Paul Szmal: Joined in studio by Jacob Maslin from Ontario County's branch of Cornell Cooperative Extension. Jacob, good morning.
Guest: Good morning, Paul. Thanks for having me.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, appreciate you being here. We have some stuff to talk about, starting with an upcoming workshop on June the 27th. This is going to cover beginner tractor safety and chainsaw safety.
Guest: Yeah, this is my kind of adult tractor safety, chainsaw safety workshop. We do it normally for 4-H youth, and so I thought, and people are interested in doing it as an adult course. So this will be focused fully on safety of operating your tractor, your home tractor, your 40-50 horse tractor implement, and then chainsaw safety. I added the chainsaw safety in there because I got a chainsaw handed down to me from an uncle and then I didn't know how to use it. So I'll be helping facilitate it, but I have other trainers coming in to teach me and the whole participants. And one of the big things we hear about often when it comes to tractor accidents, not just accidents on the road, but out in the field dealing with the PTO systems.
Paul Szmal: Oh yeah, the PTO is the most dangerous thing. I think people don't even think about that. You know, a spinny device in the back of a tractor? It can whip around and take all of your clothes off in a matter of seconds. It's kind of like an open driveshaft. If you had an open driveshaft in your vehicle, if you're a race car driver, that's something you have to worry about is if the driveshaft breaks, it can come up in the cockpit and hit you.
Guest: Yeah. With the PTO, it's out in the wide open. Most PTOs don't have any kind of shroud or protection over them.
Paul Szmal: Well, yeah, generally you would find an implement and you would have to get a safety device or a new implement would come with a new safety device. But if you're buying a used implement off of Marketplace, something like that, you might have to go out and search for a kind of a safety card, a generic safety card. Hopefully you have one of those. And then routine tractor maintenance, problem diagnosis, operating tractors, and stuff like snow, mud, and ice, because those conditions can be a little bit tricky.
Guest: Yeah, each condition has its own set of challenges. Riding on hills in New York, we kind of get it all, snow, ice, mud, hills, no even surfaces. So yeah, I think there's a lot of challenges sometimes to operating tractors. And I think by coming to this workshop, you can really boost your confidence. And referring to the chainsaw part of it, there's handling and maintenance best practices and the use of proper equipment for chainsaw safety.
Paul Szmal: Oh, yeah. Yeah. We're going to go over all of it. The instructors are going to kind of do some demonstration and then we're going to talk about it. It'll be really fun. And then lunch included.
Guest: Yeah. It is June 27th, starts at 9 a.m. It's going to be at American Equipment, LLC. That's 6112 Collette Road in Farmington. Registration is $10. And again, that includes your lunch and we'll tell you how to register a little bit later on in the conversation.
Paul Szmal: So, okay. Next thing that is up that looks kind of cool, hydroponics workshop. Before you get the idea of what people usually think of when they think of hydroponic, we're talking about just the process of gardening without soil.
Guest: Yeah. So, this will be a hydroponics workshop. We're going to talk about how to use a grow tower, how to do hydroponics maybe on your countertop in your apartment or, you know, grow microgreens, grow lettuce, grow maybe cherry tomatoes if you're feeling adventurous. Just trying to increase food in your plate during the wintertime.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. And being able to do it in a tight space where, you know, the traditional, you know, dish garden or something like that isn't going to quite fit in.
Guest: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, if you're limited on space, you have a small house in an urban setting or you have an apartment, you know, you want to try to grow some lettuce and things in-house. It can be very easy. So, you can come out to this workshop and kind of learn some more.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. And basement spaces too are good for this kind of thing.
Guest: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And you can also like start growing microgreens and sell those. You could even, you know, take this workshop and start a whole business probably.
Paul Szmal: This workshop is coming up on August the 6th, so you got a little bit of time. It's going to be at the Agritech at Jordan Hall on North Street in Geneva in conjunction with the Cornell Agritech folks. It's a $20 fee, but not only are snacks included, but you get a take-home kit to kind of get the ball rolling.
Guest: Yeah. So, we're partnering with Agritech and some of the researchers over there that know what they're doing. And then, we're going to do a kit to take home, kind of get you started and have some fun. It'll be really fun, pretty impactful course, lots of information.
Paul Szmal: Jacob Maslin is here from Ontario County Cornell Cooperative Extension here on FLX Morning. One of my favorite times of year is now because we have strawberry festivals aplenty and there's one coming up in Honeoye at the end of the month on June 28th.
Guest: Yeah, I'm pretty stoked to be there. It'll be the first annual Honeoye Strawberry Festival playing on Honeoye Lake and the Honeoye Strawberry. The Honeoye Strawberry is a locally made strawberry. It was produced at Cornell kind of in the 80s and it's pretty popular. It's very good. You probably wouldn't find it in the store, you might find a local grower, but it's a very good strawberry. It grows well in our area and it'll be fun. I'll actually have 100 Honeoye Strawberry plants for sale.
Paul Szmal: Okay, and that's June 28th, Honeoye Strawberry Festival. When we get into the month of July, we get into County Fair season. The Ontario County Fair this year is scheduled for July 21st through the 25th and I understand you're bringing a bunch of kids.
Guest: Yeah, County Fair is one of my favorite times of year and one of the things we did last year and we're repeating this year is we got the New York State Fair Transportation Grant. So last year we brought about 240, 250 kids to fair for a fair experience and this year we've almost doubled it to 400 kids. And so we brought kids from all over the county, from Geneva, Marcus-Whitman, a BOCES program, Manchester-Shortsville, and a few more. But they're all coming to fair for a fair experience. We pay for the transportation and then they get ice cream, lunch, and some other activities while learning about fair and animals. The neat thing about the Ontario County Fair, like some of the other county fairs in the area, it's an agricultural-based fair.
Paul Szmal: Oh yeah, so it's an agricultural-based fair. All our 4-H kids have their animals, you know, dairy cows, beef cows, sheep, chickens, and it's very focused on that. We also have the carnival side where there's games and food and stuff and then some activities in the evening, you know, including the tractor pulls and what have you. But very agricultural-focused and focused on our agricultural roots. So the Ontario County 4-H group is going to be very well represented there.
Guest: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, we'll have a pretty big showing. Our county 4-H does a pretty good job. We also have the livestock auction, which is really, really big. So if you want to see that, that's on Saturday, I believe, or Friday, Friday. Right, right.
Paul Szmal: And more information on the Ontario County Fair coming up when we get into the month of July. Now, you've been working with some schools to get New York food items highlighted in cafeteria lunches and classrooms. Tell me about that.
Guest: Yeah, it's some pretty exciting work we've done in our office with, throughout the whole school year, this past school year, it's called the Rooted in Learning Grant or Farm to School. So each month, some of our schools have been highlighting harvest of the month. In June, it's been dairy, but then other months it's been spring greens or maple syrup. And each month we have that food item that's highlighted. Sometimes they'll bring in a farmer to hand it out. So in the maple month, the School of Midlakes, they had Everson's Maple come in and kind of hand out, you know, serves maple syrup and the kids all liked it. They had a lot of fun with them. And then also in the classroom, we have maple syrup lessons, per se, in that month. Each month is a little bit different, but it's a really great way to incorporate, you know, food, local food, and ag in the classroom lessons. And the hydroponic thing kind of crosses over into that too.
Paul Szmal: Yep. So with this, our schools are all getting kind of a mini grant, and one of the things they wanted to purchase was a hydroponic grow tower. So they had questions, how do I do this? So that's where the workshop comes from. But the schools will be getting a hydroponic grow tower. Some of them already have one, so they'll have two. And they're going to grow lettuce, microgreens, things they could serve in the cafeteria. And that's been really fun. All the kids seem to really get some buy-in. Some of the schools want to make like maybe like a salsa. So a classroom makes their own whatever salsa, and then they serve it in the cafeteria. So it's really fun. Kids get buy-in. They kind of learn the process. And yeah, it's kind of a learning environment, right? It's introducing the farm-to-table concept at an early age. So if you grow up with it, you're more likely to carry with that into adulthood when you're out doing your shopping, that sort of thing.
Guest: Yeah. We're hoping kids like kind of learn these lessons, how to grow things, and then as they go into adulthood, take it with them and say, oh yeah, I remember that.
Paul Szmal: One other thing we want to mention here is that the local foods guide that you've been working on, that is now available from our friends at Visit Finger Lakes.
Guest: Oh yeah. So this is a question we get a lot, is where do I find eggs? Where do I find yada yada? And so I'm trying to point people to the Visit Finger Lakes website. It's always going to stay up to date. Farmers can update their own profile. We also can answer questions in the office, obviously, call CCE Ontario, shoot me an email. But if you want to Google that, you can just Google fingerlakesegg.com and it'll bring you right to the website with 80 or so or more farmers that have all sorts of different things and their own websites. So if you're ever wondering about buying locally sourced ingredients for your dishes, this is the place to go.
Paul Szmal: Yep. Yep. Trying to find the most inclusive spot on the web. All right. So we've mentioned a couple of workshops. Again, the Chainsaw and Tractor Safety Workshop is June 27th and that Hydroponics Workshop is August 6th. So we need to tell people how they can register for those.
Guest: Yeah, you should go on cceontario.org and go to our events page. Those events will be there. You can register online. If you can't get to our website, you can try Facebook searching us. We have a Facebook and Instagram page, which is active, and those should take you back to our website. If you just simply Google Cooperative Extension Ontario County, we'll come right up.
Paul Szmal: All right. Jacob, as always, I appreciate having you on board.
Guest: Thank you, sir.
Paul Szmal: Thanks, Paul.
