The beginning of cool weather in the fall makes me think of harvest time, gathering together with friends and neighbors, and gives me the itch to start creating quilts again. Last month, I gathered at the SCCD community garden for a harvest meal - some of which included veggies grown in the garden - butternut squash, tomatoes, basil, melons, kale, beans, etc. Even with a dry beginning the land produced an abundance this growing season. Early this month I will have the pleasure of picking apples, grinding and pressing them into cider and sharing the Orchard's bounty with anyone who stops by for Sullivan County Cider Day. And later in the month I will gather with naturalists, writers, photogr
Don't those empty tree stumps look inviting? Home school students from Unity are learning how to study nature like scientists this fall and we are using our new forest classroom near the Eco Ag Center as our homebase. Inquiry Based Learning Inviting students into learning by exciting their curiosity and allowing them to explore is what inquiry-based learning is all about. The outdoors are a living laboratory and nature study lends itself perfectly to this kind of learning experience. What if I told you, I have walked the woods near these stumps many times, but recently, I noticed something I had never seen before? Would you get excited? Would you want to observe it too? That's exactly w
