Triform Farm: Elijah's Senior Year

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Elijah's Senior Year

Here are some photos that I took with my camera. This year I am a senior apprentice on the farm. Last year we wrote about Kim's Jeep Project and Billy's Meat Shop Project. This year I will also be making a project for graduation in June. Some ideas that I had were:
-Making a farm camp at Triform Farm
-Taking photographs with my camera
-Writing a book about the farm
-Fixing up the golf cart
I am still working on choosing a project or figuring out how to combine all of these ideas into one project. I really like working on the farm.
Also during my senior year I will be going for a trial visit at Camphill Community Copake. I will be working on their farm for a month. I can't wait to go to Copake and chose a project to do during my senior year.
-Elijah Kent

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About Triform Farm

Triform Farm is part of Triform Camphill Community. Triform, founded in 1979, is a residential and therapeutic community for young adults with special needs, located on 125 acres in New York's rural Columbia County. The mission of Triform is to build a vital community life that provides each person the possibility for healing, self-development and fulfillment of potential.

Triform Farm is a USDA Certified Organic and Demeter Certified Bio-dynamic farm. The farm consists of a hand-milked dairy herd, grass-fed beef herd, and heritage breed pigs. On the farm the young adults have an opportunity to gain practical work skills. Students come to the farm to experience working with the animals. They feed the cows, steers and pigs, muck out the barn, clean pens and provide bedding for the animals. They learn to use different tools and how to work as a team with the other members of the farm crew.

Some students go on to become farm apprentices. The apprentices work more full time on the farm and carry many of the daily responsibilities of running a small dairy. They learn how to milk the cows by hand, maintain the machinery, do building projects and repair work to the barn and animal pens, drive the farm golf cart, identify when animals are sick or in heat, and much, much, more. The apprentice program is about four years in length. In that time the young people gain a very broad knowledge of farming. Some go on to work on other farms. Even if they do not, the sense of responsibility, independence and empowerment they gain through land work carries over into other aspects of their lives.

The same can be said of many young co-workers who have come to Triform to volunteer for one year or many. They come with an interest in land work and leave with a very thorough training in biodynamic agriculture. Triform Farm is an exciting place to learn and gain strength and confidence through trying new things. Everyone soon finds that they not only know how to do a new task but have taken on the responsibility of making sure that job is maintained. They can each see that their contribution is vital to the running of the farm. In that way everyone shares in the ownership of Triform Farm.