Wednesday’s first visit was an Alpaca stud. Monica and Dennis started farming Alpaca’s in their retirement years, after Dennis was a military helicopter driver for 25 years. They were lovely people, and are having a lot of fun with their Alpaca family. The alpaca fibre is not a real growth industry at the moment, and they share similar frustration to the wool industry.
Linda and the Alpaca :)
We then headed to Limestone Springs, a trout farm and fishing preserve. Yummo, trout sandwiches for lunch!! They had had a flood a few years back, and unfortunately lost 1000’s of trout which flowed down the stream. It was a really horrible story, that when all the fish were down stream, the farmer went on the TV explaining the problem of losing the trout after the bad storm, and the next day hundreds of fisher men went and fished all his fish. If they had not, the trout would have swum back upstream to his ponds. To me it sounded like outright stealing! They were lovely hosts though, and showed us through their many ponds, and cooked up some delicious trout for us for lunch.
Trout fishing park
After lunch we made our way to Way-Her farms. A dairy farm that also runs an
icecreamery and farm shop on the highway. I was able to resist another
icecream, and we made our way back to Harrisburg for the night.To end our trip with a bit of fun, I got the crew playing the ‘mine’ game. Where every time you say the word mine you have to do 10 pushups. We headed to downtown Harrisburg, for a few beers and some dinner and had the a really fun night! Push-ups and laughs galore!
The girls of the crew, Sandra Linda and I
Thursday we headed to the Chester Country, to meet with the economic development council. This group were really interesting and great to talk to. Gary, the CEO, started the council up to support small business growth in the Chester County. They now support many small rural businesses and farms, with access to low interest loans and parcels of land, grants and funding, training and workforce development. They are a non profit organisation, and are doing so much to help their local rural community. They are facing the challenges urban sprawl, and are purchasing the development rights on land, so that farms are not taken up by industrial development. This gives the farmer some money as an incentive to keep farming and keep the land in agriculture. They are also witnessing young people not coming back into the agricultural sector and the urban/rural divide that we have seen everywhere. So they are trying to train and educate young people in agriculture. Another common theme of our trip.
We visited a mushroom farm in the Chester county next. This area produces 60% of the entire US mushroom consumption. It was a very interesting to see this different crop grown. It is a very precise farming, and everything has to be done to a strict timeline, as the mushrooms grow that quick. Mushrooms are picked 364 days of the year and packed and shipped all over the country. We were treated to Phili cheesy steaks for lunch, along with many yummy mushrooms!
We finished the day with a visit to paradocx vineyard. It is owned by 2 couples that are all doctors, hence the name ‘pair of docs’. Dave showed us around their small vineyard and winery. They had innovative wine in a paint can.... hmmm not really for me, but apparently pretty popular, and also a tea flavoured sweet wine that was quite nice.
We headed from the vineyard to the city of Philadelphia. What a crazy, busy, ugly place. However, we had a nice hotel, and found a really cool irish bar for dinner with some good live music. We had hoped to find a Kareoke bar before the end of the trip, and what do you know, there is one just down the road. So off we went and the night went from there, and as much as I really wanted to sing.......
Sing song......
Irish bar dinner out together
We headed out of Phili to Lancaster County Co-operative, where we had a video conference with Joe Russo, the president of the company ZedX. ZedX are an IT company working on modelling climate, the spread of pests and disease, soil moisture, biomass production and much more. They are working with new technologies such as smart phones and tablets to get real time data from the paddock to the office and into programmes.
We had our last night at the Willow Vally Inn, an interesting large bible bashing hotel. Comfy all the same. We had some pizza, to ensure we finished in true American style, before we headed home for an early night.
Today is Saturday, and we are heading home. This morning though we were able to visit and Armish farm. There are many Armish in this area, and you often pass them on the roads driving their horse and buggy. Sam, was a lovely man who explained to us their history and culture. They basically try to avoid most technologies, in both their lives and their businesses. SO they us no computers, phone, electricity, tractors, cars etc etc. We saw them harvesting with a tow behind header, drawn by a horse and run with a steam engine. The men all have a beard once they are married, and where straw hats and black pants with braces. The ladies wear dresses with their heads covered with a scarf. They were lovely people and it was interesting to hear about their very different culture.
We have had such a great time here in the US. As the last leg to our trip it has been great. Jean went to so much effort to ensure we had a great busy, timetable, that covered ALL of our interests and research topic. Lela and Lindsay, our Ag dept hosts, looked after us very well, and were great fun to spend the week with.
Linda with Lela and Lindsay at the trout farm
Jean and Linda
So, the rental cars have been dropped off and we now have 3 hours at the Harrisburg airport. Then, 27 hours of flying for to go, plus stopovers. Not home till Monday afternoon, but sure can’t wait to get there! What a fantastic trip we have had!!!
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