Winter 2003/2004 Newsletter
Where we’ve been, and where we’re headin’
Six years! It’s hard to believe that D Acres has been in operation for six years! At its inception in 1997, D Acres was a small group of people learning to grow organic annual vegetables on a farm in Dorchester, NH. Now, six years later, things look a lot different! We’re still growing vegetables in Dorchester, but our mission and operations sure have expanded!
REACHING TOWARD OUR GOALS…
In six years we have built a community building with a commercial kitchen, full workshop, library, plant nursery, root cellar, artists’ studio, composting toilets, recreational and living spaces; an ox barn and shelter; living space for goats and chickens; a greenhouse; a cob oven; five tree-houses for seasonal staff accommodation; a solar shower; and a storage building still under construction! We’ve developed educational programming to bring friends and visitors to D Acres. We’ve expanded our garden area, and are continuously moving from an annual garden to a perennial forest garden system, consisting primarily of fruit trees and bushes, herbs, mushrooms, and endangered and at-risk plants.
In the 2003 season alone, D Acres offered eleven educational workshops, weekly yoga instruction, and community get-togethers in an effort to share knowledge, skills and recreation with the larger community. Our work-exchange program (offering room and board to participants willing to work for a minimum of six weeks) has continued to thrive. In six years, 73 people have committed themselves to living and working at D Acres for all or part of a season. A few even stayed on for a second year! Last summer, 15 people shared meals, wheelbarrows, hammers and bug picking jars in an effort to develop a healthy model of sustainable rural community living.
Puppet making workshop – September 2003
PROVIDING THE COMMUNITY WITH FRESH HERBS AND PRODUCE…
This season we harvested cucumbers, snap peas, salad greens, tomatoes, peppers, lemon cucumbers (lots of lemon cucumbers!), green beans, zucchini, broccoli, beets, rhubarb, chard, blueberries, raspberries, june berries, blackberries, watermelon, potatoes, squashes, pumpkins, and 126 pounds of garlic!
We filled our herb and medicinal stores with parsley, mint, sage, clover, calendula, rosemary, anise hyssop, basil, chamomile, borage, milky oat tops, rosehips, mullein, yarrow, comfrey, blackberry, wild raspberry and wild strawberry leaf, elderberries, marshmallow, hibiscus, lavender, and dandelion root!
These medicinal herbs and roots have been used to develop tea blends, salves and tinctures. In 2004 we look forward to offering these products to the public through Peppercorns Natural Food store in Plymouth, our farm stand and on-site at D Acres.
COMMUNITY BASED NUTRITION AND VALUE-ADDED FOOD PROGRAMS…
After acquiring our commercial kitchen license earlier this summer, we began baking bread and sweets for sale at Peppercorns Natural Food store. We hope to realize our capacity to provide bread and baked goods to the Dorchester community. We have also begun dehydrating herbs and roots for sale at Peppercorns. And the chickens are laying like crazy! The only problem is that their eggs are too big for the ordinary cartons!
This summer we also opened a bulk food ordering service to the larger community. Using United Foods and Albert’s Produce, D Acres orders Organic food each month to supplement our harvest. The Food Club offers our neighbors and friends the opportunity to buy a wide range of natural foods at wholesale prices. Buying in bulk means less shopping! less driving! less packaging! less cost! and healthier meals!
But enough about the kitchen! What else has been going on outdoors?
ALTERNATIVE CONSTRUCTION AND THE FARM SYSTEM…
A major interest for D Acres has been alternative building and technology. Looking at ways in which locally available, reused, recycled and innovative materials can be incorporated into construction projects (large and small) has been an extremely enlightening experience for all of us.
Building with cob - July, 2003
In the last two years workshop participants using cob, an earthen material, constructed an oven with a sitting area. The resulting structure is both functional (great for baking bread, cookies and pizza!), and aesthetically pleasing. The process of building with cob is probably the best part. Folks take their shoes off, roll up their pants, and dance with new or old friends until the sand, clay, straw and water underfoot are well mixed!
Another cherished structure at D Acres is the batch solar shower, built in 2002 using an old freezer unit, an old water tank, a used glass door, some piping and old fixtures. Heat from the sun warms the water in the storage tank, providing a warm outdoor shower. Recently, the shower was outfitted with wooden walls on three sides, so even the timid can enjoy a refreshing rinse with a view of the mountains!
The infrastructure already in place is great, but we can’t help but be excited about the multi-purpose alternative building projects on the slate for the 2004 season! The first is a combination herb dehydrator and sauna. The building will be made of stone, cob and cordwood. The specialized structure will allow us to maximize dehydration of the significant number of herbs and plants that are growing at D Acres, so that we can make them available to the public. The sauna? Well, that’s about health, pleasure and peace of mind. Personally, I think we sweat enough around here, but…
The other building project planned for 2004 is a combination greenhouse and animal husbandry building, to be constructed just off the southeast corner of the Community Building. The primary materials planned for the project include cob, wood from the D Acres property, used sliding glass doors, and a salvaged greenhouse structure. The building is designed to allow heat and energy flow, providing warmth for the animals during the colder months, and insulating against excessive temperatures in the warmer months. The building will also give us the room that we need to increase our chicken population!
August, Henri and Abby pulling logs through the woods – Aug 2003
Speaking of animals…our sustainable forestry program is in good hands, (or hooves!) with August and Henri, our team of Jersey oxen. The boys turned four this summer, and are quite enthusiastic about pulling logs out of the woods year round, moving rocks on a sled, and carrying their manure around to various garden areas and compost piles in their cart. The boys have become an integral part of the D Acres forestry program, which provides cordwood for use on-site and for sale, as well as the raw material for woodcrafts made in the woodshop.
A Woodcrafts Training Program will begin in January 2004, managed by a work-exchange participant from the 2003 season, Sam Payton. (We just love it when folks find their rhythm here, and want to stay and take on responsibility!) The educational program will focus around producing and marketing small furniture and crafts. Participants will take part in the process of woodcrafting, from standing timber to finished marketable product.
Not to be outdone by those cows on the southern side of the property, Bella and Clover, sister goats, are busy clearing land east of the gardens. They do a fabulous job, but we are looking toward expanding the operation with sheep (and maybe llamas!) Spurred by models of traditional animal husbandry as well as the curiosity to experiment with new ideas, we would like to diversify the animal population within our farm system. Sheep are very thorough at clearing land, and will be vital as we begin using animal fibers to make clothing!
ON A PERSONNEL NOTE…
In June, Betty Ann and Bill Trought moved north from Greenville, NC. They took up residence in Edith Gray’s house across the street from the community building. Betty Ann has been helping to get D Acres ship-shape for the transition to D Acres of New Hampshire, while Bill has been busy splitting time between Dartmouth Hitchcock and Speare Memorial Hospital.
For the last several months they have been caring for Bill’s aunt Edith Gray. On November 15, 2003, at age 95, Edith passed away of old age in her home. Edith and her late husband Delbert purchased the land that D Acres manages in 1948. In the last seven years, she has helped the family develop and implement the organization. Her legacy will remain as D Acres strives to preserve the beauty of the land, and to utilize it in a sustainable manner so that present and future generations may benefit.
Always looking forward!
In that vein, two staff members of D Acres of NH are pursuing professional and personal development in lands far away.
Micki Visten, Garden Facilitator and employee at D Acres for 4 seasons, has traveled to Sikkim, India. For two months she has been working on a Cardamom plantation, helping to develop an Ayurvedic medicinal center and international youth hostel. She will be returning to D Acres for the 2004 season full of energy and new knowledge!
Jenn McCoy, a work-exchange participant during the 2003 season, has recently left for Cascada Verde, an organic permaculture farm located in Uvita, Costa Rica. In addition to experiencing a different model of permaculture, Organic farming and community living, Jen will initiate a mushroom growing project involving the cultivation and marketing of Paddy Straw Mushrooms. Upon return in March 2004, Jen plans to rejoin D Acres as a staff person, coordinating an extensive mushroom cultivation project.
Whew! That’s a lot for one season!
NONPROFIT STATUS AND SUPPORTING GRASSROOTS ACTIVISM…
Oh, and we changed our name too! On January 1, 2004, D Acres will officially become D Acres of New Hampshire, organized as a nonprofit corporation under New Hampshire RSA 292 and as a tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Simply, we have decided that our mission as an educational center calls for us to restructure as a nonprofit organization. Same vital mission, same great programming, but the new organizational form gives you the opportunity to make tax-deductible donations.
The new organization will be accepting members (Student, Individual, Family and Supporter). Membership includes our quarterly newsletter, with updates on activities at D Acres, resources for Organic farming and gardening, healthy recipes, and profiles of other sustainable communities around the world. It also includes a 10% reduction on workshop fees. And then there’s the warm glowing feeling of helping an educational center provide environmental and social role modeling for young people free of charge! Membership can be purchased for yourself or as a gift! Your support enables D Acres to engage in grassroots activism. (See accompanying letter and donation form for details)
Well, it looks like we’re pretty much buried in snow for the next 5 months. That means plenty of time to prepare educational programming for the summer 2004 season, groom trails with the oxen and snowboard Streeter Mountain. Things could be worse...
Josh shoveling out the Community Building – December 2003
To see our tentative Calendar of Events for 2004, and to learn more about D Acres, please visit our website at www.dacres.org
We look forward to seeing you soon at D Acres. The event list on our website will be will be updated with specific dates as soon as they are set in stone. Happy holidays!
Peace,
Josh and Abby
(the winter crew)