Jackson County Family Farmfest

The Jackson County Family Farmfest is an activity of the Jackson County Agriculture Council. Please see the announcement below.

The face and business of farming and agribusiness have changed, as have the challenges of lifestyle and business for our families in general. It has become an enormous task with little personnel and volunteers, and increasingly smaller audiences.

The members and board of the County Agriculture Council have made the difficult but necessary decision to dissolve the organization. The Council has been a continuous sponsor of the Jackson County Family Farmfest since its inception more than 30 years ago as a fun way to help people understand where their food comes from, how it is handled to ensure quality and safety, and the importance of agriculture to Jackson County.

We are extremely proud of the educational impact of the organization programming and of the Family Farmfest on literally thousands of visitors and local citizens. All legal and financial protocols will be followed, and the social media presence will be discontinued in the near future.

We urge those with an interest in their food and farming to continue to support organizations and activities such as the Jackson Area Career Center and Jackson College Agricultural programs, Future Farmers of American (FFA), as well as Jackson County Farm Bureau and MSU Extension.

TIKA AND MISSY INVITE YOU TO VISIT DURING OPEN BARN: Tika and Missy are two blind mares at the rescue. We have 7 blind horses here. Since Raven's passing, Tika also has the distinction of being the oldest horse at the farm. Our volunteer Cadence got this great picture that demonstrates what intentive listeners they are and how much they love "talking" with whomever comes to visit.
This Sunday's Open Barn (t to 4pm) may see an occasional shower so we are going to hold off on some of the shelter and fence painting we need to do. But there are plenty of other jobs we could use help with including:
1)String trimming around any fence row or in any pen. The horses have removed the grass and only noxious weeds remain along the fence rows and pens. Help is always needed trying to get the noxious weeds under control.
2)Clean out the horse trailer. Blackjack, a old gelding with a founder history is getting picked up this week and we could use help cleaning out the trailer, which has been used to move many horses around and go to vet visits lately, and refilling the hay bag so the new guy can munch happily on his trip home from the GR area.
3)Bathing and grooming Rydeabout. This older standie gelding has been battling weight loss and we are adding supplements, doing bloodwork every month, and he is finishing a powerpack this week. He would love a sponsor to help with his blood builders, mashes and supplements, and occasional antiobitics, but mostly this week he would love to get some of the caked on crud on his underbelly bathed off and his shed row cleaned. We are working with his vet to try to improve his condition before winter, and he would be grateful for extra attention. He's not an attention seeker, and is a skinny guy in his own shedrow since he needs extra mash and supplements. So, visitors often pass him by. He is one of our hardest keepers and we hope maybe a little extra attention will help in our efforts to build him up. We don't have a definitive diagnosis on what's going on, and he is not experiencing any organ failure, but his red and white blood cells are not within normal ranges and to date we have not found the right supplement and antibiotic combination.
4) Picking up wood and other debris from pens. With the pandemic hitting, we didn't get a good spring cleaning day this year, and we can always use help cleaning broken fence pieces, old feeders and other debris out of pens.
5)Last, but not least, spend some time loving on the horses, especially Missy, Tika, Funny Boy (Humor in Action), Dottie, Pete, Red Caviar, and Castaway, our beautiful blinds, who are always so grateful to be gently spoken to and groomed.
Hope to see you Sunday if the rains and storms hold off (as so far, they are predicted to do.) 1 to 4pm, 2932 Eaton Rapids Rd., Albion, MI 49224
Thanks for supporting your local horse rescues!

AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:

Members of the Jackson County Agriculture Council met earlier this year, and took two actions. The first was to continue the 501(c)3 organization. The first decision was easy, the second was not. A decision was made to put the Jackson County Family Farmfest on hiatus for 2019.

Putting on this event for more than 33 years has been a great group of volunteers, with fiduciary and administrative support from the Jackson County MSU Extension office. It literally takes up to nine months of planning, preparation and production for the Ag Council, MSUE, and participating sites.

As with many other non-profit community organizations, the Ag Council has seen dwindling membership numbers for the past several years. We simply no longer have the manpower to provide Farmfest visitors with the educational, fun and totally FREE experience that has been our tradition. Therefore, the hiatus in 2019. This is also not uncommon this year, with other “traditional” events taking a year off to reevaluate.

Members of the Jackson County Agriculture Council will continue to explore options for other ways to continue our Mission, which is “to educate ourselves and others on the importance of agriculture to Jackson County.”

A huge "THANK YOU" to everyone who attended the 2018 Family Farmfest. We were thrilled with the number of youngsters who got to see up close and personal what farming and agriculture are about.

We cannot say enough about the endless hours and dollars spent by our three host sites to prepare for your visit. Farmers and other agribusiness are educators and environmentalists at heart, and we thank them all for sharing that with the public.

We will be posting some photos here throughout the day and encourage our host sites to share also.

Mootilla arriving in style at Choate's Belly Acres earlier today.

Big thanks to Riddermark Farms for being a host site in this year’s Farmfest.

Paint a rock an plant it someplace as part of Farmfest happening RIGHT NOW at the Jackson Area Career Center.

A therapeutic riding demo happening TODAY as part of Farmfest at Riddermark farms.

Thank you to Jackson Area Career Center (6800 Browns Lake Rd. Jackson) for being a host on this year’s Farmfest. Check them out til 5 pm today!!

More shots from today's activity at Farmfest.