallen Oak to the beat of Tippy Tap (the drum). As usual, the Alphas were keen observers and found amazing fungi, frogs, bugs, and sticks all along the pathway.

We sat around the fire pit and listened to the story of “Sunny and the Red Flash”, learning that woodchucks like to steal the nice dens of the local fox and then began exploring. The Alphas are skilled tree climbers and very focused acorn collectors and some even found the most beautiful of fallen fall leaves, quickly learning how to identify what tree their leaf came from! There were fungi and slime molds to be found, insects we’d never seen before, and a variety of nuts including hickory and beech, some of which had been munched on by the resident critters. Some folks chose to create a local Nature Preserve and will be giving “tours” next Tuesday.

Soon it was time to gather up and take out Toby, the Ukulele. We worked on our song, “Oh the Clouds,” and what a treat it was to hear the beautiful voices the Alphas have. After our Gratitude Circle we headed back out to the entrance. Thank you for a great morning!

Bekah explains Woolly Bear-Robin before we get started using our senses!

Ample time for exploring in the forest!

Love this perspective-natural window!

In the kitchen, Danielle's class learned a lot about space food!
This week was the first of two weeks that Danielle's class will be spending in the kitchen for their FFF field day and we are all about space food!

We focused on the challenges of sending food to space this week with Danielle. Did you know that sending 1 pound of food to space costs 10,000 dollars? We used this measure to see how expensive some foods would be. 1 apple sauce pouch would be 2,500 dollars!

The apple sauce pouch was also a great example of how food could be packaged. With Emily, we looked at different types of food packaging and what kinds of containers would be best to send to space. We also talked about packaging on Earth and the waste that results. From containers we moved to food waste and compost. We used apple scraps left over from last week's FFF field day with Omega Sages (remember they made spiced cider?) and made jelly. We taste tested our jelly and had enough to serve at lunch to top yogurt with!

Tau Omegas discussed what the most efficient way to send food to space would be. Since we have been focused on space since the beginning of the year, we had many ideas, one being freeze dried foods! We set up an experiment with Zach in the kitchen. We laid strawberries out on dehydration racks and froze some strawberries to see what the difference is between frozen, dried and freeze dried foods were. We will come back to our experiment (with some store bought freeze dried strawberries) next week to observe the results!

Students work on some space food art!

Zach and crew working on dehydrating and freezing our specimens...

Emily chats with students about food waste and asks for their help making apple scrap jelly. Can you list the steps and ingredients?

A student drew this picture on the Farm Food Forest board in the community room. It depicts a group of people cooking and the arrows show what would happen in the absence of gravity. It would be pretty hard to cook something on a stove if your food kept floating away!

Taste testing our jelly with apples from the Yates Family Orchard!

Mark's class got their hands dirty on the farm this week.
We got to the farm and went right into a circle and introduced our new student Solie. Welcome Solie!

We then went down to the chicken coop and herded the chickens inside so we could move their pen and bring them to a new pasture. We moved them closer to the greenhouse onto fresh pasture. It was the farthest they had been moved this year. It took a lot of teamwork to coordinate to pushing and rearranging of the pipes that the coop sits on. We also all helped move the fence a couple of times with each of us holding a fence post and walking together in unison. What great teamwork!

We got to hang out with the chickens and did some reviewing of the five breeds that Bread and Butter has. We were able to remember them really well! After an impromptu music concert on the stage we headed over across the street to find the cows in their pasture. We actually went in with them and some were very curious about us and started licking our hands and gloves. We learned that if we rubbed their heads in such a way, that they wanted to play a game with rubbing heads on us which as you can imagine could get a little rough. The lead cow headed to the far part of the pasture and all the other cows fell into line and followed her.

We then went back over to the greenhouse and helped Corie set up the "blankets" for the plants on the wires. They will be draped across wires to hold some of the heat in as winter gets closer. We then got to play on the giant round hay bales before eating a bread and butter snack and heading back to school. What a fun day!

Helping to keep the greenhouse plants warm!

Observing the greenhouse plants...

Welcome to the Schoolhouse Farm Food Forest program, Solie!

The Deltas have been busy this week, as well!
Cider making for the harvest meal/parent potluck. Dana has pictures of the farm yesterday.
They spent an afternoon making cider for the Harvest Celebration as well as a Delta parent potluck coming up soon. They also spent time on the farm this week. At the farm, they did a chicken study. They had different amounts of time to sketch one chicken, following it through the pen trying to depict the form as much as possible. They also wrote down observations of a chicken and shared with the group.

The Deltas were able to capture some great photos of the cider press process. Here you see Evelyn feeding the mouth of the cider press to be mashed and fed into the barrel (or belly) of the press.