A Day In The Internship - by Lloyd Frieson

Lloyd Frieson

6-15-12 ( Oneida Farm )

It was 6/15/12 on the Oneida farm and was very excited to finally get to visit a place where I had only heard about through hearsay and my uncle who works there. The day was pretty basic, we had to feed and water the chickens, cows and plants. I helped worked on a hay baling machine and chased an escaped baby cow for two hours. The hay machine was bought at a very low price and the staff was wondering why these people sold this piece of equipment so cheap? We found out why when they started the machine and tried to make a bale of hay. The machine started smoking and making a high whining sound. They raised the back of the machine where the hay bale is deployed and we seen why the machine was so cheap. All of the belts that rotate the hay into a bale were crossed. Looking at the machine with this kind of malfunction was sobering but it only looked hard. With the loosening of three bolts we were able to realign the belts and the machine worked perfectly. Fixing this machine took a little time but we gotter done. It was a half hour before lunch and I got to seed corn. This is when the corn that has been dried and is now ready to be processed by removing the kernels and placing them into a bucket to be washed and later packaged. This is Oneida’s main product. Grabbing a corn cob and twisting your hands like you were giving someone an Indian burn was the easiest way of cleaning the cob. When picking a corn cob there were some that had blotches on the kernels, those kernels were discarded along with the cob in a completely different bucket. I forgot to ask what they did with the bucket, if they fed these kernels to chickens or did they completely throw them away. I will have to remember to ask them about the waste when I return later this week.  I had a chance to observe their plant beds and how different they were from each other. One of the areas for example was flat with weed guard and holes for the seeds in the top. I asked, what was the purpose of this technique and does this way solve your problem of erosion because the area was on a slight hill?  One of the workers answered that this was just the layout that was suggested and did not know if it was designed for combating erosion. I explained why I asked that question, because I seen raised beds in between the rows that looked like they had been used the year before and they were pointed in a different direction. Besides the flat crop bed there were a couple of other beds, one was a three-sisters garden which contained about seven mounds and the other was a tobacco garden that had twenty plants. I had the honor of watering these beds for one of my tasks of the day. I asked Jeff Metoxen, if they were planning to use composting as a system of fertilizing the plants? He replied he really didn’t know if they were but if I had some ideas I could share them with him and he would try to make composting part of the farm duties. As we were fixing the hay baling machine I noticed that the corn, Oneida’s money maker, was not doing well at all. I asked if they had a plan just in case no rain comes this way because the corn looked really dry. One of the workers said that they would call the fire department and use the truck to wet the crop down. I am guessing that doing so would cost a great deal of money and that the farm would want to stay away from spending. We returned from lunch and it is time to water the cows again because it was pretty hot that fine day. One of the workers had turned off the live wire to move the cattle and all went well except for a new born calf that was only a day old. This little calf ran between the wires and headed for the highway, at least that’s we thought. We were running around asking people did they see a cow on the road and we got some real funny looks from most of the people. I even flagged down an officer of the Oneida Police Department asked if any calls came in concerning any livestock, he smiled and called it in and still no one saw anything. All of this running around and worrying that this baby calf was going to get hit by a car or even killed made us look even harder. The reason no one seen this calf is because when the calf crossed the street into the bushes, we assumed that it kept going, the calf stopped as soon as it got in the bushes and was lying there watching us scamper around whooping and hollering. It was probably thinking, weirdos. My uncle found the little lady lying in same spot she went in. That was a big relief. We got the calf back to her mother and all was well so we thought. As we approached the chicken coop, there were twenty chickens dead of heat exhaustion. Earlier that day a hawk spotted a chicken that looked wounded and was circling the coop, stirring up the other birds. An organic chicken is about fifteen dollars per bird and all of those chickens were already sold to someone. The chickens looked as if they were trying to get out of the sun because they were all in the shadows of the cooler and along the fence line. I know the boss will not be pleased. This wraps up my report for day one at the Oneida Farm.