Liam Green: Hawken Farmer

Hey everyone!

Hope project is going well for all of you.  My first four days working on the Hawken Farm have been fun, productive, and exhausting.  Here's what our journey to providing a small-scale sustainable farm for campus has looked like:

Day 1:  I arrived at school at 8 A.M. to meet with Nate, Stu (my fellow farm hands), along with our fearless leader Coach Wilson (poor Allie was sick).  We planned out how the four weeks would take form and then quickly got to work.  My morning project was to work on reintroducing a composting program to Hawken.  I got the lunch staff back on board and made a powerpoint to show the school explaining what we're doing, how we're doing it, and why.  It will be great seeing our kitchen scraps being used as a soil amendment in the future rather than sending them off to the landfill with all the rest of our crap- because that's poor waste management.  In the afternoon I began transferring crowded and thirsty tomato and pepper plants into individual pots so they may thrive in the recent sunshine.

Day 2:  At the start of the day I hopped into Coach Wilson's pickup truck and drove into Chesterland to buy the lumbar needed to build the chicken coop for Allie's nine chicks (named Lucy, Tator, Tot, Karl, Kristy, Butterscotch, Bug, _____, and _____).  This has been Nate and Stuart's big project the last few days and an urgent one considering the chickens are growing quickly and Allie's storage box/chicken apartment isn't getting any bigger.  After I got back and unloaded the lumbar, I continued transferring plants.  After a delicious lunch in the White House consisting of a new item: Ballpark sausage on bun with marinara and grilled peppers & onions), I drove down the McGregor retirement home in East Cleveland to meet up with my beekeeping expert Stan Hockey, as that is my area of focus during project. We checked on the hive there that I helped assemble and the bees were looking happy.

Day 3:  Done transferring plants! After a run to Turney Ace Hardware and Monticello Garden center in Chesterland for some more pots.  They are residing in the second science lab room on the left (As a senior I should no what S-# that is :S) under grow lights as well as in a sketchy makeshift greenhouse out by the garden.  Nate and Stu begin construction on the chicken coop! It is located within the fence of the garden behind the White House and looking fantastic.

Day 4:  Half of the school played with Allie's adorable chicks while she looked on as a proud and attached mother would.  Coop construction is well underway and good news! Walter T. Kelley Bee Company has agreed to donate a bee hive to Hawken! It should arrive in 10-12 business days.  I figured we would needs some bees to occupy the hive and begin producing honey while pollinating all of our plants on campus- so I ordered a 3 lb package of Italian Honey Bees with a marked queen from Draper bees, which should be shipped during the week of the twenty first.  Approximately 9,000 bees weigh 3 lbs. :)  I called SARE- Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education group, which I believe is affiliated with USDA at their North Central Region number to discuss their youth grant proposal.  This organization has given out loads of money for SARE oriented projects all across the country.  Hopefully I can get a grant approved to add to our budget currently consisting of a Gellar fund gift and some outside donations.

Other neat things and looking ahead:
-If you want to learn about the struggle of honey bees today watch "The Vanishing of the Bees" a documentary looking at Colony Collapse disorder- Ms. Clark has a copy.
-Sam Comfort's Anarchy Apiaries website on honey bees is fly as well.  He's an entertaining character.
-Allie's dog Charlie has an ear that stands up and a floppy one and is the unofficial mascot of the Hawken Farm.
-We plan to finish the coop this week.
- Nate's future projects include building raised beds, a bench/trellis combo, a mini greenhouse, an archway door entrance to the garden utilizing Allie's groovy HAWKEN FARM red wood letters.
-Stu has been shirtless most of the time and serves as our on-site botanist when he's not building things with Nate.
-We will be taking sweet field trips to local farms soon. Maybe check out what Tommy Willen and Greg Foley have been doing at the Urban Farm.  
-I can't wait to see a wind turbine on campus in the next five years- our campus has so much potential! Other bigger projects we could partake in include turning the old fountain across from the teacher side windows of the white house into an aquaponics project in which we grow plants floating atop the water by providing them nutrients from the poop of the hundreds of tilapia swimming underneath.  The white house has a second story 20' X 40' pebble patio that should be turned into a Garden.

WOW! I get carried away thinking about what we can do next.
Stay tuned.
Shout out to Al, Nate, Stu, Coach Wilson, and Ms. Clark for working so hard.


Peace Out

Liam