Farm & Homestead Day
Saturday, June 21, 2025
At MOFGA's Common Ground Education Center in Unity
Farm & Homestead Day at MOFGA is a free day of hands-on learning and fun. From its beginnings in 2012 it has been presented by volunteers who delight in sharing their expertise in skills for rural and sustainable living. There are activities for all ages.
Learning to mow with a scythe has been a draw from the beginning, as has been hands-on tool care. Woodworking techniques for utility and beauty are shared. The plant swap is always popular as are fiber arts including spinning, dyeing, and weaving with a variety of looms.
Farm & Homestead Day begins with traditional tea and crumpets. A variety of musical offerings has everyone dancing and singing to round out the day.
The volunteer organizers, The Rabble, meet throughout the winter and spring to plan this event. To join, email farmandhomesteadday@mofga.
Regular Highlights include:
- Learning to mow with a scythe
- Tool care demonstrations (bring a favorite hand tool from the garden or kitchen to learn tips for keeping the blades sharp and the wooden handles well-oiled)
- Blacksmithing and woodworking workshops
- Tea & crumpets
- Learning to repair small electrical appliances or bicycles (bring one from home that needs attention!)
- A wide variety of fiber arts, including knitting, mending, rug hooking, dyeing with plants, sewing with a treadle machine and much more!
- Gardening workshops
- Cooking workshops
- A potluck lunch featuring stone soup made from locally-sourced ingredients
- Bean hole beans
- A plant swap (please only bring bare root plants to share, in order to limit the spread of jumping worms through soil)
- Music: ukulele, singing, and mixed-instruments! (bring your own ukulele, fiddle, mandolin, drum, etc.)
- And so much more!
Interested in giving a workshop?
Check back in January for our workshop proposal form, or send an email to [email protected].
What to bring:
- Do you have a small electrical appliance, or bicycle in need of repair? Bring it and learn how to fix it!
- Got clothes that need mending? There will be folks to teach this important skill.
- Bring garden tools and learn to sharpen them yourself.
- If your plants are growing bigger than your garden can handle, bring some plants (bare root only, please) to swap!
- Have an instrment you like to play? Bring it to one of the music workshops!
- Attendees are asked to contribute vegetables to the Stone Soup; plus a dish to share at the potluck lunch, which includes hearty foods for vegans, vegetarians and omnivores. Most important—bring your readiness to learn and have a great day!
Schedule:
- Tea, crumpets and more!
- FreeCycle: Exchange goods
- Plant Swap
- Scything: Practice and Tool Care
- Seeds: From Sowing to Saving
- Making Wee Folk Homes & Toad Abodes
- Weaving on a Small Floor Loom
- Sit & Knit
- Needle Felting
- Spinning Wool
- Ribbed Basket Weaving
- Please Tread on Me/Treadle Sewing Time
- Natural Dyeing
- Weaving on the Earth Loom
- Bicycle Maintenance
- Home Wiring & Small Electrical Appliance Repair Cafe
- Building Apple Boxes & Ladders
- Use Wire to Weave Your Own Fence or Trellis
- Stone Soup-Making: a Community Cooking Project! (There will be three batches: vegan, vegetarian and omnivore). Bring something for the pots!
- Bean Hole Beans
- Make Flower Crowns
- Tree ID walk
- Seedy Art
- Deer Skin Pouches
- Card Weaving & Making Seed/Shell Mosaics
- Working with Leather
- Tapestry Weaving on Small Looms
- From Seed to Broom
- Steam Bend a Wooden Kitchen Tool
- Basic Blacksmithing
- Tool Sharpening
- Round Singing
- Ukeleles
- Navigate Complicated Lambing
- Sourdough Bread
- Fermenting Vegetables Beyond Kraut
- Chainsaw Maintenance
- Stone Soup: Three batches — vegan, vegetarian, and omnivore — made in the morning with volunteer help! Coming in the morning? Consider bringing vegetables to add to the soups!
- Potluck: Bring something vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore to share! Notes including ingredients are much appreciated.
- Build Bluebird Boxes
- Build a Bee Hotel
- Hand Mending & Alterations
- Handsew Tiny Designs from Upcycled Scrap
- Making Metal Low Tunnel Hoops
- Using Basic Wood Construction Tools
- Make Battery Chargers with PV Cells
- Greenwood Chopsticks, Hooks, & More
- Roof Thatching
- Tapestry Weaving on Small Looms
- Card Weaving & Seed/Shell Mosaics
- Traditional Tune Swap
- Building for Rodent Resistance
- Safe Handling of Raw Milk
- Intro to Healthy Raw Food Preparation
Questions? Email farmandhomesteadday@
Lend a hand to help make this event possible! Sign up for volunteer shifts.Â
Please consider carpooling with people in your family or friend unit, or use Group Carpool to organize rideshares.
For more information about Group Carpool, please visit their FAQ page. MOFGA does not assume responsibility for anything that transpires before, during or after use of Group Carpool rideshares.Â
