Farm Fair: A Kid’s Eye View of Living Off the Land

By Contributing Writer, 5-20-08

Kids getting their hands dirty in the rural ways of living is important to the Gallatin Valley.

Therefore, the Gallatin Valley Agriculture Committee created the Farm Fair, held May 7-8, 2008, involved an amazing 643 fourth graders over two days.

Duane Burkenpas, the coordinator of the Farm Fair since its inception in 2005, said the goal is “ to provide a rural ranch atmosphere where students and teachers have the opportunity to see and touch where our basic food supply originates, how it is prepared for processing for human consumption, and to demonstrate agriculture’s commitment to protecting the natural resources on which it depends.”

Here’s how kids rate their Farm Fair experience: “Farm Fair is the best day I’ve had at school!” and “It’s the best field trip I’ve ever had!” What makes it so great? Come along and see…

By 9AM busloads of students and teachers are pulling into the parking area at Ed and Punky Brainard’s working ranch off East Manhattan Oil Road.  Buses from Bozeman, Belgrade, Manhattan, Three Forks, Heritage Christian, Pass Creek, Anderson, and Monforton – city schools, county schools, and private schools are all represented. As the busses unload, Belgrade Future Farmers of America (FFA) students assemble their tour groups of students, teachers, and parent chaperones.

Tour groups move out to begin a trek through 16 stations staffed by volunteers who have first hand experience in their area of expertise. Neither rain, nor snow…dampens anyone’s spirits. Each station is set up under the cover of open-sided equipment sheds in case of rain. Each station has 15 minutes to present their version of “MONTANA AG-LIVE”.

Meet Miss Piggy. She weighs 85 to 90 pounds now, at two months old. She was one of 8-12 piglets weighing 2 to 4 pounds each at birth. At six months, she’ll weigh about 250 pounds. Rockin Roosters 4H Club members explain how eggs are formed. Kids get to pet several breeds of chickens- egg and meat breeds and exotic looking “show” chickens - and see eggs of different colors.

The Angus cow in the Beef Cattle exhibit weighs about 1400 pounds. Cattlewomen from Montana State University explain that she will yield 550 pounds of meat and an extensive list of by-products - leather, glue, sausage casings, “cat gut” for tennis racquet strings, and chemicals used in candles, tires and brake fluid. Ninety-nine percent of her will be used – everything but her “Moo”.

Three lambs (2 white, 1 black) rest in a pen at the sheep exhibit along with a spinning wheel and loom. Each student gets a sample of wool to feel the lanolin and pull and hand twist into yarn as Mary Melander demonstrates spinning with a drop spindle and a spinning wheel. Adria Brandvold talks about sheep meat (lamb and mutton), sheep milk, and sheep milk cheese (feta). 

Want to try milking a cow? Al Lien or John Randall will help you milk a Jersey/Angus cow. Next door, Gary Flikkema from L and H Dairy displays the tools he uses to keep his cows healthy – a pill gun to put two-inch-long pills down a cows throat, wooden “high heels” to glue on a cow’s hoof to heal a limp, a magnet for a cow to swallow to collect metal objects in her stomach to prevent “hardware disease”.  Further on, Dan Holland
(a 4H goat project advisor) demonstrates how to milk a goat, while two goat kids on leashes are available for petting. Goats yield meat, milk, yogurt, butter, and cheese. The Alpine goats come from Amaltheia Dairy, a local goat dairy that specializes in chevre cheese.

Around the corner, two pleasure horses and their owners demonstrate the parts of a horse, saddle, and bridle, and how to approach, groom, and care for a horse. Around lunchtime, eight teams and wagons load up tour groups for a ride into the nearby alfalfa field to look at the irrigation equipment.

In preparation, Dennis Nelson, from Project Wet, explained irrigation ditches and how water is distributed among irrigators using models with flowing water at the Water Cycle Exhibit. He explained how surface pollution (pesticides, gasoline spills, or excess fertilizer, can contaminate groundwater using a cross section model of groundwater wells.

As the draft horses lurch forward and break into a steady walk, the tour guide on each wagon explains that “everything you’ve seen today runs on solar power - the school bus (fueled by dead plants), the horses (on hay), you (on hamburgers and milk), even the water cycle you learned about this morning, all run on solar power. Plants are the only life form that can make its own food, by trapping solar energy. Irrigation imitates rain.” The guide points out the center pivot and the wheel line mover and Gibson Creek (the source of the irrigation water), and compares and contrasts these methods with handline and flood irrigation. “This hay is cut, dried, and baled for cow food. What do you do with the “crop” you irrigate at home (your lawn)?” A discussion of draft horses in America and their role in agriculture follows. The teams go out twice to take all 16 groups for a ride.

Lunch is free: Grilled hamburgers, apples, carrots, pretzels, and milk. No lunch would be complete without dessert. One of the 16 stations is homemade ice cream. Kids make it themselves, by rolling cans back and forth across a table made from 4 sheets of plywood. A one-pound coffee can filled with cream, half and half, vanilla, and sugar sits inside a three-pound coffee can filled with ice and rock salt. After 15 minutes of rolling, it’s ready to eat. Volunteers scoop it out and serve it in cones.

The bull horn calls groups back together for the afternoon session. Presenters have done extensive greenhouse homework. Kids get to unearth potatoes in pots to find the “mother” potato (that provided the seed) to produce the other potatoes in the pot. A potted four week old wheat plant sits beside two barley plants – one with long scratchy awns, and one without. Stan Bates from MSU calls the bare one “naked”. Grapenuts cereal and the malted taste of Whoppers candies come from barley. So does Homer Simpson’s favorite drink.

A bushel of wheat equals 60 pounds, or one million kernels. A Wheat Montana representative shows the difference between winter and spring wheat, how to hand grind wheat to flour, and offers samples of the finished bread.

What noxious weeds should I look for on my property or in the wild? John Ansley of the Gallatin County Weed District points out leafy spurge, Canadian thistle, spotted knapweed, houndstongue, tansy, and oxeye daisy on an exhibit of plant mounts. Discussions about how these weeds are spread and control methods follow.

At the soils exhibit, “Aw, you’ve been drained,” meant another student had to give up a cattail, pelt, or stuffed turtle and go sit on the sidelines in the wetland game. Each student turned over a card depicting a wetland, a subdivision, or drained habitat to see if they were still in the game. Students helped with experiments showing the quantity and quality of run off from paved and grassy surfaces.

Kids learned the ABC’s of Farm Safety from Monica Switzer of Farm Bureau.  Safety Sam says, “Kids Don’t Go By the PTO” on farm equipment, “No Seat. No Rider” on tractors, and “You’re Asking for Trouble if You Ride Double” on ATV’s.

Mission accomplished Duane. Your toughest critics – Computer Age kids raised on video games and virtual worlds – still respond to the REAL world that you can touch and feel.