Friday, June 19, 2015

The Flag Day Camp Tours Farm

It was a good day today ,and is always a good day, when we are privileged to sponsor a special group of extremely talented kids from the Flag Camp in Fletcher, NC.  Flag Camp is a day camp that has seen a lot of activity already this summer and today we let them find out what our farm is all about.

We set up four stations on the farm to allow the 52 kids and 17 counselors to better understand what the essence of farming is all about, and that is pollination.  Starting with blueberry picking the four groups spent around 15 minutes picking before going on to the butterfly house, then to the pollinator maze, and finally to the seed bomb and bee hotel crafting center.
The butterfly house still had a couple of monarchs and 4 other native species of butterflies as well as some monarch caterpillars that held the attention of even almost everyone. Including this lucky girl that I let correctly hold her first monarch ever.

The craft area allowed the kids to make "seed bombs" and add to the "Bee Hotel".  Seed bombs are a clay and compost mixture with flower seeds inside are a convenient way to start flowering plants so necessary for pollinators.
Overall, it was a very fun day and ole "Farmer Van" probably had the most fun!



Sunday, June 7, 2015

Blueberries Are Here NOW


 We are starting our picking of our highbush blueberries this weekend.  So far, we are ahead of the birds and I have seen evidence of bear scat in the filed.  So, if you want any be sure to call us to get the jump on the critters that eat them!

I am trying out a new thing, wolf urine, placed around the field in little cans.  It might be working, who knows, but I have seen anymore evidence of the bears.  Man and wolves are the bears only real enemies.  A friend gave me a bottle and it is produced by "Leg UP Enterprises", good name, but I wouldn't want to work there.

We still have monarchs in the flight house from the first generation of those butterflies that flew down to Mexico for the winter and flew back here this spring.