City kids get taste of farm life

By RICHARD L. BOCCIA

Those from the city got an educational experience, and those from the country got a chance to lead and mentor.

CANFIELD — It was a little after 8 a.m., but a van load of children from the Boys and Girls Club of Youngstown were wide awake and ready to pick strawberries on a farm visit.

They’d return to the city a few hours later with several things: a quart of fruit they harvested themselves, a lesson about where food comes from and a small taste of life outside of Youngstown.

The Boys and Girls Club and the Mahoning Valley Farm Bureau Youth organized the strawberry picking and farm tour as an exchange between children of different backgrounds. The eight from the city got an educational experience, and about a dozen from the country got a chance to lead and mentor. The groups picked berries at Haus Orchard & Cider Mill, 6742 West Calla Road, and then toured the Mill Creek MetroParks Farm on Route 46.

Jaquane Patterson, 7, and the rest of a group from the Boys and Girls Club ranging in age from 6 to 10, had bushels of questions for the older children, ages 12 to 17. Jaquane was paired with Levi Schlegel, 17, of Canfield.

Jaquane asked Levi if the berries go to the store, and the older boy explained that some of the fruit is sold at farm markets, but not at the grocery store.

Matt Haus, who was raised on the family farm, showed the children how to pick the fruit. Reaching under the low cover of soft, rounded leaves to the shiny, deep red fruit below, several of the children were pricked by weeds, but that didn’t stop them. They crouched low to the straw in the rows between the plants, competing with each other to see who could gather the most berries. In 20 minutes, they had picked five trays of fruit, or 40 quarts of strawberries.

Aimee Hum, an adviser for the Farm Bureau Youth from Green Township, admired the Boys and Girls Club children’s diligence.

Morrison Kennedy, called “Spider” by the children in his karate class at the club, believes in fostering that kind of discipline in his pupils. Sometimes it takes strictness on his part, he said, insisting that the children answer “yes, sir” and “no, ma’am” to their adult hosts at the farm.

“You gotta show respect,” he said, reminding the children to thank the Farm Bureau for the berries.

On the drive to the MetroParks Farm, the boys and girls called out recognizable signs that they were not at home in Youngstown, identifying rolled bales of hay and horses visible from the van.

At the farm, they moved the berries in a cart out to a picnic table to learn how to prepare them by removing the stems. Six-year-old Amyricle Hurst helped with the move, smiling the whole way at the prospect of eating the berries, which sat at chin height before her as she pushed the cart from the side.

Gathering the children around the table, Pearle Burlingame, organization director for the Farm Bureau, asked where fruit and vegetables grow, and the boys and girls knew the answers for strawberries and apples. Then she inquired about the source of milk.

“Cows!” they yelled, looking up from stemming the berries.

Burlingame said she wanted to show the youth that they can harvest their own food beyond strawberries, from tomatoes to peppers and apples. The bureau may plan a similar trip to an apple orchard in the fall.

After preparing the fruit, it was time for a tractor wagon tour of the farm, where agricultural facilities manager Brenda Markley pointed out more crops and animals. She also highlighted the differences and similarities of both groups of children.

“Even though some of you live in the city and some of you live in a rural area, we all have something in common. We all need to eat,” Markley said.

The children sat with their older guides, yelling in surprise as Texas longhorn cattle looked up from the pasture and butterflies scattered from the field as the wagon passed.

Hum said that in hosting the event, the Farm Bureau Youth got a chance to see familiar experiences through new eyes as the younger children visited the farm, some of them picking berries for the first time.

Logan Hoff, 12, of the Farm Bureau Youth, lifted some of the boys and girls onto a fence so they could pet horses at a stop on the wagon ride. Hoff grew up on a farm.

“When I was littler, I’d come to camps that my mom would host. It’s fun to see how they [the younger children] react to all these animals,” Hoff said.

At the pig pen, the children oinked and snorted when black potbellies ambled up to the railing to have their rough fur petted.

“Why aren’t they pink?” Jaquane asked, and Markley explained that pigs come in several colors. The children were also surprised to learn that the cattle they’d seen earlier were actually female cows, not bulls, despite the horns.

The lesson in touring the farm, said Markley, is that while some food comes from plants, like strawberries, other food has an animal source.

To drive the point home, the children were treated to vanilla ice cream made by Burlingame to compliment the fresh berries. At the end of the trip, the two groups mixed once again at the picnic table, enjoying the product of a morning that was out of the ordinary for both sides. Some of their shirts stained strawberry red, a few of the boys climbed onto their older guides’ shoulders for chicken fights in the grass.

As Burlingame served the melted remnants of her ice cream, there was one last lesson to share with the city kids when Joseph Floyd, 9, asked her if she’d retired.

“Farmers don’t retire,” she said. “They just get tired.”