Angel's Farm Reflection 3

Angel Arias                              Silk Tree Farm                         3/5/13

*Third day at Silk Tree Farm*

Today was another day on Silk Tree Farm, another productive one, but I have a feeling that is how every day there will progress. I got there a bit late, because of how the bus progresses and the passengers it has to drop off. When I got there we talked about what we’d do, but when we went outside I got to see the greenhouse – which had reached a further stage in development. I had been covered with a large sheet of plastic and there was manure in there to preserve heat. That day in particular wasn’t too cold, bit warm actually, but stepping inside the greenhouse was like stepping in a particularly sultry room from an average temperature area. It wasn’t so bad, but it was certainly warmer in there than outside, which I thought was really cool. I suppose that it is like that to preserve the warmth, especially as we are prone to fits of frigid weather. We did some routine things, but then Tom grabbed a tractor (Well, lawnmover, but close enough to be one) with a fairly large wheelbarrow-like object attached to the back of it. I shoveled a bunch of manure into it for a while, it got full, and Tom drove it to the greenhouse and then proposed that I drive it back. I chuckled, because he was only joking, right? I asked him that, and he was indeed serious – well it wouldn’t have been a problem with me, it sounded like fun. How difficult could it be anyway? So I drove it over to the manure pile, navigated into a U-turn, nearly fell, but valiantly completed my driving session. It was after this mishap that I was directed to where the panic-brake was. Shoveled more, then Kathy arrived, commented on my manure-shoveling, and after we finished the second haul I drove it over, Tom reverse-drove it back into the greenhouse, and I think that was it for driving that thing. After that I think we ate, and we talked more about things I had been researching, and we got to work on starting the blog. That was a chunk of activity that ate more or less ate up the rest of the time in the day, frustrations with Blogger filling up a well-portioned amount of time as well, but at the end of the day we had what we needed; a rooted, established blog. URL for that is www.thesilktreefarm.blogspot.com, by the way(My student blog's URL is hastilycreatedblog.blogspot.com). Has on my way. That summarizes another day interning at Silk Tree Farm.

Angel's Farm Reflection 2

Angel Arias                          Silk Tree Reflection                            2/28/13
*Second day at Silk Tree Farm*

Today, we did some work cleaning the trailer the pigs were in, and getting some things moved around. Actually, I’d say that a fair portion of the day was spent doing that, since besides that trailer, the chicken coop got a new coating of shavings, both of them; the laying hens and the other chickens that weren’t quite laying yet. I inquired about what happened to the other chickens that weren’t able to lay, and the response I got was that they were processed. That was interesting, and while I am not really too interested in removing a chicken myself, it would be an interesting experience; even to watch. But moving on, there was a lot of re-ordering on the farm, and Kathy also came to visit, which was interesting. But one thing I loved particularly was that I hadn’t really gotten the chance to cook too much, at all really, and we actually made pizza that day, it was really fun.  It was that day that I asked her if she had any ideas for my hook, if she had any ideas on what I should do; and pitched my idea about the pizza. She seemed to think it was a good idea, and now I’m going to go fetch two crappy low-quality prepackaged industrial pizzas, and we plan to prepare two more organic, farm-raised pizzas on Tuesday, I think that is an excellent idea for my hook. We also took apart the greenhouse, moved it, and put the framework back together. We also talked for a while about the chicken fodder research that I was going to assist Cathy in developing work on, and by the end of all that, plus the other, smaller things I am probably forgetting to mention, it was already the end of the day. Taking off boots is certainly something I need to remember, and something that always bugs me too. But that is a fairly thorough reflection on what I did today on Silk Tree Farm.

Angel's Farm Reflection 1

Angel Arias                     Silk Tree Farm Reflection                     2/26/13

*I will be posting reflections on my internship days at the farm, to paint a better picture for what is done here and how my experience as an intern on the farm is*

Today was my first real day at Silk Tree farm, so naturally I was expecting that it wouldn't be quite as work-filled as it might get later on. I almost hoped it would be the quite the contrary, because having a whole lot to do would be pretty nostalgic to other similar experiences at past LTIs, but it was still a pretty fun first day. Cathy showed me what they did for their morning chores, which consisted more or less of just feeding the animals and making sure they were well, she described that normally they did their morning chores earlier when they wake up, but they didn’t get the chance to do that today since they had to get a trailer for the pigs to be led into so they could bring them to be processed. I’ll get to that part later. We fed the goats, chickens, and pigs and then we headed inside, talked and ate a bit. We talked a lot about my project, which is something I am wanting very much to delve into, development-wise I mean. I think that I have a very healthy amount of research, and when I supplement all my knowledge with what I am also going to be learning at the farm – which I am sure will be vast, I’ll have a lot to tell. But having a lot to tell will mean nothing if I have no mode or plan with which to teach it. Which is why I want to really get on top of planning how I am going to teach it – but, I had been speaking to Cathy and since there is a lot that I will be doing on the farm, while I try to put this together there are other aspects that I will certainly attempt to add to my project that resonate with it, like figuring out how to make organic chicken feed, well, organically. I want to maintain a balance however, between development and research; I just hope that I manage it all well. After that (Which was a while), we had to prepare to get the pigs ready to be moved into the trailer, which meant we had to mark them with a, I think it was called a “livestock marker” or something along those lines. You’d use it to mark the animals, because when processing them, like many other processes the stock would have to be numbered and organized. While I am on this note, I might go on a bit of a tangent and talk about cut sheets. A cut sheet is a form that someone would fill out to signify which cuts of meat they’d like from an animal. So, say you wanted, I don’t know – bacon or something, you’d use the cut sheet to signify the kind of meat you wanted, how much of it you wanted, and there are other variables to it too, like how much to a package you want, and other specifications. But this goes to the customer, and then the seller can either sell some of the animal, or the entire animal, depending on what the customer chooses or what the seller and customer have agreed on, the seller, if they hadn’t sold the whole animal, could sell the rest of the meat somewhere else, like a farmers’ market. Now that that little distraction has been run through, the marking of the pigs, yes. You use the things that look like giant pastels (Though the texture was nothing like a pastel) and mark the pig with it. I am guessing this is also done so that they know which pigs are yours and which pigs aren’t, so we used a pink one, didn’t really know how well it would work, but tried anyway. They gave the first two digits to be marked (The processing facility, I mean) which were 90 but the other two were free to be chosen. 03 and 04 would be the other two, respectively, so after the first pig was nearly done being marked I decided I might try my hand at it. Oh yeah, and, pig pens tend to get very, very muddy due to the rooting that the pigs do. Not that I had a problem with that though, I’m not very skittish, especially around something like that. Also, these pigs seemed to have quite the infatuation with shoe-laces. A lesson that I had to learn the difficult way (I really must remember to bring boots next time or something). So three numbers had already been marked on the pig, I finished it up with a fantastic, grandiose rendition of a wonderful number “3”. Maybe that is a lie, between the shoelace biting, pig-shuffling and the odd feeling of being in an unfamiliarly muddy place I’d say that my three came out to be surprisingly average, maybe a bit too slim. But it wasn’t bad, and being in the pen was pretty fun, even though I got a bit dirty. To be expected, and it wasn’t as if I wore clothes I didn’t expect to get dirty so it was okay. It was nice, and after we’d marked them we had to get some fencing to kind of, get it around them and then lead them to the trailer. We bent it around to make an oval shape, unhooked the gate to the pen, and waited for one of them to walk out. We held the fence above them, and then we’d bring the fence down on them and walk them to the trailer. Ideally, that is how we’d hoped it would go anyway. Pigs are pretty strong creatures, more so than one might expect even. So instead of immediately walking underneath the fence like we hoped, the pigs instead started rooting all in the fresh, un-rooted land that lead to the fence, and they were doing for a bit. Guess it was because there was a whole bunch of food for them to find there so they were taking advantage of that. But eventually one of them came over, we clamped it down, and the pig was not happy. Pushing and shoving this way and that way, but it wasn’t too difficult to keep the pig in there, especially when there were three people. After some struggling, some more rooting, some trailer unlocking, and a lot of shuffling we got the first pig in there. Now, the second pig was less of a problem than the first, actually, after we got him in he was a lot more calm than the girl. He was fairly cooperative, save for the fact that he sometimes had spastically placed fits of rage. When that happened it might have been easy to control, but one person was unlocking the gate, so it was just the two of us holding it. When he went for the right and left sides, which were unattended, it was a bit nerve-inducing. We kept under control though, each time it happened. But the problem that we were having was that when we were trying to get the second pig up the ramp into the trailer, the first pig kept hobbling near the entrance, which is no good. If she got out, that would have been unfavorable, so we had to try to keep her on one side of the trailer while we tried to get the second pig up in there. But it was almost time for me to leave, so Cathy told me that they could handle it, I wanted to stay a bit longer to make sure that I could help out and the pig would get in there, but I had to go and catch the ride back. I hope that they didn’t have additional issues getting the pigs in there, I  suppose that I will find out on Thursday.

Welcome Angel

Tom and I would like to welcome Angel Arias to our farm. We have always hoped that our farm could provide an educational experience for children and teens. We believe they should be given the opportunity to learn where their food comes from, so that they can make healthy educated choices. We are excited for the chance to work with Angel and provide him with a hands-on experience in sustainable farming.

Welcome Angel we love having you here!

Interning

I am the intern, my name is Angel Arias and I am also a student who attends the Met high school. I started interning here not too long ago, and thus far I must say the experience has been very entertaining, as well as informative. Before I had this opportunity to intern I was working on an independent project that revolved around industrial agriculture versus more organic, local and sustainable forms of agriculture, and I feel that being able to intern here is a wonderful extension of the work that I am currently doing here, as well as getting a lot of experience out of it. I will be updating this blog, putting up reflections on the work that we do here, and putting up updates and images along with my mentor, Cathy Bardsley.

Silk Tree Farm - About us

Silk Tree Farm is a small farm, located in Charlestown R.I. We raise Nigerian Dwarf Goats, they provide our family with milk which we use to make a variety of cheeses. Their milk is also used in our goat milk soap. Our ADGA registered  show quality goats are bred for milk production and proper conformation. Our focus is on raising healthy happy animals. There are currently three people who work on the farm, Cathy, Tom and our new intern Angel.

We strive for a sustainable lifestyle, by growing and raising as much of our own food as possible. On our small farm you will find a large garden with fruits and vegetables, We have free-range laying hens that provide us and our customers beautiful large brown eggs. We are also hoping you will soon see us at the local farmers markets.

This blog will be managed by me, Cathy Bardsley, and our intern, Angel. We will post images and updates in relevance to the things that happen on the farm, including a lot of the farming that we do here.