Better Farm's sustainability students last week foraged wild edible plants on the property for a farm-to-table meal.
Nina, Steph and Levi headed out into the woods, fields, and pond to find cattail, nettles, burdock and thistle for inclusion in Vietnamese pho, a traditional noodle soup.
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Continuing with the success of betterArts' winter and spring installments of guided Vino & Van Gogh paint 'n' sip series, the organization is offering two very special summer classes that will be held outside at Better Farm.
Bring a picnic blanket or towel to our first-ever OUTDOORS paint 'n' sip event, held outside in paddocks where horses and alpacas roam! Enjoy a guided painting workshop from beginning to end, bottomless wine and finger foods. All materials provided! Cost: $30. Register here.
This event is open to parents as well as their children! As always, we will be offering bottomless beverages and endless finger foods to delight parents and children alike! This event will also be held outdoors at Better Farm. All supplies provided! Cost: $30 adults, $15 children under 16. Register here.
Better Farm welcomes Grateful 4 Grace from June 27-July 3 for a week of green-building projects, team-building and workshops.
Grateful 4 Grace is a non-profit group traveling all over the country to offer helping hands on projects that further a sustainable mission. From their website:
Combining our love for humanity and the love we have for our planet, we have set out to help others help others become more consciously sustainable. With the universe as our guide we plan to gather in effort to grow our sustainable-minded collective consciousness that will produce what we consider to be a balanced environment that all species can live harmoniously with. To accomplish this we are traveling across the world helping intentional communities and organizations that are currently helping with similar causes become self-sustainable.
Twenty people from Grateful 4 Grace will be staying at Better Farm to help us construct an amenities station next to the Art Barn with compost toilets and solar showers fed by rainwater. We will additionally be constructing a smaller version of the amenities station next to our new solar-powered tiny home, greywater filtration units, and working on other farm-related projects throughout the week.
The public is invited to help us on this project and gain valuable hands-on experience in construction, green building, sustainability, and alt-energy concepts. To sign up, just email info@betterfarm.org. Lunch and refreshments will be provided!
Volunteers are welcome to join us from Tuesday, June 28, through Saturday, July 2, at Better Farm between the hours of 11 a.m. and 5 p.m.
Fifty hens were rescued today and brought to Better Farm to be rehabilitated, rehomed, and given the cushiest of retirements after a lifetime of tough luck and discomfort.
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Better Farm hosted its first-ever solar workshop on Sunday, covering the basics of how solar energy works, introducing basic hardware for setting up your own solar kit (including information on inverters, wires, panels, and more), hands-on experience actually installing a kit on Better Farm's Tiny Home, and take-home packets so students could have reference for DIY'ing their own solar setup on any small cabin, shed, work room, studio, apartment or barn.
The workshop was taught by Allen Briggs, who has lived off-grid for years and has extensive experience wiring and installing solar and other off-grid systems.
The first commercial use and development of a solar panel was by Bell Telephone in 1954. However, DC systems have been used since the mid-1920s in rural areas of the US. Most were powered by wind generators.
In short, a solar panel is a silicon and wire lattice encased in glass that allows photons from the sun to react with electrons in the silicon. Silicon is made up of positive and negative electrons that move freely throughout the migration hole the wire lattice provides. When the photons react with the silicon, the electrons become excited and start moving repeatedly in the panel. At the same time, the positive and negative repel away from each other. This process creates electricity, which is funneled out through wires at the bottom of the solar panel and lead to a storage battery.
First, we start with the solar panel, the wires from the panel connected to a charge controller. From there, we connect to the battery. Wires also branch off from teh battery and connect to an inverter and system monitor.
Solar panels should be set up facing south, so the panels get sun the whole day. Most solar panels are angled from 32 to 52 degrees in order to collect the maximum amount of sunlight.
For full instructions, click here.
A yoga retreat is scheduled this summer at Better Farm from Aug. 12-14.
Activities are scheduled from Friday evening through mid-day Sunday, and are available to people who wish to stay on-site (or for locals who would like to participate in the activities but sleep at home). One-day and half-day passes are also available.
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Image from Harbor Freight
Better Farm will offer a beginner's solar workshop from 2-5 p.m. Sunday, June 12.
The class will cover the basics of how solar energy works, introduce basic hardware for setting up your own solar kit (including information on inverters, wires, panels, and more), hands-on experience actually installing a kit on Better Farm's Tiny Home, and take-home packets so you can do it yourself on any small cabin, shed, work room or barn.
Cost is $15/person and includes all materials, take-home packets, and light refreshments. Pre-registration is required -- you can register online here or email info@betterfarm.org.
Better Festival is right around the corner! Join us on the grounds of Better Farm for live music by local and visiting bands, a betterArts gallery pavilion with an instrument-building workshop, auctions and art on display, farm tours, vendors, bouncy house, farm-to-table concessions, and a live DJ booth presented by Better Radio.
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"Orgy", mixed media, Yikui Gu
Philadelphia-based artist Yikui Gu has come to the North Country for the betterArts Residency Program held at Better Farm in Redwood.
Yikui, who goes by Coy, has spent his time in Redwood working on drawings that are part of a larger series called "Lovers Melt." In the works, the artist seeks to subvert staunchly patriarchal institutions by "re-contextualizing the charged facial expressions" found there into the erotic. His drawings at the farm have been of screaming soldiers. "I hope the viewer finds these works to be both horrifying and hilarious," Yikui said of his work.
Yikui has worked since 2011 as an associate professor of art at the College of Southern Maryland. He grew up in Albany, and has degrees from Long Island University and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He lives in South Philly, PA.
"Last summer I was awarded a residency at the School of Visual Arts in New York City," Yikui said. "I was given a private studio in Chelsea, Manhattan, met many interesting artists from around the world, received studio visits from the likes of Jerry Saltz, and immersed myself in the arts of NYC. It was an amazing, life-changing experience and I've kept in touch with many people I met while there."
Seeking a change of pace, Yikui chose Redwood because of the nature surrounding it. "I'm excited by how the natural surroundings will inspire me and influence my studio practice, and I look forward to meeting, getting to know, and possibly collaborating with the cohort of artists."
See more of Yikui's work at yikuigu.com. To learn more about the betterArts Residency Program, visit www.betterarts.org.
Well hello there, gorgeous!
We're very excited to introduce Matilda, the newest addition to Better Farm's cast of characters. This little pot-bellied piglet is just 5 weeks old, and joins us because an injury to her back leg soon after she was born means she needs to live in a forever home where she'll get lots of attention and physical therapy.
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One-man band The Suitcase Junket will be a featured artist at this year's Better Festival Saturday, June 18, at Better Farm in Redwood.
The Suitcase Junket is Matt Lorenz, a Vermont-born musician, visual artist, and tinkerer. His artistic vision is one of salvaged and repurposed objects, throat-singing, and original music.
"I'm interested in the hidden voices that reside within things: the songs stuck inside instruments, the story behind the object, the mysterious weight of a word, the harmonic sequence that's in every note waiting to be broken as light through a prism."
Lorenz tours The Suitcase Junket nationally playing on festival stages and city street corners, in concert halls and dive bars, in living rooms and listening rooms. The sound isn't easy to pin into a genre, but The Suitcase Junket is often likened to Tom Waits, The Black Keys and Andrew Bird.
His instruments include a resurrected dumpster-diamond guitar, an old oversized suitcase, a hi-hat, a gas-can baby-shoe foot-drum, a cookpot-soupcan-tambourine foot-drum, a circular-saw-blade bell and a box of bones and silverware that operate much like a hi-hat. He pounds out rhythms with his feet and his twang-and-buzz guitar growls through a couple of old tube amps. On top of all this is the ethereal edge of his overtone throat-singing.
In support of Lorenz's unusual instrumentation, betterArts will host a free workshop during the afternoon of Better Festival helping people of all ages upcycle everyday objects to make instruments.
The Suitcase Junket will perform at Better Festival from 4:30-6 p.m. The band's latest album, Dying Star, was released in March and is available here. Also be sure to check out The Suitcase Junket On Facebook, Instagram and Twitter: @suitcasejunket.
For more information about Better Festival and to Order tickets, click here.
NO TENTS. NO SLEEPING BAGS. NO EXCUSES.
Test your toughness at an overnight survival camping excursion Saturday, July 30, that will test your might as you utilize primitive fire-building techniques, construct a shelter, learn navigation skills, forage for edible wild plants, field-dressing and prepare wild game, and much much more!
Course instructor is Scott Smith, a seasoned Army veteran with 27 years experience in the infantry and more than four years serving as a US Army ranger instructor.
Course starts at 10 am Saturday, July 30. Extraction from the wilderness will be 10 am Sunday, July 31, with a celebratory, farm-to-table breakfast at Better Farm. COST: $73, includes Army-issued survival manual and Survivor T-Shirt. All skill levels welcome!
This workshop is limited to 15 students. To register, click here. To see our full list of upcoming events, click here.
Photo by International Fund for Animal Welfare
On May 7, children and adults are invited to join us on our mission to plant 100 trees on the Better Farm property in 2016.
Each year since 2010, Better Farm has committed to planting at least 100 trees on the property. Varietals include fruit trees to evergreens, oaks, maples, and much more.
On Saturday, we'll be planting 50 white spruces throughout the Better Farm property. We will have some shovels here, but you are encouraged to bring your own -- along with sensible shoes or hiking boots. Refreshments will be served!
Following the tree-planting, a group of us will be heading over to Macsherry Library in Alexandria Bay for their annual Garden Day celebration, featuring free seeds, gardening magazines, refreshments, a beekeeping demo and much more. All are welcome!
11 a.m.-1 p.m. Cost: FREE. Please pre-register by emailing: info@betterfarm.org
