Public Events and Retreats
Public Events and Retreats
The following events are open to the public at Knoll Farm. Please check back as we are still building out our 2023 calendar. Please also visit the Music Calendar for this year’s concerts!
In addition, whether you are an organization, business, state agency, yoga studio, school, or family looking for a unique wedding or reunion spot, you can book your own private event or retreat with us.

Fireside Chats – Learn more about Knoll Farm
Dates:
- June 3: Knoll Farm history
- June 22: Barn Centennial campaign and the future
- July 31: Our land justice work at First Light
- September 29: Open conversation
Time: 7-9 PM
Cost: Free Registration
Join us around a campfire on or near the full moon to learn more about what Knoll Farm does on the land, our plans for the future, and our projects here and elsewhere through our nonprofit, New Learning Journey. Peter and Helen will host these conversations and welcome anyone who wants to deepen their relationship to the farm and our work in land justice. Please register for this event here.

First Light Short Course
with Lokotah Sanborn, Ellie Oldach and Peter Forbes
Date: August 29-September 1, 2023
Time: 4 Day Workshop
A seminar for land-holding organizations looking to learn how to better collaborate with Indigenous partners…
The course will draw extensively from 6 years of experiences and learnings from First Light, a collaboration in Maine between the non-native land-holding world, and Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet and Mi’kmaq Nations. MORE…

Celebrating Elders
Dates: Sunday, November 26, 2023
Time: 10:30 am – 4 pm
Cost: Free
Celebrating the tenth Anniversary of the Passing of Bill Coperthwaite.
The Knoll Farm community invites friends far and wide to gather with us as we dedicate one of Bill Coperthwaite’s structures to his life memory in our Memorial Forest. Bill’s influence in our lives runs deep and is well documented in A Man Apart and the creation of our Water Temple Yurt. In 2023, we will take one of Bill’s small yurts and dedicate it to his memory in a special part of our forest that has been set aside to honor our elders. Learn more.
Past Events

Easter Sunrise Service
Dates: April 9, 2023
Time: 7 AM
Cost: Free
For over seven decades, Knoll Farm has been hosting the Easter Sunrise Service on Easter Sunday for local congregations. Come and share words, song and prayer around the fire on the hillside overlooking the Mad River Valley. Park and walk past the big red barn and the concert stage to the gathering.

Lambing Open House Days
Dates: April 24 and 28, 2023
Time: 1-5 PM
Cost: For Season Pass Holders, free
Helen will welcome families into the barn and sheep paddocks to visit with the newborn lambs and learn about our Icelandic sheep flock. This is open to all season pass holders and is an open house, not a workshop, the idea is to come and go as you wish! Please wear boots that have not been on another farm.

Inspired by Place – An Evening of Music, Wine and Words
Dates: June 11
Time: 7-9 PM
Cost: $30
Tickets: Sold Out
Join us for an inspiring and creative evening celebrating the Art of Place. Composer and musician Ben Cosgrove will be performing from his new album. Vermont vintner and writer Deirdre Heekin will be serving a flight of her celebrated wines, and Vermont writers Megan Mayhew Bergman and Helen Whybrow (of Knoll Farm) will read short work and discuss what it means to make music, wine and words from the land one loves.
Please note, the ticket price includes a glass of wine, but food is not planned in to this evening. We encourage you to come early and picnic before the program starts. Bring your own, or purchase one of our picnics, packed for 2, here.

Mad Birders
at Knoll Farm
Date: Saturday May 7, 2022
Time: 8:00-10:00am
Cost: Free
Join the Mad Birders at Knoll Farm for one of their most popular morning walks. Bring your binoculars and sturdy footwear!

Spoons for All – Spoon Carving Workshop
with Peter Forbes
Date: May 21-22, 2022
Time: 2-day weekend workshop
Cost: $240 Workshop and Meals, +$95 optional overnight
For more than 15 years, and with more than 2,000 people, we’ve taught spoon carving on this farm as a method for bringing people together and for accessing creativity. Spoon carving, for us, has always been an important act of community building. Please join us for a creative time of using your hands and minds to carve a spoon from green wood. All skill levels are welcome. Course filled.

Opening Night Picnic
for Season Pass Holders
Date: Thursday May 26, 2022
Time: 5 -9 PM
RSVP here
This free event of picnicking and live music is a kick-off to the season for our Season Pass holders. Bring your own picnic or order one of our picnic baskets, and join us on the hillside to be together, enjoy a fire and great music by local band Some Hollow!

Renewal Week
Dates: June 13-17, 2022
Cost: Free
Our Renewal Weeks are open by application to any group in Northern New England who will benefit from a free retreat at Knoll Farm’s Refuge. Every summer, though the generosity of our supporters and especially an anonymous donor at Vermont Community Foundation, Knoll Farm is able to gift a multi-day retreat with meals and accommodations to groups, associations, or organizations that have been doing essential work in their communities and need the opportunity to rebuild and restore themselves. MORE…

The Better Selves Fellowship I
Date: June 20-26, 2022
Time: Week-long residential retreat
Our own fellowship program offers activists and leaders from the fields of conservation, community well being and social justice the opportunity for reflection, focus and renewal. MORE…

Picnic Concert Series
featuring Cold Chocolate
Date: Friday July 8, 2022
Time: Picnicking starts at 5:30, music begins at 7:00
Tickets: Purchase here!
Bring your family and friends to Knoll Farm for a picnic on the hillside with live music by Cold Chocolate. We will be selling picnic baskets ahead of time from our farm stand, as well as pizza by the slice from our wood fired oven. Come and experience a summer concert on the hill!
Cold Chocolate, a genre-bending Americana band that fuses folk, funk and bluegrass to create a unique sound all their own. Punctuated by tight harmonies and skillful musicianship, Cold Chocolate has quickly gained recognition for their original music and high-energy shows. The band has shared bills with Leftover Salmon, David Grisman, and Angelique Kidjo, and regularly performs at venues and music festivals up and down the East Coast. Buy your tickets today!

Picnic Concert Series
featuring April Verch and Cody Walters
Date: Friday July 22, 2022
Time: Picnicking starts at 5:30, music begins at 7:00
Bring your family and friends to Knoll Farm for a picnic on the hillside with live music by April Verch and Cody Walters. We will be selling picnic baskets ahead of time from our farm stand, as well as pizza by the slice from our wood fired oven. Come and experience a summer concert on the hill!
Husband and wife duo April Verch & Cody Walters is a true partnership of kindred musical spirits, each a world-class musician in their own right. Combining their unique backgrounds from Verch’s native Ottawa Valley and Walters’ heartland roots in Kansas, their music showcases endless creativity and versatility—transitioning effortlessly from traditional Ottawa Valley step dancing and fiddle tunes, to old-time fiddle-banjo duets with tight-knit vocal harmonies, to innovative sandpaper foot percussion, all contrasted against Verch’s sweet soprano voice.

Family Overnight at Knoll Farm
Dates: July 23-24, October 6-10 2022
Time: 1-3 nights
Cost (sliding scale):$125-$160 per person per night, dinner and breakfast included; $50-75 kids age 3-13; babies 2 and under free
Are you and your family ready to come together to celebrate all that you’ve missed during this endless pandemic? The Family Overnight at Knoll Farm is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for your family and close friends to fully explore the farm and stay in residence overnight. Have a farm-to-table dinner, sleep in a yurt with a skylight to the stars, enjoy a campfire and hot tub on the edge of a magical forest, and wake up to a sunrise on the hill over hot coffee and breakfast. MORE…

The Better Selves Fellowship II
Date: July 25 – 31, 2022
Time: Week-long residential retreat
Our own fellowship program offers activists and leaders from the fields of conservation, community well being and social justice the opportunity for reflection, focus and renewal. MORE…

Picnic Concert Series
featuring Marc and Billy
Date: Friday August 12, 2022
Time: Picnicking starts at 5:30, music begins at 7:00
Tickets: Purchase here!
Bring your family and friends to Knoll Farm for a picnic on the hillside with live music by Marc and Billy. We will be selling picnic baskets ahead of time from our farm stand, as well as pizza by the slice from our wood fired oven. Come and experience a summer concert on the hill!
Marc Shapiro and Billy Corbett are a new-old-time duo rooted in the hills of Vermont and New Hampshire. Marc and Billy forage from a collection of newer tunes and traditional tunes and stew them in a broth of bluegrass and folk. Buy your tickets today!

Benefit Concert for Knoll Farm & Better Selves Fellowships – Moira Smiley
with April Verch and Cody Walters opening
Date: Saturday August 20, 2022
Time: Picnicking begins at 5:30, music at 6:00 pm
Tickets: Purchase here!
Picnics: Reserve Your Picnic Basket
Join us Saturday Aug. 20, for an epic concert and picnicking at Knoll Farm! In a special Benefit for Knoll Farm’s Better Selves Fellowships , singer and composer, Moira Smiley brings her solo songs steeped in folk and protest tradition and invites extraordinary songwriting duo, Robinson & Rohe to the stage for a set of their own music. The concert also features readings and music from writer/theater artist, Nia Witherspoon, and string players Andrew Ryan and Clara Rose alongside some internationally-touring surprise guests!

Better Selves Fellowship III
Date: August 22-28, 2022
Time: Week-long residential retreat
Our own fellowship program offers activists and leaders from the fields of conservation, community well being and social justice the opportunity for reflection, focus and renewal. MORE…

Facilitating for Change: Building Skills and Possibility in the New Era
with Peter Forbes
Date: September 6-9, 2022
Time: 4 day workshop
Cost: Room and meals (3 nights) $480, Sliding scale tuition
This annual workshop teaches practical skills grounded in facilitative leadership that transforms people, coalitions and communities to make progress together. How does one embody that work, be open to the things we can’t see in ourselves, to more fully recognize one’s privileges, and be a more effective agent for change? MORE…