Rick, Erez, Lady, Rex, and Lincoln!
9 months ago
Draft Horse Agriculture in Vermont
Thanks to Vermont’s Table student Alia Dalal for this terrific photo from the summer semester at Sterling College.
Northeast Kingdom Food & Farm Tours
Sterling College is a proud partner of the Center for an Agricultural Economy, a non-profit organization located just down the road in Hardwick, Vermont. The Center runs tours of the local agriculture scene, including a stop at the Sterling Farm. Here is the latest on this year’s tours.
Have you ever wondered about the farms and food businesses in the Hardwick area after reading an article, hearing a news blurb or eating some of their products? Well, now is your chance to join us while exploring the region’s many farms and businesses.
Beginning and ending at the Center for an Agricultural Economy (CAE), join an all-day caravan to tour farms and food producers. Our first tour is May 17th and then the 3rd Thursday of every month until September. Hear the stories, tour the facilities and meet the people that help make this area so rich in community-based agricultural enterprises as well as the subject of countless news articles and a book.
Vermiculture and Vermicompost
Lynette Courtney, the last-standing “Wacky Worm Sister” of Down to Earth Worm Farm in Greensboro, VT is leading a hands-on workshop on farm and home scale vermicomposting and vermiculture on Tuesday, April 17th, at 6:45 pm in Simpson Hall.
A long-time vermiculturalist, Lynette’s closest-to-natural method of vermicomposting can help farmers and gardeners improve their soils, manage organic wastes and improve the health and quality of cultivated plants. This workshop is free open to the public! Don’t forget to invite your farmer and gardener friends!
This event is FREE and open to the public.
Job Posting: Sustainable Agriculture Assistant
Sustainable Agriculture Faculty Assistant
Sterling College seeks to hire a full-time Sustainable Agriculture Faculty Assistant. This position is an experiential, immersive learning and leadership opportunity for a passionate, inspired, and enthusiastic individual. The ideal candidate is ready to help teach students at Sterling College how to manage a diversified year-round farm in a small close-knit college community. This position begins in May 2012.
Burke and Sterling Partner on Farm Project
This summer, a select group of Sterling College students enrolled in a Farm Design class will create plans for a diversified farm on 200 acres of pastureland near the base of Burke Mountain. The land, owned by the Burke Mountain Company, had once been slated for a golf course, but if the Burke Farm were actually built the greens would be for eating, not putting.
The Burke Farm design project is an experimental partnership between two Vermont institutions, Burke Mountain, a favorite ski resort of Northeast Kingdom locals, and Sterling College, an environmentally focused liberal arts college. As such, the project is a cutting edge example of entrepreneurial collaboration between the for-profit and non-profit sectors.
Planning Your Organic Farm
The Sterling College community is excited to host Richard Wiswall, author of The Organic Farmer’s Business Handbook who will be giving a public workshop on April 11th on “Farming Smarter, Not Harder: Planning for Profit”. This event is free and open to the public, and will be held from 6:45 - 8 pm in Simpson Hall.
“Farming offers fundamental satisfaction from producing food, working outdoors, being one’s own boss, and working intimately with nature. But unfortunately, many farmers avoid learning about the business end of farming; because of this, they often work harder than they need to, or quit farming altogether because of frustrating- and often avoidable- losses. This workshop will focus on the planning and analysis tools needed to run a profitable farm, in an easy, step-by-step format. Tips for beginner farmers will finish the session.” -Richard Wiswall.
See you there! Invite your friends!
Bethany Dunbar Photo Show
Turkeys at the Too Little Farm in Barnet.
Photos by Bethany M. Dunbar of West Glover will be on display in the Brown Library for the month of April. The photos, which depict farm scenes in the Northeast Kingdom, will be featured in her upcoming book, Kingdom’s Bounty, being published by Umbrage Editions based in Brooklyn in June.
Stuart Soboleski at Gallaudet University
Stuart Soboleski, Sterling’s Farm Manager, recently participated in the Green Gallaudet speaker series at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC.
Gallaudet is “the world’s only university in which all programs and services are specifically designed to accommodate deaf and hard of hearing students…”.
Stuart, who is deaf, was invited to speak at Gallaudet in order to supplement and bolster the growing awareness of sustainability within the Gallaudet student body, faculty, and administration.
His presentation, “Cultivating Connections in Sustainable Agriculture” was about how the deaf community can connect with farmers as consumers, learners, and partners in spite of mutually imagined communication barriers. After explaining a few basics about sustainable agriculture, he discussed some challenges and joys of forging connections with farmers.
Stuart shared his own personal experiences through stories and photographs, shedding some light on how his journey into sustainable agriculture took root, and has grown over the years.
Way to go, Stuart!
College of the Atlantic Farm Manager
Job Opportunity!
Our friends and colleagues at the College of the Atlantic are hiring an Interim Farm Manager for the Peggy Rockefeller Farms. Here’s the full job description:
College of the Atlantic (COA) seeks to hire an Interim Farm Manager for its Peggy Rockefeller Farms located in the Town of Bar Harbor, Maine. The 125-acre farms have 55 acres of open pasture and hay land, with the balance in forests and wetlands. Buildings include a lovely farmhouse, three barns, a large heated garage, and several out-buildings.
Heating With Compost and Biogas Production
Attention agriculture majors, agriculturalists and those interested in getting off the grid, we invite you to the exciting first installment of Sterling’s Agricultural Speaker Series; Jason McCune-Sanders will be discussing farm and homestead scale heating with compost as well as the possibilities and opportunities in biogas production.
A local, Jason has had years of experience in biogas and is the inventor of the Tubular Anaerobic Digestor.
Wednesday, March 21st from 6:45 - 7:45 in “The Barn” at Dunbar Hall.
We are excited to see you there!
Contact Allyson Makuch for details. amakuch (at) sterlingcollege.edu
This event is Free and Open to the Public.
Angela and Ben Mackie, Farmers in Residence
The following post is via the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. Way to rock the Sterling sweatshirt, Ben!
Sterling alums Angela and Ben Mackie are the new farmers-in-residence at the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) Common Ground Education Center in Unity, Maine.
Angela grew up near the tip of the lower peninsula of Michigan. She began working at a local farm, Blackbird Gardens, in high school and spent a year in Brazil, including several months at Iracambi, a farm and reforestation center in the Atlantic Rainforest. After a couple of years at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina, Angela transferred to Sterling College in Vermont, where she met Ben.
Ben grew up in New Hampshire and has always enjoyed his time in Maine. He became interested in agriculture in northern California and learned the realities and pleasures of farming through jobs, internships and his studies in the sustainable agriculture program at Sterling College.
