Friday, August 15, 2014

Grow with God

Well folks,

It's been a minute since our last post. Actually it's been over four months...sorry about that. We've been a little busy.

Summer has just about come and gone. In May we shifted gears from farm production to summer camp and farm programming. Summer camp started with staff training which included everything from giant slides, oreos, and seminars, to discovering our spiritual types, mexican food, and karaoke. These essentials prepared us for a summer of incredible love and growth. Here are a few pictures to tell that story.

Photo from staff training, the gang! 
We got baby turkeys in June! 
We harvested our wheat with the senior high camp! 
And offered "wheat threshing" as a free choice, youth loved it! 
Our summer farm intern, Claire, harvesting potatoes! 
Our turkeys in their new yard. Unfortunately, they were all killed in the night by wild animals. This was a hard blow for us. Our first major reality check of farm life. We learned and grew a lot in the 8 weeks that we had the turkeys.
We will try again next year. 
Pumpkins and watermelons we harvested with some of the McLellan Clan during Family Camp! 
Canning has been a major job this season: cucumber pickles, tomato puree, pickled peppers, and sauerkraut! 
Doug got us a bunny, Maisy, for my birthday in May. 
She's done some growing this summer as well :)
Camp ended last week and we realized we have been home from our adventures abroad exactly one year. Wow. And so here we are in our cabin on top of this beautiful mountain living and working at Camp Mitchell. We are preparing for the fall once again, dreaming of pickled beets and turnip greens. Just today we ordered another round of chicks. We will be brooding 18 new members of Coop Mitchell come October, only this time it won't be in our house!

Mark your calendars for Camp Mitchell's first annual Celebrate the Harvest event. It will be held on Sunday, November 9th. We will have an afternoon of family friendly games and activities and will share a meal sourced from our very own Camp Mitchell Agricultural Project (CMAP) and other mountain-top farms! CMAP would have been growing for over a year and we'd love to show folks what we've been up to and share in the celebration of all our bountiful harvests!

Speaking of bountiful harvests, Doug and I have been growing our very own Knight fruit for over seven months now and it is due for harvest November 1st! We are taking bets on Baby Knight's sex, so get your wagers in before November! ;)

Growing on the mountain,

Doug and Jenny

Check out the latest CMAP news at the new blog: http://campmitchellagriculturalproject.blogspot.com/