Our first stop was the Lutchka Angus and Roadside Market. Here Lisa enlightened us about raising a herd of Angus breeding cattle. We learned these girls (Ears and JC) weigh about 1200-1500 pounds). They are currently worth $800 at auction, if they were sold to make ground beef. And they have to produce a baby every year, earning about $450 per year, to keep their place at the farm.
These sweet girls, who were not tame enough yet to touch, weighed about 75-80 pounds when they were born. And at a year old they would weight about 1000-1200 pounds.
There were many other things going on at this farm today. We got to visit Mr. Howe, who runs a rabbit husbandry. He raises Californian rabbits (breed of rabbit, not a rabbit that moves to CA) as meat rabbits. This baby was only 5 days old. It's eyes were still closed. They don't open until they are about 14 days old.
In addition to the angus and rabbits, we also met a 3rd grader who was working on a pheasant raising project (similar to B's quail project). He was raising 50 quail to release in the fall into the wild. Their gardens were also open for tour and a farmer's stand to buy produce was set up.Second stop was Devulder's Nursery. They grow both cut flowers and vegetables that are sold at several local farmer's markets. We got an opportunity for a guided tour of their greenhouses and gardens. They still had produce and flowers in the fields. BEAUTIFUL :)
B making a snap dragon kiss.
Third stop, and by far our favorite, was the Swihart Belgian Draft Horse farm. (also visit http://www.belgiancorp.com/) These horses were beautiful!!! And BIG. When we arrived the demonstration was about getting a team of 6 draft horses 'dressed' and hitched to a wagon. We got to see the 'dressing' process and then the actual pulling of a show wagon.
Before a show, each hoof is sprayed with black spray paint. Just like nail polish for the prom :)
Tack boxes - these horses have both practice tack and show tack (this is the show tack)
Almost ready?
Show wagon. If this interested you, check this out - http://www.ruralheritage.com/jump.cgi?http://www.mgli.org/
All hitched and ready to show the crowd their stuff.
What is horsepower??? This is horsepower!
This is the inside of their 18 wheel hauler. The front part is where the horse stalls are at. The horses are loaded on the side of the trailer about 2/3 back from the cab. The back 1/3 is for tack and the wagon.
One of the girls not involved in the demonstartion today. Grazing in the warm sun.
Two young foals.
B's pick of what we should take home from the FarmFest today!!!!
Last farm stop today was the Commodity Exchange. We got a guided tour of what happens from the time a semi hauler arrives (right from the field) to when another hauler picked the grain up to go to processing. Each hauler that comes in brings about 950 bushels of grain (at this grainery it is either soybeans, corn or wheat). It comes onto the scale first (legally it should weigh about 80,000 pounds). Then samples are taken from the trailer. These samples are measured for weight, moisture content, and foriegn materials. Then the grain is unloaded and goes into the driers. For corn the kernels need to be dried to less than 15%. If the farmer has sent corn that has more moisture than 15% it has to pay to have it dried (most of the time it comes in about 25%, so most has to be dried). It takes about 4 hours to dry a hauler full of corn. Then the corn is pumped into the dry silos. Once a processing plant purchases the grain, a hauler is loaded. It takes about 15 minutes to load 950 bushels of grain. Out the truck goes.
30 ft. wide combine
There was actually 5 farms on the tour, but we ran out of time for the last farm. It was a perfect fall day. And it was fun learning while seeing how our food is brought from field to table!
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