farm hands

Lions, Tigers and Bears, oh my! That's just a few of the exotic animals inside The Wild Animal Park in Chittenango.  Our Farm Hands tour has taken us to a lot of interesting places around CNY, but none equal what we found here.

Our latest Farm Hands visit was similar to a walk back in time. The Walker Family Farm in North Brookfield is the true definition of "family farm." Running for 6 generations, the origins date back to the 1920's.

Another Farm Hands visit teaches us more of the subtle differences in dairy farming. We visited the Fitch Farm in West Winfield where the family milks about 169 cows twice a day, raises their own heifers and may have the most gentle herd we've met.  Milking begins at 5 a.m. in a raised milking parlor that even has a poop tray that catches a majority of the manure.  While cleanup may have been a li

As our Farm Hands program rolls into the second year we learn more about the nuances of each dairy farm.  We visited the Crumb family farm in Hubbardsville, a 3rd generation dairy farm. The two youngest members of the family, Caleb and Chris gave us a tour of the facility showing us everything from milking the herd, to giving shots to a cow nearing birth time...

We kicked off our 2nd year of Farm Hands, a weekly visit to CNY farms, with a visit to the Cluck Wagon in Ilion. This was one I couldn't wait for Polly to experience. My Grandfather raised chickens, a lot of chickens. So I knew there would be plenty of clucking and flapping and that was just from Polly. She didn't disappoint and neither did the chickens.

Our 'Farm Hands' program finished where it started, at Gallagher Farms in Waterville. They're the grand prize winner, getting VIP tickets to FrogFest June 13th at the Herkimer County Fairgrounds.

It probably isn't obvious unless you stop and think about it, but a zoo is no different than a farm. The animals however, are way different, as we found out on a trip to Fort Rickey Children's Discovery Zoo for 'Farm Hands'.

We've already hit week 4 on our tour of CNY farms leaning 'Farm Hands'. This time we went to a horse farm outside of Bridgeport, Whispering Willows. It was a fun, exciting and a "walk in the park" until it came time to muck stalls. That's when the real work started.

Farm Hands "Week 3" took us to Kel Vista Holsteins in West Winfield.  Our 3rd Dairy Farm in as many weeks, brought us a 3rd variation on a milking operation. The Nelson's have been running the operation for 28 years and have an active milking herd around 85.

'Farm Hands' 2 is in the books following our visit to the Sandefer Hills Farm in Rome. We learned a few new things and perhaps we were a little less "in the way." And oh yeah, Polly got pooped on, a lot.

Tad and I lent 'Farm Hands' on the Gallagher Farm in Waterville. Actually I lent the hand while Tad took pictures and video. From bottle feeding the calves to milking my first cow, we found out how much work it really takes to run a farm.

Every Friday for the next six weeks, Tad and I will be lending 'Farm Hands,' where we pitch in on a local farm. I've never worked on a farm so I made a special order to be prepared and it arrived just in time: new rubber boots!