Today we received a visit from 20 young people and their facilitators, namely Daniel Hutchinson of Localogy… This was part of the Sangre de Cristo Youth Summer Camp, an annual program that reminds me of what summers should be: lots of fun with friends and lots of meaningful experiences that include working and helping out. Before they came here, they were visiting Bob Pedersen at his Thanksgiving Farm and after here they went to the Taos County Economic Development Corporation. I had to take this picture of their bus at Sol Feliz, first of all because it is a really cool bus and second of all because this is the biggest vehicle that has successfully attempted to park on the narrow roads of Sol Feliz!
Our day started with lunch and then into the way we like to farm at Sol Feliz: focusing on soils, seeds, water, and the overall design.
A tour of the farm includes a presentation about our dryland agricultural systems and experiments, including our rock garden which is thriving despite the lack of moisture. Unfortunately we were running short on time and did not get to see our third, and best, milpa, but hopefully the students saw enough of the farm to be inspired!
Robin Collier, who took the last three photos, facilitated a compost building workshop. This pile is now at about 140 degrees F. While the students were with Robin making compost, another group was augmenting our rock garden, while a third group did some harvesting of dry peas and a seed cleaning exercise with me. It was great to see how interested the students were in seed cleaning, we cleaned amaranth and peas. They were surprised to learn that we make our own split peas from our dry peas using the same grinder we use to make corn and wheat flour, only on a coarser setting.
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