Growing & Eating Locally in the Adirondacks

The Adirondack landscape provides a challenge to grow crops. The growing season is short and the soil is sandy. However, it is done very successfully by many farmers and gardeners within the Blue Line. During the sustainability field experience, which ran the last two weeks in May, we ate 100% locally sourced food. Below is an excerpt of student testimony by Anna Millar:

“For the past two weeks, we have been eating local foods, provided by farms in the region. The funds that we have been provided by the school for food have been able to cover the costs. We have also challenged ourselves to make sure that the costs of buying local food would be equal or less than the prices of non-local options. We have also challenged ourselves by only buying food that is currently in season, an issue that is often overlooked.”

The students are no longer on site, however, the garden they planted is thriving. Several cuttings of kale and one cutting of Swiss chard have been picked and biked over to the St. Regis Café, a restaurant on the Paul Smith’s College that’s open to the public.

Important tips for the summer:

  1. Get out to farmers’ markets near you. Make connections with your local farmers. Even though markets are seasonal, once you have a contact, you can easily get meat, dairy and eggs year round.
  2. Go forging and find some delicious strawberries before they are out of season or eaten by turkeys!
  3. Every time you make a food purchase, ask yourself, “Where is this coming from?”

Welcome to Yurts & Dirt: Summer ’16

Welcome to Yurts and Dirt—a blog to relay the happenings at Osgood Farm, a hands on educational extension of Paul Smith’s College. This is an exciting year at the farm and it’s our first season to have crops in the field: Potatoes, onions, kale, Brussel sprouts, spinach, and Swiss chard. In addition to vegetables that will go to the College’s Farm to Table program, during the two week course Sustainability Field Experience, six Paul Smith’s students swept out and began repair on the old barn. The students put in many work and academic hours on the site while capturing their experience in a short documentary. During the course, they read Up Tunket Road—The Education of a Modern Homesteader by Philip Ackerman-Leist. The Osgood site is shaping up nicely and we have the early makings of a campus farm. The mission of this blog is to capture the transformation of the site while providing scholarly information and insight regarding some of our most pressing environmental and social issues of our times. We aren’t just pulling sod and weeds out here—we are contemplating, reflecting and problem solving. We are honing communication skills and we are building community. This past Sunday, we had our first Community Day and a hard dose of June rain. While it rained, we worked in the barn and a set of raised beds. There will be plenty of Community Days and events as the summer gets under way. Stay tuned and come out for a visit!

Sunny Apple Blossom Day on the Farm

The Metaphor Field

Dedicated to Osgood 2015 Pilot Class

“Do you think we’ll be able to plant anything next spring?” Hyla asked as we shoveled manure into the wheelbarrow.

“Hopefully,” I said. November 11, the afternoon sun hit us perfectly and we worked comfortably in short shelve shirts. The fall had been unseasonably warm and it hardly felt like the semester would be over in less than a month. Already, the winds of change were upon us and we all felt it. As they spread manure, Hanna and Dominic talked about winter break plans, which for Dominic would include some rock climbing. Erik was busy wrapping up his senior capstone and preparing to graduate in December.

What happens to this site next spring or two years down the road, many of the pilot class will not witness. They layer the field with manure for the next class, so that they might have a better chance to raise some kale and potatoes. Through their diligent work, a metaphor can be drawn to sustainable living and the next generation. We should leave this world better than we found it. A hard point to hit home many times, we are an in-the-moment sort of beast. Many of our actions are driven by instant gratification.

In the metaphor field they stand, resting on their shovels and looking at the yurts which have been their homes for the past twelve weeks. They have been excellent stewards to their site. They’ve respected, maintained and built upon it for the next class. Hanna drives her shovel into the sod and breaks up a large chunk. Dominic and Hyla go back for another load of manure. They built their homes with their hands. And with their hands, they will take them down. Winter will come. Snow will fall and cover the field and platforms. If a stranger were to pass by, what would they see? Would they realize all that lays beneath the surface? Would they see the field metaphor?

As an instructor, it has been wonderful to watch Erik, Andrew, Hanna, Hyla, Kade, Valerie and Dominic explore and find a home at Osgood. From the Osgood Pond Semester I learned: When the sun rises and sets, what 2 a.m. looks like in a star lit sky, that there is nothing better than berry picking with a birch basket after a full day of classes, how deer eyes can be alarming when spotted by headlamp, that you’re never too old for a game of capture the flag, how lunar eclipses are best watched lying in a meadow, and that the best place to teach patience, humility and stewardship is the outdoors.