Triform Camphill Community

On April 16th, Triform celebrated Holi, the Indian Festival of Colors, to welcome the spring with full gusto. There were snacks, games, laughter and of course, a lot of colors. The event was planned in two parts: an afternoon with games, colors and snacks; and an evening with an Indian classical music concert by Neel Murgai and Brooklyn Raga Massive and Ray Spiegel.

Tables all set for pancake breakfast    Columbia Land Conservancy held their annual member and volunteer Pancake Breakfast in Triform's beautiful Phoenix Center on a bright but frigid Saturday morning. We have had a good experience welcoming CLC to use the Phoenix Center as a venue for their annual celebration before, and were glad to host this lovely event again.

March has seen us enjoy many a warm sunny day.  Warm days and freezing nights means good news for maple syrup. It creates the internal pressure needed to make the sap flow.  We tapped forty sugar maple trees again this year and boiled down their sap into five gallons of syrup. That's one quart per tree. Thanks to the foresters who helped tap the trees and everyone who helped collect and boil down the sap through lunch and into the evening. Warm weather also means good growth in the production greenhouse where spinach, lettuce, asian greens, radishes, kale and broccoli raab are perking up. Meanwhile, the propagation greenhouse is filling up with onions, leeks, celeriac, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflowers, cabbages, kohlrabis, parsley, tat soi, pac choi and many flowers.   Outside, the first peas have been sown, the fruit trees and the berries are being pruned and the chives and nettles are growing. Spring has come again!  

An Article by Alison Fox Through the windows of the weavery kitchen the sunlight gives a faint hint that it will in fact leave for the day. There is a sweet smell of bees wax in the air. The light and smell create the atmosphere for the late afternoon course work offering of candle dipping.

Triform Media Group (TMG) has been active since October 2015. It is a new way for Triform to work with students. The group is comprised of two Students (Alex T. and Hannah P.) and one Apprentice (Cheney R.) The Co-workers are Aroon and Laura. At the beginning, we were not sure where and how to start. Then, thanks to the generosity of Marika Partrdige, who not only donated recording equipment but also provided initials lessons in how to produce radio programs.

You Must Be... by Noah Levinson P. Wilson                 The resemblance was so striking that the cliche left my mouth almost automatically: “You must be Pierre’s brother.” He was. Light brown and reddish hair, a ruddy complexion, some ineffable quality in the eyes and lips—it was just short of eerie, like seeing some alternate-universe version of Pierre himself.              Pierre, who has Down syndrome, is in his late thirties, well into his second decade at Triform. He is easily one of the most popular figures in the community, winning many hearts with a combination of charm and calculated mischief, without the benefit of very much language ability. Pierre is just great. Nearly everyone who works with him falls in love. 

Baking in Triform: Love in the batter by Meg Henderson Holly and Jamie I have a large collection of cookbooks, some I turn to more often than others. They are usually seasonally inspired with fresh organic produce as the staple ingredient. I am actually lulled to sleep often by looking at glossy photos of “ Classic Irish Cabbage and Bacon soup” or “ Roast Lamb with Lemons and Rosemary.” I wonder if this makes me a little odd. I am thrilled to discover when travelling a ‘Whole Foods' market or a ‘Trader Joes', and remember as a student in sub -tropical South Africa taking a bus on Fridays to the Indian markets in the city center to buy fresh curry leaves and coriander for dhal; a marvelously economical dish, lasting several days. However, I digress. I am inspired by the pictures of steaming pasta with pesto and can smell summer in basil’s almost acrid green smell. Most summers I take my turn with other Triform coworkers, with my kids and students to pr...