The worst job on the farm (in my opinion)

I would rather do back flips in the port-a-john than fight horses to get their feet worked on. In all the years of working horses I have had some really easy horses and some very hard ones when it came to farring. Back in Iowa, Ol' Tony Kuehn taught me enough that I could trim hooves and do some basic things. When in Indiana I again had pretty disciplined ponies and I could do most of the work myself. Then I move to Illinois and I haven't been able to get these horses to cooperate at all.

The team that we have now is Bob and Sue. If you ever want to meet Dr. Jekell and Mr. Hyde I can introduce you. It really isn't their fault that 98% of the time they are the best team in the world but when it comes time to trim feet they are just the opposite. I think a lot of it comes from them being Amish horses. For the Amish, when a job needs to be done there isn't a lot of coaxing. It is either do it or else.

To be as safe as we can for both the people and the animals, we use shoeing stocksThis keeps the animal upright and protects the farrier from getting kicked. I have to tell you, there is nothing like asking a one ton animal to "give you a foot". We are just so lucky to have found one of the best farriers in the business. Salvador worked at one of Julie's barns shoeing riding horses. He agreed to come take a look at ours and had routinely come 4-5 times a year to help with the Herculean task. Salvador is different than most all other farriers in that he has never once laid a hard hand on the horses or even cursed. That last one is really surprising since they have sure given him reason to.

Well we can forget about working their feet for another 3 months. Then it will be time to do it all over again. ugh!

Anna and WGN at the Farm

We have had a really fun spring when it comes to the local media. This week had to be the topper! On Tuesday Anna from WGN-TV came to the farm and did about 6 segments during the morning show. We got to demonstrate shearing sheep and milking cows. Sarah did some historic cooking and Kristen made a very special malt for her. Check it out.

Garden planting

After many wet days our heirloom gardeners are finally able to head to the fields for planting. Jeff and Beth have been working hard to run a new water line in and get the soil ready for plants. The gardeners will now work the plots into something like raised beds so that they can maximize all the plantable area. The farmers weren't the only creatures out in the garden. Little robin landed right in front of me and found a snack.

Jay's Drug in Shenandoah, Iowa

The other night after the grand opening of the soda fountain a couple of my friends asked me a question about where the idea had come from to have a fountain at Wagner Farm. It was the first time anyone had asked me that. So, I thought I might as well share the story with all.

When I was a kid one of the biggest treats we could get was going over to the neighboring town and getting to sit at the only soda fountain in the whole county. I had two favorites; first was cinnamon ice cream. Not the hot cinnamon but the other one that when combined with soft thick ice cream is just heaven. The other favorite that came in as a close second was the malt. Now the funny thing was the taste of the malt was only part of the reason I liked it so much. The other reason was they made it in one of those metal malt cups that would fit into the mixer machine. The soda jerk would pour it into a glass they would then give you the rest of the malt in the metal cup. This was the greatest because you thought you cheating the system in getting "extra" ice cream and because the metal cup had a very special property. Being super cold the cup would freeze to your hand if you held it for a minute. I don't know why that seemed so neat to a 10 year old boy but it did.

This still doesn't tell the story of why we have a soda fountain at Wagner. On a road trip to Pennsylvania to see my friend Brett McNish we wandered into a antique store that had a working fountain and it was just packed with kids and families trying to get up to the bar. At the time we had just finished the Heritage Center and Sarah and I were trying to tie every part of the building to an educational use. In most of our programs we combine a little bit of history with a little bit of agriculture to layout a good story. If a visitor can see a cow fed, milked and then something made from the milk it tells a more complete story. All those kids at the fountain in Pennsylvania made me wonder if they had any idea where that ultimate of dairy products, ice cream came from. That was what started me thinking back to Jay Drug and finding a way to bring that awesome soda fountain to Glenview. Educationally and programmatically it worked. It would be the perfect demonstration of an end product in agriculture. After a year of planning and construction we have Wagner Farm's Sweets and Treats.

On a recent trip home I revisited Jay Drug and I'm happy to say that the malt cup still froze to my hand. Not all childhood memories are burst upon adulthood.

Enjoy Illinois!

Just wanted to show off an advertisment that ran for the state on summer tourist attractions. Who would have ever thought that Wagner Farm would be seen on the same page as the Wrigley sign. Pretty cool.

My home

This post really doesn't have much to do with Wagner Farm but I thought that I would put it on anyway. The pictures were taken on my last trip home. I grew up on a farm in the southwest corner of Iowa. To us, and many farmers, the land is more than just dirt. When something has been in the family for generations it becomes part of you. To touch the same land that your great grandfather's father worked links you to their story and binds one to the family like nothing else. I snapped these pictures after driving the entire night to get home. As I was passing close to our farm the sun was just starting to break across the eastern rim of the river valley that makes up the home place. Despite being very tired and my desire to speed on I just had to stop and watch the sun come up. For an occurrence that happens every single day it was still amazing.

Truck farming exhibit update

This winter Kristen and Jim started working on an exhibit dealing with local truck farming. Kristen handled the signage and copy while Jim tackled the wagon and horse. As you can see from the pictures the wagon is coming along great. The level of detail is unbelievable. Andy and I have been razing Jim by telling him the wagon is stout enough that we could just slap on two more wheels and we could actually use it on the farm. The baskets that you see along the sides will be filled with faux fruits and vegetables and then covered with plexiglass so that they don't get damaged. Right now Jim is working on the steps up the back and then it will be time to start painting the wagon and working on the horse.

Springtime on the farm

We kicked off the special event season this Saturday with Springtime on the Farm. This is usually one of our smaller events but it is a favorite with the visitors. The highlight is getting to meet all the new animals at the farm. The 4-H kids had their sheep out and the cattle kids were walking the heifers around for the visitors to meet. Other activities include springtime crafts, wagon rides and house tours. Another great day at the farm!

Grand Opening Night

I have not had that much fun in a very long time. This past Friday was the grand opening of our Wagner Farm Sweats and Treats soda fountain. We invited our friends to come and help us break it in and over 200 showed up. Ed Koenig served the first scoop to MJ Coulson Park Board President and Chuck Balling the Glenview Park District Executive Director. At the peak of the night we had seven people working behind the counter making everything from sodas to float to shakes.

Two people have had a lot to do with making this little dream of our happen. First Steve Swanson the Director at the Grove help design and construct the actual space. Also Kristen Klebba who is our fountain manager has been just brilliant in picking out the right decor and fixtures to make the operation shine.

If you like homemade ice cream from Homers you really need to come over and try some.

Green House update

On April 2nd I posted a piece about the green house work of Jeff and Beth. With great care and and a little water the vegetable crop is looking good. Jeff has the garden area tilled and ready but the spring rains have thus far kept us out of the field.

Dr. Gerloff comes to Wagner Farm

The 4-H program gets a lot of attention around here but it is because of the really cool things they get to do. As an example, all the lamb kids got to do a physical on their sheep with the help of Wagner Farm veterinarian Dr. Brian Gerloff. The exam stared with palpitations of the rumen then listening to the animals heart. Next the group worked on collecting fecal samples from the lambs to test them for parasites. Worms are a consistent threat to grazing animals since their mouths are so often close to the ground where the parasites live. Once the sample was taken Dr. Gerloff set up a lab in the classroom and the kids got to prepare slides from the samples taken. As it ended up, our sheep did have signs of parasites that could be seen under the microscope. The kids then treated all of the lambs for worms and we were done. This is just one example of the neat things that our kids are getting to try. Maybe we'll have a future Veterinarian!

Roger and Me

Education never ends. This past weekend I got a pruning lesson from orchard expert Roger Miller. At the farm we have a small orchard that was donated by the COWs group. For those of you who might not know, COWs stands for Citizens Organized for Wagners. They were a small group of Glenview residents who, about 15 years ago, helped push the effort to save the farm from development. One of the last acts by this group was to donate the trees that would make up our new orchard.

Our orchard has apple, cherry, peach and crab apple trees. I wish I would have taken some before and after pictures of the trees during the pruning process. With Rogers help, we took about half a pick-up load of branches off the trees. It was really neat to learn how to direct branch growth by the way you make a cut. Pruning, as it ends up is a short term means for shaping long term growth. Very neat.

If you want to meet Roger or try any of the great things he grows don't miss our farmers market. It starts on June 27th at Wagner Farm.

Trib local story

This seems to be the week for good media. Yesterday I met with Jessica Canterelli, a reporter for Trib Local. Over a caramel sundae we talked about the plans for the soda fountain and how it came together. Check the story out at

http://www.triblocal.com/Glenview/view.html?type=stories&action=detail&sub_id=65784

Photo credit to Jessica Cantarelli

Eric milks a cow

Every once in a while I get an unusual request. I guess that should almost be expected since we are the only farm in this area. This week a morning DJ from a very popular Chicago radio station claimed he had always wanted to milk a cow. Since we are in the cow business this was an easy request to help out on. So the day of the milking came and I jump in my truck and start over towards the farm. Just on a whim I turned on the radio to listen to 101.9 "The Mix" to see what Eric and Kathy are talking about and low and behold they are actually going on about the milking that is going to happen at Wagner Farm. Considering my commute is about 4 minutes I figured that was a pretty good omen that the day was going to be a good one. After washing Gibson the cow and really cleaning up the barn I headed up to the heritage center to wait for our guest. At about the same time Ruthie from the Pioneer Press, our local newspaper stopped by because she had heard that Eric was coming. Now we were really in talking, we had photogs. When Eric showed up we started by giving a little tour and showing him how the cows get milked with machines. Being a real man he wanted to experience it old school, milking by hand. After Eric whispering some sweet words to Gibson about being gentle and taking her out to dinner I showed him how to milk and he jumped right in. I'm not sure he really enjoyed it all that much but it is one more thing on his life list that can be crossed off.

If you would like to see the video follow the link www.wtmx.com and look for a section called Eric All Access. It is on the bottom right of the home page.

Just thought you might enjoy seeing how I spent my morning. Life at Wagner Farm is so much fun.

The magic of Monk

As the opening day nears for the soda fountain we enlisted the help of one of our friends Mike Monkton to help with a little sign work. Mike is the man responsible for the big sign out on Lake and Wagner and many of the other hand painted pieces on the site. We started with a great design and Mike executed it perfectly. We're one step closer

Is Anyone Hungry for Ice Cream?

Wagner's Sweets and Treats is just two weeks away from its opening debut, and one of the necessary steps to the finale is training staff. Andrew from Homers Ice Cream came out on Monday to help teach our servers how to make the best milk shakes and to learn the difference between a chocolate soda and a chocolate phosphate. The best part about the training? Each person got to eat what they scooped up...not a bad deal!

More pigs!

I am a little late in getting this one posted but I still thought some of you would enjoy seeing the new 4-H pigs coming to the farm. This happened on April 24.

Meet Dave

If you are a follower of this blog you know all about the Glenview Clovers 4-H club. They are one of my favorite groups to work with. We meet about once a month and for the May meeting we had a guest speaker. Dave Wesemann from Genoa, Illinois came to talk about feeding animals. What made the presentation relevant is Dave happens to be the man who owns the feed mill that makes all of the items we feed to the 4-H livestock. What's in a pellet? Why is protein so important? Or my favorite confession/question, what happens when I mix up the feeds for pigs and sheep were all answered. By the way, did you know that pig feed can kill a sheep because of the copper content? Dave is a former farm kid and 4-Her and it was great to hear more about how the food we fed our animals is carefully thought out and made before it comes to us.

Thanks Dave!

Wagner Farm takes a Field Trip

Last week a bunch of staff and volunteers got a chance to experience what our kids do every time they take a field trip to Wagner Farm. This time, we took our own trip to Old World Wisconsin in Eagle, Wisconsin. Old World is a collection of historic farms and village buildings and is one of the world's largest museums dedicated to the history of rural life. The buildings date back to the 19th century and the museum sits on hundreds of acres of rural and forested land. We had a great day visiting with interpreters, taking part in hands on activities, and hiking through the coniferous forests. Thanks to the folks at Old World Wisconsin for being such great hosts! http://oldworldwisconsin.wisconsinhistory.org/