Week 5, Fall ‘20
By Remi Welbel
It’s our fifth week here and we are as content as our three foster goats.
On Monday, we inoculated our biochar and then had a team meeting about our goals for the farm! After our meeting, we researched agroforestry policy for Kate and the Savanna Institute, specifically about forestry commitments in the US. It’s fascinating to learn about the minimal agroforestry policy and brainstorm how implementing widespread policy could be beneficial for climate change mitigation. While a group of us worked on policy research, the rest of us tirelessly finalized one of our grant applications. We also started building our greenhouse raised beds. At night, we all came together to edit and submit our grant!
For dinner, Julia and Samm made cauliflower pasta and salad.
On Tuesday, we continued working on the second outdoor raised bed (cleaning up the glass and such from the soil) and made a LOT of headway on our greenhouse raised beds. Inside, we worked intensively on editing a second grant that would be submitted at the end of the week. Most excitingly, on Tuesday, we brought our foster goats home! We went to our friends’ house, the family who runs Janie’s Mill, hung out with their lively chickens, goats, ducks, incredibly sweet horse named Cowboy, and donkey named Eve. After Celeste graciously introduced us to all of their animals, she helped us load the goats into the truck and we drove home with our three new kids. The goats are now settled into their pen and one provides us with fresh milk! Ember is our milking goat. She is a sweetheart who takes no nonsense from the two youngsters. Chanel is the shiest of the bunch and took a few days to warm up to us. Donkey is the character of the group; with propeller-like ears extending from her little caramel-colored head, she is always seeking human attention. To say the least, these three small goats have stolen all of our hearts and we are so grateful to Celeste for letting us take care of them for a while.
For dinner, Sophie and Max made roasted eggplant, lentil salad with cucumbers and radishes, and wild rice.
On Wednesday, we started the day on a high note, finishing the green house beds and planting our seeds! We will have radishes and a variety of lettuce coming up in the next month. In celebration of planting, we took an intermission from work to feed the goats corn. Nothing makes the goats happier than corn, and nothing makes us happier than feeding the goats corn. After hanging out with the goats, we took soil samples of our tree nursery for analysis. We then collected wood for a Thursday biochar burn. Inside, the grant squad kept typing away at our application and listened to Max and Jason’s beautiful guitar playing.
For dinner, Gavi and Claire made homemade corn tortillas, beans, and quinoa. We then took to the Sukkah to sleep under the stars.
On Thursday, we woke up and started a biochar burn. As we rotated tending to the fire, Bill Davison from the Savannah Institute came to visit us! He gave us immensely helpful agroforestry guidance. It was great to meet him and learn from his wealth of tree knowledge. After he left, we returned to grant writing—taking occasional breaks to pet the goats. That night, we submitted the SARE grant!
For dinner, Jason and I made roasted butternut squash and sweet potatoes, rice, ginger tamari grilled tofu, and salad. In celebration of submitting our grant and a super successful meeting with Bill Davison, we watched the Devil Wears Prada and made some stellar cookies.
On Friday, we had another major day! Richard Cooke, a professor in agricultural engineering at University of Illinois and master of subterranean irrigation, came to the farm and spoke to us about the potential for doing drainage tile research on our farm. A few of his graduate students will be coming in the next few weeks. It was wonderful to meet him and learn about all of the incredible research he has done creating rainfall harvesting systems to extend cropping into the dry season in Sierra Leone. We were so happy he could come into our Sukkah and shake the Lulav and Etrog before the holiday ended. After Richard Cooke left, we collected more wood for biochar and worked more on our raised beds. Then, we went back to the kitchen table for more intensive grant writing. In a powerful team effort, we submitted our Lumpkin Family Foundation grant application to Delta (our partner) so that their team can review it before we submit it officially.
For dinner, Max and I made adzuki bean soup, tofu scramble, salad, and challah. After dinner, we celebrated the end of a truly incredible and productive week with our traditional Oneg. We read our notes from our “fill jars,” danced together outside, and played a hilarity-filled game of salad bowl.
Overall, we’re all really proud of the work we are doing and we’re incredibly happy to be together. This has been a transformational experience and we are excited to see what the future holds for this demonstration farm.