Guest post by Tenaya Schnare

I am standing with a group of eight second-graders on a trail at the edge of the farm. We can still hear the goats bleating into the crisp fall air, but this spot on the path marks the transition from farm—the sound of tractors heaving bucket loads of animal bedding, chickens strutting and scratching in their yard, the earthy, sweet smell of goats—into the wilderness. I crouch down at eye level and in a soft, almost sing-song voice tell the children that we are going to do something called a caterpillar walk.

Tags: Hidden Villa Environmental Education Program, HVEEP, environmental education Read More

Guest post by Daniel Chmielewski

"Connected, connected, everything’s connected.” One of the well known songs at Hidden Villa, it strikes a central point in the ecological imperative of our times: "to recognize and understand that humans are intrinsically related to all life and the systems which support it (water, air, soil).” Once “unconnected” we risk alienation from the natural flow of life processes and education, whether through formal or informal experience, is a bridge into being connected. My internship at Hidden Villa has been rich in education and in my eyes, most importantly, exposure. In my second year here, seasonal changes of weather, edible and ornamental agriculture, animal husbandry, environmental education, and sustainability have deeply connected me to the land and to the future. 

Tags: permaculture, Hidden Villa internship program, intern, internships, externship, green skills training Read More

The interns have been talking a lot about collectives and cooperative living recently. On Monday, November 14th, we went to The Cheeseboard Collective in Berkeley where a member, who has been there for over twenty-five years, talked to us about the pros and cons of working in a collective. We sat on benches in a horseshoe shape and listened about how it took years of consensus decision making to decide on credit card machines or raises, all the while posing questions about how they deal with conflict resolution when there is no “boss”, about profit sharing, and how to hire someone new when every one of their thirty members has to give the okay. It was all very interesting and exciting, if not a little daunting. It is a radical idea in today’s society that everyone gets equal pay and equal say in a business no matter how long they have been working there.

Tags: Community Contract, Feedback, Habitat for Humanity, C.R.O.W., Worker Owned Cooperatives, Collectives, Community Service, Volunteering, The Cheeseboard Read More

After graduation, I headed down the well-trodden path of a 9-to-5 office job, and under fluorescent lights I whistled while I worked inside a world of spreadsheet cells and cyberspace.  I was more than lucky enough to have access to a grocery store with copious amounts of fresh organic produce and live where a farmer’s market took place almost every day of the week. Despite the knowledge gained about the food system through my education, my work and lifestyle kept me very removed from the production of my food.  It’s the same systematic distancing that keeps most of us from seeing the connection between our strawberry milkshakes and manure.

Tags: Manure to Meadow to Milkshakes, internships, environmental education, MESA, Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture, Community Supported Agriculture Read More