Already?

Weeks 5 and 6 here in Johnson County have been typical in terms of their variety of tasks and how busy they've been! On June 9th, ANR agent Brian Jeffiers and I attended a Plant Mechanization demonstration in Lexington. It was very interesting to see some of the things that are going to be up and coming on the market in terms of machinery. I was very impressed to see the things that the Ag Engineering folks are coming up with, including an all electric plow! Functionality demonstrations were performed on all the machinery and they all did their duties without a hitch, much to the pleasure of the crowd. The rest of week 5 consisted of prep for the upcoming Farmer's Market and continued work on my internship project (the media project upcoming included).

Last week was a real pleasure because Tuesday marked the first seasonal meeting of the Johnson County Farmer's Market. We had been preparing things to begin the season for over a month, and it was truly a pleasure to see it all finally come together! Our turnout in terms of producers wasn't where we wanted it to be, but was much improved on Thursday and I fully expect things to bloom even larger from here on through the rest of the season as field crops begin to mature and yields reach towards their peak. Thursday also saw a farm visit, with the client being very concerned about the health of his Poplar trees, which had obviously been adversely affected by either fungal infection or an insect infestation as best Brian and I could tell. We sent photos to Lexington for a definite confirmation, and look forward to being able to advise the landowner on proper steps to save his large number of prized trees! On Friday, I assisted our FCS agent with her Annual Homemakers' Meeting by grilling burgers for a few hours (and just narrowly beating the rain!).

The first 6 weeks of this internship have taught me a ton. I've learned about a myriad of different things that people outside of Extension probably never give the first thought to. On Friday last week I was filling out my calendar for this week and I came to the realization that it has been 6 weeks on the job already. My internship here is halfway through, and all I could think of was: Already?! I've had a blast in the front half of my time here, and look forward to all the events upcoming (we all know Extension is wildly unpredictable) and finishing the back half strong!