The Pfeiffer Center’s gardens and fields are our classrooms and our laboratories. Located at the site of the first biodynamic farm in North America, the Pfeiffer Center encompasses a variety of spaces that support our teaching and research in biodynamic food production, adult education, children’s programs, and draft horse work.

In 1926, on the site of the present-day Pfeiffer Center garden, the founders of Threefold Farm began growing biodynamic produce for Manhattan's Threefold Vegetarian Restaurant. For decades thereafter, the garden's produce fed attendees of Threefold's popular Summer Conferences, and Ehrenfried Pfeiffer conducted his research here from the 1940s until his death in 1961. Today, the Pfeiffer Center garden comprises 70 beds where we raise vegetables, herbs and flowers; also on the property are a small orchard (apples, pears, peaches and quince), berry bushes, a greenhouse, a wood-fired bread oven, the dye garden of the Fiber Craft Studio, compost piles, a self-serve seasonal farm stand, and our apiary.

Just up the hill, across from Green Meadow Waldorf School, is the Children’s Garden, where we raise vegetables and conduct many of our programs with children. As in the Pfeiffer Center garden, work in the Children’s Garden is done with hand tools; in our work and our teaching, we emphasize the value of agricultural handwork, which can serve as an excellent foundation for farming and gardening on any scale.

Less than a half mile from the gardens, we raise field vegetables, hay, grains and bee forage on Crown Field, Pine Field and Horse Field. It is on these four acres of fields that we work with and pasture Captain and Eva, our team of Haflinger draft horses.

In our field and garden work, we strive to balance the goals of production, enhancing soil fertility, and creating spaces that support our educational work. Along with neighboring Duryea Farm of the Fellowship Community, we use our work with land and animals to create a farm individuality in a suburban setting.

Mac Mead, Program Director

Mac Mead has farmed and gardened biodynamically for more than thirty years. As a co-worker at the Fellowship Community beginning in 1975, Mac had the "privilege and good fortune" to learn biodynamic methods directly from former co-workers of Ehrenfried Pfeiffer.

Mac was raised in the Connecticut River Valley and graduated from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania with a degree in psychology. After college he was a co-worker at the Camphill Village in Copake, New York, from 1972 to 1974, where he did therapeutic community work and also taught nature and games at the fledgling Waldorf school there. As a co-worker in the Fellowship Community, Mac helped start the Third Grade farming block at Green Meadow Waldorf School, and taught that block for fifteen years; he also helped initiate the Pfeiffer Center's public school outreach program, The Outdoor Lesson. Over the years, Mac has gardened and farmed on every scale, from handwork to field-scale vegetables, tended an orchard, and managed dairy cows. Mac was the resident farmer at the Fellowship Community's Duryea Farm from 1997 until 2005. Mac has directed the Pfeiffer Center since 2007.

Megan Durney, Head Gardener

Megan’s previous experience includes several years of volunteer and community service work, including two years in the southeast after Hurricane Katrina, and organic farming as a WWOOF-er.

Following those experiences, she says, "I wanted to do conscious agriculture--making more of the spiritual connection with the earth. I've always been interested in healing work with people and with the earth, so I felt like biodynamics would tie those together. Other farms I've been on were a lot of labor, but not a lot of consciousness; even organic farms could feel depleting." Megan interned at the Pfeiffer Center in 2006-7 under Gunther Hauk, and continued as Garden Assistant when Mac Mead became Program Director of the Pfeiffer Center. Megan is a graduate of the North American Biodynamic Apprenticeship Program.

Peter Boyd, Intern

Peter is a licensed massage therapist, certified personal trainer, and also a functional integrative therapist. Though he comes to us from Gainesville, Florida, he spent a couple years living and working on Bounty Farms in upstate New York for the summer and fall harvest, as well as the turning and planting for the spring crops. He says, “My love of being outdoors with feet firmly planted in the soil has been with me since childhood. My work with clients and friends through massage and integrative therapies has reinforced the importance of quality organic foods and medicines.”

Peter’s intention is to explore the experience of biodynamic gardening, orcharding, animal care, beekeeping, and more, “for the life lesson and also for the potential of creating a space where I can live, work, and properly share the bounty of existence with nature.”

Elexis Vesely, Intern

After finishing her studies at Ithaca College (Art major and Religion minor), Elexis was a teaching volunteer at Heifer International’s Overlook Farm Learning Center, where she also developed an interest in livestock. She then embarked on WWOOFing stints in Washington State, Oregon, Utah and Colorado, which exposed her to a wide range of family farms and all kinds of farm animals, from dairy goats to oxen. Since becoming a Pfeiffer Center intern, Elexis has been excited by the quality of the Pfeiffer Center’s produce, and the artistic and esthetic aspects of making and working with the biodynamic preparations. “I’m interested in food security – bringing good food where there is none,” she says, and she looks forward to one day having a biodynamic farm of her own.

Josh Smith, Intern

Josh Smith grew up in Chestnut Hill, MA. He relishes bicycling, drawing, and working outdoors with others. Farming is a healthy way for him to be actively involved with everyday life. Since beginning his internship, Josh has been consciously observing and studying plant and animal forms through life-drawing and journaling.

He is hopeful that growing and providing food responsibly will renew human reverence for living things.

Laura Otolski, Intern

Laura was born and raised in Michigan, but comes to us by way of Washington, DC. A registered dietitian with a MS in nutrition from New York University, she spent the past several years managing the Nutrition Services department at Food & Friends, a non-profit organization that provides home-delivered meals, groceries, and nutrition counseling and education, free of charge, to people living with HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other illnesses. A WWOOFing experience on Prince Edward Island in Canada last summer, along with frustration over the lack of healthy options in lower-income neighborhoods, inspired her to learn more about growing food. She hopes to work with community gardens and other urban agriculture projects focused on food justice upon completing the internship.

MaryAnn Martinez, Intern

MaryAnn’s professional background has been in the nonprofit world as a program manager, director and consultant. In addition she has worked in Waldorf education and the culinary arts. Although MaryAnn is originally from Connecticut, she has lived and worked all over New England, and in many other parts of the country.

“People are capable of growing their own food. We do not have to be dependent on the 'products' of a system that is unsustainable, ecologically disastrous, and addicted to fossil fuels. Before it is too late, locally grown food must be available to all.” By combining her love of food, farming and politics MaryAnn aspires to make a difference in the future of food. Currently she is pursuing a graduate degree in sustainable agriculture, and MaryAnn believes that the practical experience she will gain as a Pfeiffer Center intern is an integral part of her educational experience.

Fruit trees, berries, composting, and the bees are her favorite aspects of the farm and garden life.