Pick Up Day for J1 Campers: Please collect your camper between 9 a.m and 11 a.m. on Sunday, July 7.

Visiting Day / Pick Up Day at the end of the July session for Timberlake, Indian Brook, Flying Cloud, Saltash Mountain and Questers: Families may arrive any time after 9 a.m. on Friday, July 19. Please say your farewells and leave campus by noon unless you are planning on staying for lunch (and please inform your camp director, who will alert the cooks).

Full-Season Visiting Day is on Friday, July 19: Please say your farewells and leave campus by 5 p.m.

Tamarack Farm Visiting Day on Saturday, July 20: TF’s Visiting Day will be held from 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Please bring a picnic lunch and TF will provide dinner. The evening’s entertainment will be a variety show.

Opening Day for August and A1 campers: Please arrive between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Sunday, July 21.

Pick Up Day for A1 Campers: Please collect your camper between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 2.

Fair Weekend: Join campers, staff, camper families, alumni, friends and neighbors for our 2013 Fair on Aug. 10.  For more information, please go here.

Pick Up Day for Full and August Campers: Please arrive between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 11 and depart campus by noon.

Reason #9: Simple Living

Simple living is a central value at Farm & Wilderness.  It is amazing to watch as campers here unwind from their fast-paced lives.  Simple living manifests itself in various ways, from our simple cabins built with wood from our forests, to our composting toilets, to the way we make music instead of listening to it. Instead of sitting passively while images flash in front of us, we create our own fun and entertainment.

Young people’s lives are filled to the brim. It’s incredibly valuable for all of us to have this space to slow down. I’m looking forward to helping to hold a space for teens to have time and space to slow down enough to think.  Valuing simple living creates a space to build  authentic community and to discover one’s self (away from the pressures to conform and the onslaught of messages from the media).

Many people are aware of and involved in the Slow Food movement.  Clearly, there’s tons of value in cooking/preparing whole/real food (which is what we do here).  I’m also excited about the opportunity we have to experience slow entertainment and especially Slow Relationships.  Today’s youth face the pressure of a “hook up” culture.  TF offers a place to slow down and build authentic relationships—the face-to-face kind.

Reason #8 amazing people

F&W attracts amazing people.  I’m looking forward to being in a community of people who come from all over the place, each with their own stories.  I love the energy that flows into the valley here when first staff arrive (this past Friday—yeah!), then campers.  I enjoy listening to  people’s stories, and watching as each individual’s inner light (? Plural or singular – reads better as singular) begin to shine brighter as they settle into this place.    We’re committed t to the work of creating a space where people feel comfortable to be their full, best-selves.  I’m looking forward to getting to know the amazing people who will soon be joining me in this beautiful place.

In past reports I’ve done my best to describe the ways in which different aspects of SAM help campers to grow and develop. Skits, Asanas, nature connection and trips all are very much a part of what SAM camp provides and would be the likely answer if someone asked a camper “What happens at SAM?” Though they’d be correct in their answer, they likely would feel like this was not a complete description of what REALLY happens. In this report, I’d like to write more about ‘Life of the Spirit’, or LOS, and how we create an environment where this can grow. Put simply, LOS at SAM Camp is about campers feeling safe enough to love. I have heard alumni throughout the years say “oh, that place changed my life” or parents comment “it’s unexplainable how much my kids love that place” and I doubt strongly that it’s simply because of great times they had playing an all-camp game, a skill they walked away with, or even an awesome sunrise from a New England peak. The greatest impact on their lives is woven through all they do and experience through the LOS at camp.

Campers and parents often refer back to life at SAM Camp when they are in a pinch and unsure how to handle a challenge; they ask their child, “How you would do it at SAM Camp?” It might seem crazy that they would refer back to a place known for silly songs and dressing in costumes, for advice. I can tell you it’s not the sound of counselors shouting the rules, or clichéd posters on our walls. Instead, it is because of the safe space fellow SAM campers and staff create for being our best selves.

Since there are too many scenarios in a summer to teach about during trainings, we largely try to teach a single adage; if you are coming from a place of love you are likely making the right choice. Staff feeling unsafe, afraid, disrespected or the many forms of tired at least have one fall back plan. Similarly this value trickles down from staff to campers. Operating from a place of love is not only hard to keep in mind, but also is super scary. Vulnerability and fearlessly loving ourselves and those around us are not easy things to practice. Recently, a popular TED Talk featuring Brene Brown, affirmed my belief that those capable of love and feeling loved must first feel they deserve it. I know that personally at 12 years old, more things about me felt wrong than deserving, so it is wonderful to be a part of a place that works so hard to impress how deserving our campers and staff are.

I will humbly say there are times when decisions don’t come from this loving sentiment, and are rooted in competition or fear. In a large part, the community of SAM camp forcefully challenges people’s self-deprecation and fear of others exploiting their faults. From the time each camper arrives, they are embraced and genuinely encouraged to be  themselves. Campers are quickly swept up in a playful energy that says, “who you are is great with us”.

In the cabin and on the trail, campers find that what they say and do is valued and appreciated. Early on in the session the campers are given opportunity to own their struggles and imperfections through an Identity Night exercise. When campers take this opportunity to share with the group or at some point in the session, I hear again and again that letting peers know their fears, faults, self-judgments and having them accepted is singly the most meaningful experience of trust-building throughout the summer. Campers may wake up the next day unsure if peers are going to use what they shared against them or talk behind their back, and instead find hugs, love and acceptance because the community knows more about who they really are. This provides a great first step or simply a solid reinforcement toward campers feeling like they deserve to be loved. Campers made this clear in 2012 as they repeatedly encouraged to each other to be “unapologetically themselves”

Many talk of spirituality as being able to connect to, trust in, operate from and feel love throughout.  My experience would lead me to say that once we’ve operated from this place of love, we find it inspires so much happiness that we look for ways to continue it in all areas of our life. This is often the hardest part for campers; leaving camp and carrying it with them. It is a seed planted however and we access it many times throughout the rest of our year and lives. Life of the Spirit is strong at SAM and incredible to be a part of. SAMmers go on to receive love from and give love to many things in their lives, and all remember their summers of being immersed in it at SAM Camp.

Bob Ditter, writing this piece for PBS, tackles issues of making new friends, home sickness, cooperation and trying new experiences.

We hope this is helpful and look forward to seeing you soon!

REASON 10: Meaning Work

I truly believe that meaningful work is one of the greatest gifts you can give any person. At its best, work connects us to others, the earth and ourselves. A farmer has noble work to be done as a farm holds a good amount of resources for the community. To care for the land and bring its fruit (whether tomatoes or wood for building or heat, or wool) to meet the needs of local folks is honorable work. I’m excited to spend time at Tamarack Farm, because it’s a place that offers young people (and adults) an authentic experience of meaningful work. Adults and youth work together to provide the basic needs of their community.

Taking a step back…maybe it’s important to look at what makes work meaningful?

There’s all kinds of meaningful work. At a very basic level work feels significant when it provides for the basic needs (of a very local community): Food, shelter, warmth.

Another important piece of the meaningful work equations is a consideration of the impact of what we do and how we do it: On people, the earth, and the economy. Being involved in food production from seed to harvest to plate, turning milk to butter to spread on hand-made bread, using wood from our forest to build a new cabin and heat our water…and along the way reflecting on impact of this work vs. the work needed to support the way so many of us live in and ever-consuming culture. All of this excites me…this experience is a gift for anyone, but especially a youth with their whole life open before them.

Through building projects and creating value-added products – from art to cheese-fermented veggies – our youth also are gaining skills in problem solving from their experiences. Product development (from what we produce on our land—cultivated and wild) and design (for next year’s new cabins) offer young people arenas to develop these much-needed skills for the 21st century.

I’ve spent a good portion of my life exploring the best ways for people to learn (I mean really grow/ change their perspectives on themselves and the world—not just memorize facts and spit them out for a test). The input/ output methods utilized in most schools today was designed to prepare learners to work in the industrial era. Today we need youth who can solve our ever-increasing list of problems—identifying needs and taking steps to meet them (without fear of failure—and measuring impact), and what better place to do that than on a farm.

A popular way for teens to spend their summers has become traveling outside the U.S. to complete a service project for a community in another country. I see great value in sharing resources and perhaps learning from other cultures foreign to us.

However, work becomes more meaningful when it’s generated very locally; whether it’s figuring out how to entertain yourself together with community members or solving the genuine basic needs/ desires of local folks. Work for YOUR community, not only decreases negative impact (as most of us know through the locavore movement); but it offers a connection which has been lost in the current way most North Americans work and learn. When we work on the land we live on, we develop a deep relationship of respect and care with our forests and fields (which I would contend adds to spiritual health). In a very local work system, we connect deeply with others in our community as we continually look for ways to use our land+ideas+work+skills to meet their needs. Our work is not arbitrary when we see (for a made-up example) that folks in our community enjoy knitting and would like to purchase wool to create hats for residents of a local women’s shelter for needed winter warmth. Being able to see the value of work, is a big and exciting piece of Tamarack Farm.

“The idea behind this experience is about becoming comfortable in the woods, creating a home there [not just surviving] and learning to rely on one another as strong, capable young women, not to mention being a little wild, said Clara Kazarov, former Outdoor Living Skills activity head at Timberlake and consultant on this new offering at Indian Brook

The trips will take place twice during the summer, once during each half summer session, for roughly 1.5 weeks.  With the guidance of a few skilled staff, the group of 10-12 girls  will  spend some time before their departure forging relationships within the group, learning basic skills such as orienteering and  preparing in other ways for their adventure. Living, working, creating, and playing outside respectfully and confidently is one of our goals. We also want to provide campers with strong leadership roles to create their own summer experience.

This is an exciting opportunity for girls who want to feel comfortable living, playing and working outdoors.  They will decide as a group what skills they want to do – such as bow drill practice, leather crafting, outdoor cooking, friction fire-making, journaling, nature observation and shelter building.

. They will also be responsible for gear, food pack-out and navigation.  Once the group leaves the full schedule of life at Indian Brook, they will have the time and space to have a deeper relationship with the woods.

In doing this, we hope to bring  something new and exciting to the Farm & Wilderness community. Campers will share their experiences with others when they  return to Indian Brook and, later, with their families and friends. This experience  will surely be an inspiring reminder that learning can take the form of an adventure.

If you are interested in the program please contact: Karissa@farmandwilderness.org

2013 Dates: May 29th- June 5th

For more information, please click on this link here: http://farmandwilderness.org/events-rentals/workshops-trainings/

Since July, so much has happened at the Farm.

At the moment, we’re watching three new goat kids. Both Rosie, one of the Nubians, and Cotton, the Lamanche, had a pair of twins with one boy and one girl each.  Nellie, an Alpine goat, will give birth sometime in April, and Ebony, another Nubian, will possibly birth then, too.

We have stopped milking and have “dried off” all four milking cows in our herd. Both Strawberry and Rhubarb are due to give birth in April;  Hibiscus and Moon are due in August.

Halifax, our 800-pound pig, was with a boar recently, but I am suspicious of whether or not she got bred this time.

The sheep are all nice and plump. We’ve had our first lamb and more are expected from February into March.  The four alpacas and Hank, our ram, are keeping each other warm in the top of the Chicken Cathedral and the chickens are telling me they are really ready for spring.  We have placed our chick order and expect them to arrive in May.

I picked up some new Angora bunnies and one gave birth a week after we got her, which was a nice surprise.

The sugar lines are in pretty good shape and we will tap on the first Friday in March.  I have ordered a new tank to help with the overflow of sap that has occurred since we fixed the lines several years ago.

We are getting ready to pick up soil and start seeds in the next month or so. Soon, the greenhouse will have lots of little sprouts to remind us spring is not far away.

Gardener Rachel Stievater adds that she has ordered all of her seeds for the upcoming season.

The question is not, “What are we growing this year?” but, “What are we NOT growing?” Well, I think I can safely say that we are growing some of everything, from asparagus to zinnias. Actually, there are two crops that I won’t be planting:  Turnips and rutabagas. When I find a child who will eat turnips and rutabagas, I will plant turnips and rutabagas. (I have been called out on my planting decisions before). Last season, I only planted chard at Tamarack Farm because I haven’t met any kids who admit to loving chard. One morning I was up at Timberlake’s garden, though, when a camper asked why Timberlake didn’t have any chard? I sheepishly answered that I didn’t think 11-year-old boys liked to eat chard and then quickly reassured him that he was talking to the right person to make a change. Rest assured there will be chard at Timberlake this summer.

So, stay tuned for more updates and pictures of all that is happening at the Farm.

Please follow this link to our Family Camp page, detailed information and FAQs.

If you are interested in being placed on the wait list for this year’s Family Camp , please follow the link below.