Hello All, While we cannot be together in person, we thought it would be nice to share with our school community all that is happening on our campus as well as in the fields and gardens, as Nature awakens to welcome yet another spring. While our human community has to stay away, and everything is so QUIET, there is much happening! So my hope is to pen a weekly letter that will help everyone know all that will be happening and post photos and videos to help us all feel connected to this very special patch of the earth we call our school. Spring is arriving, and to make sure that we do not lose a complete farming year, Mrs. Sustick and I will be very busy. Our gardens will be planted with vegetables, grains, flowers, and herbs; our animals will give birth and chicks will be hatched; honeybees will be added to our apiary. Life will abound. And we wish to share that with you all as much as possible. I had pondered how it would be possible to continue my Agricultural Arts classes but realized that with this wonderful technology we can share ALL of our classes. Our students will still be able to learn how to grow a garden, hive honeybees, share in the arrival of newborn animals and experience what is happening as a season unfolds, and be able to share that with their families too! Every day, Mrs. Sustick and I tend to the animals – so please know that they are well looked after. I know that they miss the children, but are very happy to greet us each day, as are we. We will be posting frequent videos so that they can become a part of your community too……I know how healing their presence can be, even remotely! One of the fundamental tenets of bio-dynamic regenerative agriculture is that our farms and gardens are made healthy through applying practices that use what Nature makes available to us, right here and now…..using the manures from our livestock, the interplay of plant, animal and insect all working together, and inviting us to be a part of this dynamic so that we can, in turn, be nourished. For the first time in many years, last week we applied our own mature compost, gathered from our animal barns, food waste, leaves and lawn clippings to our 3-Sisters Garden and Hill-Top fields so that we can plant food gardens. Thank you, Keith and Robert West! The plans of our High School ACTS program to raise food for the wider community have now taken on a greater urgency…..I will be sharing with our students, across the grades, the How-To’s with simple clear steps so that those who can plant a simple garden of nutritious food and flowers – for body and soul. So please watch this space – it will be unfolding, as will spring, and all of our hopes to be back together on this part of the earth we call home. My greetings to you all, Nicki