Farming
  For the four months they are here, Mountain School students are an integral part of a working organic farm. Fall semester students harvest our three-acre vegetable garden, fence in pasture for our cows and sheep, make apple cider, plant winter crops in the greenhouses, care for the turkeys and chickens that will feed the school over the following year, and cut flowers from the frame garden for drying and wreath-making. Spring students make maple syrup, assist with lambing, harvest greens from the greenhouses, take care of the newly-arrived pigs and turkeys, and help to plant the garden that a new group of students will harvest in the fall.

"Eat What You Grow"

   A particular benefit of living at the Mountain School is that most of the food served in our dining hall is grown right here on campus. The farm produces most of the vegetables, a significant portion of the fruit, and all of the meat, eggs, and maple syrup we eat in a semester. Many of our students say that living the "eat what you grow" philosophy is, in the long run, one of the most significant things that happens to them here; that it sparks in them a life-long awareness of where their food comes from and a concrete appreciation for the value of their own labor.

Agriculture

   Besides participating in the daily work of this farm, students are exposed to a wide range of agricultural practices in our Wednesday morning farm seminar. During recent seminars, students have invented their own potting soil mixes, planned crop rotations, sampled sheep cheeses, debated government regulation of the dairy industry, and practiced their sheep midwife skills. They have also grappled with broader issues of agricultural policy: What does it mean to farm sustainably? What, if any, are the appropriate uses of biotechnology? While they are here, students have the opportunity to visit at least one local vegetable farm and one dairy farm.