Better Farm News - May 2013:
• Better Festival Saturday, May 25
• Recent projects at Better Farm
• Latest Community Outreach Initiatives
• Better Farm and betterArts Summer Workshop Schedule
Hello, Friends of Better Farm!
Our open house is just nine days away, and we can barely contain our
excitement. The annual "Better Festival" is our opportunity to spread
the word about the work we're doing, promote local artists, performers,
and businesses, let the public take a peek at our gardens and grounds,
and to help betterArts, our sister non-profit arts outreach
organization, raise vital funds to fuel art- and music-related
workshops, education, and events in 2013. This year's festival will
feature a gallery filled with work by local artists, two music stages
and eight acts throughout the day, vendors offering on-site portraits,
handmade jewelry, clothing, and other goods, games for all ages, a
bouncy castle, camping, and a refreshments and food tent. More
information is below; as well as contact information if you'd like to
reserve a campsite ahead of time.
On the other side of that event is June 1; the start of our our FOURTH
summer in business! We'll be welcoming people from as far as Serbia and
as close as Grass Lake; from both coasts in the United States, and many
states in between. Our residents will be arriving to gardens that are
four times the size they were in 2010; an aquaponics garden, a series of
raised herb beds, a new fruit orchard, 26 very loveable chickens, a
fully renovated Art Barn, and a calendar filled with field trips,
workshops, and community service projects. Stay tuned to our blog to follow their journeys!
It was June 15, 2009, when I began my own journey at Better Farm; and it
is so gratifying to near that anniversary and see how far this great
experiment has come. I would personally like to thank you all of you for
making this living lab a roaring success.
I hope to see you at our open house May 25! Be sure to visit www.betterfarm.org to stay up-to-date on all things Better.
Until next time, better be.
Nicole Caldwell
Executive Director and Co-Founder
Better Farm
Better Festival 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, May 25
For music set times, lists of vendors and artists, and camping information, visit the event website: www.betterarts.org/open-house-2013
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Recent Projects at Better Farm
With the bulk of major renovations at the farm complete, this spring has
been all about fine-tuning the property and seeking out new, creative
opportunities for Better Farm and betterArts. Here are some of the
projects we've embarked on:
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Recycling for Charities — Now you can help the environment and support betterArts in one fell swoop simply by sending in your old cell phones, iPods, iPads, and other electronics to Recycling for Charities.
How this partnership works is simple: First, you collect your old
wireless cell phones, PDA's, iPods, or digital cameras. Then, select betterArts from
the list of charities on Recycling for Charities' website. A donation
is then made on your behalf for each mobile phone, PDA, iPod or digital
camera you collect. To complete the process, simply print out the
shipping label directly from Recycling for Charities' website. Affix the
label to your box, pack your collected donations, and ship! Visit www.recyclingforcharities.com for more information.
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Better Farm Children's Book Now Available! — Starry the Fawn,
written and illustrated by former intern Amanda Treco, is more than a
dozen pages that tell the story of Star Wars, an orphaned fawn rescued
and raised by the people at Better Farm in 2012. The cost of $12
includes shipping anywhere in the Continental United States. A portion
of all proceeds will go toward sustainability education initiatives and
art outreach at Better Farm. Click here to order.
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Roadside Installation: The Doors — Keep your eyes peeled as you drive by Better Farm! Artist-in-Residence Mike Brown has been working on an ongoing series of paintings on doors
for several years now; culminating this week in their installation
throughout the property at Better Farm. The brightly colored doors can
be seen along the outskirts of the property; dotting the treeline,
punctuating hillsides. There may be up to a dozen by the time the
installation is complete.
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Work Begins on New Art Barn Ceiling — Thanks to donations from Focal Point Custom Framing
and Fort Drum, Better Farm's Art Barn is about to have a gallery
ceiling fittingly made entirely out of upcycled picture frames. It's a
lesson in upcycling, but more than that we like to think of it as a very
literal intersection between art and sustainability. In return for
keeping hundreds of old picture frames out of burn pits or landfills, we
get to use them to create a thing of beauty—and a thought-provoking
thing at that. Click here to see updates on our blog.
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Bird Habitat Installation
— In a nod to our founder Steve Caldwell (an avid birder), and thanks
to some gifts of birdhouses from local friends, we're sporting a serious
bird village at Better Farm.We
have almost a dozen birdhouses we keep up and manage for our feathered
tenants—including a gorgeous bluebird house given to us last year by the
New York State Bluebird Society.
In April, we added to that arsenal with two large houses made from slab
wood by a craftsman in Gouverneur, N.Y., and four bluebird houses made
by a neighbor.
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Rustic Wood Carpentry
— A friend of Better Farm stopped in last month with a truck bed filled
with logs and a chainsaw. Two hours later, we had four benches perfect
for campfire-sitting or enjoying music from the top of the hill behind
the Art Barn. Here's a great spring project for those of you who are
comfortable wielding a chainsaw—click here for full instructions.
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Better Orchard — We wrote back in March about all the fruit trees we ordered
to create a small orchard on Better Farm's property. Most of those
trees have now arrived! We've been very busy getting the cherries,
apricots, paw paws, kiwis, and more in the ground. And we're thrilled to
report everything is doing extremely well!
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Tree-Planting Initiative — We burn our own wood in
Better Farm's wood stove all winter long, gleaning much of the fuel from
standing-dead trees on the property. To replenish what's been taken—and
to encourage cleaner air in general, we've kicked off a strong
tree-planting campaign on Better Farm in 2013. To date, we've planted a
dozen box elders, 50 white spruces, 10 pines, more than two dozen lilac bushes, and the aforementioned fruit orchard.
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Latest Community Outreach Initiatives
We've been very busy in our community in order to bring the arts and
sustainability education to the public. Here's a rundown of those
efforts in recent months:
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Seed-Starting in Redwood's Community Greenhouse —
Better Farm, in partnership with Hearts for Youth and the Redwood
Neighborhood Association, on April 13 invited all ages to plant provided
organic, non-GMO seeds in the community greenhouse.
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Thompson Park Zoo Earth Day Event — New York State's Thompson Park Zoo
on Saturday hosted an Earth Day event that brought together several
North Country organizations to deliver an eco-friendly message to zoo
visitors throughout the day. The Better Farm and betterArts
crew braved the absurdly winter-like day (hail and all) for a few hours
to work on an arts 'n' crafts project with kids, distribute information
about our upcoming open house and fundraiser, and educate the public
about the sustainability outreach we're doing in the community. Click here to see photos!
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Mustard Seed Natural Market Event — Better Farm and betterArts
on May 4 shared information about upcoming programming, sustainability
education, and arts outreach with the community—while doing arts 'n'
crafts with children—at the Mustard Seed Natural Market's Seventh Annual Earth Day Event.
The event featured free samples, eco-friendly and handmade items for
sale, product giveaways, fresh food, and local exhibitors. Better Farm
had a table set up at the event all day, with activities for kids
sponsored by betterArts. In addition, the Mustard Seed ran a Recycling for Charities drive to benefit betterArts. Electronics donated will be recycled—and will support betterArts initiatives in the community.
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Hamlet-Wide Clean-up — Better Farm
teamed up with the Redwood Neighborhood Association again this year to
pick up trash along Redwood's main thoroughfare in an annual effort to
beautify the hamlet. Participants bagged and sorted garbage and
recyclables found along the main thoroughfare of the hamlet's downtown.
This year marked the lowest amount of trash picked up—meaning there were
fewer people littering throughout the year, and a bigger ongoing effort
among residents to keep things looking great.
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Better Farm and betterArts Summer Workshop Schedule
Our list of summer workshops is beginning to come together. There is a
suggested $10 donation for scheduled workshops to cover costs of basic
materials, ingredients, and any associated instructor fees. Unless
otherwise noted, we will provide all necessary materials at the
workshop. Be sure to visit www.betterfarm.org/upcoming-workshops for
updated information! Here's what we've got planned so far:
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June 15/Beneficial Bugs and Insect Hotels— Gardens,
chemically fertilized lawns, and a lack of dead wood in suburban/urban
areas mean less and less habitat for wild bees, spiders, and ladybugs.
You can combat this issue by creating an "insect hotel" to attract
beneficial insects (read: pollinators and pest controllers) to your yard
and garden. Learn how construct an insect hotel utilizing items you can
find around your house and in your yard. Students will learn all of the
above, and then try their hands at actual construction of an insect
hotel. Instructor: Nicole Caldwell
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June 22/Sauna Construction — Instructor: Bob Laisdell
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June 29/Drumming Circle—
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Drum-making—
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July 1, 2/Poetry— Instructors: The Line Assembly Poetry Group
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July 6/Creative Upcycling and the Art of Transforming Junk
— Each student will bring an old, tired furniture or clothing piece to
transform into something else that is functional. From sketches to the
final product, instructor Stephanie DeJoseph of La Mia Designs will help
students visualize, create, transform, and finalize an upcycled piece.
Encouraged materials (anyone without the following is not excluded from
attending): one piece to upcycle, sewing machine, fabric scraps, old
clothing, small furniture pieces. Ages 15 and up
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Intro to Video Editing — Learn the basics of video editing. Those without video cameras may use their iPhones! Instructor: Holly Boname
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Yoga for Kids
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Intro to Violin
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Songwriting Workshop with Monica Behan —This workshop
for ages 15+ will explore the art of songwriting with one of the North
Country's most well-established and respected singer-songwriters, Monica
Behan of Clayton. Behan's music blends folk, blues and jazz into
memorable pop melodies that reflect the harmonic nature of who she is on
and off the stage. She entered the world of songwriting at the age of
seven when she began translating the visions of her whimsical world
outdoors and feelings inside onto the piano to create the miniature
melodic tales that continue to characterize her songs.
Instructor: Monica Behan, http://www.monicabehan.com
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Canning
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Contact Us:
Better Farm
31060 Cottage Hill Road
Redwood, NY 13679
315-482-2536
info@betterfarm.org
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