Farm School

My chipmunk cheek subsided just enough to attend my AmeriCorps training this past Saturday. Unfortunately I had to skip the service day on Friday, but I was happy to join up with the group on Friday night at The Farm School in Athol, MA. I got in around 9:30pm, blindly following a pitted dirt road to the only building I saw with lights on (I forgot my headlamp). It turned out to an unheated horse barn, and 15ish members of our team were gathered around a wood stove playing a game. They gave a whooping hello as I came in, it was hard to fight a smile... and by "smile" I mean painful half-smirk on only one side of my face.

Hi, Cow!

As I mentioned, our training was at The Farm School, a working farm and educational center in central MA. Sadly our training was not related to collecting eggs or feeding horses, but the Director introduced himself in the morning and told us about the various programs they run at Farm School. One of them is a year-long adult program, which he encouraged us to apply for if we were interested. Many sets of ears perked up, and I spent the rest of the day zoning out from a Powerpoint about volunteer recruitment and thinking about Farm School.

I was excited to spend time with my fellow Mass-LIFT AmeriCorps-ians, the last time we were all together was back in September for our orientation. It was also very comforting to know that other people are having the same struggles that I have experienced ("whaaaaaaat am I doing exactly?"), and to see what other folks are working on. As fun as it was, I was excited to get home and do more research about farm school.

I was about ready to fill out the application that night. Farm school teaches lessons on field crops, farm animals, forestry, practical farm skills, homesteading, marketing, and more. You learn how to organically manage pests, how to start seedlings for greenhouse growing. You get to care for farm animals and process manure, eggs, wool, and meat. You get to drive single and two-horse teams. You learn how to manage woodlots for production and get a chainsaw training. You cook and preserve the food that you harvest, and there's a class called "fiber arts" where you dye and spin the wool that you processed. You gain carpentry skills, work with hand tools, and do general maintenance on farm equipment. But the real sell for me is that you get your own cow. Okay, you don't really OWN it, but you select a cow and hand-milk it daily. So you basically get your own cow. I WANT MY OWN COW!

This has been a practice in controlling my impulsiveness and in living "in the here and now". I had my heart set on farm school the past few days without real regard to how much money it was going to cost. Going a year without income is pretty daunting. I can't even go a week without income without my life imploding (exaggeration). What I really mean is that I don't have enough savings to do that. Adam also very rationally said that it would be most effective when it was directly transferrable to an actual farm, not just the idea of owning a farm one day.

Ugh, I hate when people are rational and correct and kill my dreams of having a cow. ;)

I mean, COME ON! Look how adorable!

Anyway, it's a good reminder that I should try to focus on what's going on in my life right now and stop agonizing about what I'm going to be doing in a year, which has been something I've been doing a LOT of lately. Instead of drowning in the peril of figuring out a way to get enough money to get my head above water, I'm going to try to remain present and enjoy life... "try" being the key word.

The (Most of) MassLIFT-AmeriCorps 2014-15 "Let's Do A Pyramid For Our Group Photo" Photo