Hi, Debbie here at Rural Resources, and I would like to share some pictures that one teen family shared about their garden going in, and the growth of their plants. This is Logan and his sister Lyza. Lyza comes with Logan to his activities and classes we offer at Rural Resources. She is a year too young to join our teen program, but cannot wait for the time when she can be considered an official teen! We raised a bed mid-June for them to grow their vegetables this summer. They both worked really hard with screwing together the boards, hauling dirt in wheelbarrows, and planting their vegetables.
Where the garden was placed, there was a cactus growing. With lack of rain, the soil was very hard to dig through, so we decided to use black trash bags and cover the cactus. Logan’s mom brought two bags out and we placed them over the cactus. We are hoping the black trash bag will kill the cactus and keep it from coming up through the soil and invading the new garden space.
I think Logan and Lyza were very excited that their beans began growing and the tomatoes were springing back from transplant shock, that they went out at night and took these pictures to share. Those disposable cameras do really well! Sometimes I wish my cell phone would take these good of pictures. Ok, now I am turning this over to Faelyn for her FINAL blog post this summer. I will miss Faelyn as she has been such a tremendous help to me this summer. Faelyn will still be around in the future, but it will not be the same with her not coming out two days a week. So, take it away Faelyn….. ( in case you forgot which one she is, her photo is our feature. She doesn’t know I am adding this in!)
Hello everyone! Faelyn here, and sadly this will be my last blog. It is my last day in the internship sadly, but more of that later. Today was an exciting day with the Food Commanders. Today was all about the animals, Mrs. Debbie took them out to see the pigs and cows while I took Zack, Lyza, and Dylan to see the bunnies. I figured they could help me with feeding them and watering them and I could teach them about the measurements of food and the amounts each type of rabbit gets. I didn’t know that I would need them for an emergency situation. One of our New Zealands littered this morning! But, she had flipped the bed box in which they were born and the babies were scattered everywhere! I instantly gave them jobs to do, Dylan to go get hay to replace the ruined fur that had fallen out, Zack to get me gloves to clean up the unfortunate, and Lyza so salvage what she could of the mother’s fur that had fallen on the ground. The mom (Scarlett is her name) had 8 babies in her litter so the unfortunate brought it down to seven. They all looked healthy except for one that had gotten its foot caught in a wad of fur and it had cut off the circulation to the foot and we believe that the foot is dead but we will hope for the best and see if the baby survives.
This is our bunny farm, we have hanging cages to keep the bunnies safe from predators that are on the ground. The ones on the left are the Mini Rex’s and on the right are the Californian’s and the New Zealand’s.
This white bunny here is the newest mother. She’s really tuckered out from taking care of her babies, so hopefully the babies will grow to be happy and healthy. The red bunny is a pregnant lady named Ol’ Red who is getting ready to have her litter. She has given us beautiful, healthy babies before, but last year, due to some unfortunate incidents with Farm Day Camp, we lost all her litters, but this year we’ve been stricter with who is allowed in the barn and when they are so hopefully she has calmed down a lot.
After the bunnies were taken care of the kids were sent back to join with the rest of the group for their next big exciting project. Moving the boar. It started out with the Food Commanders going to see the young boar. He has his own little pen out away from the large females so he behaves and because he gets fed differently. With all the rain we’ve had recently though, his pen is too muddy for him to be in much longer, so we decided to use the help of the numbers of the group to get the little guy into his new home, a larger area that is next to the female’s pen.
The kids lined up, creating a path for the pig to follow into his new pen not too far away. That small margine of error, is still a margin of error. He went everywhere except where we wanted him to go. He was very fascinated with the grass instead of the grain that Mrs. Debbie had. The piggie, Wilbur, was so excited to be out of his small muddy area that he wanted to explore everywhere, but we needed him to get in the new pen so we had to get serious.
The teens started closing in behind Debbie as we got him closer to the entrance. One of the kids got really excited and started talking really loud and scared the pig so he started jumping around and got out of their barrier! They had to slowly chase him down so as to not scare him again and scoot him into the enclosed area.
Once they finally got him into the pen Mrs. Debbie let the teens come into to pet the pig. Luckily the pig is very nice and friendly so it wasn’t an issue, but the fence is electric but for the safety of the teens it was turned off. So when the pig went to investigate the boarders of his new home he found it very easy to slip out of the enclosure to freedom. When he did the few of us that were standing outside the fence had to form a wall to quickly herd him back into the open pen between his old home and his new one. Luckily he hurriedly went back into his new home with the more vigilant watch of the teens and Debbie to see if he stays. I rushed to go plug-in the electric fence to keep the pig in, of course while yelling warnings to everyone so no one gets hurt, and it turns out that the wire isn’t hot enough to keep him in. Mrs. Debbie then sends me to set up snack while she wrestles with the pig and trying to get it to stay, but she only ends up putting him back into his original pen until they can fix the fence. All that effort wasted, but it was a fun learning activity for the teens as well as a nice exercise routine.
So today is my last day as Mrs. Debbie’s intern. It’s very sad, but today has been eventful so that’s a good boost. I’ll miss this opportunity because it has been such a blast working so closely with Mrs. Debbie and the other members of Rural Resources. This opportunity has helped me immensely in giving me a taste of what it is like to be employed and what I will be expected to do if I have a job like Mrs. Debbie’s. I will cherished this experience and use it to help me get far in my life as with all of my experience from the teen program. This will not be my last year though at Rural Resources. I will be here for many more years to come, they’re not getting rid of me that easily. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know everyone better, and getting to meet so many amazing people such as Sally, Eva, Paul (whom I met when I was in kindergarten but didn’t really “meet” until a few years ago), and so many others I cannot name them all, but most importantly Mrs. Debbie. She has helped my family and I through so much with just opening her arms to guide us and giving us someone to talk to if we need it, and by being there when others didn’t have the time. I love you Mrs. Debbie and I’m so happy I’ve had the blessing to meeting a wonderful person like you. Thank you all for having me. I’ll see you later!!
Teen Animal Commanders! That IS an exciting last day. Good work delegating in a a bunny-mergency!