Week Two With Extension by Cheyenne Van Echo

Calf on Peace Hollow Farm. This farm follows organic, pasture raised practices and focuses on raw A2 milk.

As mentioned in my prior blog, the week started out with our weekly connection zoom meeting with all the Extension interns. We had an insightful discussion and watched a guest lecture on precision agriculture. I do not have much prior experience with crop farming so this was a new, interesting topic for me. Emily and I then drove out to the pastures with Cole, another intern stationed in Frederick/Montgomery county, to assist with weighing the sheep and cattle. If Susan is reading this I sincerely apologize for spelling your name wrong in last week’s blog post… I came into the office the morning after the blogs were posted to a sticky note on my desk that said “Schoenian”. Well, that was embarrassing. Thanks Jeff. From now on I will be triple checking my spelling!

On Tuesday we attended a staff meeting at the Washington County Extension Office in the morning. Here we got an inside view of the responsibilities of the staff and how they effectively communicate as a team. In the afternoon we drove to a private farm to work jersey calves that the farmers have partnered with UME to conduct a study on the days a calf is on colostrum and how this affects their growth.

Wednesday included a pasture walk at Peace Hollow Farm. This provided a unique opportunity to interact with Mennonite farmers and hear their perspectives and experiences in agriculture. The host family's hospitality was tremendous as they prepared a wonderful lunch for all the guests! Nothing beats homemade pie with ice cream.

Moving on to Thursday, we traveled down to CMREC to weigh the dairy heifers enrolled in an exclusively pasture vs TMR and pasture study to track their growth. Here we had the chance to work with the State Fair Dairy interns and try our luck with scooping fecal samples.

Taking a fecal sample from a heifer at CMREC. 

 
We wrapped up the week on Friday with a trip to a Bison farm in Pennsylvania to attend a pasture walk organized by Capital RC&D. The owner of the farm was new to raising pasture livestock and it was very impressive to hear how local organizations such as Capital RC&D and NRCS were able to assist in getting his farm into working shape. The family ran their own food truck and served the attendees bison burgers, which are amazing if you have never had the chance to try bison before. 10/10 absolutely recommend.

Pasture raised bison on the farm where the pasture walk was hosted. 

Overall, my biggest goal for this internship is to be as “spongy” as possible. Weird analogy, I know, but I basically want to soak up as much new information as possible. Pasture management is one of the bigger focuses of our mentors, Amanda Grev is the state forage specialist after all. This is an area of agriculture that I haven’t put much thought into before. I am eager to learn about the details that go into correctly managing your pastures for a variety of livestock species.

Jersey Calves enrolled in a study with UME