The Dragonfly Homestead is a thirty-acre ranch outside Klamath Falls that offers a break from life in town and provides young adults an opportunity to be more engaged in farm work where they can immerse themselves in gardening, work on maintenance projects, cook healthy meals, attend group therapy, and develop relationships with their peers and the Dragonfly team.  

As winter approaches and the crops and plants die back, the farm requires less student involvement and offers a time for the group “Farm Camp” to switch its role from gardening outside to greenhouse gardening and beautifying the Homestead. The past few years we’ve enjoyed getting creative in the greenhouse and designing murals of well-known, nearby mountains and peaks.  Our project started with Mt. Shasta as we would see the peak every time we drove from town to the farm. Then we added Mt. McLaughlin, as the next closest and recognizable peak in the area. This year we are adding the world-famous Crater Lake (which used to be Mt. Mazama before it blew its top some 7,700 years ago!)  

Dragonfly’s Adventures Coordinator, Elliott VanZandt paints the outline, creating a large paintable coloring book style mural that the students will then fill in with vivid colors and designs, each student is able to add their own personal touch to the large wall-sized mural.  

We are planning to continue down the line to Mt. Thielson, Mt. Bachelor, then Mt. Hood.  It would even be fun to sneak the Three Sisters and Mt. Jefferson in the background…stay tuned for more photos!