Easter on the Farm

Instead of going on an Easter egg hunt, we hunted for cherry tomatoes.  One of Matthew's colleagues founded an organic farm about an 45 minutes outside of Shanghai.  It's kind of a combination farm/education center/CSA/community garden/weekend getaway (www.ecolandclub.com).

Entering the farm

There's about 20 acres of farmland and 7-8 large greenhouses.  They grow all sorts of vegetables, strawberries, tomatoes, beans, you name it.  Lots of egg-laying hens and ducks.  Goats, rabbits, puppies, everything a farm needs.  About 80 families have small garden plots and a handful have small cottages where they can spend the night. 

Townes with the weekend cottages behind him.

They've also started a brand new farm & nature education center for children.  Sunday was their first class.  About 14 kids signed up and our friend asked me if I wanted to help be one of the farm educators.  Those of you who know me well, may find this funny.  I agreed, not really understanding what I was getting myself into, namely introducing and organizing the activities and explaining the science behind them.  I channeled my inner Tom Sabo and did my best.

Oh, and Shanghai TV was there to film it...

They interviewed Naomi:

We collected "treasures" from the farm...

I ooohed over them.

And then we made hats.

Could be an Easter bonnet, no?

We had a feast of a lunch, watched the kids run around, and then did one more nature activity.  We built terrariums out of plastic water bottles, dirt from the path, and weeds.  These are city kids and thought it was all great.  We went home exhausted and happy and with giant bags of freshly picked lettuce, bok choy, tomatoes, and duck and chicken eggs.

Pan Tau, the visionary behind this incredible place.