Camphill Kimberton’s Hootenanny set for July 14

Camphill Kimberton’s Hootenanny, a festival of local music and food, will be held July 14 from 3-10 p.m. at 1601 Pughtown Road, Kimberton, Pa.

Musicians scheduled to perform on the solar-paneled hay wagon stage include: Mostly Maybe, Dirk Quinn, Perseverance Jazz Band, and Big Bad Wolf.  Jim Crater of Recycling Services will be helping to provide solar power. 

The Hootenanny has been organized to celebrate the joy of local culture. In addition to the music, there will be games, face painting, hay rides and folk dancing.  Local, organic food will be available for purchase.  Bring your own reusable place settings and flatware to receive a discount on your food purchase.  Children will have the chance to spot cows, chickens, sheep and more on the working dairy and vegetable farm.

The admission fee is $10, $8 in advance. Children 10 and under are free. Advance tickets can be purchased by contacting bernadette@camphillkimberton.org or 610-935-8660. Attendees may bring their own blankets or lawn chairs.

Proceeds from the Hootenanny will go to Camphill Kimberton, a dynamic farming and handcrafting community that includes adults with developmental disabilities. This non-profit organization has provided meaningful work and a supportive environment since it was founded in 1972. Located on 432 acres of farm, gardens and woodlands in Chester County, Camphill Kimberton is also a local center for culture and a model for sound ecological living.

Camphill Village Kimberton Hills is located at 1601 Pughtown Road, Kimberton, Pa. Please use Google Maps for directions as most GPS systems do not recognize our address.

Visit www.camphillkimberton.org to learn more.

Special Camphill Café Menu and Garden Tour to Commemorate “Pollinator Week,” June 18-24

This month join Camphill Village Kimberton Hills in celebrating National Pollinator Week: June 18 – 24, 2012.  This week is intended to create awareness about pollinators and their importance to the environment and to our food supply. 

Pollinating animals, including bees, birds, butterflies, bats, beetles and others, are vital to our delicate ecosystem, supporting terrestrial wildlife, providing healthy watershed, and more. The work of pollinators ensures full harvests of crops and contributes to healthy plants everywhere.

Foods grown in Pennsylvania that need honeybees (more than other pollinators) are very diverse and include apples, berries, broccoli, cucumbers, peaches and watermelon.

Camphill Village Kimberton Hills is home to approximately 15 thriving bee hives, where bees pollinate the fruits and vegetables in the Sankanac Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) gardens, the Secret Garden Herb Garden, the orchards, vineyards, flowers and trees across the 432-acre biodynamic farm and intentional community. 

The Camphill Café, in the heart of the village and open to the public, serves seasonal foods grown both biodynamically and organically in Camphill Kimberton’s CSA gardens. The Café, a member of Fair Food Philly, was recently renovated and features geothermal heating and air conditioning, natural solar tube lighting and outdoor seating. The café is open Tuesdays – Saturdays, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. and will be celebrating Pollinator Week by featuring foods on the menu reliant on the pollination of insects in order to grow. 

The exceptional menu includes:

• Entrée special - Coconut Curry with carrots, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, squash, raisins, cranberries and tofu (soy beans) over basmati rice. (vegan and gluten-free)
• Soup - Coconut, ginger and lemon with carrots, zucchini, celery, green beans and chick peas with rice. (vegan and gluten-free)
• Dessert - Raspberry, blueberry and blackberry crisp, Berry compote topped with vanilla sauce; Gluten-free Creamy Berries Cake, Gluten-free Bee Sting Cake

 Many of the Café’s regular offerings also contain pollinated foods, including:

• Chicken salad: made with safflower oil, walnuts and cranberries.
• Salad dressing: made with local honey, safflower oil, sesame oil, apple cider. 
• Mango lassi:  made with mango and cardamom

The special Pollinator Week menu will be available from June 19-23.  (Italicized items are pollinated foods.) 

Camphill Kimberton and the Camphill Café are located at 1601 Pughtown Road, Kimberton, PA 19442.

. . .

The mission at Camphill Village Kimberton Hills, located in Kimberton, Pa., is to encourage individuals, especially those with special needs, to discover and fulfill their greatest developmental and creative potential within a farming and handcrafting community.  In valuing persons of all abilities, Kimberton Hills seeks to foster a living and working environment that is sustainable, productive and beautiful.  Residents and volunteers uniquely contribute to the community through meaningful vocations such as gardening, dairy farming, and working in the café, bakery and handicraft workshops.  As the community cares for one another, it also nurtures and improves the land by practicing biodynamic agriculture and raising environmental awareness. 

For more information about Camphill Kimberton, visit www.camphillkimberton.org.

For more information about Pollinator Week, visit pollinator.org.

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Kimberton Hills Thrift Shop now closed

The Kimberton Hills Thrift Shop is now closed. Thank you to all who donated items and came to shop. We are grateful for all the new visitors!

There is a possibility that it may reopen next winter. Please stay tuned for updates.

Camphill Cafe now open on Tuesdays

Starting May 29, the Camphill Cafe will be open on Tuesdays, in addition to the regular Wednesday-Saturday schedule.  Please stop by from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.  for delicious, organic soups, salads, sandwiches, entrees and desserts.

We are also pleased to announce we have become members of Fair Food Philly.  Fair Food Philly is dedicated to bringing locally grown food to the marketplace and to promoting a humane, sustainable agriculture system for the Greater Philadelphia region.

For more information, visit www.fairfoodphilly.org.

A beautiful Family and Friends Day

Thank you to all who joined us for our annual Family and Friends Day - Sunday, May 13.

It was a gorgeous day to gather and celebrate Mothers and Mother Earth!  We all enjoyed a musical presentation, followed by updates from community members and then lunch on the green.

After lunch, there were many activities to choose from including skirting fleeces, tending the herb garden, and planting a paw-paw patch.  A tea party and folk dance rounded out the day.

 

Talkfest Wrap Up

Camphill Village Kimberton Hills 4th Annual Talkfest…

A Great Success Thanks To You

And A Really, Really, Really Early Announcement For Talkfest 5!

I am so pleased to report that everyone had a spectacular time at the Birchrunville Store Café munching away on fantastic and neverending oardoors…people actually complained they ate too much!...while washing them down with wonderful organic wines and having amazingly interesting conversations.  What more can you ask for?

Well, there was that organic Tequila that showed up unexpectedly....  Then there was the way Aditi Roy strolled in with such an engaging manner and low key style for such a Big Television Personality. And quite a few people had never been to the Café before and took home menus to remind them to make a reservation to return as soon as possible.

All in all, a great time was had by all.  And we raised a bit of money to support Camphill Village Kimberton Hills.  Not only did almost all the registration fee go to support our place, but a number of you sent in donations even though you weren’t able to attend.  That is just so nice.  Bernadette is no doubt writing away at thank you notes or perhaps they’re already winding their way through the postal system as they head towards your mailbox.

Then there are the people who registered and never got there.  We feel so sorry for you. On the other hand, that did leave more for the rest of us…

Quite a few people asked when we’re doing it again.  They don’t seem to realize how much stress it places on Bernadette and myself.  We aggravate, we worry, we plot, and we have to drink hundreds of bottles of wine to find those few that meet the high standards required by Talkfest.  Then this year there were the dozens of bottles of Tequila we had to drink.

Luckily we can completely ignore the oardoors knowing that Francis will take care of that in his usual magnificent way.

And then there are all the people that complain we picked a day they couldn’t come due to some other thing going on. I have no idea why a vacation in Paris, a family reunion, a business trip, or getting married can possibly be more important that Talkfest…but, apparently some people feel this way.

Since Bernadette is so tired of hearing this, we decided to give you an entire year notice about the next one.  Well, a year less a few days, depending on when you read this.  Unfortunately we are not totally sure about this date so you might just want to keep every Sunday evening of April 2013 clear until we get it finalized.  But…April 28, 2013 is looking good.

Same excellent event: No, I repeat NO Program. Just great food and wine with the best conversation possible provided by the most interesting people around.

And, no, we are not going to do a Talkfest in the fall…unless one of you forks over a nice sponsorship in which case we are willing to have our arms twisted. The Café is available October 21….

Intro to Non-Violent Communication with John Cunningham: May 15

Intro to Non-Violent Communication
with John Cunningham

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

7:30 p.m. in Rose Hall

$10.00

Compassionate Communication is also commonly known as Nonviolent Communication and was developed by Marshall Rosenberg.

Compassionate Communication is about...
Meeting one another in a new way.
Giving and receiving real understanding.
Fostering the quality of connection that enables everyone's needs to get met through natural giving.
Recognizing the universal humanity in every human being, whether family or strangers.
Creating a new social impulse based on the practice of empathy.
Realizing the potential for social beauty within our communities.

Compassionate communication is about how we can re-forge how we speak, listen and perceive so as to foster this understanding.

Please join us in Rose Hall for this important training.