Summer Day Camps at Farm Discovery
Summer day camp at Farm Discovery is right around the corner! Beginning June 13th campers will enjoy exploring the vast beauty of Live Earth Farm with all their wonder and senses. Art on the Farm, Farm to Table and Sprouts Camp is a wonderful way to get kids outside, down in the dirt, and connect with food and nature. Activities will include nature hikes to the pond and redwood grove where campers will build forts out of old branches, collect objects for terrariums, and make dream catchers. We will also be hiking around the production fields, tasting and harvest.
At Art on the Farm, campers can look forward to a mix of arts and crafts, such as wildflower bombs, felting, jam making, flower mandalas, animal masks, wind chimes and more.
At Farm to Table Camp, we will be planting, harvesting, and cooking our way through the week. Highlights include: making ricotta and mozzarella from Bella’s fresh milk; harvesting beans, carrots, and cucumbers to make pickles; snacking on fresh berries and apricots; threshing wheat and making pizza dough for our Thursday night pizza party!
Head over to http://liveearthfarm.net/discovery-program/programs/farm-camps/ to enroll now!
Rice Paper Wraps
These rice paper wraps are a go to for me in the summer months when I crave something light. They are fun, colorful, easy, and a great way to pack in the veggies. The ingredients are simple and fresh. And your kiddos will love to create so many different variations.
https://elsaswholesomelife.wordpress.com/
Rice Paper Wraps:
An assortment of veggies and herbs:
red cabbage
shredded carrots
julienned cucumber
shredded golden beets
avocado
mint
cilantro
bean sprouts
rice paper wraps
Other suggestions:
julienned summer squash
julienned peppers
green beans
snap peas
mango
peanuts
basil
vermicelli noodles
shrimp
How to make:
1. Wet the rice paper under cool water
2. Lay flat on a clean cutting board
3. Add a small pile of sliced raw veggies to the center of the rice paper
4. Fold the sides in then roll the rest
5. Repeat, creating as many rolls as you like
Dipping Sauce:
3/4 c. creamy peanut butter
1/4 c. rice vinegar
1/4 c. water
1/3 c. tamari or soy sauce
3 TBS. honey
1 1/2 tsp. fresh grated ginger (or 1/2 tsp. ground ginger)
1 clove garlic
optional: 1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
How to Make:
Put everything into a small mason jar and give a good shake
*dipping sauce comes from Cookie and Kate
Thank You Notes
We love getting “thank you” notes from students. They are so creative and fun.
The process of making them reinforces what they experienced here at the farm and it just makes us feel warm and fuzzy.
Summer Camps For All at Live Earth Farm
We will be kicking off our Spring Fund Drive at the Sheep to Shawl Fair to raise scholarship funds for Farm Discovery Summer Camps and Spring Field Trips.
Please consider a meaningful contribution to help us transform kids relationships to food and farming.
In this first phase of planning we have also distilled our mission statement to better encapsulate what we are working towards.
Growing healthy relationships through food, farming and nature.
Please bare with us as we figure out how to best roll out this name change. We have started a new instagram account for instance and changed our name on facebook, but we don’t want people to lose us. A new website is coming too at www.farmdiscovery.org. So please keep an eye out for Farm Discovery and links sending you to the right places as we make this change. Thank you for following and supporting our work to transform kids’ relationships to food, to empower youth to become engaged citizens of our community, and to together build skills to become better stewards of environmental health.
Williams College Farm Discovery
Williams Colleges students help build a compost pile.
In January Farm Discovery hosted students from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts for two weeks of working and studying sustainable farming at Live Earth Farm. Their work in the fields lead to high level discussions about the serious issues surrounding our food system. The students explored the effects of globalism on our food system and economy, they weighed the higher nutritional value of organics foods against their higher cost to consumers, and they performed a cost benefit analysis of animals in the food system and farm ecology.
Our job at Farm Discovery is to empower youth to make healthy choices for themselves, the environment and their community. Through real work, we build real understanding of the true value of local, sustainable farms and food systems. Now, when these students visit the market, they know the physical, financial, environmental and economic costs of growing the food they purchase, they have skills to grow their own and they understand the real consequences of their choices.
Most of the students and visitors to Live Earth are young children who are being exposed to the source of their food for the first time. It is a refreshing change for us to interact with college students, who are able to make their own choices about what role they play in their local, national, and global food system.
Root Vegetable Soup
Although it currently feels like summer, I am crossing my fingers for a few more rains in March. I’ve definitely been yearning for those cold evenings when I curl up by the wood stove with a big, warm bowl of soup. While it was chilly and wet in January I frequently found comfort in this root vegetable soup.
photo credit:recipegreat.com/imgs/5199-winter-root-vegetable-soup-with-mushrooms-01.jpg.html
Ingredients
5 leeks or 2 medium onions
5 small-medium carrot
3 parsnips
2 apples
1 butternut Squash (or any winter squash/pumpkin)
1 celeriac, peeled
2 cloves garlic
cardamom
turmeric
ground ginger
salt
pepper
1.5 liters of chicken or vegetable stock
Simply chop everything and sauté in a large stock pot with some salt, pepper, and oil for 5-10 minutes.
Next add the stock.
Cook them in the stock until they are soft, about 20 minutes.
Then use an immersion blender to puree the soup.
I spiced mine up with some ginger and cardamom and added a bit of turmeric. Feel free to add whatever spices you like. Cumin and coriander would taste great too.
Serve with some good crusty bread and a finishing drizzle of olive oil.
For some extra creaminess and protein puree in a tin of cannellini beans. (You might need to add a bit more stock if you do this.)
Enjoy!
Farm Discovery Hosts Annual Sheep to Shawl Fair at Live Earth Farm
On March 19st, newly renamed, Farm Discovery at will host the 7th annual Sheep to Shawl Fair at Live Earth Farm. Local organizations, businesses and experts will provide hands-on demonstrations of every part of the process of making wool into clothing and art. Spin, Dye, Card, Felt, Knit, Crochet and Weave your way to a good time learning on the farm for the entire family!
Watsonville, CA, February 10, 2016 – On March 19th, 2016, 10 am to 2pm at 1275 Green Valley Road in Watsonville, Farm Discovery’s Sheep to Shawl Fair, will feature hands-on stations where guests can practice the entire progression of processing wool. The event will take place in and around the renovated turn of the century redwood barn rain or shine. Local artisans will display and sell hand made goods from gloves to rugs. The Banana Slug String Band will play a set to delight the youngest and oldest nature lovers alike.
The Sheep to Shawl Fair is one of three annual, on farm events open to the public; all of which aim to further their mission of growing healthy relationships through food, farming and nature. At the Sheep to Shawl Fair children and adults will delight in interacting with our sheep and shearer, dying yarn, making drop spindles, trying knitting and crocheting, and washing and combing yarn, all with expert help and child friendly tools. This year for the first time other businesses and organizations like the Agricultural History project, 4-H, Food for Change, and Santa Cruz Montessori will host the hands-on activity stations. Happy Girl Kitchen Company will provide a delicious lunch from their VW bus, and Live Earth Farm will debut their new weekly Farm Stand. The help of both skilled and unskilled volunteers is welcome.
Farm Discovery is a farm-based education non-profit organization at Live Earth Farm in Watsonville, California. Farm Discovery makes seed to mouth, farm to fork, and child to community connections through a variety of hands-on educational programs serving the youth of Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, Monterey counties and beyond. A special emphasis is placed on reaching low-income community members to bolster individual, community and environmental health. We welcome volunteers in a number of different capacities. Please get in touch!
Jessica Ridgeway, Director
831-728-2032
LEFDPDirector@gmail.com
On instagram: FarmDiscovery
On facebook: LEFDP
On Twitter: @LEFDP
On Pinterest: LEFDP
http://liveearthfarm.net/celebrations-events/events/