Blue Skye Family Farm Camp

Ducks, Rooster & Goats at SongCroft.

Camp Goals & Skills Covered:

The goal of this camp session is to help you feel comfortable living as your ancestors did and have fun doing it. Skills covered during this camp session include, but are not limited to the following list, and are somewhat dependent on instructor preference and camper readiness:

This week, there will be a group of grown-ups attending, and ages 14 and up are welcome to join that group all week. There will also be a 10-13 year old group which older teens as well as mature 9 year olds may join. Finally there will be a group of 6-9 year olds who may attend if a parent or guardian is enrolled in the grown-up group. Each age group will have a separate lead instructor, and each will have their own set of activities.

Older campers will learn the skills listed above in their quest for self-sufficiency, while younger campers will experience what it's like to live on a farm in the summer. The younger group will get up in the morning, help make breakfast, then spend the rest of the morning re-creating the life of a child pioneer. We'll have lunch and dinner together with the older campers, but otherwise, we'll spend the mornings, afternoons and evenings on the following activities:

A hardy pioneer at camp.

Blue Eye Skye with Camper

Camp Schedule & Activities:

See below for Sunday, August 19, 2012 Arrival Times and Friday-Saturday-Sunday Departure and Weekend Stayover options between camps. Our schedule during the week includes morning wake-up, stretches, washing, and breakfast vary slightly depending on previous evening activities, but if all was quiet by 10:00 p.m. we would awake at 7:00, do warm-ups from 7:30-8:00, and have breakfast from 8:00-9:00 ... 9:00-12:00 is the morning session. 12:00-1:00 is lunch, and 1:00-2:00 is usually swimming or other recreational time. 2:00-5:00 is the afternoon session. 5:00-6:00 is dinner, and 6:00-7:00 is usually personal time. Evening sessions begin at 7:00, and bedtime varies according to the activity and the time of sunset.

In the past, local families could feed themselves out of their own garden, preserve food for winter, medicate an infected animal, and tend a wood-lot. These were simple but crucial arts that kept their footprint small, and their dependence on outside forces minimal. Learning these skills will be our goal for older campers, while the goal for younger campers is to experience what it would be like to live on a farm in the summer, which includes running around in the woods having a good time between being called in for dinner and chores like collecting eggs and milking goats:)

Some of the topics in which SongCroft specializes include:

• Seed Starting and Saving.
• Planting.
• Green Housing.
• Knot Tying.
• Composting.
• Permaculture.
• Soil Science and Amending Soil.
• Water Saving.
• Sheet-mulching.
• Pests.
• Small livestock rearing.
• Edible Hedges.
• Preparing for the seasons.
• Cover Crops.
• Medicinal Herb Gardens.
• Food Forests.
• Cloches and Cold-Frames.
• Year-round Gardening.
• Starting a cottage industry and more.

Register

The SongCroft Garden.

Morning Sun at SongCroft.

Geodome in SongCroft Forest.

Camp Storyline, Songs, Books, AV & Other Resources:

Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway & John Todd
Introduction to Permaculture by Bill Mollison, for larger permaculture designs
The Foxfire Book series in many volumes
The Earth Manual (Heyday Books, Berkeley) by Malcolm Margolin
The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono
Building United Judgement, and A Manual for Group Facilitators, (The Fellowship for Intentional Community) by the Center for Conflict Resolution
Waterlily (University of Nebraska Press) by Ella Cara Deloria.
Lighting the 7th Fire (documentary from Upstream Productions) by Sandra Osawa.
I Heard the Owl Call My Name (movie by Tomorrow Entertainment) based on the book by Margaret Craven.
Botany in a Day: Tomas J. Elpel's Herbal Field Guide to Plant Families (HOPS Press)
Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast (Lone Pine)
Peterson’s Medicinal Plants and Edible Wild Plants (Huoughton Mifflin) for Western North America
(Peterson’s) Poisonous Plants, both published by Houghton Mifflin
Medicinal Plants of the Pacific West by Michael Moore
Healing Wise by Susun S. Weed, and Primitive Cooking (Wood Smoke) video available through hollowtop.com
Northwest Trees (The Mountaineers)

Brian and Marilene Richardson.

Freshly made pizza and pie at SongCroft.

Fresh Foods from SongCroft Gardens.

Camp Instructors & History:

This session's lead instructors will be Marilene Richardson and Kim Chisholm. The history of this camp session includes:

• Pilot Year: 2005.
• Past Instructors: Chris, Marilene.

Host Site Description: Spend the week learning how the Richardson Family of SongCroft is working to create self-sufficiency on their 3 acre homestead. SongCroft is located near Snohomish, Washington. and has a focus of living in the rhythm of local abundance. Brian and Marilene Richardson raise goats, chickens, ducks and rabbits as well as a variety of fruits and vegetables to meet their needs. Marilene is the director of SongCroft School’s Self-Sufficiency Program. Her passion for bringing sustainable living information and community-building skills to people of all ages prompted her to create the non-profit Foundation for Sustainable Community. As a child, Marilene developed a deep reverence for the natural world, while running free in the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Marilene has worked extensively on building intentional community and has taught classes on topics ranging from biodiesel production to gardening and food preservation. Her six years as a volunteer at The Root Connection Farm grounded her belief in the importance of local, healthy food. Her desire to make organic meals more readily available, while supporting local CSA farms, led her to found and direct an organic catering business. Marilene enjoys raising chickens, ducks, goats and bees as well growing and preserving much of her family’s food. She is also a Master Gardener and a lifelong student of the herbal world. Brian Richardson is a long-time Washington resident who, like his wife Marilene, grew up spending a lot of time in local forests backpacking, biking or just exploring. Brian is a certified electrical administrator and journeyman electrician. As an electrician, he has specialized in industrial and commercial work, though he is also well versed in residential applications. Brian has a strong background in residential construction, loves carpentry and has an immense appreciation for custom woodwork. Recently, he has been branching out into alternative energy, including residential solar. He also attended school as an auto mechanic with experience in biodiesel and straight vegetable-oil conversions on diesel vehicles. All of these passions and skills mesh with Brian’s desire to work with local industry and community members as they continue to move toward more sustainable models of building and living. Together, Marilene and Brian are raising and homeschooling two energetic children in Snohomish, Washington. As a long-held family dream, they built a modest-sized, passive-solar home. Its features include solar-assist hot-water heating, a photovoltaic solar lighting  system, super-insulation as well as other systems focused on energy efficiency. As they continue to enjoy exploring more sustainable ways of life, they are grateful to be able to use their home and land as practical examples for community education — to offer classes and workshops as well as to provide a community meeting space.