Winds of Slide Ranch: Turkeys in the Pasture (not eaten yet!)

Winds of Slide Ranch: Turkeys in the Pasture (not eaten yet!)

Slide Ranch Ducks and their Solar Fountain

Slide Ranch teachers Jake Snake and Taylor Tidepool used their independent project week to restore the duck pen and outdoor foraging area.  In the process, Jake designed and built a solar-powered fountain that flows into an old cast-iron bath tub.  When kids put their hands over the PV panel, they can see that the flow of water slows to a trickle (assuming the sun is shining!).  It has been a great new experiential learning area both for the animal and plant part and the solar energy part.  The solar project was funded by a grant from the SD Bechtel Jr. Foundation.  In the top photo, Jake, in the cap, presents his project to other teachers and staff on the last day of summer camp.  In the bottom photo, city kids experience the wonder of water.

New Mural for the Garden at Slide Ranch

We had the great fortune of having Dottie Arnold join our teachers in residence this summer.  She is a talented young painter.  As part of her internship, she (and the other teachers) takes a week to do an independent project.  Hers was the creation of a delightful mural that illustrates how can be developed for best growing food.  It features worms, a layered compost pile, water and children working.  Also featured are gophers (we hope the owls and bobcats find them), bees, various vegetables and the stages from seed to young plant.  Really charming.  It hangs on the back of the main composting area in the garden.

Turkeys in the Pasture (not eaten yet!)

Well, there has been a bobcat lurking in the bushes above the pasture eyeing our holiday birds, but so far the birds are fine.  Jake, one of our teachers in residence, has dutifully rotated their electric fence pen every few weeks so they get the most out of the grasses and bugs in the pasture and the soil gets the most out of the turkey droppings.  Symbiotic.  They are put back in their little quansit hut at night.  Now the teachers are on break, so we will have to be extra vigillant to keep the predators at bay.