Spring comes to Dorchester

"D Acres: The Season Begins - Spring comes to Dorchester" by Bethann Weick, as published in Small Farmers Journal; Fall 2011:Vol. 35 #4

The Week Begins
Monday, March 21. The snow started mid-afternoon - big, thick snowflakes, the kind that pile up quickly and are heavy to shovel. A prospective intern, having just submitted an application, traveled here from Vermont during the wet blizzard. He was only delayed by a couple of hours, and after a hot mug of D Acres tea, he was enthusiastic for a tour of the farm. He's hoping to live here over the summer, and this visit was part of our application process. A chance to speak face-to-face with applicants helps us to understand each other better, and to create more realistic expectations of the weeks or months that an intern or apprentice will be living at D Acres. So with all of this in mind, I laced up my boots, donned my wool jacket, and headed into the snow.

Describing D Acres of NH - our non-profit permaculture farm & educational homestead based in Dorchester, NH - even in a shortened-by-the-snow, limited-by-the-snowdrifts tour is a challenging task. Summing up fifteen years of history, of lessons learned, of experiments tried, of knowledge gained, of observations made, and of the many contributions made by passerbys and residents demands discerning word choices, to say the least. Not everything can be said in one go-round. I suppose part of the farm's wonder is that there is always a new fact, a new observation, or a new piece of history to uncover.

Our prospective intern is impressed, and quietly eloquent with insights of his own to offer. We move some wood to warm up mid-tour, and keep up an easy conversation through the task. He's looking to be here between college semesters, fascinated by the potential of permaculture ideals and looking to live it in action here at D Acres.

The tour winds down just in time as two friends descend on the farm: mountain women, rugged from their winter work as backcountry caretakers, arrive with armfuls of goodies to share. Exuberant hugs, laughter, and exclamations of excitement are poorly muffled by the piling snow. We all head inside, mugfuls of hot tea on our minds once again. Such interactions with the broader community are part of what sustain us. Friendships renew our energy, certainly, but we also prosper from the curiosity, excitement, and good will of travelers, area visitors, potential residents, and neighbors. While we are engaged in an experiment of small-scale agriculture and community here at D Acres, the message that we wish to share – a message of food sovereignty, of local economy, of strong community, and of relationships of mutual support – is bolstered and broadcast by the myriad relationships formed here at the homestead. We relish and rely on these connections.

Once inside we take the wet, snow-laden layers off our shoulders and set our boots to dry by the woodstove. Our prospective intern heads back to Vermont full of nonchalant confidence in his car's tread. Friends hunker down as the rest of us ready for our weekly community meeting.

The staff – Josh, Regina, and myself, Beth - have already met earlier in the morning to discuss accounting protocols, website updates, and future workshops & events. We now sit down with our two current interns, Dustin and Matt, to talk through our work schedule for the week, the educational programs being offered over the weekend, and the splitting up of the many daily tasks that keep the farm running, the animals healthy, and us fed. The meeting doesn't take long, and soon Meika and Joanne – our high-spirited visitors – have me chopping potatoes and sampling cheese, preparing today's specialty dinner for us all. Warm food in our bellies, it's off to bed. The week at D Acres is just beginning.

Our weekly planner (see insert) is the succinct version. What follows, however, is the story of this spring week.

Tuesday
Sugar season started a fortnight ago. The sap is flowing slowly, but steadily. Bright sunshine in the afternoons compliments nights well below freezing. With a few feet of snow still on the ground, it would seem that we are in for a long season. I have 112 taps in, with 112 buckets hanging beneath each one. Our sugaring system makes use of strong arms instead of lines of tubing. Sap is stored in drums and buckets next to our simple sugar shack; inside the rickety door liquid gold is boiled down thanks to a rusty evaporator and four pans set atop the flames. Not the most efficient, but certainly effective.

Today is my third boil of the season. I'm up at 5AM, clambering out of my silo abode and across the trail's icy crust to the tiny shack at woods' edge. Once inside, I crouch to light the sticks and newspaper awaiting within the belly of the old evaporator. Laid in place the night before, the kindling crackles to life quickly. I'm particular about the fire as the stove offers an imperfect system, full of inefficiencies and character. Getting off to a quick, hot start is key and I'd best be sure my sleepy eyes and groggy hands don't hinder the process.

I start with barely ten gallons of sap atop the stove and have it boiling within fifteen minutes. By 6AM, light begins creeping into the sky, and by 6:30 I'm privy to quite the show. Reds, purples, and pinks streak across the sky, reflecting off the undercast in the valley to the East. This morning seems particularly spectacular.

Now that the day has dawned, I top up the pans with sap, then rush off to tend the oxen. I offer Henri & August my customary good mornin', then climb hand-over-hand up to the hay loft and toss down two bales. Back down on the ground floor, I toss one out in the paddock and leave the other for this evening. The oxen are let out, frozen water changed, bedding mucked out and lickety split, I'm running over snowy paths back to the sugar shack. Neither it, nor the sap inside, has burned. I quickly re-stoke the fire and strain more sap into the pans.

While I'm in the sugar stack, Josh, Regina, Dustin, and Matt set to work on the rest of the day's tasks. As luck would have it, the more adventurous of our pigs have broken out of their pondside suite, necessitating immediate action. The morning's garden meeting is postponed, while Dustin attends to rebuilding and reinforcing the fence. A group of students from Proctor Academy, a nearby high school, is scheduled to arrive for a tour and work project, and suddenly, redoing the electric fence is on their list of tasks. As they arrive, Josh whisks them away on a whirlwind tour of the farm, while Matt entangles himself in the branches of our apple trees, all in the name of spring pruning. Regina, meanwhile, is tackling a stack of administrative work in the office. As the tour winds down, the students are split into work groups: Piglandia Redux commandeers their youthful energy as the electric fencing is reestablished, significant snow shoveling is undertaken, and fresh bedding is provided in copious quantities. Another group heads off to collect sap, hauling overflowing buckets of subtly sweet water to the sugar shack.

The morning passes quickly, and the rest of the crew gathers for lunch at high noon. After a quick meal, Dustin appears in the shack, ready to take over the smoky business for a couple of hours. I escape for fresh air and food, and some time to catch up on other details. A grant application needs to be edited, email correspondences replied to, calendar listings updated, and an electrical outlet replaced in the ox hovel. These next few hours will go oh so rapidly….

Throughout the afternoon, Josh and Matt are busy in the woodshop turning bowls and sanding spoons. While Regina is working on a new round of table runners in her weaving studio, she also has a pot of chicken soup simmering in the kitchen. This evening is the second session of an eight week course we're offering titled "Compassionate Communication" – some participants have signed up to have dinner, and Regina is making sure they have the best.

Come five o'clock, I head back to the sugar shack. Dustin has the fire hot and the sap at a rolling boil. Perfect. I take over, continuing to strain and transfer as, thankfully, these watched pots do boil. The empty buckets are adding up: by 6PM almost 85 gallons have been processed on the stove.

That's enough for today. Evening has begun to settle around the shack and the first bright stars are rising above the smoky doorway. I cease adding sap to the warming pans; only two pans are left atop the evaporator. The fire is allowed to die down just a bit, and finally it is the finishing pan alone that garners my attention. I study it, conscientious and focused, waiting. At a crucial moment the bubbles achieve a distinctive unity and coherence atop the sap-turned-syrup's surface. They rise up, and it is suddenly quite clear that the day's alchemy is complete.

Liquid gold, with an indescribable intensity to its fresh flavor, has once again been made.

The day's not done yet, however. I pour the hot syrup off the pan into a pot and awkwardly shuffle through the snow, across the field, and up to the house, determined not to spill a drop. Once inside, I strain the syrup and pour it into hot, sterilized quart jars – the heat of the liquid will seal it safely shut. This spring the season has started off with a high sugar content to the sap: the day's efforts yield two and a half gallons of syrup!

Guzzling water to make up for a smoky day, it's off to bed. The others have beat me to it, morning's coming quickly.

Wednesday
It's a short night and an early morning as today is another boil day. I sleep in 'til 5:15, a treat I relish as it's snowed overnight with the temperatures down to 20º. I slip out of my sleeping bag and into wool layers. I top it off with signature winter style of not one but two hats.

The cold spurs me to rapid and precise action lighting the fire; the pans are boiling by 5:30. Sunrise is not nearly as extravagant this morning, but just as reliable. Once light has clearly won over darkness, I set the pans and rush off to tend the oxen once again.

I spend the morning in the shack as Josh, Regina, Matt, and Dustin sit down for our weekly garden meeting. There they discuss the week's goals for indoor seeding into flats, the seeding of greens in our lower hoop house, and bed prep in our remaining three greenhouses. A pruning tour follows, as the needs of our many fruit trees, nut trees, and berry bushes are talked through. Planning necessitates action, and everyone knows the tasks at hand. Josh tackles the long pruning list, while Regina leads Matt and Dustin in the morning's activities. They begin in our "g-animal" greenhouse, weeding the beds, applying compost, and covering it with mulch. Next on the list is mixing soil and seeding flats of peppers, basil, eggplant, winter savory, orach, sea kale, cleome, gloriosa daisy, zinnia, marigold, nicotiana, and china pink. Our gardens are expanding, and while the established beds have a constant flower presence, newer areas are not so decorated. We are seeding bee food and beauty, the complement to growing annual food crops.

Come mid-day, Matt takes my place beside the evaporator and I head into the community building to grab the end of lunch – leftovers atop the woodstove, a delicious sight to see. Also inside are two Plymouth State University students who are looking for our help in constructing compost bins at the University's Eco-House. The work will be part of the their Earth Day celebrations, and they have many design details to decide upon between now and then. They stick around after lunch, however, to help out a bit, Steph joining Matt for some sugaring while Katie helps Regina and Dustin seed the lower hoop house (with various lettuces, radish, arugula, and spinach) and finish the lengthy list of indoor flat seeding. Josh sits down for some administrative details on the computer, while I head off to collect sap from taps I have set-up at a neighbors' property a mile or so away.

These twenty-seven taps yield roughly fifty gallons – and it's only been a few days since I collected last! Much of it is ice, however, thanks to the cold temperatures. An ice-cube taste-test makes it easy to discern frozen water from frozen sap, the former being tossed in favor of the latter (and necessitating fewer hours feeding the fire). It's all brought to the sugar shack and added to the stockpile.

Meanwhile a group of kids show up from The Beckett School, a local establishment for at-risk youth. A friend of ours chaperones as they bound about in the snow, searching out the next source of excitement. Piglets and sugaring seem to rank high on their list.

I'm due to relieve Matt in the shack come 5PM, but time seems to be on my side. I make my way back inside, grab the phone, a spreadsheet covered in notes, and sit down to make some calls. Regina is heading our annual publication of the Pemi-Baker Local Goods Guide, a handbook to area farms, food, artists, and second-hand goods for locals and visitors alike. It's part of our effort to strengthen the regional economy and build a local food network within our community. My contribution is convincing local establishments they want to participate by advertising. I'm halfway through a list of 352 names and numbers. Today I check off two more pages in the list before returning to the sugaring operation.

By 5PM, the garden team has wrapped up their list of tasks. Matt and I swap spots so he can begin dinner preparations, while Josh takes off for nearby Plymouth. Once there, he'll be working with PBCam, a public access broadcasting program to which we maintain a membership. This night is one of many that Josh has dedicated to downloading footage and editing material after videoing a given D Acres event (in this case a soup and entertainment program in downtown Plymouth last weekend). Through access to high quality videography equipment and the tutelage of an experienced program director, Josh has been creating numerous short, educational videos that are then posted on our website, YouTube.com, & the local television channel.

We recognize the benefits of reaching out to local and global audiences through this medium by providing an alternative educational program. Pursuing this work, however, highlights the perpetual question of how best to invest our time. While the equipment we utilize and the finished video product represent valuable resources to the mission of D Acres, there is an acknowledged tedium to the tasks and a commitment of hours that could otherwise be put to onsite work. Too, in our drive to provide coverage for the organization and the underexposed themes of small-scale agriculture, we do not wish to become yet another source of consumer driven information nor culture blighted by technology. It is a fine line, benefiting from the ends offered by such equipment, yet not becoming the harbingers of technological solutions nor the culprits of media-induced indoctrination to which we stand in opposition. For now, at least, the potentials are convincing motivation for Josh's work this Wednesday night.

Thursday
Incredibly, the week is half over. Is it any surprise? Time moves rapidly here with each hour packed with a maximum of work. The satisfaction of completing tasks and moving forward with new goals provides ample motivation.

Today, the task at hand is logging. An acquaintance a few towns over recently lost her timber-frame, straw-bale house in a disastrous fire that left nothing behind. In an effort to help her out, we've agreed to donate some of our larger pines to her rebuild effort. This morning, Jay, a local logger, saw mill operator, and long-time friend of D Acres has agreed to use his tractor and winch to haul the largest logs out of the woods and to his mill. The rebuild contractors would be in touch with him from there.

Our job for the morning is to work around Jay, hauling brush and unwanted logs out of the woods using our Jersey oxen, Henri & August. Josh, Dustin, and I set to it while Matt fixes up a pig fence, and then continues through the pruning agenda.

At the logging site, the Spring's fluctuations of freeze and thaw cold and cool have left the woods a maze of ice. Dustin and I haul buckets of sand along the drag route to be used by the oxen, doing what we can to create some traction. Josh begins felling trees as Dustin operates the wood chipper and I drive Henri & August. While Jay pulls out the pine destined for the timber-frame construction, the oxen haul out the remains. Hardwood is set in one pile for firewood; softwood is set aside in another pile, to be used in construction as polewood or cut up for next year's sugarwood; brush, tops, and small diameter or rotting wood go to the chipper for woodchips (to be used for animal bedding and mulch). It's an easy and effective triage.

Even as the sun reaches its peak, the cold holds. So, too, does the ice. August falls on a gentle slope; both oxen are cautious with their footing. By high noon Henri is limping quite noticeably, a prior strain exacerbated by today's ice. We push on for a few more pulls, cleaning up the day's work. Anything left behind is likely to be snowed over or iced in – it may be March, but Jack Frost has not yet departed.

It's after 1PM when we finally make it inside for the lunch awaiting us on the woodstove. Matt joins us. Regina, however, is in town. An impromptu dentist appointment coincided conveniently with a trip to the University library, the dropping off of garlic and potatoes to be sold through Local Foods Plymouth, our online farmers' market, and the picking-up of restaurant scraps for our pigs. Three times each week we do this "town run" – bringing ten Plymouth establishments, plus the University, clean five-gallon buckets in exchange for food scraps we feed to our pigs. We also pick-up all the expired produce from the area's local supermarket. Not only are our animals treated to a healthy diet, but food destined for the landfill is redirected into our permaculture system. It is eagerly consumed by our fine swine and digested into excellent compost, a building block of our gardens' success. Thus town run, an apparently mundane task, is also an important one that provides critical resources on which the farm depends.

After lunch, Matt takes the afternoon off (you'll see, he's got work lined up tomorrow) while Dustin splits the firewood brought in this morning. I sit down to the computer and edit an article to be published in our local paper. Other computer tasks, plus additional phone calls seeking advertisers for the 2011 Local Goods Guide quickly fill the afternoon.

As Regina returns from town, Josh heads out, this time for Putney, VT. He has been touring the northeast with our first film What is Permaculture?, and Putney is the latest stop. The film documents D Acres through the seasons, highlights our application of permaculture principles, and promotes our annual Permaculture Through the Seasons design certification course. Josh is taking the show on the road, literally.

It's my night to cook dinner, and I get to it about five o'clock. Dinnertime is set for 6:30, and punctuality is appreciated by all. Down to the root cellar I go, bringing up potatoes, sauerkraut, and cheese. Then it's up to the second floor, where I rummage about in one of the bedroom closets in search of delicata squash and garlic. The cast iron pans are set to heat on the woodstove while I chop the vegetables up this way and that. Right on time the buffet line is set out: roasted potatoes; squash stuffed with leftovers and topped with cheese; sauerkraut cooked with caraway and sunflower seeds; and plenty of bread. Come this time of year I find myself beginning to crave fresh greens...but my oh my, potatoes and squash sure do hit the spot.

After dinner I head out to the animals, getting the oxen in and fed for the night, and shutting the ducks into their house (one less chore for Josh to do upon his late return). The prospect of an early bedtime is appealing, but I've got some grant writing work to do on the computer first and there are emails waiting for a response. My attention holds for about an hour, but I know it's not worth pushing beyond that. Just one last thing to do: I rush out to the sugar shack and get the evaporator and pans prepped by headlamp. Tomorrow will be another boil day and I prefer to have the pans filled up and the kindling set just so the night before.

All of this accomplished I climb my way up into my silo abode and hunker down inside my two sleeping bags. I'm asleep before my thoughts can catch up with me.

Friday
The routine is now as familiar to you as it is to me. An early start, a pretty sunrise, a dash to let the oxen out, and a morning's worth of hours adding, transferring, and straining sap atop the evaporator. While I am enveloped in the smoky sweetness, Matt and Regina are working in the kitchen, prepping food for our twice-yearly Member Dinner to be held this Saturday. Regina, our Queen of the Kitchen, has quite the menu planned. While directing Matt on chopping vegetables, making spreads, and mixing marinades, she's making homemade crackers, plus a batch of her sourdough bread. Both will be baked in our wood-fired cob oven this afternoon. I'll also mention that she's finding time to water our dozens of indoor flats as she oversees the kitchen operation.

Josh is busy attending to a myriad of details around the farm - checking on the livestock and noting how things are progressing in the greenhouse, cleaning up corners of storage areas, noting fix-up projects to be done once the snow has gone, plus getting a bit of pruning done. By mid-afternoon he's off once again, bringing the D Acres film tour to Prescott Farm & Education Center in Laconia, NH.

In the interim, a visitor from Boise, Idaho of all places swings by Dorchester. He happened to hear of D Acres and managed to fit it into his travels – it is remarkable, really, how word spreads. Barely an hour later he's on his way again. Come midday, Dustin shows up in the sugar shack doorway, offering to give me a few hours away from the stove. I eagerly take a break for lunch and end up napping to top it off. I don't hear the alarm 'til Regina taps me awake.

I get my feet on the floor and head back to the shack. Some neighbors are keeping Dustin company, having showed up early for the monthly Potluck/Open Mic event we'll be hosting this evening. We chat for a bit, then Dustin heads up to the Community Building. He and Matt are cooking a dish for the potluck inside while Regina is working the cob oven out back. The neighbors, too, head inside after a bit, and I tend to the finishing sap. I'm planning on ending earlier than usual this evening as I'm looking forward to visiting with the crowd of reliable regulars.

The potluck/open mic is one of four monthly events we host here at D Acres, all of which are intended to bring good folks and good food together. It's one of my favorite events for that very reason. Camaraderie and community fill the air with contentment.

The Potluck starts at 6PM; I'm inside straining the sap and jarring it by 6:30 or so. There's already a crowd of roughly fifteen, and a counter full of succulent dishes. Comments pass around the room at the smell of the syrup and the sight of my soot-stained hands. We all laugh good-naturedly and pass around a syrup-laden spoon. Ours has no official grade, but I bet it's off the charts, super dark and oh so sweet. With the jars set to seal, I grab a bit of food and drop in on a handful of conversations. Once my bowl is clean, though, I reluctantly say my goodnights. While the open mic is a fine draw, this afternoon's impromptu nap hasn't nicked the tiredness. It's off to the silo I go, waving goodnight before the sun has set. I'm told by the rest of the crew that it was quite a fine evening indeed.

Spring, I suppose, is best looked at as the beginning, a sprinter's marathon. Winter, for all its hard work, is a time to rest and restore oneself. Spring is exciting for the change of pace, the gradual awakening of the natural world, the lengthening of to-do lists, the building of momentum. We are perched on the cusp; the world is about to turn from coldness and hues of gray and white, to lushness, warmth, and verdant abundance. Two things trigger the change: one is the weather, a source of uncertainty and risk, but also a tremendous helping hand; the second, is us. In many ways the scale of our summer marathon is determined by the quantity of work we can accomplish in the spring. So we must run, and run hard, so as to fly come summer. For me, sugaring is the first sign of the seasonal transformation. Though accompanied by all of the quaint and idyllic images of a New England sugar operation, it is also a period of little sleep and smoky lungs; it is beginning the sprinting season tired. That is a challenge I embrace, but it is a challenge nonetheless.

Saturday
The weekend. While our weeks are focused on the tasks of farming, our weekends revolve around community outreach and educational programming. Today we have coordinated a Sewing Workshop to be taught by an accomplished seamstress and local resident, followed by the aforementioned Member Dinner. Tomorrow will be our monthly Volunteer Day.

One day at a time, however. As Saturday morning dawns, we each go about our appointed animal chores. The "upper pigs" – our set of breeders in one house, a sow and recently born piglets in another – are my responsibility for the weekend. I bring them the last of the food from town (Dustin will be making another town run this morning), knock ice out of their buckets, note the state of their bedding, and carry fresh water to all.

We each take care of various odds and ends this morning, prepping the house for the evening's dinner gathering, and taking care of various details we have yet to check off our lists. Regina is busy with the cooking, ensuring a steady supply of dirty dishes to keep us busy when we offer to help. The menu goes something like this: hors d'oeuvres, comprised of homemade crackers, yogurt cheese, hummus, aioli, pickles, pickled garlic scapes, and dilly beans; the main course of roasted pork shoulder, carrot & beet salad, stuffed hubbard squash, sautéed greens, roasted potatoes, and fresh bread; and let's not forget dessert – berry pie! Almost all of the meal's ingredients were grown here on our own land (the exceptions, for those curious, are flour, milk, oil, salt, & garbanzo beans).

The dinner was a fine success, with a passel of cleaned plates, leftovers to last us the weekend, and lots of positive feedback from local regulars as well as members who live further away. These individuals are our active constituency, and their thoughts & opinions are valuable to us. Too, it means a lot when people are willing to support the farm with a membership donation, and we relish the opportunity to say thank you with a fine meal.

Sunday
The final Sunday of every month is our designated Volunteer Day. On this particular day there are four students from a nearby school signed up, along with their chaperone. There is, however, some miscommunication and they end up arriving later than expected. While I wait, I take care of lingering house chores (dusting is not my favorite pastime) and address a handful of emails still clogging the inbox.

The rest of the crew is similarly engaged, rearranging the common room after yesterday's gathering, tending the animals, watering the greenhouses, and resting up, briefly, for the coming week.

By mid-day the volunteers have arrived. Hats worn askance and pants hanging low they bring a new style and recognizable enthusiasm to the farm. We start off by feeding the pigs, a chore I put off knowing the high value of cute animal entertainment to visitors. It works, they're hooked.

From there we set off to collect sap from the 85 taps on our property. Fifty-eight are along the road and fairly easy to access. The bed of our farm truck quickly fills with brimming five-gallon buckets. The hardest part of the task is carrying these buckets from the barn lot across the snow to the shack itself. I try to double-check the lids, but the students' wet jeans are a tell-tale sign of lost sap. The remaining twenty-seven buckets are in the woods and we bumble around, post-holing occasionally and struggling over the snow. Buckets full of sap are heavy, and even beaten down paths have high banks to up the ante.

From there, we spend the rest of the afternoon moving and stacking wood for the sugar shack. Sugaring, it strikes me, is an ode to what we will do for sugar. Consuming significant quantities of wood, necessitating hundreds of hours of effort, and resulting in little sleep, our sweet tooths exact a steep price. Yet certainly sugaring must be worthwhile? Here at D Acres, it is our only source of sugar (we've had poor luck with honey bees, have no plans for a corn syrup factory in the back yard, and it is too cold here to grow sugar cane). I can reveal with the clarity of hindsight that this season ultimately yielded thirty gallons of syrup, much more than past years. These next twelve months will be sweet, and with luck and moderation there should be some to tide us over if next season is more miserly.

Needless to say, our sugaring operation greatly benefited from the helping hands of our volunteers. As the day wound down, the sugar shack was in order, stocked with sap and the means to boil it, ready for three days of boiling in the coming week. Which was fast approaching.

Monday
Sunday night we were each engaged in our own endeavors in our own abodes. Come Monday morning, however, we are once again a functional unit. Josh, Regina, and I meet early in the morning for a staff meeting, running through our agenda of (this time) thirty-seven items. As we cover topics ranging from advertising goals to applicant updates, grant reports to annual appeals, event planning to weekly work, we talk efficiently and to the point, familiar with each other and the tasks at hand.

Two hours after we begin, we push our chairs back from our roundtable and recharge ourselves with bread, aioli, and some passing laughter. We have a plan for the week, goals for the future, and momentum to ride.

The afternoon is fast approaching. When Dustin returns from town run, he and Matt will join our triumvirate around the table once again, and together we will ready ourselves for the coming work week. A glance outside still reveals a wintry landscape, but the beds visible in the greenhouse and the seeding list before us are reminders that Spring has sprung.

Together, we're ready to run.

D Acres Permaculture Farm & Sustainability Center is located in Dorchester, NH, a 501(c)3 non-profit focusing on education and community outreach.. For the latest information on workshops and events, registration for the 2012 Permaculture Design Course, and opportunities to stay at the farm hostel or work as an apprentice/intern, please visit our website at www.dacres.org. We can be reached by email at [email protected] or by phone at 603-786-2366.