Community Life and Purposeful Work for People with Disabilities
Farm Program
High Spirit Community Farm operates a Farm Program; with programming determined by the interests of each individual. We reconnect to the earth and work the hardscrabble Berkshire Hills into bountiful production. We celebrate by eating our organically grown vegetables, eggs and meat.
We aspire to grow or raise much of our food. We have a large vegetable garden, greenhouse, several fruit trees, goats, pigs and a brood of egg-producing chickens. What we do not eat immediately after harvest, we process and preserve in order to enjoy later in the year.
All of our community members participate in the care and maintenance of our garden, trees and animals. There are a wide variety of meaningful work opportunities requiring different levels of skill. There are jobs requiring careful fine motor skills: picking up eggs, planting seeds and separating herbs from their stems. There are also lots of gross motor jobs: mucking stalls, turning compost and taking buckets of food scraps to the chickens.
Our goats, chickens and pigs not only provide us with companionship, but also teach us that everyone, regardless of his or her ability, can be a caregiver.
The lovely warmth, smells and noises of these animals continually remind us that they need and want our attention.
All this work requires the mastery of skills that may be new and challenging, or that we already know and enjoy.
