Motherhouse

Once a month, the whole family takes classes at Motherhouse.  Debra Tyler coordinates classes of Old Style Life Skills at or around her farm in Cornwall, CT.  Here's her blog with pictures and recipes (I'm on the Apple page, with the yellow jacket).

My first class at Motherhouse was "Get Your Goat" - all about keeping dairy goats.  Jor Man and I went hoping to decide whether or not to keep goats on our 3 1/2 acres.  Nope.  Goats are not for us.  But it was great fun. 

Next Big Dad and I took a class on "Eggs-periencing Chickens".  Little did we know that we would be actually butchering our first chicken at class.  I don't know what I thought the knife and cutting board they asked us to bring was for!  But butcher we did.  And it came in quite handy.  We did get chickens - Americanas that we bought as day-old chicks from Murray McMurray Hatchery.  Unfortunately, we had issues with the neighbor's dog and a hawk - so we had a few dead birds to deal with - and not being one to waste good meat. . . well.

Since then, some or all of us have taken classes on Sourdough, Cheese-making, Family Cow, Apples, Organic Gardening and Canning.  We still want to take the Bee Keeping class.  And I want to teach a class on Vermicomposting (worms) and Kombucha making.

The classes are all very "hands-on", as you can see from this picture of me milking a cow.  

So this is just a quick overview.  I'll do a detailed post for the various classes later.  But I just wanted to give you an idea of the kinds of fun things that are out there.   So for a change of pace, call a farmer in your area, and see if they offer tours or classes.  Or coordinate your own!

Wish you were here!