Day 1 - Ryan

 

Today started very early. We had to be at the airport by 4:30, which meant waking up around 3:00. Mind you, I had gotten back from Spain the day prior, and they are six hours ahead of us. Thankfully, I beat the jet lag.

Once in Ohio, we went to “THE Ohio State University”. Place emphasis on the word, the, as they tend to place heavy emphasis on it here. First, we went to a talk with Brad Collins, who works at OBIC, which deals with alternatives to petroleum products, bioplastics, and different products and projects that can help our environment in the long run. He passed around different bioplastic products, and products made with plant based materials instead of petroleum products. It was a very informative talk about all of the work that OBIC is doing, like community outreach and education, development of new products, and research.

Next, we went upstairs to learn briefly about OSU and its admissions process. Amy Jo Baughman talked to us about the different agricultural programs, the different campuses, and the admissions process and deadlines for applying. After her spiel, she turned it over to Cody Myers, who showed us around the different agriculture campuses at the main campus. We toured the college of food science, animal science, we saw a classroom that had an arena to bring animals into, a rooftop garden, and my favorite part, seeing all of the massive tractors the student use and train on as part of their class. There was a harvester, a huge sprayer, a rear tracked cab tractor, and three, yes three Case IH Quadtracs. If you didn’t know, the Quadtrac is my favorite tractor. Admittedly, it is very hard to drive in Farming Simulator ‘19.

After the tour we packed up and went to the Delaware CountyFairgrounds, which is home to The Little Brown Jug, a Standardbred horse race. They have a track, stables, and turnout pens for all of their Standardbred horses. I work with horses, so this was the highlight of the day. Standardbred racing is very different from Hunters and Jumpers, which I work with. Also, I had only known about saddle races like the Kentucky Derby, so this was very informative. The people there talked about the horses and the race of course, but also about the county fair, the different events they have, and the upgrades they’re doing with the money collected from the bed tax in Delaware County. Essentially, if you stay in a hotel in the county. 3-4% of your sale goes to the Delaware County Fairgrounds for upgrades and maintenance. They expect to get about $9 million in the initial five years of the tax. I can’t lie, seeing the horses was the best part, even if I could only see them in their stalls. They provided us with supper, as well as had a panel of board members talk to us about what they do at the fair. This was followed by a question and answer session. We went to the hotel after that, and once there we wrote all seven thank you cards for everyone we met today. Overall, a great first day. I hope my blog was informative and somewhat interesting,