The Grazing Adventures of FarminMike

I have started a new blog as a focal point for my ideas. If you liked this blog of my work with Central NY RC&D, please feel free to check out my new blog… http://sacredartsfarm.wordpress.com/

Troy Bishopp was commissioned to instruct some morrisville college students in the finer points of hi tensile fence building. It was community service day and we were building the fence to exclude some animals from some public land.

A great learning experience for sure… I don’t remember doing anything like this back when I was in school…

Another fence building project this week… even though my time is dwindling down I still find myself busy as ever…

There are very few “straight” posts that can be made from the black locust tree, but as a hard wood that resists rot they make excellent posts to build fence from! and they look superb… almost like a living fence!

I had worked on this farm once before, back in December, you can see that post here.

A good friend of mine, Erika Marzak, ran the Eastern NYS Regional Poultry School Show in Voorheesville on Sunday April 18, with the help of Cornell Cooperative Extension, Schenectady Farm Bureau, a few area farmers who donated birds so that kids could learn to show. Presenters included Dave Hillmann who gave a talk about Incubation and Embryology.  Jamie Matts gave a talk on what he is looking for as a judge for poultry. Erika gave a presentation on how to select which breed of chicken is right for you.

It was a great show and lots of young kids holding cute little chickens!

take a look at a few of these pictures…

Well I haven’t been posting much in the past few days… I will be finishing with this position at the end of April, so I don’t really have too many major projects going on… I am mostly just tying up some loose ends. Cleaning up my apartment so I can move out on time, etc. Working on the Annual report in Norwich, finishing up my grazing plans,

To the readers of my Blog: Many Thanks for following me… it has been a great year hasn’t it… It has been fun to create this record of my accomplishments.

what’s next for me? I am evaluating my options right now, If anyone here who has been following this blog wants to contact me about possible employment (since you already know what I am capable of…) please contact me via email: Gureckima@aol.com

Just a few weeks left!

April 1, 2010

Otsego County Soil and Water in cooperation with Graze-NY, the Upper Susquehanna Coalition and GLCI hosted a hi-tensile fence seminar on Thursday April 1. About 20 local area farmers came to learn about hi tensile fence. Troy Bishopp, aka the “grass whisperer” came to build a corner for a hands-on demonstration. The Farmer was gracious enough to lend his garage and some heavenly tasting donuts for the meeting. Troy  offered a wealth of knowledge about what it takes to build a quality hi tensile fence: Everything from the quality of the post, down to the angle of your brace wires and the height of the brace rails; Troy brought an example of an inferior post and explained that just because the post is green on the outside doesn’t mean it won’t rot… it has to be pressure treated all the way through to the heartwood. He likes yellow pine better than red pine or if you don’t want a pressure treated post, you can use a hard wood like Larch (Tamarack) or Black Locust. After the presentation, we lined up using a post driver to get an on the ground demonstration. Everyone huddled around to see the mastery of how these posts get set into the ground. Troy mentioned during his talk “animals dig holes, farmers pound posts” and there was no auger required to get these posts into the ground. One participant decided to try his hand at driving the posts. The Farmer mentioned how they had rented this pounder before and managed to drive 400 posts in one day. On top of this Otsego County is hoping to host more events of this kind in the coming months. If you are interested in learning more about grazing in Otsego County, please contact Otsego County Soil and Water at (607) 547–8337 x4 to schedule an appointment.

March 30

Cornell hosted a grazing meeting in Candor NY on Tuesday March 30th.

Fay Benson of Cornell Small Farms Program was there to run the show…

Bob Schindelbeck from the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at Cornell University presented on the Soil Health Test. In these next few pictures he is demonstrating about how capillary action works, likening the soil is like to a sponge, and gravity is what draws water downwards, it empties the larger pores first, he used a sponge as an example…

when the sponge is held this way, the water is held in the sponge pretty well,

but when you turn the sponge this way, the water at the top drains out of the large pores… much the same way that tile drainage drains the soil… leaving room for air… drainage is important because the soil microbes need air to breathe!

The talk was interesting and thought provoking, he had hoped to demonstrate the aggregate test outside with their rain water simulator, but it was already raining pretty hard and we decided not to… irony?

Dave Mattocks Brought a movie about the life in the soil to watch… it was compelling and thought provoking… there are more organisms in a teaspoon of soil than there is people on the planet earth!

Lunch was delicious, meatloaf and macaroni and cheese from a few local farms… MMM!!

After lunch Karen Hoffman, gave us a demonstration about how to use the GLCI Grazing Stick, a tool developed by Darrel Emmick to estimate the amount of forage available for grazing using the grid and ruler on the stick… its a very useful tool for the beginning and experienced grazier to help take a little bit of the guesswork out of grazing.

May 12,13,14

At Oakdale mall in Johnson City, (around the water quality symposium and the chicken school) I manned the booth for GLCI (Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative).

Josie Maroney, another intern with CNY RC&D and the Rural Health Network of South Central New York, also came to advertise the bounty program *which they are talking about expanding into Broome County.*

I made it a point to go around the mall and talk to the farmers who were there.

Rob and Pam Moore were showing the kids how they can make their own butter (but shaking a small container with heavy cream in it)…

There was a petting zoo there where kids could touch and see some animals they normally wouldn’t have an opportunity to see up close, let alone touch them…

Here is a list of the sponsors of the event:

All in all, this was a busy week/weekend but it was a lot of fun too! I love having the chance to interact with farmers and non-farmers alike…

Saturday March 13

Over 200 poultry lovers flocked to Cornell University for “Poultry School for Small Farms,” an event sponsored by Cornell, Cornerstone Farm Ventures and Central New York RC&D.

Brian Snyder, executive director of PASA, led us off with a presentation about food sheds. He also discussed his work with the food alliance, a 3^rd party certification program for farmers to help market their products.

The BBQ chicken lunch was just the right thing to get us all thinking about the coming growing season. The participants were offered a variety of choices for the classes. They could choose which area they wanted to focus on: marketing, business planning, processing chickens, organic policy, or poultry health; everything from broilers to layers, commercial to heritage breeds. As a result of this conference, many producers commented that they would be making a few improvements to their operations. Others commented that this Poultry School was just what they needed to get started.

Tro Bui, Phil Metzger, Kim Totten, Peg and Jim McLaughlin

Communicating Effectively

Thursday March 11

Sally Jo Crossier is presenting today about Communicating Effectively. we broke up into groups of 3 and discussed with each other different situations we found ourselves in. it was an excelent opportunity to break the ice with a few people I knew and had worked with and some people I didn’t know all that well.

When we returned from our first break we found a card at each of our places. PERSONALITY I.Q… How Exciting!

“Personality I.Q. tm helps you acquire a deeper understanding of yourself and others. You will discover valuable insights that have innumerable applications in work, family, and personal relationships. These insights lead to cleareer perceptions and greater appreciations of the gifts we offer each other on the journey of life.

The 4 different personalities:

Blue: Peacemaker. This temperment expresses itself and finds fulfilment through helping others, searching for the truth and the purpose of life; likes to avoid conflict; may have fewer but close relationships; is cause oriented; is emotional, sensitive, and spiritual; has high integrity; needs reassurance and acceptance; may daydream; uses feelings in making decisions.

Gold: Organizer. This temperament demonstrates itself by being prepared, maintaining structure, displaying responsibility and valuing loyalty; likes awards and recognition; hard working; careful with money; follows rules; appreciates serviceand dedication; responsible provider; religious; cautious in making decisions.

Green: Analyzer. This temperament reveals itself by quiet independence, intellectual discoveries and complex inventive manner; sees the big picture; abstract and analytical thinker;  strives for competence; dislikes complex relationships; loves learning; investigative nature; has many interests; wants to be correct; explores possibilities before making decisions.

Orange: Activator. This temperament displays itself by immediate action, variety, adventure, joy and competitiveness. Adaptable and flexible; charming and witty; easy-going nature; good in crisis; loves the spotlight; stretches the boundries; doesn’t like waiting; needs choices; quick to make decisions.

After we took this quiz, we found out what our predominant and supporting colors were, (I am a blue with a green supporting)

and we broke up into groups and answered a few questions :what gives you joy? what do people do that really iritates you? what do you feel that you bring to the team? what is your biggest weakness?

It was surprizing to see the contrast between the groups for all these answers.

We did a few “work together” exercises and finished the day with an exercise where we attempt to toss a ball to every person in a certain order and we had to work together and then we tried to find a way to do the same sequence but much faster… after much debate and trying different scenarios, we settled on everyone touching the ball at the same time.

It was a fun and educational experience. You can find out more about Sally at her website http://www.healthypeoplelearn.com/