Grape Harvesting

A few weeks ago, I spent a Saturday in a local vineyard. I received an email about participating in a "crop mob," which I guess is when members of the community come and help local farmers harvest their crops all at one time. We harvested 4 acres of grapes in one weekend! I think they were concord grapes, but I can't remember. They were really sweet and delicious even though they were grapes for making wine! I went with my friends Melanie and Elizabeth to the farm around noon, just in time for lunch. The farmer and his family served us the quintessential Midwestern meal: Sloppy Joes, three different kinds of potato chips, milk, chocolate milk, and tons of pop, bacon and potato soup, apple bars, Special K bars, and a few other things that I can't remember. There was absolutely nothing vegetarian, so Elizabeth and Melanie put potato chips on a hamburger bun for their entree.

I finally tried The Sugar Bowl that night- it's a local ice cream shop that gets its ice cream from somewhere in Wisconsin. Everyone is obsessed with The Sugar Bowl in Decorah, but I much prefer the Whippy Dip.

Harvesting Chickens

I think I may have ended one of my earlier blogs with the dilemma of whether or not I should help "harvest chickens" at a local farm. I decided that I might as well get the whole "Iowa experience" and try it, and if I got too upset I could leave whenever.

Jon, one of the environmental studies professors at Luther College, has a small farm with chickens and cows. He invited the Food and Fitness FoodCorps and AmeriCorps members and members of the community to come help him "harvest the chickens," which I thought was quite the clever euphemism. My friend Stephanie and I went to his farm having no idea what to expect, but it was actually a really enjoyable experience. There were about 15 adults and a whole mess of kids at the event. Everyone was very talkative, friendly, and in good spirits, but most importantly, they were incredibly respectful of the chickens and all the other animals on the farm. Although there were lots of people there to help, only Jon did the actual slaughtering (some of the little kids watched though!). He killed the chickens by chopping the their heads off- he didn't flip them upside down into cones and slit their throats like you often see on small farms. I hid in the barn while the chickens were being killed, but once they chopped the heads off and let them bleed out, I watched them boil the chickens and use a plucker machine to start de-feathering the chickens.

In the barn, I helped pluck the little feathers off that the machine couldn't get and I cut off the chickens' legs. I watched as some of the other adults cleaned out the chicken guts (DISGUSTING)- we kept having to take the dead chickens to the washing station because chicken poop kept leaking out them! It was so gross. That was when I left.

Overall though, it was a really cool experience. I'm so glad I went! I always wash my chicken now before I cook it because I know how easy it is for chicken poop to leak all over the bird while it's being cleaned!

Enjoy the pictures below!

Steph and I plucking the chickens' leftover feathers

Cutting the chicken's feet off

Scared and not knowing what I'm doing!

De-feathering the chickens with the machine

Jon boiling the chickens

The chickens before the "harvesting"

Kale

I know I have been terrible about keeping up with this blog (sorry grandpa!!), but I'm going to write about a couple of different things that have stood out in my mind throughout the past few weeks.

This past Thursday, I went to Maynard to teach a nutrition lesson to a second grade class at West Central Community School. I decided to teach a lesson on local kale, so I made crispy kale chips for taste testing and came up with a lesson plan. I brought heads rainbow curly kale and regular curly kale for students to pass around and feel while I spoke to them about the importance of local food. I also taught them that kale is an excellent source of calcium and vitamin C, and I taught them hand movements to remember the nutrients in kale (punch they air for vitamin C, because it's like a soldier that fights off germs for your body, and give a big smile for calcium because it gives you healthy bones and teeth).

I also broke the second graders up into small groups of four and we did a "kale experiment." I labeled paper bags 1, 2, and 3, and in each bag there was either raw, steamed, or crispy kale. The second graders had to reach into the paper bags and without looking, feel the kale and decide which was raw, which was steamed, and which was crispy. The kids loved the experiment and couldn't wait to yell out their answers!

Then we taste tested the crispy kale and the teacher and the students loved it!! They even wanted to try the raw kale that I had brought! I couldn't believe it. It was so inspiring- kids really will eat their fruits and vegetables, especially if you make it fun for them.

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures during this lesson, but I will next time. More coming soon!