On an unseasonably warm Friday morning in late September, a school bus loaded with youngsters ambled down a dusty easement near the San Ysidro Crossing, finally coming to rest next to a heap of compost that mimicked the shape of a gigantic gold brick. Seventh-graders from Capshaw Middle School — some bleary-eyed, most sporting wrinkled noses in response to the brewing, odorous pile of horse and rabbit manure, rotting apples, hay and other organic material — spilled out of the bus, marching single-file toward the welcoming shade of a nearby cottonwood tree.

The students had arrived at the Santa Fe Community Farm in the historic village of Agua Fría. Their primary mission: to harvest pears and apples from the farm's tree orchard. The fruit would then be delivered to The Food Depot (Northern New Mexico's food bank) for distribution to the hungry, homeless and disabled populations of Santa Fe and surrounding communities. And there was still a lot harvesting to do: It's been a bumper-crop year, and the collection of all usable fruit before a damaging frost decimates it rested heavily on the minds of farm operators. In the days previous, two different groups of students filled
60 boxes — weighing more than 12 pounds each — with pears and apples. In the days following this picking session, church groups swooped in to help with the remaining harvest.

Santa Fe Community Farm executive director Carolyn
Stephenson's enthusiasm for the arrival of her newest round of young fruit pickers was bested only by Alvin — a shaggy, four-legged welcoming committee and de facto property mascot, whose constant wagging tail and dedicated ankle sniffing signaled his reserved approval of this all-too-familiar incursion on his 10-plus-acre turf.

Established by Stephenson's father-in-law, John Stephenson, SFCF is not only one of the oldest farms in Santa Fe, it's one of the last working farms here. Operating as a hands-on model for charitable, community-supported agriculture and as a tool for teaching sustainability to kids and adults alike, the Santa Fe Community Farm has been donating 100 percent of its produce to local nonprofits that serve the hungry and disadvantaged for more than a quarter century.

A spry and quick-witted 95-year-old John Stephenson (he's a National Weight Lifting Association senior hall-of-famer) planted the farm's original orchard more than 60 years ago, and his contributions to the community have earned him a Santa Fe Living Treasure Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award from Sustainable Santa Fe.

"This land, which is part of an ancient pueblo, has been worked for centuries," Stephenson said recently while sitting in his home across from a picture of himself and President Bill Clinton (who presented him with a Thousand Points of Light award). "The Spanish came up from Mexico and burned the pueblo — scorched the earth, so to speak — and then we gringos came along. And, well, here we all are, together now. Nobody said small-scale farming was easy here then, and it isn't these days, either. But more people are interested in sustainable agriculture, and more people are trying to treat the land with a deeper level of respect."

Decades of hard work and volunteerism have helped the retired Soil Conservation Corps/U.S. Forest Service employee keep the farm going, and the aid he receives reaches far beyond local church groups, school field trips and elder hostels. "We had someone visiting Santa Fe from Ethiopia come out and help with the harvest," Stephenson said, "and we do outreach with at-risk youth."

People who receive mandatory community service have visited the farm to satisfy their court-ordered obligations, and some of them return on their own to lend a hand.

"We once had a doctor from India who, after her U.S. work visa ran out, went to Canada, and then flew back down here for a few days to work on the farm," Stephenson added.

Carolyn Stephenson — a tireless force in local community-supported agriculture circles, a self-professed soil geek and a socially conscious entrepreneur (her Santa Fe business, the Mission Café and Sweet Shop, donates 50 percent of its profits to the Community Farm) believes the farm's conversion to nonprofit status will open doors to stronger financial footing, including access to sponsored internships and financial-grant opportunities. A budding partnership with New Mexico State University's Sustainable Agriculture Science Center at Alcalde holds the promise of a long-lasting relationship between NMSU agriculture researchers, farm stewards, students, science teachers and volunteers.

Plans for a permanent greenhouse and a food-preparation area that will generate commercially viable products made from fruits and vegetables grown on the farm are far from being realized, but Carolyn Stephenson and farm manager Rob Roy have plenty to deal with in the meantime.

Carolyn Stephenson told the kids before they headed out to the orchard and fields, "Nothing on this farm happens fast, but there are still many important things going on. I want you to think about the science of what you're seeing here today (Stephenson's daughter is a scientist). One of the most important things that grows on this farm, and any farm, is the dirt itself."

With that seed of knowledge freshly planted, the kids were led down a slightly sloping trail, back to the hillock of stinky manure they encountered upon exiting the bus. The manicured heap was topped with rotten apples, which Rob Roy explained was just another part of the compost equation.

"This pile of organic material can reach up to 160 degrees (Fahrenheit)," he said. "It's turned every few weeks with a tractor until the end result is a rich, black humus. There's really no such thing as a rotten apple here; we try to use them all."

Carolyn Stephenson said that partnerships with local supermarkets and Santa Fe County ensure a steady influx of compost material, including corrugated cardboard, bark mulch and some produce that doesn't pass the pretty test at local grocery store receiving docks.

"What the kids and others — including us — are discovering here has as much to do with successes as it does with failures," Carolyn Stephenson said. "It's a learn-as-we-go situation, and I'm excited by the fact that anything can happen. That's a big part of the value of the farm as a teaching tool. But beyond that, we're showing people how this system of community-supported agriculture reaches so many people and brings them together at the same time. The grower, food-donation sites, volunteers, restaurants, people in need ... it's a win-win situation all around."

"Land laid down with clover is better than money in the bank" — The Old Farmer's Almanac, 1883.

As a giggling 13-year-old Julio Rivera, 14-year-old Tim Will and 20 other students familiarized themselves with the finer points of using a fruit-picker extension pole to reach high-hanging apple varieties such as Red and Yellow Delicious, Granny Smith and Jonathan (success at the orchard for the kids seems to be measured in apples carefully picked and boxed; failure is measured in apples hitting them, rather harmlessly, in the noggin), another set of students was learning about cover crops.

This year, Roy is planting winter wheat, red clover, flowering legume plants, peas and oats. Instead of using chemical fertilizers to amend the dirt or promote plant growth, Roy is introducing the cover crops as natural soil nutrients in 30-foot sections along with garlic bulbs, and he will track the success of each cover crop throughout the cold season and spring.

To be clear: There's plenty of giggling going on in the cover-crop fields, too. The discovery of a few crickets resulted in an impromptu bug Olympics, and a garden snake made such an impression on the kids that Alvin may be dethroned as property mascot — unless, of course, he ramps-up the ankle sniffing before first snowfall.