Yeah yeah. I know I’m behind on my blogging. Sorry all my lovely readers. It’s just that this class is so freakin’ awesome I totally don’t have the time (or extra energy) in the day to spend on a laptop bein’ sedentary an’ all… Because of my lateness, I would like to talk you all on a trip to the past– *cuing time travel music*.
Monday, 20th of May, 2013, an ordinary day.
The class met up on campus, stuffed everyone of ‘B Group’ in the van (totally the best group, if I do say so myself. ‘A Group’, yeah, you all are losers. I’m sorry.), and drove on down to Moneta, Virginia for an exciting day at Polyface Farm. The “Lunatic Tour” was on our agenda.
Due to our drive overlapping with lunchtime, a break was in order… Cranberry’s Grocery and Eatery in downtown Staunton is THE place to go for a shnazzy-low-key locavore lunchin’.
Giant mirror in the back…
Having already eaten a pretty substantial breakfast, I opted for a garden salad. The restaurant sells your average café-like food: wraps, sandwiches, salads, homemade soups, etc. They also sell house-made juices and smoothies. I ordered something called “Celtic Elixir”. It basically had everything all the other juices had, but all in one drink! I thought, “Oh my gosh. I can just have this drink and try them all!” Haha, no. The ginger was so potent that (sadly) I ended up throwing most of it away, and I HATE wasting food. All of us took a long look around the grocery area of the building, lots of organic/hippy/local/allergy-free foods. I bought some “Chunks of Energy”. (Ha, yeah, As if I need more energy.) After a bit of walking around town, we headed to the farm.
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Taking our “Lunatic Tour” with 100 other people, we all packed on to two tractor-pulled hay beds. Joel Salatin, 
owner and the most loony of them all, gave the crowd some amazing information about his processes in taking care of the livestock: pigs, chickens, turkeys, and cows. I honestly can’t remember all the information the man gave, but I do know that the way in which he runs his farm and still manages to sustain the pastures are the correct ways in doing it.
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I thought that the chicken pens were genius. Ok so, these pens (over 200) are spread out in rows in the pasture. Every day a worker goes out and manually drags the pens a few feet so that the chickens can roam their new area for bugs while also interacting with a new space. 
These pens aren’t heavy at all. They were specifically made to be lightweight and portable.
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Try to imagine this picture without the bald head in the front…
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In addition to the chickens, a few turkeys are put in the pens. Joel stated that, for every five chickens, a turkey gets put in the bunch. Turkeys aren’t the brightest of the poultry, so I guess you can kind of say the chickens act as babysitters, sort of watching over them. “Don’t eat that! That’s saw dust. Here! This is feed.” *frantically pointing* Haha. Joel was hilarious.
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The way in which he lets his cows roam is also genius. “Cows like to eat the ice cream of the grass and leave the rest.” Because of this, if a farmer allows a herd to stay in a pasture for too long, all the “ice cream” will be eaten. This means that all the insect-life that helps in pollination/fertilization/etc. won’t come to that area anymore. Weeds will grow in the clover’s (other flowering plants’) place and won’t be able to sustain a pasture’s natural habitat. For this reason, Joel continuously moves the herd around, using a mobile fence (really just a wound-up wire).
After the finishing the tour, everyone was invited to spend all their money at the farm store. I really really wanted a shirt, but had only change (they take only cash and check, no cards). I ended up buying some eggs for the four-day farm trip later on. Yes, I bought eggs, and they are DELICIOUS, sooooo different than the regular, store-bought, crap eggs.
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Eggmobile!
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the paleo school girl 