Homesteading Camp
We offer 6-night stays for late teens/young adults, 18 and up.
This is a special experience that will stay with these kids. In groups of 3-5, they will learn:
- How to take care of animals on the farm
- Basic carpentry skills
- How to cook traditional nourishing foods for themselves like soup and roast chicken and sourdough bread
- Traditional crafts like making soap, patching clothing, working with wool
- How to survive a week with no internet or social media!
They will take home a cookbook of all the recipes we did, including photos of them during the week.
The goal is independence.
This will be led almost entirely by me, Larissa. I'm an animal-loving meat eater, an indulgent survivalist, a left-leaning former Park Sloper who has learned a lot from my red, rural landscape. I believe there is joy and health and contentment in a life of self-sufficiency, physical health, and creativity. I believe much of what ails kids today can be eased by A) a break from social media and B) connection to each other, to animals, to work, to the land.
I'm a little tough, but also kind and encouraging.
I believe young adults need to learn explicitly how to cook and make and live for themselves. Whether they dream of homesteading some day, or just want to survive dorm life and young adulthood in a healthy manner, this camp will be educational, fun, and nourishing
This is an intensive experience. It is all-inclusive. All food and crafts are included.
The day will look like this:
8:30 am Breakfast. We make and eat this together.
9-11 am Chores. Take care of the animals and the farm. Chores include feeding and watering our chickens, ponies, goats, sheep, and bunnies. We will also muck stalls, repair fences, chop wood, clean tack, do light carpentry.
11-1 Food Prep and Lunch. Together will do meal prep and then eat lunch. This will include making granola, soup stock, pie crusts, sour dough breads, soup bases, and more.
1-3 Break
3-5 Crafts or Local Field Trip. Afternoon activities will follow the interests of the group. Options include: wool craft with our sheep's wool, including needle felting, knitting, crochet. Learn to crochet a bucket hat! Patch your jeans. Knit a pair of mittens. Learn to whittle. Engrave designs on a set of wooden spoons. Make cold-process soap.
Field trips will also follow interests of the group. We may visit a goat farm and taste goat cheeses and learn what it's like to be a goat farmer. We may visit a family-run slaughter house and talk to the woman who runs it. Or a wool mill or a micro-brewer. Weather permitting we can hike the Catskills or take the afternoon off and go snow-tubing in Windham!
Optional: learn how to slaughter and butcher a chicken, then we'll make coq au vin!
7-8 Make and eat dinner. Participants will learn to roast a chicken, make a bone broth, make vinaigrette with a mortar and pestle, make bread and pizza (both sour-dough and regular), make a pie crust, use a pressure cooker and a slow cooker...
9 PM Free time. Note there will be no internet available. This is a social media break. There are multiple DVD's available for group movie-watching and many games and books and a telescope.
Participants will be on their own overnight and must be mature enough to handle this independence.
Participants will take home the crafts they make as well as a jar of sourdough starter and a personalized booklet-- with photos of their time here -- of all the recipes and patterns we use.
This is a special experience that will stay with these kids. In groups of 3-5, they will learn:
- How to take care of animals on the farm
- Basic carpentry skills
- How to cook traditional nourishing foods for themselves like soup and roast chicken and sourdough bread
- Traditional crafts like making soap, patching clothing, working with wool
- How to survive a week with no internet or social media!
They will take home a cookbook of all the recipes we did, including photos of them during the week.
The goal is independence.
This will be led almost entirely by me, Larissa. I'm an animal-loving meat eater, an indulgent survivalist, a left-leaning former Park Sloper who has learned a lot from my red, rural landscape. I believe there is joy and health and contentment in a life of self-sufficiency, physical health, and creativity. I believe much of what ails kids today can be eased by A) a break from social media and B) connection to each other, to animals, to work, to the land.
I'm a little tough, but also kind and encouraging.
I believe young adults need to learn explicitly how to cook and make and live for themselves. Whether they dream of homesteading some day, or just want to survive dorm life and young adulthood in a healthy manner, this camp will be educational, fun, and nourishing
This is an intensive experience. It is all-inclusive. All food and crafts are included.
The day will look like this:
8:30 am Breakfast. We make and eat this together.
9-11 am Chores. Take care of the animals and the farm. Chores include feeding and watering our chickens, ponies, goats, sheep, and bunnies. We will also muck stalls, repair fences, chop wood, clean tack, do light carpentry.
11-1 Food Prep and Lunch. Together will do meal prep and then eat lunch. This will include making granola, soup stock, pie crusts, sour dough breads, soup bases, and more.
1-3 Break
3-5 Crafts or Local Field Trip. Afternoon activities will follow the interests of the group. Options include: wool craft with our sheep's wool, including needle felting, knitting, crochet. Learn to crochet a bucket hat! Patch your jeans. Knit a pair of mittens. Learn to whittle. Engrave designs on a set of wooden spoons. Make cold-process soap.
Field trips will also follow interests of the group. We may visit a goat farm and taste goat cheeses and learn what it's like to be a goat farmer. We may visit a family-run slaughter house and talk to the woman who runs it. Or a wool mill or a micro-brewer. Weather permitting we can hike the Catskills or take the afternoon off and go snow-tubing in Windham!
Optional: learn how to slaughter and butcher a chicken, then we'll make coq au vin!
7-8 Make and eat dinner. Participants will learn to roast a chicken, make a bone broth, make vinaigrette with a mortar and pestle, make bread and pizza (both sour-dough and regular), make a pie crust, use a pressure cooker and a slow cooker...
9 PM Free time. Note there will be no internet available. This is a social media break. There are multiple DVD's available for group movie-watching and many games and books and a telescope.
Participants will be on their own overnight and must be mature enough to handle this independence.
Participants will take home the crafts they make as well as a jar of sourdough starter and a personalized booklet-- with photos of their time here -- of all the recipes and patterns we use.