1 Comment Posted on May 27, 2016May 28, 2016 Uncategorized

Photos by Emma, Album #4

The Quarry Farm’s Spring 2016 intern has been working with us for seven solid weeks now. Last week, I suggested that she might like a nice t-shirt with honeysuckle leaves imprinted across the front. Her response was to fall forward on the ground and curl her dancer-like frame into a fetal position.

But Emma has made a break in the invasive’s hold on the forest of The Quarry Farm. She’s shed her long sleeves in favor of cool Ts as the temperatures rose from the 30s to today’s high 80s, so she no longer has to roll up her sleeves to pull bush honeysuckle seedlings. The exposed skin has made her more vulnerable to insects and an overprotective goose, but this Antioch College first-year has accepted the challenge.

Along the way, she’s taken a few photos. You’ll already know that, though, if you’ve been following along. Here is the latest album.

1 Comment Posted on May 22, 2016May 23, 2016 Art, Public Events

Not one just like the other

Right now, as the sun sets on Saturday, Sophie is rooting grasses for a bed to sleep under the stars. In a week’s time, she seems to have developed a penchant for the outside rather than her nest inside her outbuilding. Her stint as visiting ambassador at Sauder Village, for porcine everywhere, and here on The Quarry Farm for two days of welcoming two schools from two counties, must have made this so.

As for me, my voice is gone, but the temporary loss is well spent on two full days of spring fields trips with over 170 people painting lasting leaf t-shirts, getting up close and personal with macroinvertebrates as water quality indicators, and meeting a six-spotted tiger beetle, pot-bellies, turkeys and Sophie herself.

Thursday morning, preschoolers and parents from the Pandora area hiked around the Red Fox gardens to select interesting leaves. With a little help from the adults, the children arranged dandelion, violet and burdock on their white shirts and spritzed paint around the greens. Several malfunctioning spray bottles later, there were some very colorful shirts, not a single one exactly like the one next to it.

Third graders from Chamberlin Hill Intermediate School in Findlay arrived on Friday in two shifts. The first 70-some got off the bus around 10 a.m., made their shirts (using all new spray bottles) and hung their finished wearable art in the bushes and trees before hiking down the hill, along Cranberry Run and splitting into two groups at the north gate. Half went through the gate to meet the farm animals, the other to see dragonflies, damselflies, crayfish and the amazing boneless swimming acrobatics of fish leeches.

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Thanks to Zoe for showing everyone that fish leeches won’t suck human blood, even after 10 whole minutes.

With a lot of paint left in the bottles after the second bus drove away south on 7L, we tackled the north picnic table with splashes of red, purple, green, and blue. The other table remains for another visit and another day.

Leave a comment Posted on May 16, 2016May 16, 2016 Educational Ambassadors, Milestones

Sophie’s choice

Sophie meets Jamie Napolski, Assistant Curator of Education & Special Events for Sauder Village.

Yeah, yeah, yeah…I did go there with the title of this post.

But it’s true; Sophie the pot-bellied pig had her first road trip as an educational ambassador for The Quarry Farm, and this happened as a result of a choice she made on Friday.

As testified by the previous post, “Sticky toes and hiking sticks”, an entire third grade class joined us onsite for a Friday filed trip alongside Road 7L. The students and their teachers and chaperones rotated through stations, including a visit to the farm animal sanctuary. As we always tell visitors, once inside the gate, humans will have the opportunity to meet the sanctuary residents, but only those residents who choose to walk down the path for a face-to-face encounter. While it’s almost a guarantee that the bronze turkeys will show up, as well as at least one of the donkeys and a goat, the pigs are a little more unpredictable.

For instance, if the sun is shining and the temperature moderate, Carlton may mosey on down the hill for a belly flop and scratch. Queen Beatrice may sashay through the floodplain. If she could do the royal wristwave, I have no doubt she would, stopping only long enough for a brief pat before moving on for a nap in a warm pool of light.

As for the others, their early years were so harsh at the hands of neglectful humanity that visitors only get a distant glimpse. In Sophie’s case, beatings, poor diet and exposure left scars that have left her much older than what we think are her actual years. So it was a wonderful surprise when she chose to join the second group of students to rotate through. She even stayed close, allowing the third rotation to pet her softly on the forehead.

Because of Sophie’s decision to trust in the kindness of strangers, we took her on an hour-long car ride north for a program at Sauder Village in Archbold. While 19th-century reenactors read “If You Give a Pig a Pancake”, Sophie charmed young visitors and their families outside a log cabin in the Little Pioneer Village. Marshmallow the Nigerian Dwarf goat went along for the ride, too, but he’s an old hand at programs and conducted himself in his usual sweetly-mellow manner.

By the way, don’t give a pig a pancake.

Leave a comment Posted on May 14, 2016May 16, 2016 Public Events

Sticky toes and hiking sticks

The drive home yesterday afternoon was a race against the weather. A thunderstorm rolled in from the west, heavy with rain, wind and lightning.

I lost the race. Anyone driving by saw two humans trimming honeysuckle trunks of branches and stems, all soaked and getting wetter by the moment. The geese weren’t bothered, but pigs, goats and donkeys watched the proceedings from under dry roofs. By 9:00 p.m., it was dark and we had 45 honeysuckle stems ready to become hiking sticks on Friday morning at the hands of the Pandora-Gilboa Elementary School’s Third Grade as taught by Mrs. Arthur and Mrs. Henry.

Gray tree frog, its sticky toes keeping it five feet above the ground

Gray tree frog, its sticky toes stuck five feet above the ground

An hour later, we were still damp but warm and ready for sleep. But a look out the kitchen window kept us up for another half hour. The steady rain had sent a ‘sticky toed’ gray tree frog climbing for higher ground. How can you not stay awake for that?

Twelve hours later, blue sky and a yellow school busload rolled in and stayed for the day. Presumably, the treefrog is back under the spring canopy.

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Leave a comment Posted on May 10, 2016May 10, 2016 Uncategorized

Photos by Emma, Album #3

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Last week’s rain really brought out the frogs and fungi. It also made for lovely photos, with many fauna raindrop- and puddle-jumping from path to flora.

20160505_154432 Then the sun came out. It was like a shade was raised, drawing life toward the light.

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And winter undercoat from Lucy.

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It’s raining again today and the clouds, wet and call-for-thunderstorms are not due to clear until Friday, just in time for a visit from the third grade students from 20160505_154702 Pandora-Gilboa Elementary School. Emma is sure to take photos in between activities. We hope she shares the frames.

2 Comments Posted on May 2, 2016May 2, 2016 Contests

Photos by Emma, Album #2

Out In The Quarry Rain brings out the green, doesn’t it? The heavy drops and puddles also force those creatures that live in and under the leaves out into the open.

There’s a t-shirt in it for whomever responds first (in the comments here at http://www.thequarryfarm.org) with the correct identification of the burgundy wildflower.

Take a look.

Leave a comment Posted on April 30, 2016April 30, 2016 Public Events, Uncategorized

Family Day happened

Ruddy gold turned gray
Light rain muddled brown with green
Yet filled cars still came

Haikus aside, who needs sunshine when you can turn a garbage bag into a raincoat, there are cookies in the pavilion and a lit fireplace in Red Fox Cabin?

The rain meant that the raptors couldn’t stay. T-shirts weren’t painted since days-ahead of rain would keep them wet. But cars still arrived on Road 7L for today’s Family Day. Thank you to all who helped get the word out. We’ll do this again in June, while the wildflowers still bloom.

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Leave a comment Posted on April 28, 2016May 2, 2016 Public Events

Green-thumbed helping hands

The outdoor temperature dropped a good 30 degrees yesterday, from steamy shorts-and-tanks weather to jacket-required. That’s OK, since it’s northwest Ohio and still April.

The cooler air made for good gardening weather. Last evening, Tim and Phyllis Macke drove out to Red Fox Cabin to dig in and get the gardens in shape. The Putnam County Master Gardeners chose to support The Quarry Farm, and as the Mackes are both part of this program, they offered their services this afternoon to help get the grounds looking good for Saturday’s Family Day.

20160429_145229-1 And the beat went on, with Holly Huber stopping by to dig in.

The weather forecast is continued rain–good for the green that just keep getting more and more so. Words cannot express how grateful we are for the help to clear invasives to make way for those plants that bring in the bees, butterflies and other pollinators, once the sun does shine for an extended period.

3 Comments Posted on April 21, 2016April 21, 2016 Uncategorized

Photos by Emma, Album #1

Can you find the cricket frog above? There’s a free Quarry Farm t-shirt in it for the person who comments here at http://www.thequarryfarm.org with what kind of cricket frog it is.

While Intern Emma has pulled invasive bush honeysuckle this week, she has also been snapping photos. Shuffle through the mosaic below to see at what she has documented in her first two weeks here.

(FYI: that’s a number sign in the title, not a hashtag, although you may see some of this on Twitter. More to come, I have no doubt.)