Thankful

“What do you do at Merry Lea in the winter? Does anything happen on the farm?”

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked this question, I’d be rich. There are lots of things that happen in late fall and even in the winter at Merry Lea Sustainable Farm. Our WWOOF volunteer, Jean-Pierre, came just in time to help transition chickens from outdoor pasture to an indoor-outdoor barn pen, transplant greens into the greenhouse, dig thistle rhizomes, mulch the hoophouse, sow winter rye cover crop, and move tools and equipment from our old to our new, larger garage. These are projects that are much easier with several participants, and we’re grateful to have him assist with these important tasks. And there are the many indoor tasks that get put off during the early fall that we now have time for: recordkeeping, curriculum planning, reports, and blogging. Thank goodness for northern climates, cold temperatures, and the change of seaons!

One of the big to-dos late in the fall is adding organic materials to garden beds to improve next year’s soil fertility. Nearly every day there is barn manure to scrape, fallen leaves to collect, and aging compost to spread. Some might find this work to be grueling, boring, and gross. We love it! It’s at the heart of what we organic farmers do: build healthy soil. Healthy soil pays you back, and… it’s the right thing to do.

We are blessed to have a new barn and the opportunity to design pens for new animal species planned for the spring. 2015 will be a different year, thanks to the vision and support of the Merry Lea board and our director, Luke Gascho, all in efforts to better serve our agroecology students who are requesting more experience working with livestock. It also gives us much-needed space for tools and equipment as we make our way towards becoming a fully functional, diversified small farm.

Although agroecology staff don’t often make it to the Goshen College campus, there were several reasons to do so this month of November. Two undergraduate environmental science students conducted research at Merry Lea for their junior seminar projects and presented their research to the Biological Sciences Department and the public. Our students, Ruth and Thomas, highlighted their findings from studies investigating insect biodiversity in potato beds interplanted with wildflowers and sugar profiles of organic vs. inorganic tomatoes, respectively. Jon was very pleased to attend both presentations. Dale and Jon have high hopes of more Merry Lea research projects in the coming season.

The month of November ended with snowfall and very cold temperatures. It must surely have been a recordbreaking phenomenon that we were able to play our first lunchtime game of broomball on the ice of Kesling wetland on November 20 this year! A warm spell is forecast for December, but for now it seems winter has arrived.

– Jon Zirkle