Farm Tours Come To A Close For The Year On A Soggy Note

Van Burnette tags a monarch butterfly

The past two weeks have been very busy for the farm and were a great way to end the 2012 tour season.  On Sept. 22 and 23 we hosted the ASAP Family Farm tour.  Around 120 people visited the farm where non stop tours were given by Van for both days.  It is rather grueling but hopefully people learned a lot about what all we do here on the farm.

Hops, as always, seemed to demand the most attention for the Farm Tour.  We also seemed to raise awareness for the importance of creating and maintaining native bee pollinator habitats and with our native blueberry study.  We also tagged a couple of monarch butterflies that were passing through.

The major tagging event for the monarch butterflies was reserved for the next weekend, Sept. 29 and our last official tour of the season.  Around 60 people showed up for this free event.  Folks started gathering early and so did the clouds.

The rain started during the release

 I managed to tag three monarchs and let the kids and adults release them after we taught the butterflies a few crucial words in Spanish.  Not all of the butterflies we eager to fly off as the one seen below seemed to wanted to stay on this young ladies hair.

All in all it was a good year, but we hope next year will be even better and hope to sponsor many fun events and have great Saturday tours with lots of folks.  The last shot seems to be a good ending for this blog.  You can just make out a monarch flying south after being tagged, saying goodbye to the farm.

School Groups Arrive For Tagging Monarchs

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   It was monarch tagging time for the third grade at Ira B. Jones School during Sept. 22-23. They just missed the largest amount of monarchs by two days, but we had enough to tag and release them for the kids to see over the two day period.
   
   

   
   

   
   

   The kids got to enjoy seeing all phases of the butterflies as we still had eggs, larva, and chrysalis for them to witness. They had a great time seeing all of these up close and seemed to be the most excited by just touching the caterpillars.
   
   
   
   

   After visiting the flighthouse, they learned a little about farming as they helped pick milkweed seed pods and as a reward, got to keep plenty of seeds to plant at the school for the future.

   
   

   
   
   

   Other things at the farm were also equally fascinating to them as they learned about alternative energy, and spent time feeding the fish and watching dragonflies at the pond.

   
   
   
   

   
   

   Our next big visit was from Evergreen Charter School, where we had 48 kids at once. These kids were the fifth grade class and I don't really think there wasn't anything that they weren't familiar with here on the farm.

   
   

   
   

   Not only did we have more monarchs for them to tag when they were here on Oct. 6, but they learned a lot about small farms and particularly about the history of our farm here over the past 160 years. They got to see some really old farming tools and learned about how the "old timers" were the best sustainable farmers.

   
   
   

   
   

   These kids also helped out a lot on the farm. They even brought work gloves and helped me prepare pots for blueberries, collect milkweed seed pods, and spread mulch onto my blueberries.

   
   

   
   

   What I thought was particularly exciting was to see the number of students who, when asked if they thought they would become farmers, raised their hands enthusiastically. Maybe, just maybe my little one day visit has inspired at least one new farmer for the future!!
   
   
   
   
   

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Marion 4th Grade Arrives

Susan Childers, former National Teacher of the Year, brought out her fourth grade class from Marion, NC today and they spent almost three hours here in the clear blue skies of autumn in the mountains.

While here, her kids learned about medicinal herbs and why it is important to save our native species. Then they learned a great deal about conserving energy and natural resources here and at their homes. We looked at my solar panels and at the gravity feed drip irrigation system. We also looked at the benefits of composting with compost bins and talked about vermiculture.

Then it was off to the butterfly flight house. Along the way we looked at nectar plants and saw some swallowtails sipping nectar. We also visited the milkweed experimental patch and collected monarch caterpillars.

The kids took a few caterpillars back with them to school.

Then we went inside the flight house and captured four monarchs to tag them the Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas. The kids did a countdown and released them for their trip to Mexico.

I also was able to recruit 7 future crop scientist from the group. They were all given a newly rooted blueberry bush and each was given a task of using different techniques for overwintering the plants. They will all get back to me next spring with their results.

One thing I did learn was that these kids were really smart and very interested in the farm. I was amazed at how much they knew already. I only hope that a few of them will carry on and become our next modern farmers. Thanks again to Susan Childers for helping stimulate their learning abilities.

More pictures can be seen on our Facebook page for the Hop'n Blueberry Farm