Ed's Corner

Outragehisss Pets, Open House

Join us this Saturday, February 18th, from Noon - 1 pm, for our annual winter animal program with Outragehisss Pets. Each Tuesday and Thursday of our summer camp season Outragehisss Pets brings a menagerie of wild animals to camp for us to learn about, see up close, and even touch or hold. Some animals are soft (chinchillas), some fluffy (fennec foxes), rough (armadillos), scaly (snakes), spiky (hedgehogs), but all are outrageous!

Our Outragehisss Pets program will take place at the Green Meadow Waldorf School, 307 Hungry Hollow Road, Chestnut Ridge, NY 10977. 

Stick around after for our Open House, which runs between 1 - 4 pm. Prospective camp families visiting us for just the open house can stop by any time during those hours. We'll give you a tour of camp, show you a slide show with pictures of summers past, and you'll come away from visiting us with a good understanding of our camp values, and how we make those values a reality each summer!

Our open house is in the Lower School building of the Green Meadow Waldorf School, 307 Hungry Hollow Road, Chestnut Ridge, NY 10977. 

Ice Fishing

Chuck Stead, our beloved camp storyteller, recounts an invigorating ice fishing experience.

The thing about ice fishing is you only do it when its block-hard cold. My dad, Walt, used to say ice needed to be six inches thick for good fishing. Six inches or more was the thickness of a block of ice the community used to cut out of the ice ponds to store in their ice houses, for use later in the warm season. Six inches was solid enough to hold any number of fishermen who chopped holes into the ice for fishing through. Some fellows chopped with a little ice hatchet. Others had a long-handled auger that they worked like a big hand drill. But Walt had my grandfather's ice chopper. This was a three foot long iron handle with a straight forged blade, about five inches wide. The ice chopper was made by my grandfather at the Ramapo Iron Works years ago. The old man attached a solid blade to a switch machine handle. Sometimes the ice chopper needed some extra persuasion, so Walt would whack it with the back end of his hatchet and chisel his way down into the block-hard ice. Mostly Ricky and I stood and watched him chopping holes into the ice.

Once he cut a half dozen holes or more, spread out over a hundred-foot section of lake ice, we went about setting our tip-ups into the holes. These were little cross sticks of narrow wood that were rigged with a small reel of coarse line. The line was weighted with a lead sinker and hook and baited with worm or corn. You dropped the line into the hole and set the tip-up across the hole, such that if a fish took the bait and pulled, a little flag sprung into the air and a small sleigh bell jingled. Usually the fish caught itself, but then you had to pull it up through the chopped hole and get it off the hook. This was all a very cold way to fish. You were always having to pull off your gloves to grab the fish and de-hook it, or to re-set the bait and rig the tip-up. We also had little fishing poles to try and catch fish through the ice holes.



Walt took us ice fishing after he came home from work, so we usually didn’t get it all set up until early evening. Our tip-ups were out in a wide circle around us and we three sat on up-turned buckets around three small holes with our short fishing rods. Between us, Walt set up a wood camp fire on an open bucket that stood up off the ice on three short metal legs set on wooden pads. We were always amazed at how we could have a fire out there on the ice and how it didn’t melt its way through into the lake. And we were very grateful for the fire for, as I said, ice fishing was only done when it was block-hard cold.

This one evening, after we had caught a mess of perch and sunnies, me and Ricky were getting antsy with the drop in temperature. Walt added some more fire wood, but this only helped to warm up our front sides and then we had to turn around to warm up our back sides, only to find our front sides were chilling up again. Walt re-lit his pipe and started to tell us about the monster catfish in this lake. He spoke with the pipe clenched in his teeth. Each word sent out a little puff of white smoke.

“Some old-timers say there’s monster catfish in this lake. They call them granddaddy bullheads. These big old white bellied catfish seldom come to the surface but for late at night. In the winter, when the lake is froze over like it is tonight, they rest down deep sucking air out of the water. They don’t bother to take our bait, they just watch to see some other regular size fish steal our bait and then the big old bullhead cat fish rise up and swallow that regular size fish whole.”

Ricky rubbed his hands together and said, “So why don’t we take one of them regular size perch and bait our hook with that and maybe that granddaddy monster catfish will go for it!”

Walt said, “Well, that could be a good idea…and it might even work, but the problem is we’d never be able to pull one of them granddaddy bullhead catfish through our little fishing hole.”

 Ricky said, “They is that big, Walt?”

 Walt said, “Oh Ricky, they is fierce bigger than our fishing holes in the ice.”  

We got up to check our fishing holes, as they sometimes froze over and the new ice needed to be cleared out. Just as we stood, one of the tip-ups started to jingle furiously. Rick and I ran over to it and together just managed to catch the tip-up as it was starting to break apart from the strike beneath the ice. We pulled, but the little reel broke apart, so Rick wound the line around his wrist. Then a great splash of water and ice thrust up through the little fishing hole and for a moment we saw the flash of a massive white belly slam against the hole and roll over such that we saw its black dorsal fine. Then the line went slack and we both fell over. Walt came over and picked up what was left of the mangled fish hook. It looked like it had been chewed. We looked up at Walt and he said, “Well sir, that was one of them granddaddy bullhead monster catfish!”

Maple Sugaring and Open House March 4th

Mighty maple syrup, that amber aristocrat of all sweets, is a large part of what we call the ‘three M’ time of year – March, Maple, and Mud. Join The Nature Place for our most popular public program (it’s so nice, we do it twice), in the morning beginning at 11 am or in the afternoon, starting at 2 pm on Saturday, March 4th.

We’ll learn all about maples trees, discovering what it takes to turn sap into syrup. We’ll then go outside to tap a maple tree, taste the sap that drips out, see it boiling over a fire, and then, conclude our event with the sweet taste of thickened maple syrup over crushed ice, accompanied, of course, by a dill pickle. Participants in this program will take home spouts for tapping as well as clear instructions for making their own maple syrup at home, from their very own tree.

Again, this program happens twice, once from 11 am – Noon, and then again, from 2 – 3 pm. Our Open House this day is between programs, from Noon – 2 pm. You'll find us at the Green Meadow Waldorf School, 307 Hungry Hollow Road, Chestnut Ridge, NY 10977. 

Rise and Fall of the Sourdough

Eva Szigeti gives a peek into the living world of Sourdough culture and its many culinary uses.

Before there was commercial yeast, humanity had sourdough. All yeasted breads were made with a starter culture of some kind: sourdough culture, mother starter, levain, whole wheat starter, white flour starter, spelt starter, etc. Regardless of the name, it has always been a mixture of flour and water (or other liquid), colonized by strains of wild yeast and lactobacilli.
 
How does a sourdough culture cause the bread to rise? Certain proteins in wheat, called glutenin and gliadin, are activated when flour is mixed with water. Together they form gluten. As wild yeast eats away the sugars in the flour, it produces carbon dioxide. Thanks to gluten (meaning glue in Latin) and its elasticity, the dough stretches, making room for the little bubbles of gas and at the same time trapping them in the dough. The acidity of lactobacilli acts as a preservative - the acidic environment works with the yeast, but it’s inhospitable to other organisms. The collaboration between yeast and gluten leads to a fluffy bread with a pleasantly chewy texture, while lactic acid adds the tangy flavor.
 
Although sourdough bread is usually considered superior to breads made with commercial yeast, we mostly gave up on sourdough baking for the sake of convenience (commercial yeast offering a faster, more straightforward process), and for more reliable and consistent results (less fuss, more predictable dough).
 
We home bakers may feel intimidated by the task of baking with sourdough culture, but as soon as we learn about the process, we will be more at ease. If we look for instructions, we will find recipes for sourdough starters made with beer, grape juice, wine, or potato water, but these are not necessary or even desirable.  All it takes is some high-quality flour (ideally rye), good water, and time. Lactobacilli and wild yeast (a strain of yeast naturally occurring in flour and the environment) will make themselves at home in the mixture and do the rest of the work. Perhaps you have heard stories about sourdough starters that are generations old, but your sourdough starter doesn’t have to be old (only mature) to work well. It will be unique no matter when and how the culture was started. It will adapt to the environment of your kitchen. It will be affected by the temperature, humidity, altitude, type of flour used, and your care. As you learn to “feel” your starter, you will be able to control its acidity, slowing down or speeding up its rise.



It is also worth remembering that the use of the starter doesn’t have to be restricted to bread and rolls. Sourdough culture can be used to make pizza dough, pancakes, waffles, muffins, brownies or even a chocolate cake.
 
Although making your own sourdough starter is not complicated, it does require some time and attention. Before I started baking with sourdough, I had done some research on the subject. Along the way, I was confronted with vocabulary that seemed slightly unusual in the context of culinary activities. I encountered words about the rising and falling sourdough (and that it is ok for it to fall.)  I learned that a sourdough culture could get exhausted (after consuming all available sugars) and need feeding (more flour). Some sentences suggested even more drama: If neglected, the culture may dry out. It can be saved by resuscitation (meaning by adding more flour, water and a good stir). Luckily, a revived sourdough will bounce back. Then, if fed properly, it will mature and increase in strength and flavor. Everyday feeding is required in the beginning. Once a week feeding is sufficient for a more mature culture.  
 
Had I not known that the sourdough starter is actually a living thing, the vocabulary of fellow bakers/writers would have no doubt given me a clue. It is clear that sourdough culture requires care. We parents certainly have an advantage here. The job is to nourish the starter, to feed it, keep it warm, and to intervene at the right moment. It is important to keep things in balance (right ratio of flour and liquid is important, and timing of the feeding matters). We also need to be able to let go, because part of our nourished sourdough culture will need to be occasionally discarded or given away in order to keep the starter healthy.
 
Since we are already experienced in all of this, now might be a good a time as any to mix up some flour with water and wait for it to come to life. It could be a beginning of a story told years, perhaps decades from now, by our kids: a tale of a sourdough culture handed down by a mother or father weirdly obsessed with baking the old-fashioned way.
 

(Sourdough) Chocolate-Walnut Squares

Screenagers Documentary Screening March 7th

The Nature Place and Green Meadow Waldorf School present Screenagers: Growing Up in the Digital Age, a documentary about the biggest parenting issue of our time.

Are you watching kids scroll through life, with their rapid-fire thumbs and a six-second attention span? Physician and filmmaker Delaney Ruston saw that happening with her own kids and began a quest to uncover how it might impact their development. As with her other two award-winning documentaries on mental health, Ruston takes a deeply personal approach as she probes into the vulnerable corners of family life, including her own, to explore struggles over social media, video games, academics and internet addiction. Through poignant, and unexpectedly funny stories, along with surprising insights from authors, psychologists, and brain scientists, Screenagers reveals how tech time impacts kids’ development and also offers solutions on how adults can empower their kids to best navigate the digital world to find balance.

Screenagers addresses the most pervasive parenting issue of our time head on—depicting teen struggles over social media, video games and internet addiction. The film empowers kids to best navigate the digital world and provides practical resources to help them do it.

Watch the trailer for Screenagers here!

Join us at our screening of this prescient film on March 7th at 7:30 PM in Rose Hall at Green Meadow Waldorf School, located at 307 Hungry Hollow Road in Chestnut Ridge, NY.

The event is free and open to the public. Doors open at 7pm.

Donations gladly accepted. Proceeds will be split between the filmmakers and the Neighbor to Neighbor Program, which gets local public school children outdoors into a community garden every week in the Fall and Spring.

Early Signs of Spring...

Last Wednesday, we had almost spring-like weather (before the big blizzard hit and turned the world into Narnia). We knew the snow was coming and so took the opportunity to take a walk in the woods. Since it's February, we were pretty sure that we’d find the early flowers of the skunk cabbage, popping up through the marshy ground. We weren’t disappointed.
 
It is a funny thing about skunk cabbage flowers: at first they are hard to spot, but then once you’ve found one, others begin to appear, until you see them coming up everywhere. Each bloom is unique, ranging in color from deep maroon to combinations of red, yellow, and green.

 

At the moment, the flowers are resting under the snow. However, these plants are thermogenic, and are capable of raising their temperatures considerably, melting the snow that surrounds them. They will soon be peeking out of the holes they make. At that point, they are really easy to spot.
 
Anyone coming across these strange, exotic creatures for the first time may wonder whether they landed here from another planet. However, after a few weeks, the flowers fade away and the bouquets of green cabbage-like leaves appear. Don’t be fooled by their luscious appearance. They are not edible.  Seconds after putting a piece of the plant into your mouth, it is like having a mouthful of hot needles. Rather, enjoy them for the beautiful things they are - a feast for the eyes and for the soul.

Upcoming Open Houses