That’s a Wrap! 2022 Summer Season Comes to End

Over the past 7-weeks the farm welcomed over 115 kids to the farm. It was a fantastic summer and we are so proud of the hard work these children accomplished.

Together we took care of the sheep, weighing the lambs weekly, and herding the flock a countless number of times. Each time took a bit of problem solving, teamwork, and communication. We also took our oxen, Jack and Thor for walks daily, keeping them on a steady training routine. And who could forget our goats, Wallace and Gromit! They too enjoyed many walks this summer, albeit they need more training than the oxen. The most popular animals this summer, however, were the chickens. At almost every hour of the day you could see a camper in the chicken coop, holding one of our feathery friends.

Our forest crews did some much needed trail work in the woods, making our paths easier to use. This included new signs along the trail, and lots and lots of brush clearing, and bridge construction too!

The true star of the summer was the garden. Jam packed with color and delicious treats, there was always something to do or eat in the garden. Campers helped plant, harvest, and process produce for meals, construct trellises and make repairs to the garden shed, and identify and collect invasive insects. Campers also made creative snack platters of cucumber, carrots, and berries. We used herbs and flowers to make prints, dye napkins, and useful salves and balms. Students also helped harvest and clean over 100 pounds of fresh produce to donate to our local food pantry!

Summer on the farm is not just about farmwork. We work hard, and we play hard too! Scavenger hunts, fort making in the woods, volleyball catches in the yard, werewolf at night, capture the flag, board games at the picnic tables. The list goes on! There’s so much that happens during a Summer at Red Gate. We can’t wait to do it all again.

Summer 2022: Day Camp Fun!

Day camp 2022 was just fabulous. Our awesome campers did excellent work all over the farm. They helped the animals by walking the goats, training the oxen, and mucking out stalls. In the garden, campers earned their wheelbarrow licenses by hauling barrels of compost into the garden, harvested produce for meals, and hunted for invasive cabbage moths. The forest crews helped us manage our sugar bush and cleared out invasive multiflora rose! After all that hard work we played in sprinklers, built wooden robots, and dyed cloth with garden flowers! We love our farm families so much, we already can’t wait for next year. Here’s a round up of some of our favorite photos from our day camp!

Growing up on the Farm

We recently sat down with Manfred and Christina Gabriel and their son Allen to talk about the farm’s past and future. The Gabriels were one of the first families to attend Red Gate Farm’s programs twenty years ago.

What made you sign up Allen and his brother, Theo, for the farm programs, when they were kids?

Christina: I didn’t really know what kind of experience our sons were going to have when I brought them to the activities at the farm. But Ben and his staff always created such a feeling of openness, with constant invitations and offerings growing each year as the boys were growing: walks in the woods at night to see owls and spotted salamanders, celebrations of spring with frogs’ eggs and baby chicks, Halloween fun, sledding, and a big bonfire in winter. There were also Film Camp and Youth Corps, homeschooling days and the annual harvest suppers and picnics… All with the spirit of: have fun, work hard, explore, learn, repeat.

Manfred: Christina and Ben created some of the first farm programs, together. Christina would take the boys over to the farm and Ben would be like, “Okay, let’s go feed the chickens!” Allen can tell more about what it was actually like, but it was wonderful for us. And then we were homeschooling for a while, for a few years, and Chrstina and Ben together thought they could do a one-day-a-week homeschooling program on the farm. And that went on for several years, and it was wonderful. And the boys just came to regard the farm as an extension of their home. They felt just as home on the farm as they did on our land.

Allen, what are your earliest memories of being on the farm?

Allen: I remember being with my brother lugging the chicken water to the chicken coop from the spigot—which is not a long distance—but I remember putting in a lot of effort to just cross that little distance. I remember it being really hard, but feeling proud. I have a lot more memories of my homeschool days. That’s where I formed and strengthened some life-long relationships, and that was the time when I really fell in love with exploring nature and the outdoors. I learned so many things that I still actually apply—and now as a camp counselor, we go hiking in the same woods that I did as a kid.

For the complete interview click here