Kimberly's Adventures

Food, Farms, Fields, Forests, Friends, Family, and Feelings

Orientation to Hawthorne Valley

My first month on the farm culminated a week ago, but with the arrival of my new housemates (the remaining three new farm apprentices) the past two weeks have been filled with new introductions and orientations making me feel both new and established in one.

Of the bunkhouse residents, three of us are full-farm apprentices (rotating responsibilities between barn, field vegetables, and corner garden) and the fourth focuses all her energy on the corner garden in the new position of corner garden assistant. Through our daily tasks we learn about and meet the daily needs of the farm itself, Hawthorne Valley is far more than just the production farm, so this week we spent about an hour each morning becoming more acquainted with other projects within the organization. 

Tuesday we toured the creamery. Oh how I wish I had a recorder with me! The Head Cheesemaker, Peter Kindel, is a wealth of knowledge. We began the tour at the bulk tank where the milk we pump from the cows each day is transported through tubes in the barn, then bought by the creamery to be used in producing raw milk cheeses as well as sold in the store on site. This creamery was the first in the state to legally sell raw milk and they function as a role model in safe raw milk sales for other farms in that they hold the milk in their coolers for twenty-four hours while performing in house lab tests for for pathogens and only releasing the milk once it has been cleared. The creamery also produces yogurt, quark, bianca, and some hard cheeses. To meet production demands (particularly right now when we are milking into 10 gallon buckets rather than the bulk tank as many cows reach the end of their lactation cycle) the creamery also purchases milk from other organic farms in the region. 

Since I have already taken numerous cheese making classes at Kookoolan Farms in Oregon and am interested in learning more about how the production works small scale commercially, I arrived at the creamery at 4:30 yesterday morning on my day off to learn more.

Wednesday was a tour of the Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School lead by the Director of Admissions,  joined by a former teacher/librarian who now facilitates programming for another component of Hawthorne Valley, the Learning Center, and a 2011 school graduate now interning at the Learning Center. Before arriving here I did not know very much about Waldorf education other than it is based on principles articulated by Rudolf Steiner and he is the same person upon whose lectures biodynamic agriculture is based. As we traversed the school grounds and peaked into classrooms, the doctrine of this educational style became more apparent. Traveling up through the classrooms by grade the wall colors moved from warm and vibrant to cool and calm. The chalkboards at the front of each room held masterful artwork accompanied by class lessons (such as the Nordic myths in the third grade). Each student creates their own coursebooks through the teachings of the teacher rather than learning from published books. As a college geography graduate the description of how students begin learning geography starting with mapping themselves in the space of their classroom, then beginning to study the school grounds and from their continuing to expand from this central idea of place greatly excited me. The school houses kindergarten through 12th grade and the students remain with the same teacher, rising through the classrooms first through eighth grade with different teachers for select lessons, then take courses in blocks through high school. The tour was greatly informative and I look forward to continuing to live across the street from this establishment and hopefully attend class plays and senior presentations.

Thursday the new apprentices (including me) met with the Executive Director of the Hawthorne Valley Association where we learned about the history of the organization as well as clarifying the many branches that compose the association

Farm: A 400-acre Biodynamic farm interweaving production,farm-based learning, and sensitive land stewardship.

Waldorf School: A Nursery through Grade 12 accredited day school.

Farmscape Ecology Program: A landscape learning initiative facilitating ecological, historical, and socio-cultural exploration.

Center for Social Research: A research group studying and prototyping alternative economic theories and new social forms.

Alkion Center: An adult education center offering studies in Anthroposophy, Waldorf teaching, and art.

Adonis Press: A publisher and distributor of books on phenomena-centered science, poetry, and essays.

- From the Hawthorne Valley Association website

Afterward we visited with Matt in the Main House to learn more about the Visiting Students Program (VSP), for which with farm was originally established. From the last week of January through June there will be a new school group each week, often 3rd or 4th graders, staying on the farm from Monday lunch through Friday morning. As an apprentice my responsibilities are toward the operation of the farm, but in our day to day we may be interacting with these students to some degree as they take over barn chores Tuesday through Thursday, draw and brush the cows, feed the calves and pigs, etc. The interns for this semester just arrived and are also doing their orientations including assisting in the bakery, filling jars in the kraut cellar, and felting in the learning center. The diversity of operations on this farm allows for the VSP to include a wide range of farming and homesteading learning opportunities: horse riding, butter churning, nature walks, and more. Many adults would love this opportunity.

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