Time if flying by!

I was lucky to get to experience my first 4H camp ever this year. It was great, but I was definitely worn out when I got home. But, I had no time to rest. The next week we had our annual Farm City Field Day. This is a huge event for the extension office because hundreds of people come out to the event. I was going to play a big role in it. For my internship project, I decided to have a stop on the farm tour where wagons of people would pull up to and I would present my material to them.
Right now in Franklin County, a controversial topic is how we get rid of dead livestock. The whole program was going to change and a lot of people were worried about it. Rumors had circulated and people were not informed about the new program we were adopting. We are now going to compost the livestock instead of taking them to the local dump. So it was my job to educate all the people on the new process and insure them that it is perfectly safe.
Monday the 7th, I took a trip to the UK farm in Woodford County to see their compost site where they had been testing this new process. I was able to take a bucket and have a sample of the after product to be able to physically show the people that it was safe and odorless. Wednesday I spent the day going back and forth from the office to the farm to deliver tables and chairs, set up tents and anything else that needed to be done.
My presentation consisted of explaining and showing how the compost pile works. I included a poster of pictures of what the compost site would look like, cattle bones from my farm, and a sample of the compost from the UK farm. People were very interested and asked many questions about my presentation. Some even admitted that what they thought before was completely wrong and now supported the program. After talking to the crowd after the event I feel like I successfully got the message across and made a difference.
This past week has been our county fair. Over the weekend we set up booths and fences for the livestock shows. During the week we had various animal shows come in and I was able to experience how those were managed. I was even able to show a sheep for the first time. We helped judge some of the exhibits and set up for shows throughout the week. The past 3 weeks were definitely non stop and full of excitement, but they have flown by!

Ben Mefford