Spring Work Day!

Announcing an Upcoming Spring Work Day!

March 22. Saturday.

Tentative schedule: 
9:00 Arrive for coffee and chatting
9:30 Work begins on several projects - (sowing in the green house, transplanting into the field, and preparing soil for summer time vegetables, and more)
12:00 Lunch Provided Free
1:00 - Work continues
4:30 - Call it a day

If you would like to stay for dinner you may ($10 per plate). 
Seibert Cabin will be available for volunteers to sleep in Saturday night if you wish to stay. 

Interested in attending?   Email us at dougofhs@gmail.com  or jennyknight924@gmail.com
Must be signed up by March 17. 

I would like to congratulate everyone who has helped Camp Mitchell get its Agricultural Project off the ground. Thanks to all the incredible work you all have done this winter, the Camp Mitchell Agricultural Project (CMAP) is almost ready for its first planting season. 

The chickens have been ranging in the garden, safely contained by the fence built with St. Michael's Youth. 



The old barn (cleaned out with the help of several work weekenders) is place for us to store compost, tractors, and other goodies. 



Our Coop Mitchell is home to 25 chickens (3 of which are laying blue/green eggs) 

Our seedlings are sprouting well. 

Thanks to Barn Yard Friends petting zoo and a chicken farmer just down the road, our first new veggie field is fertilized. And thanks to our tractor mentor, Harold Hedges, we were able to get it all plowed in and disc on time. 

With Spring on the way and summer close behind, we have our work cut out for us. Before you know it we'll be growing tomato seedlings! 

What's Growin' On?

^Title of the newsletter we are thinking about starting. Catchy, neh?

Well it has been a good minute since our last post. We've been to California and back for the annual Episcopal Camps and Conference Centers Conference. Doug says he's done with airports for good (until something else comes up, I'm sure). The Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas also had its annual Diocesan Convention. We were able to share a little about our year in Japan and also about our current ministry with the farm at Camp Mitchell.

The Barnyard Friends down the road gave us three of their hens, they are half Americauna and we got our first egg from one of them this morning! It is tinted blue, can you see it?

But with new life comes loss. We had to say goodbye to one of our polish chickens last week. She had been sick for about a week and was only getting worse so we put her down. Another polish chicken was showing similar symptoms but after separation, TLC, and little vitamin B, she's seems to be doing much better. We're keeping a close watch these days. 

With our new chickens settled in and our flock pretty much full-grown, we decided to let our chickens out "free range." I was hesitant to do this for fear of predatory birds swooping in and flying off with our members of our congregation. But when we're outside with them, things seem to be okay. I'm learning to "let go."

With Spring quickly approaching, Doug has been hard at work planning our growing season. We've ordered seeds and already got our first round of seeds growing in the greenhouse. So far, we've planted green cabbage, red cabbage, chinese cabbage (aka napa cabbage), arugula, spinach, asparagus, kale, romaine lettuce, onion, and broccoli! Doug is building coldframe boxes as I write this here blog!

While Doug has been busy working with our crop and vegetable plan, I've been buried in counselor and counselor-in-training (CIT) applications. Happily buried, I should add. Summer is approaching as quickly as spring and we're going to be ready! Our summer camp theme is "Grow with God." Please come or send your child to summer camp to hear more about this :)

Doug and I are pledging to update the blog more often. You guys deserve to know what's growin' on up here and we want to share all about it! We'll be back soon with more pictures of eggs and big healthy seedlings!

Doug and Jenny

Enjoying the snow, what a treat!

Sowing asaparagus

These polish chickens look better and better every day

Spaghetti squash? Yum!

Doug sifting free compost from Conway!