AG MTG 102109

AG AG AG AG AG AG AG MEETINGMEETINGMEEETINGMEETINGMEETING

Farm Day Specialness Homecoming – GLOBAL WARMING HOMECOMING FARMDAY GORILLA MARKETING PLZZZZ!!! WE”VE GOT CHIXXENS
House Meeting PRE FARMDAY 8:30-9:45
House Tour
FARM TOUR PRE-FARMDAY INCLUDING CHESTNUT TREE
Barn Painting
Cider Press – Talk to Nathan?
Drying Herbs /Herb Garden
Covering Gardens –CAUTION POSION IVY
Cooking – PIZZAAZZAA BAKE – LIGHT FIRE LIFE GHIRT -- JEFFTOBY
Clearing Community Garden
Greenhouse
Teepee

Long Term Projects
Garden Boxes for other organizations/ sharing space
Community Garden on our land organization BONKA BONKA
Get Tiller Fixed
Sealing the Greenhouse
See if Nathan wants to come to Dinner
T r e e h o u s e ?

HALLOWEEN PARTY
+House Advisor Signing
+ SEXUAL VIOLENCE PROVENTION
- ARTICLE IN THE WORD
- Look Out for People! Safety First!
- Safety Patrol Badges
- Friendly Intervention—perhaps we need intervention training?
o AASV???????????????????????????????
 What’s the right things to say?
+Security contact person
+Advertising?
+Soberness?
+GIT VANS

More House Talks
+tomorrow during DINNERDINNERDINTTER Halloween
+10:30 on Sunday Morning Brunch Talk

100 Mile Radius Potluck
+++ ++ ++ ++ H O U S E D I N N E R O N S U N D A Y ?

Cocktail Party?
Hours DOIVERS this SATURDAYYYYY!!!! A L T E R N A T I V E H O M E C O M I N G P A R T Y 7 : 4 5

House Keeping
Cleaning Party Thursday N I G H T N I G H T
D O Y O U R F U C K I N G D I S H E S P L E A S E P L E A S E P L E

Ag Meeting Notes 10/13

halloween party
andrea meeting at 3:00 wednesday. aaron will go. aaron will also meet with security.
we need people to register to drive. sarah, aaron, and aric will try to register.

break
mica will be here thursday night to do evening chores. mica and aric will keep in touch. transplant broccoli, and turn on grow light every morning. carmen's mom is coming and can answer lots of questions about gardening. Aric will brew beer on Saturday. Jeff and Aaron will work on repairing the cider press.

saga
oil, soy milk, canned tomatoes, beans (black and red), cream cheese, soy sauce. we'll get onions from the farmers market.

winter break
Rebekah Miller, Michael, barn staff, we will ask after mid-sem.

peace and justice week
fixing the teepee, ideas from the winterizing the garden workshop, think about big tasks that we can all work on together. Harvesting chestnuts!

workshops
merrel banana pepper canning workshop, we would need some more vinegar and jars, and maybe some spices. Popsicles!

charlie
wednesday after break, toby will get in touch.

Ag Meeting Notes 9/30/09

AG MEETING

Community Garden

Miller Farm currently has a Student Garden and a Community Garden with as many at 15 plots, however in recent years there have been around 4 members per summer.

On campus garden set to break ground on March 1^st.

Community Garden members have been frustrated by lack of clear management structures and exclusivity to Earlham community

Conflict between on-campus wants and off campus wants in terms of location.

Eve and Rose view make transportation less of an issue.

Making sure to have a garden manager to make sure things don’t degrade.

Working together to get funding.

Stay in Contact

CSA May-Term?

Farm Day Can Can Yes we Can Farmday

Picking Apples for Farm day – Kaitlyn and Jeffrey

Compost Turning – Aric and Miriam

Chicken Coop needs to be cleaned – Erin and Carmen

Tree-house maintenance for future—contact nathan

Garden Protection ideas

Cooking – Aaron? Miriam

Composting Orchard – Erin, Aric

Planting Front Flower Gardens – Sarah, Megan

Sarah will buy bulbs

Weed Wacking

Property Clean-up

Library

Canning Workshop – 1:30 SATURDAYZE

CLEANING PANTRY: SUNDAY MORNING STAART and TALK ABOUT ZUMMER REZERCH POSITION

Food Order

• Spinach
• Cream cheese
• Cheddar
• Soy Milk
• Bagels
• Mushroom

Receipts

Git Miriam her $$$$$$$$$

House Spraying

okay

Aric’s Fun Friday Workshop

FUUUUUNNNNN! @ 5:00

CONTACT

Hey guess what! Miller Farm has a new E-mail address:

MillerFarmers@gmail.com

Email us if you want to be on the farm-day List, the EC miller farm community list, or the alumni list! WOW!

Long Term Goals and AG meeting notes

We had a meeting and came up with some long term goals and projects for the semester:
+Work on creating a better compost system
+Get the orchard up to snuff
+Reorganize the dining room library
+Faculty led workshops
+Fix Cider press
+Seal Greenhouse
+Create a "learning wall"
+Collect seeds/ start a seed bank
+WINDMILL???
+Painting porch and mural?

EVEN LONGER TERM GOALS:
+Trail Maintenance
+Tepee mending
+Tree house mending
+Making our own charcoal
+Gray Water System mending/improvement
+Outdoor shower improvement
+Summer Stuff (internship)
+Tapping Trees
+Goats? Pigs? other livestock?
+brewing?


INVOLVEMENT IDEAS:
+IPO
+Student groups and houses
+workshops
+RA/Res Life?
+Different educational programs
+keep listserve up to date







AG MEETING 9/8/09

FARM DAY (SPACE THEMED)
Orchard-- Jeffrey
Garden -- Sarah, Erin
Greenhouse -- Miriam
Chicken Coop -- Aaron
Barn Cleanup -- Jeffrey, Aric
Cooking -- Kaitlyn
Painting?
Art?
Graywater?

AG MEETING TIME UPDATE:
AG meeting will be every Wednesday at noon outside Leeds Gallery except when Toby has a greenhouse meeting at that time, in which case AG meeting will be held TUESDAY at 10:30pm at the same place.

MIRIAM -- Morning Chores
MEGAN -- Evening Chores

ag meeting notes - august 27

(x)= discussed ( )= for next meeting

(x) farm day
theme: short shorts!
garden maintenance- carmen
weeding around fruit trees - toby
greenhouse preparations - erin and miriam
cooking - sarah (bread oven)
chicken tractor repair - jeff
mint harvesting - mica and aric

(x) involvement fair
september 3, 11:30 to 1
bring:
chips and (green tomato) salsa
a chicken
pumpkin/ other garden stuff
miller farm sign

megan and aric are in charge of set up

(x) bulk orders
sugar
white flour
wheat flour
quinoa
oats

( ) house dinners
we'll set up cooking teams and days once everyone gets their schedules worked out.
aaron proposed sunday brunch in lieu of sunday dinner

(x) chores
morning: erin
evening: aaron

2 CHORE WHEELS
monday through thursday:
trash take out
2 living room cleanups
2 sunday cleanups
upstairs bathroom
downstairs bathroom
watering houseplants
porches
ag meeting snack
empty dishrack

friday- sunday
2 living room cleanups
2 sunday cleanups
upstairs bathroom
downstairs bathroom
water houseplants
porches
2 choose your own adventure
dishrack

miriam and kaitlyn will make the chore wheels

(x) fridges
new rool: label everything with the date and your name (private fridge)

(x) cleaning
tonight!
mopping!
living room!
boxes!
yeah!

(x) couch
put it on the porch

(x) committees
this year's committees:
recycling - jeff
gardens - carmen and sarah
greenhouse - miriam
pr - aaron
saga orders - mica
animal food - aric
budget - toby
community - erin and kaitlyn
blogger - jeff
historian - megan

house co-convenors: aaron and sarah

( ) john's party - sept. 12
( ) michael pollan
(x) egg selling
mica - talk to julia about how many eggs she wants
also - possible farmer's market on the heart?

(x) composting
a girl named sara already has arranged the work study job with maintenance, talk to her about sharing it with mica/kaitlyn

( ) canning workshop
( ) u-pick
( ) garden plan

Fortified Fencing & Feathered Feet

Hey Farmers,

After a summer of prolonged and devoted farm stewardship (how thick can I pour it on?), the interns decided to go out with a bang. After suffering several early-summer chicken attacks, we gloomily realized that the chicken pen fencing needed an overhaul. In the spirit of making the farm chickens safe and happy, and securing the fence for current and future generations of chickens, we embarked on our last major summer project: coop re-fencing!

At the most compromised sections of fencing (where fencing was loose or where we'd observed predator tracks leading in and out of the pen), we bought thick, sturdy wire fencing, buried it a foot underground, and tethered it to the existing fence. For more stable areas of the fence, we used new chicken wire and buried about six inches.

The entire back half of the pen has been structurally reinforced with buried fencing.

The purpose of re-fencing was two-fold: firstly, to keep predators out, and secondly, to keep baby chicks in. It's our hope that in the near future, Miller Farm can breed its own chickens and let them freely run around the coop without fear of predator reprisals or prepubescent breakouts.

Most of the front of the pen has also been fortified. After the back fencing was reinforced, we took off old chicken wire patches and recycled it by burying it about three inches around the front. In all, we estimate that more than three-fourths of the entire fence have been reinforced with buried wire-fencing.

Sorry Moggs.

Meanwhile, the newest brood of chicks have grown up fast. Some of these teens are nearly as big as the older roosters. This is a Buff Orpington adolescent.

A Bard Rock (front) and Jersey Giants (back).

The little guys spend most of the day hiding away from the scorching sun in the high-rise weeds.

They've also taken to sleeping on the roosting hutch and the adolescent pen. Feather-footed bantham (left), a Japanese rooster (white, center), and Jersey Giants + Buff Orpingtons in the upper right. They look baby-cute, but they they're starting to act like fully-fledged chickens.

In all, the farm now has 42 chickens, 18 older and 24 younger (which includes both the very little ones plus the Polish and the stowaways Necrobutcher and King Diamond), and we have 15 older hens and 19 younger. The fall group might have to do some rooster cleaning, but otherwise the demographics look good. Come next year, Miller Farm will hopefully have enough eggs to sell them regularly.

That's all for now. We'll be planting fall crops and heading to the Saturday farmer's market soon, so stay tuned!

Luv,

Sean-bo

Extra bits

Hey farmers/friends,

Big thanks to Sarah for updating the blog (not just once, but TWICE this summer). That's dedication. But do I hear the blogosphere clamoring for yet more Miller Farm photos? I think YES! Well, luckily I've got some random Miller Farm photos sitting around from late July and August.

Hyperactive fireflies treated farmers to marathon evening light shows, even in July.

A classic Hoosier downpour catches our dinner setting unprepared.

Get out of the compost, groundhog! Actually, if you stay in there and out of our gardens, we have a deal.

Purple mashed potatoes, best served with some sauerkraut and vegan sausage. MM-MMM!

This is the last time we saw Jeff. He was incoherently mumbling something about gorp and duffing. We hope he is still alive out in the Canadian wilderness. Come home, Jeff!

Mars rising over the farm. At the end of August, Mars will be closer to Earth than at any time in recorded history. Yeah, astronomy!

Miller Farm. 1:00 A.M.

Next time: updates about baby chickens and fall crops! Until then, I'm going to go make something with one or five heads of garlic...

Luv,

Sean-bo

Update!

Hey Farmers!

Just wanted to update with some new pictures

Veggie Haul 7/15/09:



Bib lettuce, purple top turnips, beet stragglers, onions the size of grapefruits (we had about twenty pounds of them earlier this summer), a mountain of garlic, yellow crookneck squash, delicata squash, Dirt, and finally some tomatoes, so far we've got a few plum and yellow pear, with some bigger ones almost ready to be picked, plus about a million half-eaten mystery pumpkins.



Here's a photo of the potato harvest from a few weeks ago. Brown potatoes, red potatoes, yellow potatoes, even purple potatoes!



We covered the rows that were potatoes, onions and garlic with black plastic, hoping to get some fall crops planted soon. Some kale, chard, cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower.


In non-garden related news, Jordan and Sean are almost done fortifying the chicken fence. The baby chickens have fully adjusted to the big coop, and are doing well, and we've had no more mystery attacks since. Most summer people have moved out, leaving us with more eggs than we know what to do with. We'll be selling them at the Richmond Farmer's Market on Tuesday, along with some of our many squashes.

Hope your summer is going well, and I'll see many of you soon!

Love,
Sarah

the great chicken mystery: coyotes vs. bobcats

hello miller farmers far and near!

it's been a productive summer here at the farm with a full house of people. the weather has been beautiful and the garden (and dumpsters!) have been plentiful. the interns have been doing an awesome job in keeping things running smoothly. the composting toilet is working in full swing. we finished the meat chicken fiasco, which made over $200 for farm projects. we've had girls inc and explore-a-college kids out to visit and work on farm projects. here's a little photo tour to show you what's up:





the garden, looking a little soggy after a summer downpour. the scarecrow has been doing a great job of keeping the deer out. we're growing:

tomatoes (which are doing fine, despite their late start)












onions and garlic,













lettuce of all kinds
















and so many squashes

like these little delicatas we're getting by the bucket load! Plus kale, beets, potatoes, pumpkins, and lots of herbs.

with the addition of a weedwacker to the miller farm arsenal, jordan cleared the back of the chicken coop giving the chickens more room to run around, and less spots for predators to hide. which leads us to the bad news: we lost 18 baby layer chicks to an attack on the chicken tractor, plus three grown chickens to a mysterious early morning abduction. to spare you the gory details, we are pretty sure due to the messiness and magnitude of the chicken tractor attack, that it was done by a pack of coyotes. the three grown chickens, however, remain a mystery. chelsea thinks it was the work of a bobcat, who normally drag their prey away quickly after the attack. bobcats are rare in indiana, but not unheard of. a coyote attack seems much more likely, but the clean disappearance seems suspiciously feline. we ruled out raccoons and foxes, who would only have taken one. a den has been found and several trails snaking around the back of the chicken coop. hmm. we're looking for paw prints that could tell us for sure.



to protect the lil chicks we've put the tractor with the baby chickens in the bigger coop. soon they'll be big enough to fend for themselves.











but for now, sean, miller farm summer intern, remains vigilant, red ryder bb gun in hand.





so that's what's going on. projects we're hoping to finish by the end of the summer: readobe and seal the greenhouse, fortify the chicken coop fence, paint the front porch, fix the ever-broken cold frames, and not give rich dornberger his hose back ever. i hope you're all having a wonderful summer. if any of you more experienced farmers have any suggestions about our predator problem, don't be shy!

love,
sarah & the summer farmers

All my M'fers put your garden forks in the sky

Dear Blogospere, I hope you're all doing really well and having a good summer. Getting on what everyone else has said I think this blog is a really good idea and I hope it gets put to good use. Like everyone else too I'm curious about the summer state of the farm and in my time away the ideas for the place are flooding in. I spent some time working with a pro composter and orchardist this May which was great and it made me think of all the mistakes I've made on various farm projects, which I really think is the beauty of the place because we have such rare creative control to experiment and play with things.
I'm really interested in how the orchard is doing. It seemed to be coming to life this spring like I've never seen it. Some ideas for caring for it so that it does even better if they haven't been done already is to weed-whack with the hand sithes all of the weeds around their base (within the fence is probably good). Also spreading compost in that area should help reduce weeds and give the tree some good juice (use your best judgement with the compost, it was looking questionable in May but we tried to make it better by adding a lot more carbon and turning it, feel free to not use it, more time letting it decompose won't hurt it and the trees don't absolutely need it I think). In general the trees should be paid attention to these days because we want to know early if they have trouble with pests and animals. Also, check if they're showing any fruiting signs.. that would be very exciting. Maybe reading a thing or two about pruning and thinning would do some long term good for the orchard (tall apple trees are harder to manage and harvest and pruning can also make for bigger and juicier fruit).

cool, well enjoy it, I imagine it's really beautiful right now.
Toe.B

A tale of two cities, and the agricultural endeavors taking place therein.

Hey farmers, it's Dan. I'm living in Chicago now, in the attic of an old man's mansion for the time being. I'm working in an upscale flower shop, which is strange, because it's like I'm working with plants all day, but for the most part they are plants that have been bred to not act like plants, and have been shipped in on the morning flight from Mexico or Colombia or the Netherlands. Also, I'm taking a crack at a bucket garden, which so far consists of three tomato plants, some kale and spinach which I planted from seed yesterday, and some basil which is having trouble because of rain and cold. Does anyone have bucket garden experience? I would love to hear about it and get get tips either here or in email.

But anyways, enough about me. I'd really, really love to hear about what's going on at the Farm. Who's there these days? How are the chix in the chicken tractor? How are the laying hens? How is the garden? What's in it? Are the deer staying out? Has anything happened with the windmill? Is the wild mint coming up in the marshy area down by the dock? Has anyone taken the humanure system for a test run? Like, what's a day-in-the-life of a farmer like these days?

I really hope that we end up using this blog a lot, partly because there are a bunch of farmers who already miss that place and want to know how things are going. More importantly, though, this blog is a really good place, as Miriam noted in the first post, to exchange and store knowledge. It can be a place for current farmers to pose questions they might have to a lot of people at once, and it can also be a repository for information generated by the answers to such questions, as well as other information.

At any rate, I don't mean to butt in too much, I just wanted to give a quick update on me and also state my hopes for the blogalog.

I hope everyone is well, and I miss you all a lot.

Love,
Dan

P.S. If anyone with a car is going to be in chicago soon and then traveling to richmond, let me know. My flower store is throwing out about 20 four- and five-gallon buckets, and I know that the farm can always use buckets.

Blogging

Does anyone who knows about blogs know of a setting or anything that would make the comments automatically show up below the posts rather than having to click on them to see them? I think that would be really helpful.

Interns

How are things at the farm? Are any of the new interns settled in, building beds, planting termaters, etc? Are the interns signed up for the blog? I'm trying not to be neurotic or something; I'd just like to know that things are set for the summer and that progress is being made.
Teacrimes

Meat Chick Safety

Last night an animal attacked the chicken tractor. One of the chicks was seriously injured and had to be put down. The animal was able to attack the chick through a small gap (about 1") between the bottom of the chicken tractor and the ground. When moving the chicken tractor and before putting the chicks to bed we should remember to check around the outside of the pen to make sure that there are no such gaps. There are a number of bricks stacked around the chicken tractor to block up the gaps to ensure that this type of attack does not happen again. Let this attack be a reminder to us all to be more conscious of our animals' safety and security.

Windmill Progress

From Wes:

Hey all!
Just wanted to update the greater farm community and say that the concrete foundation for the windmill is finally poured despite mother natures need to pour rain nearly all this past week (Which was wonderful for the successful and fast-growing garden).
Next steps should begin this week and I want to invite all that are interested to again email me and we can get you involved (no commitments necessary).
Hope everyone is enjoying the beauty of may.
Peace
Wesley

Millah Fahm!!

Hey Folks!
Thanks for setting up the blog Miriam. I hope it will get used often. If anyone wants any suggestions for stuff to do around the farm, I probably have a few ideas. Just let me know. (For instance: put more shredded paper in the coop and see the office ladies about getting more bags of it.)
It would probably help the layers to have a little more cover around the yard, and to make sure they are closed in before it's actually dark.
Love,
teacrimes

Hooray

yes, let's do this. i am already dying to know how the chicks are doing in the tractor and how the garden is coming along and how you all are managing on fighting the various pests of deer and slugs and others out of the garden. i am so excited about this summer even from afar.

Miller Farm Update: 5/16/09

Since graduation there has been a lot happening here at Miller Farm. As the spring semester farmers moved out and the May Term/summer farmers moved in, life out here was a bit more chaotic than usual. However, over the last few days things have begun to settle down as many of our temporary guests have left and we all become accustomed to the new daily routine. The first of the summer interns move in on Monday and I believe that much more work will begin to be done as they settle in. Still, many important things have been happening. The broiler hens have been moved into the chicken tractor and are doing well. The tractor itself is holding up nicely and has proven to be relatively secure-- so far we haven't lost any of the hens (despite the best attempts of our cats). We had a small farmday this morning despite of the rain and a decent amount of weeding was done in the garden.
We continue to struggle with protecting the new generation of laying hens. At my last count we were down to just five. We are unsure of what is getting at them-- some maintenance guys said it was probably a badger. It also might be the hawk, though I haven't seen it around lately. We have worked to patch the fence of the chicken yard as best as possible but I fear there is only so much we can do. Any suggestions?
A funny thing happened last week. I was eating dinner on the porch when a car I didn't recognize drove up the driveway and a boy jumped out and ran over to the chicken coop and hunched down by the fence. When I went over to investigate I saw that he had just dropped two baby chicks inside the fence! He told me that a girl on his hall had bought the chicks at the farm store a few weeks earlier as pets and had abandoned them at the end of the semester. I was pretty mad at this. Luckily we had a pen set up in the greenhouse for the broiler hens so we were able to accommodate them, but what if that hadn't been the case? Those chicks surely would have died if he had just left them out there. This instance was frustrating on many levels but it really made me think about the different ways that students uninvolved with Miller Farm think about this space. How do we make this place a more relevant/respected/important space for a larger number of students so that they know why they can't just drop off their unwanted cats and chickens here? I think that's something to work on.
With that in mind there is a pants-off/dance-off/bake-off tonight in the kitchen. 8:00pm. BYOBaking goods.

Who Else?

I sent an invite to everyone I could think of who has lived at the farm in the past year. I know I'm missing a bunch of people. Can someone invite the current summer farmers or send me their email addresses and I can do it? Also Charlie? And other past and future farmers? I think anyone who is already invited can invite more people, but if not, send me their email at miriamdolnick@gmail.com and I'll be sure to do it.

It's Summertime at Miller Farm

Dear Farmers and Friends,

This summer, we'd like to keep a record of all of the wonderful things happening at the farm as well as create a space for current farmers to communicate with current, past, and future farmers about the goings on in Richmond, Indiana. It would be wonderful if the current summer farmers would post several times a week with updates, questions, pictures, etc. so that the greater Miller Farm community can chime in with ideas and tips based on their Miller Farm experience. This could also serve as a space for current farmers to ask questions to other farmers, ranging from where to buy chicken food to where the secret patch of asparagus is in the garden. Anything you want to know! If there is a greater dialogue between old and new farmers, this could be a way to pass down Miller Farm information to future generations as well as create a smoother transition between the summer farmers and the fall ones. So please chime in! Ask questions! Update us on what's going on!