Home again, after a fantastic trip to the Midwest. I’m glad to be home, so I can rest after such a busy educational week. This class has defiantly opened my eyes to how diverse agriculture can be. I knew that this trip would be educational, but I did not expect to have so much fun learning along the way. I learned something new at every stop, even if I was familiar with the subject. I think that the best part of the trip was the diversity in stops throughout the trip. I mean, I was really interested in visiting the Universities, yet I thought the sheep dairy was a nice twist form other stops. I had no idea sheep milk was such a popular commodity. Tasting the sheep cheese was interesting, I can say at the least, but I think I’ll stick with cheese made from cow milk. Something I learned on the trip, no surprise here!
My favorite stop by far was Triumph Foods. I’m not a pig person to start with, but to see the entire harvesting process was incredible. One of the students on the trip said it perfectly that we saw the whole process from “barn to box”. I am an Ag student and I know why we harvest animals in order to feed the world, but I will admit that seeing the live hogs one second and then turn around and see the same hogs hanging was slightly sad. I’m still glad we took an in depth tour because the processing plant was so large scaled that there would be no other way to really understand all the work that goes into just one hog. No waste either! Very impressive.
In conclusion, this class/trip was well worth me time and education. I would recommend any student to take this class if it offered in the future. The hands on experience can not be replaced and all the things we saw will forever be imbedded in our brains. A HUGE thank you goes out to Matt for putting this whole class together. He did a great job of keeping all the stops diverse. With the variety of majors that attended the trip, there was something for everyone. Hopefully this class will continue in the future and I think that visiting the South would be fun and even going to the North would be great. I truly believe that the Midwest has so much to offer that the class could go back to the Midwest and tour similar areas and not go to any of the same places.
I hope those reading my blogs enjoyed what I’ve had to say. I obviously had a great time on this trip. Fall term starts next week and I am sad to see summer go, but I think this trip was a nice buffer to get back into the swing of things before classes start. Thanks again for following! Good luck to my fellow classmates in their fall classes. Go Beavs!
That’s all folks!
