A Dance Marathon at GFF

Both of us remember participating in service events off campus when we were in college and, more often than not, these are positive memories.  Often these were opportunities to be of real use to someone else.  Usually, at least for me, it was some time outdoors.  And, simply because it was different, there was an element of ... what?  Adventure?  Freshness?  Maybe even a little redemption in the middle of a semester of studies and everything that came with it.

Now, things are different.  We are no longer the college students - but we are the people who offer the opportunity to get away from school - do something different - provide some help where it could be useful.

Dance Marathon is an annual event at Wartburg College that offered their services to rake yards for persons in the community in exchange for donations towards Children's Miracle Network Hospitals, including the University of Iowa's Stead Family Children's Hospital.

Tammy and I realized that, while we weren't interested in having our yard raked, we had things to do on the farm that could benefit from having many hands.  So, last Saturday morning, we had a nice group of willing individuals visit us at the Genuine Faux Farm.

The rakes did not even enter into the activities - perhaps to the chagrin of some of the participants?  One of our tasks was to pull out the old drip lines.  It's a yearly task at the farm and it has to be done.  Even if we were going to try to re-use this resource (we found that to be infeasible) they would have to be removed from the field.  Rob has rolled up tens of thousands of feet of the stuff in his career so far and Tammy has done her fair share, so it was nice to get a little help this time around!

Another perpetual task is the cleaning of the harvest and storage containers.  There have been many winters where the Genuine Faux Farm had to haul containers into the house so these could be cleaned in the bathtub.  That's what happens when it gets cold outside - the water gets kinda stiff and doesn't really work so good for cleaning things.

But, the weather was nice and we had extra help so we could just blast right through the piles of containers waiting for the attention they needed.  We'll be entering the winter months with a nice batch of clean harvest containers!

There are other small things that just go so much more quickly with extra help.  So, you want to grab the waterers, fences, and feeders from the turkey pasture and bring them in?  Ok, how about each person takes one or two items.  Suddenly - they're all where you want them.  How cool is that?

I did not get a photo of a few things we did as a group.  For example, we had a couple of nice long rows of broccoli that were finished for the year.  Ideally, we'd like to get the plant residue out so it can compost.  For some reason, 800 row feet of broccoli plant pulling goes faster with fifteen pairs of hands rather than two.

We were also able to get some volunteer trees and bushes trimmed out of the East fence line and we cleaned out some of the finished crops in Eden (one of our high tunnels).  

What made these things good candidates for jobs we could share with these very appreciated helpers?  Of course, it had to be something that didn't require lots of explanation.  The tasks also had to lend themselves to a larger number of people working concurrently.  And... well, there was also the need to offer options depending on individual need or preference.  While we were certain everyone would help as best they could with what we asked, we also wanted to keep the whole thing friendly for those who didn't mind pulling more plants and those who would rather do something else - like clean containers. 
 

Some of the tasks, like collecting tomatoes that remained on plants (but weren't so far gone that you couldn't easily pick them), were the sort of thing that we often WISH we could get to, but rarely have the labor to make it happen.  With the extra help, we have been able to feed a bucket of these tomatoes to our hens each day since Saturday.  The hens love to peck on them and kick them around - so it was nice to get the help so we could provide them with a supplement to their diet.

So, to the Dance Marathon crew that came to the Genuine Faux Farm - well done!  If you read this, rest assured that all of the brush you cut, broccoli and other crops you pulled, drip tape you rolled up...  these things have been picked up and put where they belong by the time you read this.  It would not have happened this quickly without your help.  Thank you.