Pumpkin Patch 2013!

What is that I sense on the horizon... starlit horse-drawn wagon rides, straw-bale mazes, fresh-pressed apple cider?... it can only mean one thing...

Guidestone’s 7th Annual Pumpkin Patch and Harvest Festival 

October 11-13, 2013

It is fast approaching and there are plenty of reasons to be excited for this year’s Pumpkin Patch! Kicking off the weekend on Friday will be our programs for school and youth groups, allowing them to experience all the excitement of the Pumpkin Patch before the gates open to the public. To learn more about this opportunity, click here.

Friday evening will be a first for the Pumpkin Patch, featuring a Gala Dinner. Local foods will be a highlight with dinner provided by Salida’s own Kalamatapit Catering. The night will also feature live music by Simpler Times Bluegrass, moonlit rides on a horse-drawn wagon to the twinkle-lit pumpkin patch, and a nice warm bonfire to round out the evening. Tickets for Friday night are $35 and sure to sell out, so get yours here!

On Saturday and Sunday we’ll have all the staples you’ve come to expect - horse-drawn wagon rides to the pumpkin patch, tractor rides, crafts and children’s activities, face painting, pony rides, chicken bingo, great food and live music - and some new activities to keep the harvest fresh - a storytelling station for younguns, field games for the older kids, a family photo booth on Saturday to capture the moment (proceeds to support the Two’s Program) - all culminating in a one-of-a-kind family festival on the historic Hutchinson Ranch. Get your tickets here: $5/day in advance, or $7 at the door. 

All entrance fees and bake sale proceeds go towards supporting Guidestone's Farmhands Youth Education Programs. And it really does take a village to make it all come together, so if you want to have a great time and support a good cause, please volunteer! You can find a detailed list of volunteer shifts here, indicate your preference and we’ll get right back to you. 

The Pumpkin Patch also welcomes sponsorships, of which there are various levels suitable for any business looking to support wellness, local agriculture, or place-based education for youth. If you are interested in being a sponsor for the event, please click here for more information. Thanks!

Special thanks to our sponsors Mt. Princeton Riding Stables, LiveWell Chaffee County, Boathouse Cantina, & Landmark Surveying and Mapping.

For more information go to www.guidestonecolorado.org or contact gunnar@guidestonecolorado.org

We hope to see you there!

Back to School

As the school year starts, Guidestone’s education programs expand to include both field experiences and classroom-based work, partnering with teachers in the Salida School District, and this year we’ll be building on some of the exciting work we began last year.

Guidestone had the privilege to partner with with an amazing team during the second semester of last school year to bring the “Food for Thought” curriculum, developed by Cathy Schmelter of An Ounce of Nutrition, to Salida High School. “Food for Thought” highlights the value of eating healthy in all aspects from personal health to the economic and environmental benefits of local foods. The idea for the curriculum emerged when Schmelter realized the dearth of nutrition education materials for youth, and that some real physical consequences of this were manifesting as diseases, like diabetes, in children that had previously only been seen in adults.

After a successful pilot year in Denver schools in 2012, LiveWell Colorado recognized the need for nutrition education in rural parts of the state, such as Chaffee County where childhood obesity rates are 6% above state average, and funded the pilot of “Food for Thought” in 5 high schools across Colorado, which included Salida High School. Education Director Andrea Earley Coen and Farm to School Program Manager Margaret Fitch worked every week with Deb Bass’ senior English course English through Sustainability both in the classroom and the Salida School Garden on Holman Ave. Guidestone is thrilled to have been a part of this opportunity to work with Cathy, Deb and her students, and to have this unique, comprehensive curriculum for  use in future youth education programs. 

While “Food for Thought” won’t be taught this semester in English through Sustainability our partnership with Bass’ class will continue. Gunnar Paulsen, Guidestone’s AmeriCorps VISTA, will work with students to market the Garden to Cafeteria Project through news pieces, radio stories, video blogs, and social media. So keep your eyes and ears peeled! The purpose of that work will be to help high school students learn about sustainability and environmental stewardship while honing communication skills that will serve them well throughout their professional lives. 

What is a "VISTA"? Let me explain!

Poverty. That’s what I’m here to address. Ridiculous, right?

My name is Gunnar Paulsen and I am Guidestone’s AmeriCorps OSM/VISTA member from July ’13 to ’14. AmeriCorps VISTA. What is a “VISTA” you ask? Well, it stands for Volunteers in Service to America and is a national program that places individuals in year-long, full-time volunteer positions with non-profits and government organizations across the country. The mission of a VISTA member is to build the capacity of his or her host site - to increase what that particular organization can do, whether it is through community outreach and volunteer coordination, fundraising, or improving organizational operations. To be awarded a VISTA from the National Corporation for Community Service, which lasts for three years, a host site must address some aspect of poverty in its mission. 

Poverty is obviously a large and daunting problem, and rather than existing as a single “problem,” it might more accurately be described as a complicated matrix of social, economic, racial and geographic factors. See, even defining it is hard. To learn about its multifaceted causes and cycles, VISTA sends each incoming member to a Pre-Service Orientation. Last month I attended mine. It was held at a hotel on the outskirts of Denver, and was comprised of over 200 other new VISTAs who were also starting service terms all across the country. I met folks who would be serving in Washington D.C.; Austin, TX; New Orleans; the Navajo Nation; Baltimore, MD; and even a few others serving in rural Colorado. 

When I first heard what many of these folks would be doing with their service term - working with organizations that mentor the children of incarcerated parents, teaching financial literacy to new immigrants, and providing free legal advice to disadvantaged persons, and all mostly in urban centers - I was intimidated and felt pretty out of place. It seemed like they would be combating poverty in a very direct way, and it was hard to see how Guidestone fit into the particular VISTA paradigm. Then I got to thinking.

Guidestone’s mission is “dedicated to strengthening the local food economy through preserving agricultural resources and educating for ecological literacy,” and while at first glance that doesn’t seem to directly address poverty - the connections certainly aren’t as apparent as my fellow VISTAs’ missions, right? - Guidestone’s mission does address poverty at a root level. 

Guidestone works towards its mission through three main programs. Through the Garden to Cafeteria program - which delivers fresh produce from the Salida School Gardens on Holman Ave. to all three Salida School District cafeterias for incorporation into meals - we vigorously combating Chaffee County’s above average obesity rates (26% of residents are obese, thats 6% above state average) by working with the most vulnerable among us, children. A result of food insecurity and lack of proper nutrition, obesity has been declared a national epidemic by health-care professionals nationwide, and childhood obesity - which has increased three-fold in the last three decades - is even more damaging because it is often a lifelong sentence to ill health and socioeconomic disadvantage. Directly, produce from the garden reaches 1,085 students, 180 staff, and hundreds of families. As the garden expands to reach its 4 acre capacity, it will supply 99.9% of the School District’s vegetables and 10% of its fruit, totaling 5,190lbs. By working with key community partners to incorporate the garden and nutritional education into school curriculum we believe that we can have a strong impact on obesity rates long term in Salida. 

The next facet of Guidestone, our Farmhands Youth Education Program, while it doesn’t explicitly frame its mission as such, also takes a long view towards combating poverty. Farmhands seek to re-connect children with their natural environment, to show them where healthy food comes from and how it is grown or raised. In addition to combating the spiritual poverty that is rife within contemporary mainstream culture - which has little to no value for nature, reflection, history, or community - these programs increase regional access to quality educational programming. We hope these programs foster a lifelong curiosity and facilitate positive connections to the natural world for each child that experiences them. Such a goal is hard to measure quantitatively, but after spending a summer co-teaching the kids at Guidestone’s immersive 4-day camps I truly believe that they will hold onto the creativity and wonder of childhood throughout their lives, and that that positive energy will guide them through meaningful, successful lives.

The Farmhands in action.

Lastly, Guidestone’s Colorado Land Link program, which is designed to make connections between retiring farmers, ranchers, and landowners and connect them with aspiring agricultural producers, guiding both parties through this delicate process. This service is greatly needed in a time when the financial viability of ranching and farming is diminishing, rendering offers of cash buyouts from developers seeking land and water all too tempting. By having strong agricultural producers in the region, the local economy is strengthened, community access to high-quality foods increases, alternative and entrepreneurial business models thrive, and the unique character and history of the state and region are preserved. If we fail to preserve our agricultural lands for agricultural purposes, we will continue to depend on a fossil fuel based food economy, which is unhealthy for our planet and our bodies.

And that is how I’ve come to see Guidestone’s mission and how it relates to VISTA’s. During my time here, I’ll work for Guidestone to develop a master operations calendar, write grants for funds and services, write case-studies of successes in our Land Link program, handle most communications and social media, and recruit and manage volunteers.

While my time here won’t immediately raise anyone above the federal poverty line, which at $11,490 for an individual or $23,550 for a family of four annually is hardly a bar worth shooting for, I do hope that I can help Guidestone serve its mission and continue to expand the reach of its programs. In turn I hope that leads to more self-reliant, food-rich, and inter-connected communities across the Upper Arkansas River Valley and Colorado. At the end of my term, I will be just one small part of VISTA’s 48 year, 180,000 member legacy of serving throughout America to expand the capacity of homegrown efforts to address poverty in communities. And thats a legacy of which I’ll be proud to be a part. 

Gunnar Paulsen, Guidestone's first OSM/VISTA, looking fondly over his new home.

Wrap up for Farmhands summer programs

Sunflowers are in the last stage of their bloom, hay is being cut and bailed, and school is already back in session. These are all indicators that Fall is approaching all too quickly in the Upper Arkansas Valley, but here at Guidestone the most surefire indicator that the seasons are changing is that we’ve wrapped up the last of our 2013 Summer Farmhands programming. Our office at the Hutchinson Homestead Ranch & Learning Center is quiet - the constant cries of elation have moved on to other pastures.

With the change of seasons comes a time for reflection, and this Farmhands season provides

Spending time with favorite chicks in the coop at Farm Camp

Guidestone ample material for that. By all measures it has been our most successful season yet! We debuted our new 4-day camp model, hosting 10 differently themed camps throughout the summer at three sites: Moonstone Farm, the Hutchinson Homestead, and Salida School Gardens - Holman Ave. site. These camps attracted over 90 students throughout the summer, many of whom were committed repeat campers. The diversity of sites where we held programs also contributed to the breadth of our summer programs. We partnered with the Morgan Center for Earth Literacy in Poncha Springs for the first time this season, which hosted our Little Sprouts, Garden Explorers, and Junior Farmers programs, which afforded the Farmhands kids the opportunity to get good and garden dirty while participating in food production firsthand.

As we reflect on what went well this summer, we will also be thinking hard on how to make our programs even better for next season. An essential part of that is the feedback we get from the Farmhands’ parents, our instructors, and the kids themselves. 

That said, we’re ready to let summer go here at Guidestone and welcome the crisp mornings and warm colors that fall will bring, because with them comes our annual Pumpkin Patch Event! Save the date for the fun filled weekend of October 11-13 when there will be horse-drawn carriage rides with the wranglers from Arkansas Valley Trail Rides, a steak dinner and live-auction, music, children’s activities, pony rides, food, and of course... pumpkins! All at the Hutchinson Ranch.

Ranch Camp & The Return of Sneaky Coyote

Ranch Campers sporting their well deserved gift from Coyote.

Ranch Camp, one of our favorites here at Guidestone, started with a bang as Sneaky Coyote “stole” all the campers backpacks! Luckily, he’s not a pernicious coyote, only a sneaky one, which means that he left a riddle to lead the campers back to their packs, imploring them to “Learn from the land, hear the stories it tells - In forest or pasture, or down in a well - In trees, hay yards, ditches or crates - All of these places... Magic awaits! In 3 days time I will give you a test - So practice up now and pleez do your best.” And sure enough, Sneaky Coyote visited camp each day unseen by anyone - instructors included! - playing pranks on the campers and leading them on a scavenger hunt that employed their knowledge of everything they’d learned about ranching on the last day. Coyote tested their knowledge of milking, branding, horse breeds, irrigation, and daily life from historic homesteading days, rewarding the hardworking campers with their very own bandana.

Belle and Leonard Verhoeff sharing stories.

A lesson in saddle crafting.

Tooling leather.

Most fascinating about coyote’s antics on the ranch, which is what every camper remembers throughout the year and comes back to camp asking about, is the sheer sense of wonder that he evokes in the kids; wonder in the natural world, the sense that around every bend in the river an adventure awaits, or that even in a blade of grass or a ditch there is mystery and fun to be found. It was truly a thrill to see 15 eager faces light up when they realized that coyote had made off with the lassoes with which we were about to practice roping an cow skull and see every one of those faces race with all haste to find the lassoes in the pig shed.

They call him Slim

A Cowgirl in uniform.

There was also plenty of fun and wonder to be had between Sneaky Coyote notes, especially with our visitors to camp. On Tuesday Belle and Leonard Verhoeff came to camp, and in the historic Hutchinson Homestead house gathered the campers in the parlor to share stories from their life of ranching in Park County. The kids were rapt, every one of them, with the stories of misadventure from a different time. However, they were even more interested in the wild buffalo skull and horns that Belle and Leonard brought to show them, dug from beneath layers of river silt and potentially filled with petrified buffalo brain...

Wednesday, Dennis Fisher, came to share some of his Cowboy Poetry, songs, and stories with the group to much critical acclaim. Some highlights included how he acquired the name ‘Slim’ and why you never want to make the camp cook on a cattle drive angry.

We closed out Ranch Camp with a genuine hoedown. The kids sang a song crafted at camp to their parents before leading them outside to square dance as Guidestone’s own Andrea Coen fiddled and called the dance. What a sight! The festivities were capped with ice cream made that day at camp with everyone taking a turn to churn. It was a great week of learning about the history of ranching in Colorado and the operations of a modern day ranch, all filled with fun. As Sneaky Coyote would say, “HA HA! HOO WHEE!” what a week!

Square Dancing at the Hoedown

June Farmhands Programs at the Hutchinson Homestead

The last few weeks here at Guidestone’s headquarters have been packed! Beginning June 17-20 there was a true farmyard scene at the Hutchinson Homestead for Farmhands’ Animals on the Ranch Camp.

Delbert the donkey! 

Jasper leads the llamas through the pasture.

First off, our 22 (!) campers got to meet a few residents already on the ranch, including Smoky and Bucky the horses, Delbert the ever-sociable donkey, and Stella the milk cow. Everybody had a chance to see these animals in action, whether by milking Stella or watching as Smoky got shod (thanks to local farrier Harry Hansen for that great show!). In addition to the ranch locals, we also had some visitors: Little Red and Bunny the pack llamas from Bill Gardiner at Antero Llamas, a duo of Boer meat goats from Ellen Kelly at El Regalo Ranch, a flock of young laying hens from Guidestone’s own Andrea Coen, and a pair of turkeys from the homestead of Leisa Glass. Whew! At the end of the week the kids had a solid sense of all the different animals on the ranch and their product - whether it be fiber, meat or dairy. 

Campers meet the El Regalo's boer kids.

Perhaps the more important synthesis of the week’s activities was the kid’s gradual discovery that ranches provide a home not just for domestic animals, but also for a wide variety of wild critters that might not have a home if not for the landscape of the ranch. While out in the field we tuned our senses in to look for signs of wildlife, and boy did we find plenty! From the carcass of a red-tailed hawk, red-winged blackbird nests in the pasture, deer tracks, and beaver dams it seemed like everywhere we looked we saw evidence of a healthy ecosystem. 

Laundry! Everybody's favorite pastime.

The good turnout continued the following week with 20 eager kids coming to the ranch to learn traditional homesteading skills during People on the Land. Over the course of the week camp participants got to try their hands at making butter, soap, and candles, spinning wool into bracelets, hand-washing laundry (who would’ve thought that’d be such a hit?), and even take a few swings at the blacksmith’s anvil when Jamie Monroe and his assistant Matt came to demonstrate how Annabel Hutchinson and company would’ve made their own tools in the late 1800s. 

At week’s end, the general consensus among the group was that the hard work that would’ve been demanded of them as homesteader children would have been... hard! Perhaps the chores are fun in short doses, with all your buddies doing them with you, but in the end the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of modern conveniences. 

Eager blacksmith apprentices. 

In addition to an appreciation for the austere elements of life in the homesteading era, the kids started to grasp the connection between every material aspect of their lives and the land they live on - from the butter that comes straight from a cow’s udder, the warm  clothes spun from fiber-bearing animals, or the objects that populate their lives' origins as materials mined from the earth. By seeing the whole cycle on a few of these simple products, the kids were able to, after some pronunciation lessons, identify their role in the cycle of producer-consumer-decomposer. 

Farm-fresh soap!

Reflection in the homestead.

AgriCorps at Salida School Gardens - Holman Site

At the Salida School Gardens - Holman Site, AgriCorps is in their fourth week of hard work at the garden, and oh what they’ve accomplished! A program of SCC, Agricorps brings groups of three youth ages 14-18 together to gain practical and experiential knowledge of local agriculture, as well as learning about the business side of such operations. So far the crew has certainly done that. Each Friday for the past three weeks they have been busy transplanting broccoli, lettuce, kale, chard, squash, herbs and other starts to their permanent home. Not only that, they have prepped the garden for that planting by weeding new beds and wheeling barrow after barrow of topsoil to the new row beds in the southeast section of the garden. I think most people would agree that sounds like a pretty good summer job! Learn more here.

Soon the garden will be ready for a first summer harvest, primarily leafy greens. Look for those at Ploughboy in Salida, and also directly from the farm at the first Farmstand on July 26 from 10am-3pm, which will be at the Holman site!

Guidestone is thrilled to have the AgriCorps members, and their fearless leader Sheena, working at the Salida School Garden this summer. Their hard work will ensure a plentiful harvest this fall, which in turn means local school cafeterias will be flush with delicious, beautiful bounty come the return of school. 

If anyone wants to know more about this program, drop-in volunteer hours on Fridays, or any other way to get involved at the Salida School Garden, contact Margaret Fitch, our triumphant Garden Manager at 802.274.2870 or margaret@guidestonecolorado.org.