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Cornwall's Food, Fiber, Forestry Farm Camp offered 9 local kids and 4 of their mothers a unique day camp experience this past August 15th through 19th. Motherhouse founder, Debra Tyler, designed it in association with local farmers: Tom Levine whose Longmeadow Farm explored the origins and preparation of "Eggs and Bacon", Jonathan Kirschner of Stonewall Vegetables who led us in harvesting vegetables for "Stone Soup,"  Local Farm's Debra Tyler who taught the campers to milk cows, churn butter, grind wheat berries and dried corn for a take home basket of "Bread & Butter," Tal Hadani-Pease orchestrated a "Wool Thing" Fiber Day including carding and spinning wool with a visit from Debbi Elias of Country Quilt Llamas; and logger Jay Wolfe who gave a walking tour of a backyard woodlot with "Forest Treats." The camp was underwritten by a generous donation from Pine Forest Camp owner, Mickey Black. Visit: Farm Camp 2011 for a slide show of some of our activities.

Honoring Our Foremothers

Gathering for four Wednesday evenings in August,
we shared stories of our
school principals,
mothers,
grandmothers,
and other women who we admire
and in some way,
who have made a difference
in our lives.

We brought in photos,
made drawings and collages,
and wrote cinquain poetry
and letters of appreciation.
We reproduced our work on 5X5 inch card stock,
and bound the pages with artists tape
into accordion books.

We are already
thinking ahead
to who we'll honor this winter
in our next book-making series
and hope you'll join us!

UnCANny!

Once again, Can-Do Wyatt Whiteman has demystified home canning, while orchestrating an opportunity to enjoy the pleasure of working as a group to put food by. New this year, was making salsa. We learned not to touch our lips or eyes while cutting peppers and that one person's cool may be an other's hot. Click Can Can and scroll down to see more detailed canning reports of the past.

Our Eggs-Perience

Some of us came because our parents brought us.
Some of us came because we felt that as meat eaters, we should be able to take a life for our food.
Some of us came in support of our partners.
Some of us came to share our homesteading skills.
Some of us came to learn about housing options for, and care of laying hens.
Some of us came because we want to raise meat birds and wanted to see how our children would handle their harvest.
Some of us came because we raise laying hens and want to be prepared for the day they get old or injured.
Some of us came to bridge our suburban childhood to our partner's farm background.
Some of us came because as vegetarians we feel we must be fully responsible for any meat we eat.
ALL of us came to a deeper appreciation of our own lives, forged close bonds with each other, and went home richer in many ways besides the delicious bird we had prepared for a future meal.

TEAMWORK with Oxen

Local Farm team Jigger and Jolly and their devoted teamster Chuck met with participants to share the basics of training and driving oxen. Highlights included working in the woods, and hauling hay.
Click this link for a video of Jigger and Jolly in action: jigger & jolly. The first part is of their April Earth Day community service project, cleaning the roadsides of Popple Swamp Road. That's followed by the May 14 Old Style Life Skills Series Day of "Teamwork with Oxen" held at Local Farm by Chuck Duncan.

Beeginning With Bees

Are you interested in bee keeping? Wondering about getting your first bees?
We have a class to help.

Heidi Lindburg of Windsor Connecticut is the Motherhouse contact in the bee keeping world.

Heidi lectured on all things bee related. She broght books, posters, hive bodies, frames and other bee equipment.

After Heidi's talk we put together a super and frames.

At the end we dipped candles.
For more info see last years report here.

Family Cow Forum

Motherhouse Presents The Second Annual Family Cow Forum!!
On February 19 at 9:30 attendees started trickling in the door at the UCC parish house in Cornwall, CT. By 10:00 we had a good sized gathering.

First on the agenda was a talk on backyard cow nourishment by Al Earnhart of Lightning Tree Farm.
Al grows, harvests, mixes and sells organic grain for pigs, cows, goats, chickens and more.

Next a panel of back yard cow keepers and one goat keeper answered questions such as How many cows do you have? What is your milking setup? What was your biggest challenge and how did you solve it?
From left to right Dominic Palumbo, Garrick Dinneen, Rachel Gall(goats), Terry Bell, Brigitte Ruthman and Jean Ilsley.

After the panel was done we went outside to see Garrick work with his ox Buck.


Buck works as a single ox, Garrick has been training him since he was a calf.

And then we had lunch. When we were almost done eating we got to hear about Brigitte receiving a cease and desist order to stop farming and how she is dealing with it.

After lunch cow breeder extraordinaire Bob Kennedy talked on how to recognise when your cow is in heat. Also how to pick a bull that will improve on your cow's physical traits.

Good time was had by all.