Summer Term Students Settling In
A month into the summer term, our six summer term students have settled into the routine of life on the farm. On an average day, they’re up and hard at work in our market garden by 6:30am helping our Garden Manager Joshua with harvest for the farmers markets, watering, weeding, trellising or putting together a special order for a local restaurant.
When field work is completed for the morning, they have time to complete their chosen community chores before lunch. Everyone pitches in with keeping the community spaces hospitable, while two
students prepare lunch with produce from the garden. Everyone gathers at lunch to share a community meal and their thoughts on the day. Often much silliness ensues but serious work can get hashed out over hearty repast.
The afternoon proceeds with guest instructors and classes in one of our five key subject areas – crop production, livestock management, community dynamics, business management or industrial arts. Last week we had hands-on bread baking demonstration, Brian Bartholomew discussed rotational grazing, we continued our multi-part series on soil science with Rachel Britten,
and Takashi
held his ever popular plumbing class.
Another cornerstone of our program, our weekly field trips, allows our students to get an insider’s look at the tools, equipment, theories, and practices that form successful farms in our region. Last week our students were able to visit Irene’s Garden and Happy Day Farm in Laytonville to see what two very different but successful market farms look like in Mendocino County.
As you can see from this snapshot of an average week at the School of Adaptive Agriculture, our students days are stuffed full with the basics every aspiring new farmer should know and our students are eager and excited to tackle the next two months of their studies.
