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