Smith

Name: Kieran Smith

Guiding Question: Would I like to pursue a professional career in farming?

(optional) Use this space to list possible activities, tasks, experiences. Remember everything you do should help you answer your Guiding Question. Cutting and bailing hay fields. Stacking the hay in the barn. Fixing all the fields fences (electrical and wood). Maintaining and landscaping the fields/ barn. Help with the birth of calves, and check for pregnancy in cows. Giving shots to the cows. Building of a chicken coop/ collecting eggs for market. Slaughtering turkeys for market.

(Required) This plan is a “best guess” as to what you and your mentor think you will be doing. It is not meant to be a hard and fast schedule for your Exploration. The plan should illustrate how you intend to complete a minimum of 80 hours.


 * = Date ||= Location/Activity ||= Number of Hours ||
 * = 5/20 ||= Magness Farm/ Cutting, bailing, and stacking hay(multiple times throughout exploration ||= 30 ||
 * = 5/21 ||= Fixing fences (electrical and wood) ||= 6 ||
 * = 5/22 ||= maintaining and landscaping the fields/barns ||= 4 ||
 * = TBD ||= Helping with birth of calves and checking for pregnancy ||= 5 ||
 * = 5/23 ||= Building of a chicken coop ||= 24 ||
 * = 5/24 ||= Slaughtering turkeys and bringing/selling to/at market ||= 9 ||
 * = 5/25 ||= repairs to machinery ||= 10 ||
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Journal: May 20th: So far to date i have been able to follow my plan of action pretty well, with some unpredicted additions of chores to do throughout the day. So far this week I have spent 9 hours on the farm. In my first couple days of this experience I think I can already answer my guiding question of: Would I like to pursue a career in professional farming? My answer is yes I would love to pursue a career in professional farming. Although the work is very difficult and hard, I feel the reward outweighs the labor. My discussion with my mentor in a nutshell is that everyday I must show up on time for work at 8 o'clock A.M. and I must complete the chores that have been assigned to me for the day. So far I love my exploration and wish that I could move to a more rural area and start a farm myself. I enjoy the hard work and the reward that it brings. While some of the chores that I am required to do are a little gross, in the end everything that I do will help to build character and help me see the value of hard work. Some concerns that have been brought to my attention are also realizations. Much of what can been done during the day and the week depends on what the weather is like. For example on one of the days this week (Monday), we were supposed to cut and bail the hay but this was not possible because it rained before we could even cut the hay and trying to cut wet hay is almost impossible. Also if we had started to cut the hay and then it rained before we were finished, the cut hay would have the high likeliness to become moldy and then become unusable. I have no doubts or fears with my exploration I only have anticipation and excitement for the tasks that await me. //5/21: Good to hear this has been such a good fit for you Kieran. Looking forward to hearing more later..R. Bernard//

May 27th: This week weather was not an issue although the forecast for the week was that it was supposed to rain all week. We were able to cut, bail and stack a good bit of the one field and will finish the rest of the field next week. Today, Friday, one of the turkeys that we had planned on slaughtering, in order to sell, was found in the field by its pen killed. We suspect a fox is responsible for this action. Also this week one of the wheels on the hay spreading machine was flattened which set us back a day in the cutting of the field but we just used another spreading device to finish the job. Also this week we fixed the headlock, a device that is used to lock the cattle in place so that they can be vaccinated and checked for pregnancy. This was accomplished by welding two main components back together. Also the holding pen for vaccination/pregnancy checking had to be re-leveled. This took about 3 hours of hard digging, hammering, and strength to work back into proper position. All in all this week I have gained some valuable skills that will help me in life as a homeowner and as a possible farmer. I also have come to realize through the death of the turkey and possibilities of varying weather, that farming is a very hard way of life and is not always all fun and games. Death makes a very often appearance on the farm and I am prepared for any possible mortality that may cross my path. I still do desire to pursue a career in professional farming in my adult life. June 6th: This week the weather was beautiful and we were able to achieve all our goals of cutting/bailing all the hay and also vaccinating/palpating the entire herd. The palpating is when you check for pregnancy in all the females in your herd by feeling through uterine wall for any signs of a calf. This is done by inserting one's arm through the rectum of the cow and then going along the reproductive tract and feeling for any signs of new life. I got to feel a cow that was 60 days pregnant, 90 days pregnant, 120 days pregnant, and 7 months pregnant. The earlier stages of the pregnancy the signs of a new calf are not as noticeable. The sign is usually that their is a sac filled with liquid that has some solid particles in it. However in the cow that was 7 months pregnant, the features of the new calf were very distinguishable and one could even feel the head and mouth of the new calf. Also during this week a new baby was born. It was very interesting because at first now cow was coming to claim the new child so we thought that this could have possibly been a twin. When a mother has twins sometimes she only accepts one of the calfs to milk and rejects the other. But eventually the calfs mother came to claim him by chasing us off. After this week I know for sure that I would like to become a professional farmer, but also this exploration has given me the idea of possibly doing a pre-vet major in college.