Angel Arias Silk Tree Farm reflection 4/2/13
Today was a particularly interesting day, I had brought in the sprouts I had been working on, and one of the first things that we did was clean out the goat pen.
Let me go into some deep, detailed description on this piece:
You really have to let the goat manure to layer and kind of get all the organic material to start to break down in there, as some source of heat to keep the goats warm during the cold seasons. This kind of creates layers and sheets of manure in there, but you take it out during the spring because, it is not longer really needed so you just can just go and take it right out of there. This is what we did, took pitchforks to it and ripped it all up and out of there, which, was perhaps made to sound a bit more foreboding than it really was. Seriously, as long as you just take what you can, avoid destroying the pitchfork in the process, and still make steady progress, well, you’re good really. We packed it up into a wheelbarrow and would continuously wheel it out and dump it throughout the cleaning process. The idea would be to get it all done sooner rather than later, as well. Well, when we were done with that, I grabbed a bag of woodchips, and Cathy and Tom installed a small stall in the goat pen, to be utilized when they wanted to give the mothers a break from being nursed often (By putting the baby goats in there), or, to put the goats in when another was giving birth. Pretty much just a handy way to separate the goats if need be. So after that escapade was done with, we went inside for a bit, started making some mayonnaise, and my advisor then stopped by for a bit, to visit me at my LTI. We showed her around the farm for a while, and then gave the grains that I had developed over to our chicken overlords for consumption purposes. They seemed to be enjoying it, crowding over and pecking at it hurriedly, all trying to get some of it. So, it seemed to have been working, but, as far as the actual sprouting goes, the germination rate wasn’t exactly exorbitant, with plenty of moist seeds that hadn’t taken off; which is one of our biggest concerns. That we should be able to grow some great sproutlets in a reasonable amount of time with a great stellar yield as well, this way we could get in a whole system going in which we could have fresh grains for the chickens every day, at least this is the final goal that we are trying to shoot for. I mention this of course because I had been caring for those sproutlets for about a week, trying to water them 2-3 times a day, and the yield didn’t seemed to be too great, in addition to this, there was a bit of what looked like perhaps a mold starting to take off in there (We of course removed any suspicious looking seeds, which I tried to make a common practice myself at home), which may have been a result of the tray itself being a bit shallow and not as well ventilated/porous as it perhaps should have been. Cathy suggested that we should soak some grains in vinegar and try it that way, so that the seeds would be sterilized and be much less prone to mold growth. We went inside, and finished making the mayonnaise (Perhaps a little less arduous than I thought it would be), which was pretty fast and easy (Plus it didn’t taste too bad, either). After that, it was about time for my advisor to leave, and she offered to drive me back since she was headed back there anyway and it was about time for me to go. This summarizes my day interning at Silk Tree Farm.
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