Green Vistas Abound at Stratford Ecological Center

It is a vista of green, green, green at Stratford Ecological Center on Liberty Road. The heavily pruned apple trees are in full leaf. The wild hyacinths are reaching their peak this weekend, and the tree canopy is rapidly closing and shading the ground below. In field 1 the fall-planted spelt is twelve inches tall. There are no bare spots of spring-planted Triticale in field 2 after Farmer Jeff adjusted the seeder following less than perfect coverage in field 6. The cattle, sheep, and llamas have eaten their way through a quarter of the grass in the North Pasture and moved on to taller grass. Confirmation that we are in the flush of spring happened as I led homeschoolers for a close encounter with the animals and stepped in a large soft cow pat!

A new Storybook Trail showcasing the book “Plants Can’t Sit Still” by Rebecca Hirsch runs along the Creek Trail from the Education Building to the Creek. It is fun to read the short lines on each page and carry out suggested activities like discovering a blooming pink geranium, blue phlox or a May Apple’s hidden white flower.

Several women signed up for the Regenerative Agriculture Farm Series for Adults that started last month and continues every third Saturday through October. They all have some experience with gardening and farming and are taking advantage of this first-hand experience on a truly working farm to fully understand this way of life. There is still room for more participants either on a monthly basis or for the whole series.

We no longer combine our spelt and need to buy in straw for bedding in the barn. The goats and kids continue to occupy a couple pens, and the cattle and sheep return when they require relief from the weather. Farmer Jeff found a source of organic hay bales of inferior quality, due to absorbing moisture when on the bottom of the stack. The hay can be purchased for the same price as straw and we can use it for bedding, with the added advantage that the animals will pick out the edible segments.

This spring the willow trees beside the pond are tall enough that Columbus Zoo employees could begin to harvest the branches for browse for their moose. There is more bordering Rt. 23 in fields 8 & 9. The Zoo pays us to have access to this feed source and we are grateful to work in partnership with them.

The AmeriCorps team of young volunteers ended their time with us at the end of April. It was a successful venture and next year another team will donate all their time to us and the Methodist Theological School of Ohio. They planted many of the 1,200 young trees, donated by Green Columbus for Earth week, in areas where they had removed invasive species or other volunteers had worked hard to clear.

The trees included shell and shagbark hickory, sumac, which was placed under the powerlines on the north side, and sycamore and river birch in the area below the cemetery and beside the stream. Even after an additional thirty Earth Day volunteers, many of them new to Stratford, planted trees on Earth Day, there are still 600 to plant. The persimmons, American plum and hazelnut will be potted up and planted in the fall.

One hundred and forty-four solar panels were installed in February 2018 on the barn and machine shed roofs. They came on-line in April 2018 and continue to supply most of our electricity needs. Whenever we have a surplus, we sell it to AEP, and when we cannot meet our need we use our credit to buy from them. It is gratifying to share that we have about broken even in this past year. At this rate, if numerous donors had not paid for the installation, we would have covered our outlay in ten years.

More important than our economic savings is that since coming on-line, we have saved 314,331 lbs. of carbon dioxide from being emitted into the air, the equivalent of planting 2,375 trees. We also installed a charging point for electric cars, at no cost except for a suggested donation. There is an engaging YouTube video on our website, created in the summer of 2020, where Farmer Jeff shares the various ways in which we use solar power and explains our geothermal heating and cooling system.

With the end of the school year fast approaching our Farm School will cease and re-open in the fall. April Hoy, our Education Director, and two spring Education Interns are in high gear preparing for farm camp. Four more interns will join them on May 24 to ensure we will be ready for the Junior Councilors’ three days of training beginning June 1. Nine weeks of farm camp will begin on June 7 involving three age groups from 3-12 years. Health and safety guidelines will be followed, and we are excited we can once again host this camp.

With a busy camp schedule Stratford will be open to the general public by registration on Saturdays only from June through August. We hope your plans for the summer include fun outside activities, even camping in your own backyard!

Pauline Scott is a farm and nature guide at Stratford Ecological Center, 3083 Liberty Road, Delaware. She can be reached at 740 363 2548 or by email at info@stratfordecologicalcenter.org Stratford’s website is www.StratfordEcologicalCenter.org