White-Tailed Deer
By Dawn Lawless

We seem to have a love-hate relationship with Pennsylvania's state mammal, the white-tailed deer. Yes, Bambi is quite cute, but she can grow up to be an eating machine. Deer are particularly a problem where their habitat has been reduced. Bessie does her best to keep them from nibbling on the tender shoot of young plants at Maysie's Farm. Deer in fact eat a large variety of herbaceous and woody plants. Later in the year, they will also eat fruit and acorns.

The white-tailed deer prefer a brush stage forest for both hiding and food. They have a matriarchal social organization. Family ties are much stronger than the temporary associations we sometimes see with larger herds in feeding or wintering areas.

Antlers begin to grow on the male deer by this time of the year. The antlers are covered with velvet, which contains blood vessels that supply nutrients to the growing antlers. By August or September, when the antler growth subsides, the velvet is rubbed off by the buck. Evidence of this can be found on saplings, shrubs, or rocks. The deer can mate from September into late January, with mid-November being the peak part of the season. A pregnant doe will leave her family group in late May to have her fawn on her own.

Melanistic and albino deer occur, but they are rare. Partial albinos occur more frequently. I've seen one by my house (the hunters told me they have all agreed not to shoot it) and we have one that's been spotted on the farm. Keep your eye out for it!

Sustainable Agriculture Research Awards
By Louise Smith

Through our Outreach Programs, Maysie's Farm Conservation Center (MFCC) awarded two $100 U.S. Savings Bonds and Certificates of Excellence in Sustainable Agriculture Research to students competing in the Delaware Valley Science Fair on April 10th. The Delaware Valley Science Fair is an annual exhibit and competition for 6th through 12th grade students from Southeast Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey and Northern Delaware who have conducted research in fourteen different scientific categories. Sam Cantrell, Executive Director of MFCC, judged the research projects and carefully considered many relevant projects, primarily in the botany and environmental sciences categories.

The first award, funded by an anonymous CSA member, was given to Ryan Hart, a ninth grader at Lacey Township High School in Lanoka Harbor, N.J. Ryan's project, "Can the Nitrogen Excreted by Fish in a Closed Environment Be Converted to Nitrates and Used as a Fertilizer Source for Plant Growth?" demonstrated an example of ecological thinking: plants purify water for fish, fish provide nutrients for plants, and two types of food production can flourish without synthetic fertilizers. His display, his video and his spoken comments all demonstrated a very good understanding of the subject matter.

The second award, funded through our PA DEP Growing Greener Grant, was given to Madhuri Saligrama, a tenth grader at the Charter School of Wilmington. Her project, "The Effects of Agricultural Runoff on Aquatic Environments," was a clear, straightforward demonstration of the difference in nonpoint source pollution between chemical and organic agriculture. Her recommendation for utilizing cover crops reflected an additional practice of organic agriculture that prevents nonpoint source pollution. Sam encouraged her to continue her fine work in this field.

Encouraging students and applauding them for their interest and research in sustainable agriculture is just one of the ways we at Maysie's Farm Conservation Center accomplish our mission of increasing public understanding of the importance of conservation and ecological thinking. To find out more about the Delaware Valley Science Fairs, check their website: www.DVSF.org.

Organic Lunches Five Days a Week
By Dave Newton, Education Coordinator

Imagine sitting down to a delicious lunch of organic foods every day — foods like vegetable soup with hot fresh-baked rolls, a hardy vegetable sandwich, pasta with pesto sauce and a fresh garden salad, and an organic Chinese or Mexican or Greek entrée.

Sounds great, doesn't it? And that's just what the students and staff at Kimberton Waldorf School get to eat each school day. Up to 90% of all the food is certified organic including vegetables and fruits, grains and pasta, and juices. And all meals are prepared from scratch, no preprocessed foods being used.

All of this food preparation is overseen by Margaret Dancey, who's worked at the school for 22 years and has supervised the kitchen staff for the past six. Margaret is assisted by 40 parents over the course of the school year plus a half-dozen paid employees who scrub the pots and pans and wash the dishes.

Kimberton Waldorf School has about 380 students in grades K-12. About 250 eat the lunch meal prepared by Margaret and her staff each day, the younger children eating in their classrooms and the older students eating in the gymnasium. Students help select the menu for each week's meals.

All meals are strictly vegetarian, no meat or poultry being served, although milk, cheese, and eggs are. All lunch meals include hot foods that are wholesome and nutritionally balanced. The students enjoy eating all of the foods, including ones they might not otherwise try.

All organic foods are purchased from Kimberton Whole Foods except on those rare occasions when Maysie's Farm has substantial produce either before or after the CSA season. Margaret is thrilled to buy just-harvested produce from a local farm and Sam is happy to deliver highest quality food to his alma mater.

"This is the wave of the future," says Margaret of the organic foods used and the meals prepared. "There's a lot of love put into preparing the food here." She hopes that the school will eventually grow its own produce on some of the adjacent farmland. She appreciates the emphasis the school's curriculum places on growing plants, and she's excited about the new facility for gardening that is under construction at this time, but she'd also like to see more focus on foods and food preparation in the curriculum.

Margaret will be leaving the school in a few weeks when she and her family move to another state, but she's confident that the current organic food menus will continue well into the future at Kimberton Waldorf School.

But what about the rest of those schools out there?