Self Educating Families
Launched in late 2022, Love Farm's Outdoor Arts is a weekly gathering of community kids that starts with a hike around our land, lead by Sarah and two instructors from the Human Nature School, Taylor and Kim.
In April 2023, The Human Nature School (HNS) is bringing their Spring Session to Love Farm for kids ages 6-12.
From the HNS website,
"Learn the knowledge of the Naturalist, the skills of the Survivalist, and the attitude of the Caretaker. By weaving simple, nature-based practices into our daily lives, we can develop powerful connections to nature, ourselves, and each other."
We're excited to help infuse the HNS curriculum with wilds resonance. Inspired by Michigan's camp site licensing requirements, we wrote "Policies and Procedures" specifically for HNS instructors. "Coming to Love Farm" is intended for visitors generally. Both of these documents are most definitely works in progress, for now they are mostly just a list of prohibitions. Together HNS and Love Farm will find out how to shift land ethics from ideas into experience.
Sarah is collaborating with Stephanie and Cierra of Frankfort's Laughing Linden Farm to offer Field Days for ages 4-12 in June, July and August. Field Days are an ongoing exploration of family self education, or home schools in the common parlance. In 2022, Love Farm hosted Curiosity Fairs for kids 7-13 and Laughing Linden's Farm hosted Farm and Frolic for younger kids.
Complementing the HNS Spring Session, the Field Days team will be having fun with the younger siblings of HNS students.
We're preparing for the Spring surge of visitors with a variety of upgrades to our parking, signage and amenities. We're also mapping the legacy apple and cherry orchards using vintage aerial photos and modern lidar data, (courtesy of Dan's brother Mike). The orchards are going to be designated as 'no dig' zones because the soil is most likely contaminated with lead and arsenic.
All over Northern Michigan, housing developments have gone up in former orchards. The state has very specific rules about what can and can't be done on property with contaminated soil, and we wonder if the folks who live in those houses are aware of their property's history. Talking about Love Farm's soil contamination brings awareness not only to the larger regional issue but also to the whacky mindset of our predecessors that caused the damage. That mindset may still persist, see our work to keep herbicide out of Crystal Lake.
Finally, awareness of the problem suggests possible solutions. Bioremediation is a promising technique, growing plants or fungus to concentrate contamination or render it non-bioavailable. If Love Farm could figure this out, not only would we be able to repair our own soil, we could fix the issue all over Michigan.