A Farm Field Trip for Local Folks

Our Earthcare Working Group started up again several months ago, after taking a 10 year hiatus. We now meet every month at Prairie Hill Cohousing, and each session is focused on a theme related to caring for our earth. We watched the movie Common Ground a couple months ago, and this month we're excited that we can go to a farm where many of the innovative things we saw in the movie are taking place. Here is the announcement I just sent out to our earthcare mailing list, and I thought there are people who read this blog but are not on that list and are local enough to attend this event if they'd like. I know we are all super busy, but this should be a wonderful and educational visit to an inspiring farm. This announcement mentions including an attachment to my cousin's chapter in Connie Mutel's book Tending Iowa's Land. But I can't seem to figure out how to attach it to this blog post. If you're interested in this, send me an email and I'll forward it to you.

"As many of you know, we shifted our usual 1st Saturday timing this month in order to have a field trip to Cold Spring Pond near West Branch. Not only are we moving from the 1st Saturday to the 2nd Saturday (October 11th), but we are beginning our program a little earlier. We plan to have our whole group at Cold Spring Pond by 11:30 a.m. We'll gather on the large screened porch overlooking the pond and hear about all the many sustainable practices that Ken Fawcett and family have implemented on the farm. These advances in agriculture are very exciting! Ken will talk about seeding cover crops, no-till farming, pollinator strips, saturated buffers, riparian buffers, waterways and more. I'm including an attachment of the chapter that Ken wrote in Connie Mutel's book Tending Iowa's Land. That will give you an historical perspective and more information. We're really fortunate to have this opportunity to learn about the kinds of changes in farming that we saw illustrated in the film Common Ground in our June and July meetings!

We're thinking that it makes sense for us to first gather and listen to a description of the farming innovations they are using on the farm, then have time for questions, and then eat a bag lunch together while there on the comfortable screened porch. So bring your own bag lunch. The cabin has a bathroom and other amenities. Once we're through with lunch, we'll go around viewing all the things that Ken has talked about. Some of this will be done in vehicles (maybe a tractor and a wagon, or people's own cars). We should be done around 3:00, so the folks who want to go to Scattergood Friends School's event later in the afternoon could go to both.

We will definitely have a carpool leaving from Prairie Hill Cohousing around 11:00. Others can form their own car pools, or let me know if you'd like to join the Prairie Hill carpool. It takes about half an hour to get to Cold Spring Pond from Iowa City. It's much closer for our West Branch folks.

Here are directions: Directions from I-80, arriving from the west;  take exit 254 (West Branch exit) go north 1/2 mile to a four-way stop in West Branch, turn right (east) onto county road F44 (also called Main St or  290th Street)  Go 3.5 miles, to 459 290th St. Turn left and follow drive to the top of the hill.  There is a cell tower near parking area for the pond.  

Please let me know if you have questions. And if you'd like to join the Prairie Hill carpool, let me know that too. It would be good to have an idea of how many people intend to join us, so respond to me in the affirmative if you know in advance. This will be a beautiful time of year for this field trip. And I should mention that if you'd like to stay after the program and tour, the pond is a good place to swim." 

 

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