Category Archives: Crafts

Living and learning at Cottrell Farm

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Katy Wolfe is a Meadowbrook parent who lives and farms in Jamestown, RI.  Katy was recently accepted into the masters program for environmental education at Antioch University, NH.  In this post she writes about her work and her hopes for Cottrell Farm.

My interest in farming began years ago with a trip to an alpaca farm to buy yarn. It was exhilarating to see how the yarn was made and to walk among the animals whose fleece it had come from. I knew immediately that this was what I wanted to do. At the time I was an elementary assistant at a Montessori school in Illinois, and I talked with my students about where yarn comes from, and how it is made. I imagined what it would be like for children to experience the entire process of fiber arts from raising the animals and plants used for dyeing the yarn, all the way through to a finished piece of clothing or art. The seed for my vision of a teaching farm had been planted.

We currently farm cooperatively with another family, our friends Vivi Valentine and Hutch Hutchinson (also Meadowbrook parents) who own the 30-acre property where we live. Co-farming has enabled both our families to pursue other vocational and recreational interests and remain hands-on at the farm. We currently raise alpacas, sheep, goats, donkeys, chickens, organically grown vegetables and flowers, and bees.  Products offered for sale include livestock, yarn, finished woven and knitted products, eggs, honey, vegetables, flowers, and mushrooms.  The farm is being developed as a teaching environment for local students, summer camps and private group tours, including fiber demonstrations, livestock science & management, and gardening.  The pedagogical goal of our farm is to support children’s natural love of animals and the earth, and help them make connections between their lives and land and animal resources.

Cottrell Farm, Jamestown, RI

 

 

 

 

Wishing Stones on a Summer’s Day.

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Just spent a lovely day at Meadowbrook doing some wet felting.  This is the second year we have had summer workshops to develop crafting ideas for our Holiday Faire.  Uli Brahmst who chairs the Holiday Faire committee organizes these creative sessions, preparing the conceptual ideas and providing the materials.  The feeling when one arrives is of adventure, freedom to explore.  Uli shares her deep understanding of artistic expression and her professional experience of technique with grace so that one feels almost anything might be possible.

On this first day of summer parents and children gathered under the shade trees with wool, rocks and buckets of hot, soapy water to experiment with color and form.  We began by making wishing stones.  The younger children particularly enjoyed wrapping the smooth, palm sized rocks in layers of colorful wool which they then rubbed into cheery, felt overcoats.  Something mysteriously transformative happens in this work; the lightness of wool meets the heft of rock, airy wool firms to soften unyielding stone.  As I hold a wishing stone in my hand, I feel there is something of a ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ about it, a wishing stone that reminds me to weigh my choices wisely before I wish.

Uli works on a bowl using differing earth tones for the inner and outer walls.

A selection of the day's work.

Afternoon, and the parents and high schoolers have moved on to shaping vessels using the forms of larger stones or flat cardboard shapes.  This time a small hole is snipped in the wool coat and the stone is eased out (birthed the mothers decided), revealing an inner surface and a different function.  Wet felting is a very forgiving medium, the unexpected happens joyfully often and everyone easily produces pieces that are beautiful.

The next workshop will be on July 20th, everyone is welcome.  Leave a comment below if you would like more details, or if you have ideas or stories to share.