Saturday, June 22, 2019

Day 3 - Keraj





We had an early morning today, we were downstairs and ready to leave at 7 A.M. We left our hotel in our assigned Vans and left for The Wooden Nickel Buffalo Farm. Upon arriving at the farm our first sight was a small group of buffalo in a pasture, a few cows grazing with their calves. We went inside of the restaurant and all sat down where Buffalo Dan explained to us how he runs his buffalo operation. He put a really large emphasis on keeping the animals as stress free and as natural as possible. Buffalo Dan felt strongly on grass feeding his herd, which equates to higher quality meat, but does not grow the animals as fast as feeding them grain does. Another benefit of buffalo meat is the health benefits of buffalo meat over other red meats. Buffalo Dan had a wealth of information about the animals he raises, he cleared up a common misconception about American Buffalo. He settled a debate between us as to the proper name of the animals, it turns out that American Buffalo, and American Bison are the same species, with no variation between the two. At the end of our tour Dan and his summer intern Olivia treated us to some delicious buffalo cheeseburgers and homemade fries to show those of us who have never tasted buffalo meat the difference between the meat from a buffalo and from a regular cow. It was a new experience for me and other trip goers and a very interesting and cool thing to know the exact place your food is coming from.

   

After we thanked Buffalo Dan and Olivia for the experience we packed up and headed to our second stop at Post Apples CSA Farm, where we learned about what a CSA type farm was and how they ran their operation. In simple terms a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) operation is run by people in the community buying “shares” of a farms crops. And in turn receive part of the harvest in proportion to how much stake they have in the farm, from fractions of a share to multiple shares. After the introduction in the greenhouse we carefully walked down a very muddy hill down to their storage house where they explained the share system, and showed us their hot and cold storage and explained to us the different varieties of vegetables they have for people to take home. After the storage house they took us to another field where Mr. Gordon explained how they grow their vegetables, along with the many varieties of vegetables and fruits they have. Like the 57 varieties of apples and the 4 different kinds of kale available. Mr. Gordon was also very knowledgeable about the chemicals and fertilizers they use on their crops. One thing I found interesting was they are designing a hydroponics system with the man who designed the hydroponics system for the Epcot center at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Our final part of the tour was walking through an apple orchard that had trees that were as old as 50 years old. After we checked out the orchard we packed back into our cars, went back up to the main property, took our obligatory group photo, and packed up for the long haul to Niagara Falls. We made a quick stop in the way to take in the sight that was Lake Erie. It was the first time I had looked over a body of freshwater without being able to see the other side, it really was a sight to behold. 

 

 

After we all saw the lake we got back in our Vans and headed to our final stop, Niagara Falls, New York. After we all arrived, we took our group photo and made our way down to the falls, despite it being my second time seeing the falls, it’s natural beauty was not lost upon me. We got to visit 3 different parts of the falls, where we learned that just on the American side, over 75 thousand gallons of water go down the falls every single second. After spending almost 3 hours at the falls we sat down for some dinner to wrap up our day, and head back to the hotel where we awaited an early morning the next day we were planning to spend in Canada. 


 

 

 

Even after seeing Niagra Falls before, it was still just as amazing a site!



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