Friday, December 9, 2011

Restless Radishes



















Parent representatives were doing some garden maintenance today and we noticed the radishes were ready now and wouldn’t wait until our next meeting to be plucked from the earth. Our Green LIONS Garden Group meets two times a month and sometimes the timing for harvesting doesn’t work out perfectly. We will happily store these for the next week for the students to sample. We left a few smaller ones to grow a little longer and to be pulled up by the students. Large radishes that are ready can get fiery hot in flavor if left too long in the earth, can split and just not taste too great. These radishes wouldn’t wait, but oh how pretty they are!

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Goats Can Be Teachers Too









Maureen Anderson from Hearthside Farm and Tasha’s Own Soaps came with members of her family to share her Lamb to Shawl Presentation with the Green LIONS Garden Group on Monday afternoon. Ms. Anderson engaged the students with homesteading lessons and samples of the many items grown or created on her farm. Hearthside Farm raises sheep and goats and uses the wool for knitting and the goat’s milk for making soaps. Their Tasha’s Own soaps can be found at numerous retailers in the area, including Stoney’s right down the street from our school. See our link to her farm under our Green Links section.

Ms. Anderson shared lessons from her family’s sustainable lifestyle. She brought one of her goats to teach the students about all the gifts nature can offer us through its cycles. Her goats happily eat up all their kitchen scraps producing manure to fertilize their farm and then provide milk to make their creamy soaps. The fertilized soil grows wonderful organic vegetables for their family to eat and sell and the whole cycle starts over again.

She taught the students about the connection between where our food and clothing materials come from and how they’re grown and the impact it may have on our planet. She helped the students understand the importance of supporting local farmers and taking responsibility for trying to lessen the gap from farm to table. She also stressed the importance of eating seasonally as much as we can. Local food systems thrive when we commit to eating seasonally instead of buying food grown miles, even oceans away.

The students also had the opportunity to work with, not only a fresh piece of Tasha’s Own soap, but wool that Ms. Anderson’s family sheared, cleaned and dyed from their own sheep, turning them into....
















.....a special gift to take home and share. Thank you to Hearthside Farm for a wonderful afternoon!