Week 2

            
             Vegetables

Today, we went to the farm, and it was more of a cloudy day than usual. We traveled to the farm with a purpose, to see if what we saw then would still be the same as what we are going to see now. It wasn't much of a sight, it was just mostly dirt that was tilled. The only thing that really looked deliberately set up was inside the green-house, where there was some plastic. All in all, this day was productive enough to be repetitive as the last trip to the farm.



            Animals

I hope that all of you that were here last spring remember the three bottle-fed lambs; Rosie, Milo, and Theo.  Today we mourn the loss of Milo.  He was a sweetheart and a bit of a dreamer, his head perpetually somewhere else.  He sometimes would just let the bottle drop out of his mouth, or he would put it in his mouth and forget to drink from it.  He died of a disease called coccidiosis, but passed during the night, hopefully in his sleep.  He is now four feet deep in a grave behind Dave’s cottage out at the farm (sorry Dave).  Let us not wallow in our grief –let us instead celebrate Milo’s *short* life.

In lighter news, our other sow has not given birth as of yet but is bound to pop sometime soon.  Hopefully Mark will tell us so you can go visit the piglets.

            Admin/Other

Recently, Dana has been active at the National Conference for Women in Sustainable Agriculture.
More Woman Farmers 

One of Scattergoods own students, Theia Byrnes, also attended this conference with Dana. Theia did a presentation on the Scattergood Farm, and about the student involvement on the farm.

In the meantime, Mark plans to go to the Practical Farmers of Iowa Annual Conference and to Lacrosse, Wisconsin in March for the Upper Midwest Organic Farming Conference.

That’s all for farm related news!  See you next week.

You stay classy, Scattergood.

Week 1

Today, I traveled to the Scattergood Farm. The landscape was incredibly bare, and I found myself saddened at the sight. As I walked I saw the dead corn stocks, and scattered eaten cobs, where animals have been nibbling on them. When I arrived, I went to the tomato patch and found them drooping slightly, showing the age of the tomato and had a flash-back of when there were many ripe ones on a bright sunny afternoon. I continued my walk, and noticed that, where there had once been cabbages and lettuce, there were just piles of dirt spread out in a lines. I knew that harvesting season was coming to a close, but there had to be something. I continued to walk and saw nothing but tilled up dirt.

On October 31, our older sow gave birth to 5 beautiful little piglets.  They are between 9 and 12 inches long, weigh a couple of pounds, and squeal to no end.  They’re pretty cute, so you should take some time out of your day and walk down to the farm to see them.  I do not advise trying to hold them without distracting the mother – she will probably bite you.  The best way to do so is to get some corn feed and put it in the corner of the pen opposite the piglets; just remember to ask Mark Quee first.

In other news, one of our rams was sent to Adam’s family to breed with their sheep.  The remaining one is pretty lonely, but not for long – he goes in with the ewes in two weeks.  Also, the male lambs are getting sent to slaughter in two weeks, so say your goodbyes.

For cow related news, two steers and an old cow named Curly Sue were sent in a while ago.  Curly Sue was the last cow from Scattergood's original breeding program, about 10 years ago.  You have probably seen her, and might have known her as “the red one” or “the overly aggressive about her babies one”.  We will all miss her (sort of).

That’s all we have for animal related news.

On a technical note, we just finished submitting the data from this year's experiments. We are being paid to carry out agricultural tests. Many of them are testing the difference in production between paper and plastic mulch. In December, Mark will go to the PFI Cooperators Meeting to talk about the experiments and decide what tests he will do next year.

We just finished a grant application to increase our worm composting and implement it into education.

We are also currently working on setting up the packing shed. The office, the cooler, and the shelves are still being put into place. When it is finished, Mark will finally have an office of his own after fifteen years!

That’s our news for the scattergood farm. See you next week.