The Country School Farm

Summer on the Farm

Summer Is Our Busy Growing Season

Garden crops are sown and tended one after another. Hay is harvested and stored away in the barn loft. Our cattle, sheep and horses are free from winter's confines and grazing on green pastures. The countryside yields its harvest of wild berries. Each month, week, or day here is unique and reflects the current state of our many ongoing projects. The days are varied and pleasant, active yet relaxed. At any particular hour you may find some of us busy in the barn, kitchen, on the building site, gardening, grinding corn, or in the orchard.

 

At regular meetings, current projects and problems are discussed and children are briefed on the activity of their choice. All activities are carefully scaled, hands-on and approached in groups of two to six, led by family members and followed by farmstead time, a time to just be on the farm or with the animals.

Both new and returning children are challenged by our ongoing growth and diversity, yet satisfied by the consistency and security of family farm life. And, while the farm experience is highly organized for obvious reasons, the child's basic perception is one of freedom in a relaxed atmosphere. Visiting children continuously exercise initiative.

 

A Day on the Farm

About an hour after the sun first peeps over the horizon, we milk our dairy goats. Early risers join Richard for this job while others can sleep for an hour or so longer when breakfast is served. Penny makes sure everyone is up before she rings the breakfast bell. After breakfast, morning chores are chosen. These include work with the livestock and in the feedroom, on the grounds, in the kitchen, house, workshop, or garden. Chores are finished up at different times and for a half an hour or so, the children can be with a favorite animal, in a special spot, hike the perimeter trail, explore the garden with a friend or just be on the farm. Morning projects are then chosen at our project meeting in the barn loft around midmorning. These include work with the livestock; in the garden; food preparation or preservation; improvements or maintenance on the farm; building projects; carding/spinning/weaving in the wool mill; stone gathering; etc.

When morning projects are done and the sun is high overhead, it's lunchtime with everyone very hungry and plenty of seconds available. After lunch, midday chores are chosen. These fall under the same headings as the morning chores but the work varies. We work in groups of two to eight. On Monday after our noon chores, we meet to choose farm projects that need doing. On Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons we bring in hay or play active games on the hilltop depending on the weather. On Thursday afternoon we hike to our beloved Troyer's Hollow for our creekwalk followed by a cookout on our return to the farm.

Our evenings start with supper and evening chores. We then have farmstead time and follow this with gathering on the tarp in the evening yard. Then it's time for showers and Penny's honey cocoa, served around the kitchen table. There's time for quiet board games and reading before meeting with Richard in the front room to recap the day's events and a story. Then to bed with the going-to-bed game, very tired, very satisfied and ready for a good night's sleep...a cool breeze blowing through open windows most nights.

The Best Time to Visit

People ask how summer weeks differ. The farm is always changing so our actions also change. This is due to the organic nature of things here, the seasons, the weather and the variety of our plants and animals. There is so much happening at once—our garden, animal, building and repair projects are always in different stages so we must continuously adjust care, feed and harvest patterns. This requires focus and attention to detail.

Garden varieties are succession sown, cared for, and harvested throughout the spring, summer and fall. Hay is made every summer week, depending on the weather. Wild herbs and berries, as well as domestic varieties, are ready at different times. Our ever bearing strawberries usually ripen all summer while blackberries and elderberries come in July and August. Sauce apples are harvested in midsummer, eating apples later and cider apples are collected in the fall. Lambing and kidding take place in the spring and these young animals grow larger throughout the following months. In the past several years our mares have foaled in early May and kittens and bunnies come anytime

Bantams get broody in the warm months and set on eggs all summer. Twenty-nine days after a hen begins to set, chicks begin to peck their way out. Last summer some one-hundred chicks were hatched in various secret and not-so-secret places throughout the barn and loft, much to the delight of everyone.

The farm is always changing. There is a flood of milk in the spring while by late fall there is a shortage, yet butterfat content is higher at this time. In addition to our daily routine chores and various farm projects, each day brings unexpected events that must be addressed: One of the cats is having her kittens where they are sure to fall. How can we best move them so we don't disturb the mother cat's nurturing? A pea hen has laid her eggs dangerously close to the edge of the woodloft. We'll have to build a guardrail around them. The sheep have broken out of the pasture and are in the orchard. We must round them up in a cool and collected manner that doesn't force them further into the garden.

What is the best time to come to come to the farm? Anytime, since each week contains the constancy of routine and the excitement of new happenings.