Retreat ends Jewish festival with Farm Day

FALLS VILLAGE — Shamu Sadeh and Rachel Salloway led a group of visitors through the gate at the 5-acre farm at the intersection of Beebe Hill and Johnson roads on Oct. 16 — the final day of the Sukkafest, an annual retreat at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center that is part of the Jewish high holidays.The final day of the three-day festival is Open Farm Day. Visitors are welcome to check out the goats that are raised there for their milk, share in a meal, grab a jar of pickles made on the premises from cucumbers grown on the farm, and enjoy themselves.On the way into the farm, a young man wearing a New York Mets cap (which indicates perseverance) asked if the center’s farm is commercial.“Well, we don’t grow everything you might want to eat, and we sell some of it. So we’re sort of commercial,” Sadeh replied. The area known as the Kaplan Family Farm has a wide variety of crops. The sloping hillside is used for perennials, Sadeh said, gathering up some specimens of anise hyssop, used in teas.“Try that,” he said, handing the stuff around. “It’ll turn your hair blue.”He noted that the perennials planted on the slope don’t result in the kind of soil erosion that might result if, say, tomatoes were planted there.The slope isn’t even tilled; instead, Sadeh explained, a technique known as “sheet mulching” is used. Cardboard is put down and mulch spread over that, and as the cardboard erodes the mulch enriches the soil beneath.The visitors also got a look at the strawberry plants, hazelnut trees and asparagus.Alas, the chicken coop was empty, due to an unwelcome nocturnal visitor the previous night.Salloway is a participant in the Adamah program, staying at the center through December. Staying outside, in a tent.“I’ve done a lot of winter camping,” she said nonchalantly.She’s been at the center for a month. It is her first time at Isabella Freedman, and she is enjoying it.Meanwhile, parents of young children kept them from annoying the goats too much — one very kind and patient-looking goat allowed a toddler to tug at his beard until the boy’s father came to the rescue.Matt Carl of Brooklyn, N.Y., a repeat visitor, had been up for the entire Sukkahfest program, which began Oct. 12.Carl is the rabbi of the Battery Park synagogue, and he said he was happy to be out of the city and in the country.He said a Yiddish word, “mechaya,” summed the experience up for him.“It means ‘something that gives life,’ ” he said.For more information on Isabella Freedman and the Adamah program, visit www.isabellafreedman.org.