Paul Szmal: Good morning, it's 8.15, it's FLX Morning, it's Guest O-Rama Tuesday. We're joined by Mo Titball with Ontario County Cooperative Extension. Good morning, welcome back.
Mo Tidball: Good morning, Ted, good to be here.
Paul Szmal: School's underway, and so is Ag in the Classroom, and it's at the beginning of the alphabet, and it's one of New York's greatest crops. A is for apples.
Mo Tidball: A is for apples, which the kids are bringing to their school teachers, hopefully still. Yes, so Ag in the Classroom is a great program. Emma is working with us to make sure that the kids are learning about agriculture, and she's got a great back-to-school lesson profile that teachers can choose from to get kids back in the groove and thinking about where their food comes from and the agriculture all around us.
Paul Szmal: I love this curriculum, so let's talk about the way they explore apples and compare differences in varieties using all five senses.
Mo Tidball: Yes, so everybody learns differently, so it's really important to make sure you engage them in all their senses so they can think about how it smells, think about how it feels, think about how it sounds when you crunch into it and things like that to really engage them in thinking about apples and learning about the apple industry.
Paul Szmal: And of course, one of the other great crops of fall is the pumpkin, so the students will study the pumpkin life cycle, and they get to make pumpkin pie in a bag. That sounds cool.
Mo Tidball: It's really fun. The kids love to, you know, squish that up into their bag and then be able to try it. Of course, you know, we've talked so much over the years over how children really are more apt to try new foods if they've engaged in making it themselves.
Paul Szmal: So how do you make pumpkin pie in a bag?
Mo Tidball: Well, you'll have to talk to Emma and get the recipe and the lesson.
Paul Szmal: All right, I'll do that. It's a lot of squishing, if you can imagine.
Mo Tidball: I'm sure.
Paul Szmal: Students are going to learn about ice cream and how it's made with the Dairy Godmother. That's pretty cool. Tell us about that.
Mo Tidball: It's a great book. That was one of the Ag in the Classroom literacy books back a couple years ago, and it talks about, you know, a young boy whose Dairy Godmother shows up and shows him how the whole process goes from a cow in the farm to actually having ice cream. And so the boy appreciates it a little more, all the different steps that go into getting your ice cream cone.
Paul Szmal: Seed mosaics is another part of the curriculum. What are they going to learn about seeds?
Mo Tidball: Seeds are fascinating, really. You know, the different parts of the seeds and how seeds travel in different ways. And so, again, it's another really hands-on experiential learning type of activity. And then you have the bean game where students, it's a simulated, you're running your own farm and then you roll dice to determine what happens, which is actually kind of a lot like real farming.
Paul Szmal: It totally is, right? I mean, we've all loved this beautiful stretch of weather, but, you know, we do need some rain pretty soon for the farms. You can talk to Emma Wilson at 585-394-3977 about this great curriculum or email her, ejw226 at cornell.edu. That's Ag in the Classroom.
One of the things more and more farmers are discovering is diversification. Like we talked about it, you know, if you're all, your eggs or whatever crop are all in one basket, to use our metaphor, you know, a bad weather event can really hurt you. So one way you can diversify is to grow buckwheat. So you've got a workshop coming up on farmers who might want to think about planting buckwheat.
Mo Tidball: Yes. So Jacob has put this together and it's going to be coming up in, gosh, I guess in October. And it's a really interesting crop. It's actually a little more closely related to rhubarb than what you would think of as normal wheat out there, which I didn't know. That's kind of interesting. And it's a good cover crop, which helps with weeds and it's something different to bring to the market. You know, of course, I'm sure you're familiar with the buckwheat pancakes that Birkett Mills makes right here in Berkeley. So there's some interesting things to do with buckwheat and, of course, it's very healthy.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, we've been talking with, because Finger Lakes Health is right after you, and Soldiers and Sailors is celebrating its 100th anniversary. So they had a big buckwheat pancake breakfast not long ago.
Mo Tidball: Oh, perfect. Yeah.
Paul Szmal: Talking with Otis Ball from Ontario County Cooperative Extension, a big part of the 4-H program is shooting sports. And it was just in the Cornell University newsletter, they had an article about how shooting sports builds confidence in kids and also gives them something to belong to.
Mo Tidball: Yeah, so 4-H, of course, you know, the four pillars of 4-H, your head, your heart, your hands, and your health for your community is involved in all the different aspects of 4-H. And with shooting sports included, it really gives people confidence to learn a new skill and a supportive environment and a very safe environment and promotes that positive youth development that we're looking for with 4-H programming. So there was a great article again, yes, in the Cornell Chronicle showing about talking about all that.
And we're also quite excited that we have received a little grant from Cornell to upgrade our archery and air rifle ranges at 4-H Camp Bristol Hills. So we did have a really fantastic shooting sports program this fall, and we'll be having a lot more programming in that area. So people can get on our website and chat with Sarah about getting involved in 4-H shooting sports. And you can learn more about that on Saturday, October 19th at Camp Bristol Hills. There's a fall festival and open house shooting sports will be part of it. A lot of fun activities. Barbecue dinners are available. The event's all free. The barbecue dinners are a very reasonable $13. Sign up on the website to give us an overview of what's happening on the 19th.
Paul Szmal: Yes, so we're really excited about this. It's a great opportunity for people to come out and see 4-H Camp Bristol Hills if they haven't been there in a while, or maybe they've heard about it but have never actually been on the property. It's a beautiful property and it's been there for getting close to 100 years now. And so we're going to showcase all the fun activities that 4-H has. We'll have a master gardener doing a little program there. We'll have Emma there doing some sort of fun dairy activity as well. It's sort of a fall festival and it's going to be beautiful. I can't imagine how the leaves are going to be up there on the top of the hill looking out over the Bristol Hills. So it's a great opportunity to learn more about Cornell Cooperative Extension, have a great afternoon out in the beautiful Finger Lakes and Bristol Hills area, and have a delicious barbecue. I think we're going to do some Cornell chicken and we're also going to have farm-raised pork, local pork.
Mo Tidball: Oh boy.
Paul Szmal: One of the most fun times I've had doing this show over the last umpteen years is meeting these brilliant Cornell Dietetic interns that you get. You have another one, we'll talk with her maybe next month. So tell us about this program and who you're working with and what you're working on.
Mo Tidball: Yes, I'm very excited to have Jenna working with me as a Cornell Dietetic intern this fall in Ontario County. Turns out she went to Victor High School, so she's a local, which is great. And she's going to be helping me do some research on what sort of nutrition programming Ontario CC would like to get started in. As you know, I did a lot of nutrition programming in Seneca County, but Ontario hasn't really had a strong nutrition program, so we're going to look at what people might like in the whole county and do some interviewing and surveying and see what we can offer people. So heads up on that, there might be a survey coming out that we'll try to push out into the community to hear what people might like to learn about from Ontario CC in the realm of nutrition.
Paul Szmal: Well, I just learned something new. I still keep learning about ag. I did not know New York is the number one producer of table beets in the U.S.
Mo Tidball: Yes, so for a long time we were number two, but Julie Kickert, our veg specialist, said that we have moved into the number one spot. So Emma and Jenna have been doing some farmer's market nutrition programming and they did some beet recipes and Jenna's putting together some beet nutrition facts. So there'll be more things beet coming out this fall. It's a great vegetable, full of iron, lots of good minerals. It's one of those things, either it tastes like earth to people and they don't quite love it or you do love it, but there's lots of ways to try beets that might change people's minds. For example, in brownies, I went on the ag tour with your former Seneca County colleagues and they had beet brownies that were fantastic.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, that was a great farm-to-school type of recipe that we could sneak some beets into the chocolate brownies and people liked it.
Mo Tidball: So, hunting season is coming up for small game, Canada goose, and the early doe deer season. We're still in fishing season, so you've got lots of stuff at the wild harvest table.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, so there's lots of recipes. I've been putting recipes up there for 12 years, so even if they're not right there on the front page, there's a great search function at the top right of the website where you can type in maybe a different species, maybe you have some ground venison or you have a goose breast or you've got some perch and you can type that in and see what type of recipes pop up to try.
Alright, also, if you miss one of these interviews, you don't have to miss it. Go to cceontario.org and Mo is posting all the interviews there so you can catch them after the fact or if you missed something real quick and you want to go back and write it down. And also, you have a monthly newsletter people can sign up for on the website.
Mo Tidball: Yes, so there's a monthly newsletter and all of our programming and events that are coming up will be on the website as well. I encourage people to check that out. I also, anybody out there that's doing Facebook should definitely follow us and be friends with us. We have some people that, two of our staff are doing really fun little reels and you can watch those and get a sort of fun silly side of what's going on also with Ontario County CCE.
Paul Szmal: Also, by the way, check out the link for Fun on the Farm, Saturday, September 28th. Hemdale Farms is hosting on Orleans Road in Seneca Castle and that's always a great event. And you can get that information on the website as well.
Mo, thanks as always. We appreciate the Ag Talk and the Ag Education each month. Great to chat with you and thank you so much for bringing up Fun on the Farm and CCE will definitely be there and Emma will have some dairy. I think she's doing whipped cream so that'll be fun.
Mo Tidball: Alright, thanks. I appreciate it.
Paul Szmal: Alright, take care, Ted.
