Clover Valley Farms Projects

I often think of the amazing experience I had as the live-in Intern at Clover Valley Farms. I want to share the many projects we worked on over the course of the 2013 summer, one of which, the farm blog I kept, helped me launch this project! 


Animals: Poultry, Hogs, Turkeys, Layers, Bees

We raised about 300 Cornish Cross Broiler and Red Broilers and 50 turkeys. These happy animals were kept in 10x10 pens moved daily for new forage. The turkeys took over one of the orchards for the last part of their lives. At about 10 weeks they were processed and sold on site. In addition to meat birds we had laying hens. A couple dozen eggs were collected twice daily and sold to friends and neighbors.

   

The hogs arrived small, feisty, and shy. They were also part of a rotational pasture system, allowing them to forage in new territory once they had nearly dug their current one up. These were my favorite buddies, if you can tell by the picture of me joining in their wallow.

  

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) at UMDuluth Natural Resources Research Institute (NRRI): I helped Cindy with her IPM project, tracking pests in CVF and UMD orchards to inform more environmentally responsible pest control practices.

The Garden: beans, greens, squash, potatoes, corn, onions, cucumber, garlic, tomatoes, zucchini, radish, peas...you name it, we probably had it!

The Greenhouse: Cilantro, dill, parsley, mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, thyme. Herbs were harvested fresh for meals, dried for herb mixes, and used to infuse homemade vinegars!

Fruit: 3 apple orchards, grapes, high bush cranberry, juneberry, currants, gooseberry, wild berries

    

Planting & Pulling: The berm in front of the greenhouse was cleared and planted with a variety of fruit bushes! I also helped plant a new orchard with 3 varieties of apple for a total of 50 new trees.

     

  

Cooking... And Eating!!!

Wildlife: Readers who are unfamiliar with Minnesota, the northern part of the state has a very unique and spectacular biome that supports diversified flora and fauna.

Old Fashioned Bartering: Cindy and Jeff would trade goods with friends for things like this beautiful handmade crock!

Dog Training: Honey joined us during my time there so I learned some serious dog discipline

Other Adventures: Community events, Great Lakes Aquarium, bike rides, hikes, Lake Superior swimming!

  

 

Thanks for reading! 

Wise Words from TED Speaker David Christian

David Christian: The history of our world in 18 minutes

 

 

This talk is worth each of the 18 minutes, but I especially love what he says towards the end:

"Collective learning is a very, very powerful force, and it's not clear that we humans are in charge of it. I remember very vividly as a child growing up in England, living through the Cuban Missile Crisis. For a few days, the entire biosphere seemed to be on the verge of destruction. And the same weapons are still here, and they are still armed. If we avoid that trap, others are waiting for us. We're burning fossil fuels at such a rate that we seem to be undermining the Goldilocks conditions that made it possible for human civilizations to flourish over the last 10,000 years. So what big history can do is show us the nature of our complexity and fragility and the dangers that face us, but it can also show us our power with collective learning."

President Clinton Lecture on Public Service

First Lecture by President Bill Clinton at Georgetown University in May 2013.

Below I paraphrase parts of the lecture (it's long!) that resonate with me and fit well with the themes of this blog:

• Twenty-first century citizenship requires us to do some public good as a private citizen - around the corner, or around the world, in public office, or out. Compose a life where service is important. It is important because the world is so interdependent and full of opportunities.
• The world we are living in is clearly unsustainable. There is too much inequality and too much instability.
• Public service work has four requirements. One, you should be obsessively interested in people, especially people who are different from you. You should want to understand them and understand how they perceive the world and understand what they need and what their dreams are. Two, you should care about principles - about the end of all this. What is the purpose of service? What's the role of government, what are the roles of the NGOs, how do you organize this in your mind, why are you doing this? Three, what are the policies that you believe will advance these purposes? And four, what are the politics of the situations? How are you going to turn your good intentions into real changes? People, purpose, policies, and politics. To me, the most important thing is the first.
• This might be my favorite quote of this lecture. I am deeply motivated by people and purpose and these words substantiate my passion for serving people in the realm of urban design. And of course the policies and politics are also important when it comes to planning cities.  
• Most people get in real trouble and abuse power when they forget that the purpose of their power is not to impose their will on others but to let other people be empowered to live their own lives better, or as I always say, to have better stories.
• Don't belittle people who know less than you do or have less than you do... what we have in common in our soul is important.
• Americans are not hearing enough stories from other people, from people are are different from themselves. And it's a big mistake... We have one remaining bigotry in America: we just don't want to be around anybody that disagrees with us. People are organizing massive living patterns in this country around being with somebody that agrees with them.
• The purpose of service is to help other people. Not to make you feel good about yourself, although you will. Not to impose everything you think should be done on other people. But to create a world where we can all live together, because it’s so interdependent. If we don’t, the consequences to us, to our families, to our future will be adverse and severe.
• Every place in the world where they’re trying to cooperate, they’re doing pretty well. Every place in the world that elevate our differences over our common humanity. Where we can no longer hear what people who are different from us are saying, where our ears our closed and minds are more closed – there is trouble. 
• I believe that it’s very important that every person in your generation have a worldview. We need a common understanding of what is the nature of the modern world. What are it’s biggest challenges, opportunities. What evidence do we have about how best we can deal with them.

Bjarke Ingels - Hedonistic Sustainability

Danish Architect Bjarke Ingels

BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group

Bjarke Ingels on TED