Early Spring with 3rd grade

Here are a few more photos of third grade from late February, sent in by Rula Mouawad. 


The children have been training the chickens to love them and coming running to them whenever they show up by bringing food, and by never, ever chasing them.  It's working very well.  Whenever there are children there are chickens.  Some of them are even allowing themselves to be picked up without chasing!


One of our projects lately has been to sort the enormous wood pile into more usable stacks.  Here you can see the children gathered around what remains of the original woodpile with the small brush for burning in the foreground.


Some of the wood needed to be cut into more manageable lengths with hand saws



The medium diameter wood got carried to a big pile in the parking lot where Mr. Ostrowski can turn it into wood chips.  We'll let the wood chips compost for 6 months to a year and then use them as mulch in the garden.


Most exciting event of all, our farm assistant, Kristin, returned with baby Josh on the outside instead of hidden on the inside!  He has the sweetest smile and all of us love it when he shines it our way.

3rd Grade Compost, Spinach, and Peas!

In between the cold February days a few warmer days appeared bringing the 3rd grade out to the farm again!

First compost bins from many different classrooms were brought out and added to the big compost heap with pitch forks.

The children had fun throwing mulch on the compost heap as well! :)

Another group took to weeding the spinach beds, which fared very well through the cold months!

 Yet another group took to sifting soil for getting another garden bed ready for planting peas! They loved using the shovels and big sifter. . .

Peas were planted carefully. . . 

More odds and ends were brought with wheelbarrows to the compost heap or to the firepit!

 At the end, children asked and answered questions about their farm experience. . .

In closing, Mary Beth leads a lovely song and goodbye before the children head back to main campus. The feeling of Spring is definitely in the air, and things will soon come to full life again on Emerson Farm!

Biodynamic Workshop Coming to EWS, April 11 and 12

Fountains and Fires

Rula Mouawad, third grade parent, sent in these lovely photos of the children working on our flow form fountain and enjoying fire keeping.

First the students got to see where the pipes were laid, how they would connect to the pump and how the water would flow.

Then they filled up wheelbarrows with soil and packed it under and around all the pipes.  Once they were done with that, they started grading around the fountain area to smooth out the steepness of the slope.

Meanwhile, another group learned about fire safety and fire building.

Bonfire with the 3rd Grade!

One of the great things about the weather getting colder is a nice bonfire! The third grade got to enjoy burning some of the wood pile, and also enjoy eating and roasting radishes and sorrel from the garden! A couple Kindergarten students were also there to join the fun!

At the end, they had fun putting the fire out with water, and also getting in a group circle to taste broccoli fresh from the garden! One finger up meant they wanted to try broccoli a little and two fingers up meant they liked broccoli a lot! Many realized it tastes a lot fresher than store bought broccoli, with a much different flavor!

BBBBiscuits! 8th Grade Farm Business

The 8th Grade has been busy working on a farm based business making garlic, cheddar, chive biscuit dough from scratch in the school kitchen. They named their business  BBBBiscuits! and offered pre-ordered frozen biscuit dough for pick up just before school got out for Christmas.  They had to limit sales quite a bit for fear of not being able to keep up with demand.  So far they have learned about supply and demand, gross vs. net profits, just how much work it takes to come up with and make a product, bottom line (profit) vs. triple bottom line (profit, social good and environmental good), and more. 

Sarah reads the recipe while Daniel and Denis add together the dry ingredients.

Here are all of our dry ingredients, ready for butter and buttermilk.

Alex cuts up the fresh butter to add to the mix.

  

Camilla cuts in the butter using a pastry blender.

Daniel and Denis concentrate on mincing garlic and chives.

Sarah Sophia just sticks with the garlic.

I'm not sure what Daniela and Sarah are doing here.  Maybe trying to decide if Daniel and Denis did a good enough job?

A few pointers on chopping from our adult baking volunteer of the day, Jeanne.

Many thanks to our photographer, Anne Haas, for taking such beautiful photos.

What To Do With Daikon

Third grade parent Dave Swanson sent me this photo of what to do with daikon radishes.  Since people often ask me that very question at the market table, I thought I'd post it.  He didn't give me the recipe, but it looks to me like he sauteed daikon slices, and shiitake, maybe with a little soy sauce and then threw the avocado chunks in afterward.  (He told me there is shiitake in the mix, otherwise I'd never know).  Looks tasty!