Soule: Teach Farming Online? I Improvise!

The art of farming requires that the farmer be willing to learn skills like getting a reluctant calf to nurse on his mom; extracting a cow whose horns are stuck in a hay feeder (ever do a Chinese nail puzzle?); or fixing a broken machine when you can't get parts. The farmer has to learn to adapt and improvise. It's part know-how and part attitude.

For instance, at the start of the COVID-19 shutdown, the radiator hose broke on the farm's skid steer (a handy combination of tractor, bulldozer, and forklift). In the Before Times, we could have ordered a new hose from the factory. Not so in the COVID-19 Time. The factory was closed; its workers sent home. This was not a simple hose to be MacGuyvered out of household junk. It had to be able to withstand extreme heat and pressure and remain firmly in place. Husband Bruce's first three tries failed, but after watching a dozen YouTube videos, he patched together a successful heat-resistant hose, clamps, and all from parts typically used in cooling systems for engines that power machinery like ski lifts, oil pumps, and sometimes race cars.

While a lot of what a farmer does requires on-the-job learning, some of it can be taught, and the New Hampshire Technical Institute (NHTI - Concord's Community College) is doing just that. NHTI offers a Sustainable Agriculture degree and certificate program to prepare students for careers in farming, and they hired me to teach the practicum course (Spring2020 CRN: 26495 AGRI112C Section: 1).

When I taught it in 2018, students clipped cattle, fed piglets, shoveled manure, weaned calves, and hunted for eggs. They also learned about the sometimes-harsh economic realities of farming and ways of surmounting them. The key was to get up-close and personal with the animals while learning the business of farm management.

In March 2020, the day before the current class met, I was told it had to be taught online because of the COVID-19 threat. What a blow! I had to scramble to adapt my hands-on course into an oxymoron – a distance-learning practicum.

Certified as a special-ed teacher and high school principal (in another life), I know the value of lesson plans....

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Carole Soule is co-owner of Miles Smith Farm, where she raises and sells pastured pork, lamb, eggs, and grass-fed beef. She can be reached at cas@milessmithfarm.com.