Heifer exhibit

I wanted to preview the newest exhibit that we will be adding in the upcoming weeks. Our good friends at Heifer International have helped create a great interactive exhibit on sustainable agricultural practices including planting trees, zero-grazing, using local markets & vermiculture (using worms to compost) and will feature an active worm composting bin. This will be so much fun. We will be bringing the book, "A Worm Ate My Garbage" to life. A special thanks to Aly at Heifer. More on this to follow.

Something we learned in Detroit!

Now before you get the wrong idea Kristen and I are showing you the new sign for Wagner Farm. Really.

Last week Kristen, Jim, Sarah and I went to Detroit for the Midwest Open Air Museum Conference. These conferences are held in different cities twice and year and offer sessions and tours that relate to the fields of public history, interpretation and professional management of historic sites. The conference was hosted by Greenmead, a museum in Livonia, Michigan. Sessions ranged from a tour of the Henry Ford Museum to a class on funeral customs in the nineteenth century America.

One of the classes that I found especially interesting was on "web presence". Basically, every museum has "web presence" even if you don't have things like blogs or web sites. What people post about you on flickr or facebook says a lot about your place. Imagine my shock when during the lecture the speaker starts into his power point presentation and then brings up a post on Wagner Farm! I am happy to report that we were shown in a very nice light.

So Detroit was a great time and we learned more than we should have. Long live WF!

"Slinging it"

These days organic farming seem to be on the minds of many. When I lead classes I sometimes ask them if they think that 1920's farmers were organic in their practices. Most of the time the line of thought is that organic farming is a new idea so of course in the old times they would not have known a thing about it. It then gives me a little bit of delight to draw the circle of life story and how 1920's farmers, and for that matter most all farmers prior to the green revolution were solely organic.

With the break in the weather Jeff and Beth have been busy hauling manure to the fields. The spreader that they are using is new to us and really neat. It was built new last year and uses almost 100 year old technology. Thank goodness for the Amish!

Welcome to Wagner Farm

It is funny how a person could directly graph our visitation to the outside weather. A couple days ago I caught Carmen tidying up a little after a huge rush of visitors came through. So far the year is looking good for visitation. We are up almost 300 from this month last year. The excitement of spring is really here.

Chicago Tribune Article

This week Jessica Cantarelli of the Chicago Tribune visited the farm and wrote a neat article about the dairy program. Check it out at triblocal.com

Cub Scouts

Last week I did a posting on the Girl Scouts and got a little feedback that shouldn't leave out the Cub Scouts so here's one for the guys. Yes Wagner Farm offers programs for all the scouting groups. A group from Evanston came to the farm to learn more about life on a dairy. The highlight was of course getting to milk a cow for the first time.

Gibby is back in business!

It is hard to do milking programs when you don't happen to have a fresh cow. Once again, Golden Oaks Dairy to the rescue. They kindly stepped in and loaned Wagner Farm one of the nicest cows ever to grace a milking parlor. This is not Gibson's (the cow) first trip to Wagner Farm. What makes Gib such a good girl is that she not only put up with the rigors of a milking schedule but also somewhat enjoys all the human contact that comes with being the lead cow in educational programming. In a typical day, staff and volunteers will milk her at 5 am and then return her to the barn for her first meal of the day. School groups usually come to the Farm around 9-10 am so she is back to the parlor for a demonstration. Her next meal is at noon with more grain, hay and water. Then the final program of the day is at 4:30 pm when anyone can come to the farm and meet her and watch how a modern milking machine works. Right now she is giving about 75 pounds of milk a day! Dairy farmers always quantify the output of milk in pounds not gallons. This output will start going down the further she gets from the date that she calved. Most farms milk a cow for 305 days and then she will get a couple months off as a dry cow and then she will freshen (give birth) and start the cycle all over again. Cows are amazing animals. If you find yourself in the area stop by and meet Gibson.

Exhibit Work

Jim and Kristen have been hard at work designing and fabricating the next exhibit for the farm. The piece will combine both lessons on how draft horses are used and what truck farms were. Visitors will be able to read signage along the front of the display and also sit on a wagon seat and learn how to drive the horse. This will be a great hands-on exhibit.

How To Pick A Winner

In 4-H there are many lessons and guidelines on how to find the animal that will best grow and represent the breed. For Kelly there is also just the friendly factor.

Ceiling Work

Back in December during the really cold spell, the water line in the ice cream parlor burst and we ended up losing the ceiling. This really seemed like a set back because we had finally finished the parlor for this upcoming spring. But in every cloud there can be a silver lining. When it came time to replace the ceiling we decided to put in tin and replicate the look of a old time store. Wow it looks amazing! Kristen picked out the tiles and Andy tossed them up. What a difference it makes.

Horsing Around

What could be more fun that taking a class to learn all about horses? Today we had a Girl Scout troop from Skokie visiting the farm to do just that. Joyce and Carlin started the program introducing the troop to all the different uses of equine and then they jumped right in and started helping take care of Sue and Bob. With a heavy winter coat to shed, the horses love getting a nice long scratch. Thanks girls.

Piggy, Piggy

This week the farm brought on two new babies. We are still working on naming them but that did not seem to dampen their excitement to be on the farm. They were born around the first of February on a farm in Iowa. I picked them because of the great coloring they had. In a sea of pink piggies, these two stood out. They come from a cross between a York and Duroc. While the weather is getting better, it is still too cold to leave them out at night so they are living in the northeast pen in the barn. If you have any suggestions for names let us know!