Mountain School students are an integral part of a working organic farm. Fall semester students harvest our three-acre vegetable garden, help to rotate the cows and sheep from pasture to pasture, make apple cider, care for the turkeys, chickens, and pigs that will feed the school over the following year, and cut flowers from the frame garden. Spring students make maple syrup, assist with lambing, harvest greens from the greenhouses, feed and care for the barn animals, and help to plant the garden that a new group of students will harvest in the fall. Students in both semesters cut firewood that will heat our buildings through the winter.

Eat What You Grow

Most of the food served in our dining hall is grown right here on campus. The farm produces most of the vegetables, much of the fruit, and all of the meat, eggs, and maple syrup we eat in a semester. Many of our graduates say that living the eat what you grow philosophy sparked a life-long awareness of where their food comes from and an appreciation for the value of their own labor.

Farm Seminar

Besides participating in the daily work of this farm, students are exposed to a wide range of agricultural practices in our weekly farm seminar. During recent seminars, students have invented their own potting soil mixes, learned to chisel joinery for a new barn, sampled sheep cheeses, debated government regulation of the dairy industry, and practiced their sheep midwifery skills. They have also grappled with broader issues of agricultural policy: What does it mean to farm sustainably? What is the true meaning of the word organic? What, if any, are the appropriate uses of biotechnology? While they are here, students meet local dairy farmers and vegetable growers, hear their stories, and visit their farms.