This first week of December marks the last week of my farm ops 2 experience. It has been an amazing fall session and I feel like I have learned a lot of practical knowledge on the farm. I was excited to get to progress my farming experience this semester and work on my leadership capabilities working with the younger farm ops 1 students. I spent a good bit of time working with Todd developing a stronger confidence with the tractor and becoming capable of attaching any implement and doing the work with it. I am looking forward to doing more around the farm and helping out on more important task with my internship with Chip. This semester helped me realize that I still need lot of more practical experience and have got a lot more to learn from Chip and Todd so getting into one of the slots for this class was the cherry on top of a excellent semester and will be a great way to finish out my career at Appalachian state. It was nice to get to meet some new people and get to know chip and todd a bit better and to grasp and share a vision with them for the direction we want to take the farm. I am very excited to get to create a better farm environment for the next generation that will be coming after me. While at first was feeling bummed about having a worse learning environment than the next generation of farm ops students I realized that was looking at a situation I had no control over, negatively, which does no good in my experience. Since then I have changed perspectives and realized this could be an even better learning experience getting to create something more. Secondly I realized when I start my farm this is exactly what it will be like but yet with less funding and labor so i've been appreciating the more DIY approaches to some of the things we got to build and practices we learned. I feel completely capable in designing and building a passive solar greenhouse and save on those costs and build it custom to what I need versus others less competent having to order one. This may play into more of people's personalities and lifestyles or how they were raised but I am not sure. I do know that there are others that exhibit the want to learn skills and accomplish work with their own hands. It's easy to tell chip is like this and it's nice to have someone to look up to and learn from that is passionate and able to do anything they would ask you to do. One of my favorite things from this semester was getting to know zack as he has kinda inspired me in how he lives life. We are pretty similar by means of both being 25, both having a serious relationship and dogs which keep us tied to our homes compared to other more typical college kids. Zack spends a lot of his freetime working and doing skilled labor which is something we share. Most people don’t realize how difficult it is to manage a full time school load while simultaneously having a full time adult load of responsibilities. Others often express disappointment for us not partaking more actively in community events and going to the bars on the weekend to socialize but we honestly dont have the luxury to do so. Trying to graduate with latin honors while balancing a budget to pay rent and bills has been a challenge but it's really encouraging to meet other students like myself pressing on and working hard to becoming better. Zack does framing and carpentry work which is cool we were talking about the reasons for joining this program and both come from the same realization that we want to be able to sustain and provide and rely on mostly ourselves. It's cool to meet like minded people when I often feel pretty isolated in my generation who seems to only want and receive handouts. These type of lessons are ones i've learned to appreciate from chip and this class. Things like the outdoor seed stratification and how to save and keep seeds from heirloom crops are important and ensure we have the power over our family's survival and power over our food. While most are not concerned with things like these I believe there may come a time when growing ones food is one of the few ways to eat, and if not, I personally don’t think knowing how to tend to the earth and cultivate the land is a bad skill to know. Over the course of the semester chip shared a ton of solid resources that I got to download as they were all relevant and I will enjoy reading through them all again over the years when specific topics or problems arise on my farm or in any work I do. One of my favorites was the medicinal plants ones that featured everything from where to learn about effects and uses and where to buy the seeds to grow. Others included woody plant propagation, seed stratification, season extension, value added forestry, and one of my other favorites, green manure and cover crops. Each of these are something I was wanting to get a chance to learn more about this year and get a chance to implement. Cover cropping was specifically my favorite and something I am eager to continue to learn more about it seems to check all the boxes when it comes to farming, trying to make money, and caring for the plant. Most of these resources are chock full of knowledge to where you honestly can't soak it all up on the first few reads. While I definitely feel knowledgeable and competent digging into these sources from top scholars shows you just how much more you’ve got to learn. Farming is learning and we are never done doing either till we die. Thanks for a great semester chip I look forward to seeing you and Todd in the spring so much I am excited to learn about and so many cool projects to help build!
Jordan Palmer
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