Notes from Emily Morehouse based out of DC.
Fall is a beautiful time of year in Washington, D.C. as the leaves change from their green color to shades of yellow, orange, and reds which surrounding the many monuments and memorials throughout the city. However, with the change to fall temperatures, shorter days, and the recent rains and wind as remnants from Hurricane Ida, many of those leaves are starting to fall. While I haven’t spent much time in DC this fall, I consider myself lucky to have witnessed fall in many parts of the country this year. From my earlier fall travels to Santa Fe, New Mexico, Grand Rapids, Michigan, northeast Kansas, Tennessee, and central Illinois, I’ve experienced fall in all but one of the lower 48 contiguous time zones.
The scenery in my concrete jungle is quite varied from where I will be this week at the Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health Forum, “Planting the Seed,” in Des Moines, Iowa. A Midwest native, I am looking forward to seeing fall harvest progress. Having been in Illinois two weeks ago, many of the fall crops were still standing in water given torrential rain amounts and lack of sunshine and warmer temperatures this past summer and early fall.
Aside from assessing the harvest progress in Iowa, I’m hoping to assess progress on a couple of community programs that NIFA currently funds related to enhancing the effectiveness of Farm Safety 4 Just Kids local chapters and National Educational Center for Agricultural Safety. And that’s just the tip of what’s being offered in breakout sessions.
As multiple agricultural safety and health specialists, providers, agency representatives, and producers gather at this event next week, it is my hope that these efforts will be collaborative to educate as many professionals as possible to start planting the seeds of agricultural safety and health education and awareness to the next generation.
The best, best, best part of the job is getting out to the farms and working with farmers, trying together to figure out ways to help them keep on a’ farming when they are faced with challenges. Sometimes we connect with the farmers though direct outreach at fairs, festivals and the farm show. Sometimes they find us.
A couple of months ago I got a call from Tom at Vivian Acres, who called himself the Goat Man from Colchester. For those from away, Colchester is in the Northern half of the state, by Lake Champlain. Goody- good! Its a road trip on a nice fall day, out by the lake to see a bunch of fiber goats. And I get paid for this too? To confess, I am a fiber junky and used to raise sheep, alpacas, llamas and the occasional goat, all for my own spinning and knitting. We set a time and out I went.
Tom is a disabled Veteran who has a dream to have fiber goats, Angoras specifically. He is raising Angoras for their mohair to make yarn, thinking of milking a few to make cheese or soap, and is also researching bee keeping. Tom is a bit limited by the size of his land and has never farmed before. He had joined the movement of small niche farming and was looking for some support from UVM Extension to be able to get to where he wants to be. Part of my job was to hear what his needs were and to steer him in the right direction. I also took a peek at his barn and the penning area and we talked about basic goat care done safely. He and I talked some more about preventing injury, then I told him about the RAVR program and made the referral to my colleague, Sue Powers. His connection with the program led to a business plan that will help him with his first spun up yarn, now at the mill and due back just before Christmas.
I also encouraged him to connect with Chet Parsons our small ruminate specialist and shearer extraordinaire. Chet holds a beginning shearing class in the spring that Tom plans to go to. There are LOTS of things to think about when you are first starting out: What to feed them, how to vet them and how to maintain a safe environment for the goat and for the herder. There is also the bit about the fiber: how to get it to the mill, how to shear, how to skirt and then how to market the product. Niche marketing though social networking seemed to be a good direction for Tom as he had a background in computers, so I introduced him to the world of Facebook and blogging.
Turns out this was a great fit for Tom who has been nothing less than a phenom in this area. He has also managed to get Froggy 101, a local VT radio station, to come and do a live remote November 12th, as they muck out his barn. Wish I could get credit for that, but he has just taken off with marketing his farm. Just check out his blog for yourself.
I just love it when you can connect with a farmer and give him the information he needs to be able to continue and thrive at his chosen vocation. It is, without doubt, the very best part of our job at Extension.
Farm on Goat Man, Farm on!
This morning I woke up with a splitting head ache that my usual cup of coffee did not sooth. By the time I got to work and checked in with boss-man George, it was clear. I am coming down with either a good old-fashioned cold or the flipp’n flu bug that is going round. One of the benefits of my job at UVM Extension is that I can work from home on my lap-top and I have sick time, so that I can take care of myself and not spread the what-ever-this-thing-is around the office or in the field to the farmers I work with. I am the Farm Safety Educator for our grant.
My name is Alexandra Jump and I am part of the VT AgrAbility Project team, the blogger behind the Farmsafe profile and I work out of the Morrisville office. I would not be much of a farm safety educator if I didn’t practice what I preach, so I have taken steps to hunker down and let this thing run its course.
I had a bunch of cold/flu supplies in the kitchen cupboard and about a month ago I went through and checked all the expiration dates of the over the counter type pain/fever/stuffy nose/cough relievers. I pitched the stuff that was expired and stocked up on stuff that was low. On the way home I picked up easy to make meals from a bag, soup, tea, ginger ale ( ‘cus my grandmother always gave me ginger ale when I was sick as a kid) and some new sniffle/cough/achey/ flavored syrup stuff. Orange for the day and green for the night. Don’t know if it will get that far, but I feel better just being prepared.
Flu shots, especially the H1N1 has not been easy to come by and it seems that the bug is out and about before the shot. Still I will continue to try and get them when available. I have made two attempts so far. I am on my Dr.’s list, but behind folks who are more at risk for complications than me.
I am not a germ-a-phobe by nature, but I have been really careful to wash my hands often, wipe down work spaces with a anti-germ disposable wipes, get plenty of rest, good exercise and not let myself get run down. I worry about some of the farmers that are already under a pinch and don’t have the luxury of sick time. Cows gotta be milked, sheep gotta be led to pasture, pigs need their slop, and you can’t call in sick.
Farmers can be ready for the “what if I get sick” possiblity by taking a quick minute to make a plan. Talk with your doctor about the flu shot and get one if it recommended. Plan with your family and farm workers on how to continue getting the job done, if you go down for a few days. Decide in advance who is going to cover each task. Check your supplies and get rid of the over the counter stuff that has expired and then replenish. Have a bunch of ready to make meals on hand. Then if you get sick, don’t try and be a hero by pushing though, it just might make it worse, take longer to get rid of , or worse yet you might just spread it around. Be selfish and keep it to yourself, take care of your self and get better soon! Time now for a nap.
Gail is our resident rug hooker at the VT AgrAbility Project. She takes her vacations as hooking retreats, sometimes in Maine, sometimes more locally. Her work is beautiful and speaks of the attention to detail that she gives to it. 
Gail is also Bill Snow’s counterpart on the left side of the Green Mt. State and covers just about everything West of the Green Mountains. She is one of our AgrAbility Outreach Specialists. She goes out to farms and works with farmers by finding ways to make their work easier when there has been a disability or illness or injury.
Gail is a gardener and discovered that ticks, specifically those nasty black-legged tics (or deer ticks) that can cause lyme disease have invaded her space. Being a women with attention to detail, Gail was able to find one crawling on her, which can be hard to do because they are so darn small. But find it she did and managed to pull it before it had been 36 hours. This was after working in her garden of all places.
Gail knew better than to flop on the tall grass by the pond, but a moment of relaxation resulted in another gross encounter. She pulled that one off of her before the 36 hour window. 
Knowing that ticks love dogs and dogs love places where ticks are, she checked her Norwegian Elkhound to discover that he had attracted some too, even with a flea and tick treatment.
Tenacious little buggers. They even got to her cat, who has an enclosed outside area. I guess ticks are no respectors of boundaries.
Gail is one for turning lemons into lemonade, so she put together a Lyme Tick Fact Sheet for AgrAbility. Hit the link and you can print off the pdf. Tick-Lyme factsheet
So now that the weather is getting cooler and the ticks are generally slowing down in November, Gail will have time to concentrate on her colors, her strips of wool and her projects. Far more fun then pulling ticks.
This guy got away. I know that because George and I saw it just of Rt. 12 outside of Worcester heading north, back to our office in Morrisville. I don’t know of anyone who got in on the Moose raffle this year, but hunting season has started and Turkeys were open game over the weekend.
Bill Snow is one of the guys on our team. He covers the Eastern half of Vermont and his home base is in the Berlin office. Bill was a 4-H Agent and a County Agent in Orange, back in the day. He has also been a dairy farmer and we are simply lucky to have him on our team. Being that Bill has been with UVM Extension for over 40 years, he has gathered up a whole bunch of colleagues and friends and has shared stories of victories and loses over what has become known in Extension as the “Government Hunt”.
It started in 1988 with Bill and another Extension buddy heading out from Bill’s place in West Fairlee. Bill tells this story.
We had walked across one 5 acre field when I told Phil we should load our guns. Immediately after loading we saw a deer and I said it was a buck and fired. The deer ran off, so we stared looking for it. Phil found it and yelled to me: “How do you tell if it is legal?” I hollered back, “You fold a dollar bill in half and if the horns are longer it is legal.”
At the deer checking station the lady called it a 4 pointer. After we started back, Phil responded, ” the horns were 3.25 inches with two little nubs on them, and she had the gall to call it a 4 pointer! ”
Other participants to the hunting party have been mostly farmers, Extension agents, legislators and the occasional DHIA Supervisor. So when these boys all broke for lunch and gathered ’round, the topic of conversation generally turned to agriculture and the like. This is when the locals began calling it the Government Hunt.
One would think that with all that collective wisdom, identification of game would be simple. However, once during a hunting break, near the top of a wooded hill, the group heard a swishing noise. Associate Extension Dean, Rick LeVitre asked, ” What was that noise?” Bill responded, ” It was a buck snorting. “
A few minutes later a hot air balloon appeared around the corner of the mountain top. Luckily this group knew not to shoot until they positively identified the target. Or that balloon would would have gone BOOM!
Knowing that you must always positively identify the game before taking a shot, no harm will be done. Remember, Now is the season when the woods are busy with farmers and loggers, hunters and hikers. Don’t forget your Blaze Orange . Take a few minutes to dig out the hat and vest and enjoy the woods.
Returned home at the end of the day and located the runaway squirrel, complete with trap. Dispatch squirrel outside appropriately.
I get such a kick out of turkeys lurking in the corn fields, they are scooping up the leftovers and hoping something was left for them. Some farms have already chopped all the corn, some have corn standing still, but almost all are looking towards winter and making ready.
Animals love finding nice warm places to hunker down in and today George Cook, Farm Safety Specialist, Maple Guru and the boss for the Vermont AgrAbility Project, reminded me of this when he told me of a squirrel that had hoped to take up winter residence in his garage. Not really what George was thinking. So he put out his best rat trap, baited it with peanut butter and waited for the carcass. Except there was no carcass. No rat, squirrel, mouse, chippy or weasel. No trap either. It had disappeared but left evidence of distress in a little puddle of poop and smudge on the garage floor. Now George’s day will end with a hunt for the trap and critter under the house, again not really what George was planning to do.
Rodent destruction of stored crops is serious stuff. But thinking about it now, before the snow and ice sets in is a good way to prepare for the season. Here is a terrific link to some rodent control information . Education about what kind of vermin is a good place to start. Identify your pest, understand the habitat and needs of the critter and protect against infestation.
UVM Extension has all sorts of resources and professionals including George who will tell you how well his rat trap and peanut butter method worked. George says ” next time, stake it down”.
Vermont at Dusk
Vermont is rural state with a strong agricultural history. The Vermont AgrAbility Project is part of a nation wide effort to promote success in agriculture for people with disabilities and their families.
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