sutton023

The course we're running June 21-25 is essentially our training tool #3; the first is the Short Course (not offered this year), the second is the Book ; and now for the first time we're offering the next step: "Hands On", 5 days in the field with both direct work experience and training in "what" and "how"; in detail and with practice. Exact activities on each day will be determined by the weather (since this is 100% outdoors); but we expect to have: 2 days of twig by twig, leaf by leaf, hoof by hoof examination and training on neohybrid hazels, chestnuts, and pecans; and the accompanying animals we now include; sheep, horses, dogs, and cats.  Some content about our heritage apple orchard may be possible.  We now consider all of these to be important to making the farm work, and have sufficient experience with the integrations we feel able to teach others.  Other animals and other tree crops will be adaptable to processes and principles you can le...

Notice is short, but - instead of our usual Annual 2 Day Short Course - this year we are going to run an entirely different, and much longer event. We're looking at the last full week of June.  The event will probably start Tuesday, June 21, and will run for 5 full days. Content and format will be completely different from all past courses. At the moment, details are still a bit flexible; if you're planning to attend, your input is requested in the next 5 days; then specifics will be determined. We will not be using the meeting spaces and classrooms at Eagle Bluff, rather 100% of this event will take place outdoors, on Badgersett Farm.  We hope, and recommend, that attendees will plan to camp here for the duration; either tent or vehicular camping is welcome.  Food- is yet to be figured out, but might be easiest if folks planned mostly on a little camp cooking on their own.  If you want to cook on a campfire - we can provide the wood.  (That's humor.) Approximat...

This post is an update; main Lamb-etc. Day Activities list is just below . The weather forecast for Mothers Day: PERFECT.  Not kidding!  Sunny, top temperature 70°F, top winds- 5 mph; chance of rain 0.  And my farmer-weather-expert confidence in those projections is around 95%. The apple trees and blossoms are absolutely on track to be at PEAK on Sunday.  Here is one of the first to reach "early-full", from yesterday: And we ARE in luck - our Mystery Bloom IS GOING TO BE PEAKING on Sunday!  Not only are these Gold Buds everywhere; but the earliest trees are already nearly at "peak orchid" stage! Took these photos yesterday. I have to wonder if Robert Frost was seeing these buds, along with the flowering maples and oaks: "Nature's first green ... is gold. Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; but only so an hour..."   His poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay"  Adding to our list of distinguished guests and artists; we will be having a...