What started as a simple desire to grow healthy food and create a safe homestead for our children, 5 years later has grown into a full-fledged, 100-acre farm, geared toward creating a community-centered, multi-generational, year-round education center. Our family is working to restore this land to its homestead roots. We hope to create an environment where folks from all walks of life will be inspired to get involved. From preschool all the way through adulthood, Owl Moon Farm’s Field & Forest Learning Cooperative will provide the setting for learning things like Humane Animal Husbandry, Sustainable Large-Scale Food Production, Backyard Gardening, Food Preservation, Weaving, Blacksmithing and Knitting, all while incorporating traditional educational concepts like Literature, Science, History and Math.
Through summer camps and homeschool lesson blocks, we hope to bring an on-farm, outdoors education experience to young children in our region. It is our goal to one day grow our school to a year-round nature-based program for everyday learning. Adults will enjoy our many and varied on-farm workshops and retreats, and will learn skills which can be applied on their own homesteads.
When our family decided to commit ourselves to full-time farming, we spent every moment of our free time gathering knowledge from books, from friends, and from generous farmers who were willing to share their knowledge with us. We operate our farm the way we do because we are passionate about the sustainability – both financial and ecological – and we want to share our passion with anyone who wants to learn.
Looking To the Future:
Farm School Intensive – two-week, camp-style learning environment to give future and current farmers hands-on experience with all aspects of farming, from choosing livestock to daily chores to bookkeeping.
Workshop Series – gives participants a chance to focus on just one topic for one day at a time. Possible courses could include:
- Choosing your Land
- Securing Financing
- Renovation and Re-purposing farm buildings
- Cash Flow and other Financial Statements
