The smell of bread permeates the kitchen. The “clack, clack” of a knife striking against a cutting board as it slices through cold butter rings out above the consistent hum of an industrial mixer. Bright chatter fills the kitchen as the chefs move about, gathering ingredients for macaroons and sourdough bread, clad in floppy white hats and pink aprons.
It’s part of the morning routine for some of the those that make their home at Plowshare Farm in Greenfield — a cooperative living community where people with and without developmental disabilities live and work together.
“The chocolate chip cookies are my favorite,” says Violet Valadan, as she slices butter into chunks for easier mixing. “Or the macaroons. I like them all, pretty much.”
Valadan, who has developmental delays, has lived at Plowshare Farm her entire adult life, after transplanting from across the country. Valadan originally lived in Santa Rosa, California, with her mother, according to Plowshare Director Kimberly Dorn. But just as she turned 18, her mother passed away.
Valadan’s aunt knew of Plowshare Farm – her children had attended school at Pine Hill School in next-door Wilton. Not able at the time to take in Valadan herself, she came to visit.
And she found her place here, said Dorn.
“She has family members in California,” said Dorn. “They’ve asked her to come out to stay with them. She always said, ‘Nope. You can come visit me, here.’ She considers Plowshare her home.”
Her morning routine is similar each day – up around 7 a.m., breakfast with her house, clean-up, and then off to her morning “workshop.” For Valadan, that’s work in the bakery, making bread for the community houses, and cookies and granola to sell on the of local stores and the Wilton-Lyndeborough Community Farm’s CSA.
On a Tuesday in the kitchen, Renee Buteyn, the head of the bakery, leans over the counter at the bakery and opens up the recipe book her fellow bakers use to make their cookie recipes.
Other residents work in the kitchen preparing lunch, which is eaten as a community (as opposed to breakfast and dinner, which residents eat with their individual housemates) or they make candles, which are also sold through the farm’s Wilton store, Local Share.
Everyone in the kitchen is contributing. That’s one of the goals of Plowshare Farm – why Buteyn is referred to as a “co-worker” instead of “staff” or “a volunteer,” and the rest of the bakery workers as “colleagues.”
There are those without disabilities who make Plowshare Farm their home – a mix of permanent coworkers and “volunteers.” The volunteers live, eat and sleep there, contributing to the farm life. They are given “pocket money” of $300 a month and educational opportunities. They may be there for as few as 10 weeks, or for as long as a year, while coworkers are generally more long-term.
Plowshare Farm made $1.426 million in revenue and $357,000 in profit in 2015, according to the latest documents filed by the nonprofit organization. Most of the income ($990,000) came from tuition. The farm made $14,441 in bakery and store sales.
“We’re not trying to make the next industrial revolution,” said Lois Horan, who serves as a householder for Valadan’s residence, and also heads up the candle-making workshop, located just a few feet from the bakery. Instead of the smell of warm bread, it’s the scent of warm wax that fills the space. “We do things the old way, and everyone participates to the level that they can. And it’s real skills, things that contribute to our community, not frivolous things that are just there to fill time.”
Many times, those things are directly related to the daily life at the farm. The bread that Valadan helps to make in the bakery, for example, becomes the bread that not only she and her housemates eat on a daily basis, but the bread that serves all of the communities houses, as well as at the communal lunch they share every day – which likewise has elements either made by or grown by the community.
The communal lunch is an important piece of the community, Dorn said.
Plowshare Farm was founded by Donat Bay, who still lives and works on the farm. The farm was founded on the ideals of anthroposophy – a “spiritual science” guided by Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner. It encourages conscious spiritual self-development and practical initiatives to the various fields of science, agriculture, medicine, and other educational pursuits.
From its large gardens to gleaming solar array in its back pasture, it’s always the goal to get closer to total sustainability, said Horan. And why, after lunch, and time spent cleaning their individual homes, the entire farm comes back together in the back field, to spend their afternoon planting trees and bushes, by the dozens.
Valadan hasn’t heard many of the names of the trees she’s planting.
“What’s a dogwood?” she asks, as she ferries the plants back and forth from the storage shed where they’re given out to the holes dug for them. Or, “I’ve never heard of elderberry.” (The highbush blueberry, she recognizes the use of immediately.) But she absorbs the facts about these plants studiously – which ones will be pretty in the fall, which leaves might be used to make tea, and which ones will be planted near the stream because they like the water. She likes the idea of willow trees by the stream, particularly when reminded of the character of Grandmother Willow from the Disney film “Pocahontas.”
It’s not particularly easy work, hauling mulch and loam, digging holes and planting their new greenery. But, of course, it’s also not a daily occurrence, either. On most days, Valdaran has other duties – she may be assisting Horan with making dinner, or spending the afternoon at the Local Share stocking the shelves or assisting the customers, or doing shopping for materials that are needed for the bakery, candle workshop or the Local Share.
Either way, however, the end of the day will see her back at her home with her housemates – “Hestia House,” as the plaque on the front of the house proclaims it. Hestia, after the goddess of the hearth and home.
Because that’s what this is to Valadan, and to the other people who live there. A home.
“Beauty is therapeutic,” notes Horan, standing in the kitchen of Hestia House, with its light wooden cabinets and countertops, and large breakfast nook with a table large enough to accommodate both house members and a guest or two. “We want this to be a home.”
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.