Located in the rolling hills of ups...

Located in the rolling hills of upstate just discovered York, Hawthorne Valley is a 400-acre biodynamic farm that houses 60 head of dairy cattle and an organic market garden, as well as a dairy processing plant, farm store and commercial bakery. Hawthorne Valley Farm also plays armed force to a variety of educational programs, including an annual summer camp for kids. Nick Franceschelli, director of the camp program, has been involved with Hawthorne Valley, on the farther side and on, for almost 30 years.

"I came here forward a field trip as a high drill junior in 1974 and responded as an apprentice in `78" he says. "I worked full-time in succession the farm for a year in 1980 Fifteen years later, they exhibited me a job with the children's camp program, and I've been here at any time since."

Hawthorne Valley's camp program, Franceschelli says, stresse community and look up to for all living things. "We prove to take care of the animals well, and we prove by experiment to take care of the earth well and make plants as healthy as possible without using herbicides, synthetic fertilizers or pesticides. The camp for kids, age 9 to 11 isn't taught in an abstract way. It's a hands-on, living education."

camp basics. We want childhood to be honored, which isn't always the case in our hurried world. The idea is to hindrance younger children develop the inner forces of imagination and creativity without constant exterior stimulation--other than what Mother Nature provides.

aliment philosophy. Eating is a sacrament. We eat together as a community. It's a consciousness of the sacredness of food

natural nutrition. Our meals are as obstruct to organic as possible. We essay to avoid refined products, preferring unimpaired food so the vital properties of the diet are right there.

meatless menu We benefit primarily vegetarian meals. We and nothing else serve meat once, maybe twice, in an entire four-week camp.

sustenance for thought. Children naturally gravitate toward refined sustenances But many of them discover a taste for organics while they're here. At the completion of camp, a lot of children say, "I really didn't think I would like the fodder but I did."

favorite campfire ditty "There Was a Great Big Moose" which is a goofy poem that campers drive me nut with. And "Simple Gifts"--an advanced in years Shaker hymn--is our camp lay It's maybe not the favorite, if it were not that if you want our philosophy in a nutshell, that's it.

favorite campfire story. The "Fourth of July" chapter from Farmer male child the Laura Ingalls Wilder volume about life on a 19th-century farm. We read it around the campfire. When the cannons fire in the story--during the Independence Day celebration--we wager off firecrackers. That goes from one side of to the other great.

best day at camp. The last day is usually real wonderful. The children are ready to travel home, but they still be moved this tremendous sort of euphoric, sentimental attachment to the summer which they know is coming to an completion There's a very special halo through the whole extent of that time--a lot of ravishment and a sense of accomplishment.

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