Amy's Farm

     On Saturday November 2nd, 2013 I woke up anxious to get the day started. I was scheduled to go on a class field trip to Amy's Farm, a small non-profit community farm out in Ontario, CA. The trip there took about 25 minutes and I arrived just in time as Tim began the tour.
     The farm raises livestock and crops in a very organic and traditional manner, refraining from the use of pesticides or fertilizers, and feeding the livestock food scraps from the vegetables. Green beans, tomatoes, radishes, lettuce, spinach, and beets are some of the veggies grown there. They also harvest fruit, and have a herb garden that grows parsley, basil, and rosemary.

 

   The livestock are what intrigued me the most. I got to meet and milk 2 awesome dairy cows, but the farm also raises cattle and pigs with a much less fortunate fate, slaughter. You can actually help raise the animal until it is slaughtered and take home your share of the deal. I also met a couple of piglets, some goats, turkeys, bunch of roaming around chickens and a mini horse.


So after the tour was over me, Tim, and Anthony decided to volunteer for a couple of hours. I wanted to get a first hand look at what it was like to help coordinate a small organization like this farm. We began with weeding the radish and lettuce batches, which was very tedious work and we had to be careful so as not to pull out the actual plant. At the end of the day you put your hours into a book and depending on how long you volunteered you take home your share of any crop on the farm, a very trustworthy system. It was an excellent experience and I will hopefully return to volunteer and get my share of fresh Amy's farm produce!