Steven began his education through an internship at Boggy Creek Farm in 2008, the oldest urban organic farm
in the country. Training under Larry Butler and Carol Ann Sayle, Steven went on to become the Central Texas
Director for Texas Organic Farming and Gardening Association and to start Genesis Gardens, a farming and
gardening program at the Austin-based non-profit, Mobile Loaves & Fishes. During his six years running
Genesis Gardens, Steven led thousands of volunteers and a core team of homeless and formerly homeless
farmers to develop a 4-acre organic farm and animal husbandry program at the Community First! Village in
East Austin.
Steven sits on the steering committee for the Sustainable Agriculture program at the Elgin campus of the Austin
Community College. He was part of the successful effort lobbying on behalf of the Cottage Food Bill with
Judith McGeary of the Food and Ranch Freedom Alliance. He received his Permaculture Design Certificate
with Geoff Lawton in 2014 and has been a practitioner of permaculture principles in his approach ever since.
He is a teacher and farmer, passionate about the unique power of food to bring communities together.
Farm Intern Week 10 Aug. 8, 2018
Mesquite Spraying
This week on the stiles farm, we started to spray the mesquite brush that were small or not being used a shade trees for cows. AnMarie started in the back 40 acres of the farm that will be used as a wildlife area, while Jimmy and I started in Sanchez, first pasture, and the herzer, where a large part of the area has mesquite. We are spraying the mesquites because the native grasses and plants we want growing won’t have to compete with them for water and space.
Taylor Burrell-Farm Intern
Farm Intern week 9 August 2, 2018
Monday evening on the Stiles Farm, I helped AnMarie set out dove traps. We waited for about an hour before we went and checked them, but sadly, we didn’t have any luck trapping anything.
Tuesday afternoon, Ryan and I went to check on the bull that we separated from the herd. When we went to fill up his water tub, we noticed an opossum had fallen in and couldn’t get out. Ryan, who’s much braver than I, reached in and grabbed the opossum out of the water to ensure he didn’t drown.
Wednesday morning, Ryan, Jimmy, and I moved some of the heifers from the headquarters’ herd into the northwestern pasture. We moved them because they needed to be introduced to a bull, while the one’s we left at headquarters either had a calf or they were close to parturition. Taylor Burrell
Wild Life Intern July 31st
This week at the Stiles Farm, I continued working on my vegetation surveys. The area that I am currently surveying was part of a prairie grass replanting effort over a decade ago and contains many native prairie grasses such as eastern gamagrass, indiangrass, and sideoats grama. The restoration of the native grassland habitat in this area likely contributed to the northern bobwhite sighting I had last week at one of my survey points. Due to a variety of factors including habitat loss, northern bobwhites have been absent from this area for years. This week I cleared an area adjacent to the survey point where I heard the bobwhite calling and set up a bait station with a game camera. From the data collected by the camera, we hope to get a better idea of the population density of northern bobwhites in this area.
AnMarie Ulery
Williamson County Seed Cotton Meeting – Aug 3rd
The Williamson County AgriLife Extension Office will be hosting a Seed Cotton Program coming up next Friday, August the 3rd at the Taylor Public Library. The program will start at noon with registration before hand at 11:30 am. We are asking that everyone call the Extension Office to pre-register for meal purposes. Dr. Joe Outlaw, one of the best in the business, will be here speaking on the topic, as well as an update from Craig Engelmann the County FSA Director. Please view the program flyer for more information.
Farm Intern Taylor Burrell
This week on the Stiles Farm, I kept a close eye on the newest calf born at headquarters. She was always alone when I would find her and I hadn’t seen her suckle on her mom. Thursday evening, I went out to check on her and she was up walking, playing with the other calves, and suckling!
The main herd in the southside was moved to Rainy so they would hopefully clean up the grasses. They have been working pretty heavily on the part of the field closest to the water source during the heat of the day, but in the late evenings and early mornings been moving closer to the main gates.
Thursday morning, Ryan, Jimmy and I separated the cows in the northwestern herd and the four corners herd into who was staying and who was being sold. Ryan and I took them to Cameron to drop them off at the Milam County Livestock Auction for sale on Friday afternoon.
Friday morning, with the help of Dr. Tomecek and Shiner, we tried to move one of the bulls from the southside herd into the working pens. While we didn’t get him where we wanted him, he was still moved out of the herd, which was part of our goal. We used the single cab farm truck to slowly, but surely, move the last bull off of our main hay field and back with the herd.
Wild Life Intern An’Marie Ulery -Dove trapping
This week at the Stiles Farm, we began dove trapping and banding at the locations that we prepared last week. I started the week off by building dove traps using 1-by-2-inch welded wire and hog rings. Then, I spent some time going through the photos on the game cameras to see what time of day that the doves are most active at our feed stations. After concluding that the doves are most active at the feed stations during the early morning and evening, we set out to begin trapping.
On our second night of trapping, we caught this young mourning dove. We were able to determine this bird to be a young-of-the-year by the presence buffy-tipped covert feathers. We also recorded which primary feather had most recently molted to determine a more precise age since hatching. After recording all of this data, and equipping each dove we catch with a leg band, we will submit this data to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to use in conjunction with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to help in mourning dove management nationwide.
Wild Life Intern An Marie Ulery
This week at the Stiles Farm started out with a much-needed rainy day. Moist conditions, like the ones we experienced earlier this week, are perfect for finding amphibians! Animal Science intern Taylor Burrell and I found this Gulf Coast toad and Western narrow-mouthed toad under a board in the horse pen.
Throughout the rest of the week I spent time monitoring dove stations via game camera and baiting them with milo in order to prepare for our upcoming dove trapping and banding efforts. In addition to seeing several doves on our dove station cameras, we also captured some black-tailed jackrabbits and eastern cottontails taking advantage of the germinating milo.
Farm Intern Taylor Burrell
This week on the Stiles Farm, I helped AnMarie, the wildlife intern, put up a game camera in the southside hay barn. We put one in there so that she may get some footage of the barn owls that live in it. After putting the camera up, we explored the barn further and found owl pellets that contained various animal skulls, such as birds and rats. We also discovered a raccoon and an opossum skull among the pellets.
Tuesday, Ryan and I scouted the Bitner cotton and the East Bitner and Fletcher sesame fields. I learned that cotton has white blooms that turn pink when they are pollenated. Once they are pollenated, the flower falls off and the cotton boll forms from where the flower was. The sesame plant has a capsule that it keeps its seeds in, and in my opinion looks like a very small jalapeño.
On Thursday, Jimmy and I moved six bales from the southside hay area to the headquarters, as we were out of hay for the heifers. I gained more confidence using the manual transmission long bed Dodge by using it to move hay.
As a part of my duties, I checked the cows every morning, including Monday morning when it started to rain!
Farm Intern – Taylor Burrell Week 6
This week, Jimmy and I checked each herd every morning to look for new calves and to make sure they were where they were supposed to be. We had to move the southside herd into a new section because they had grazed down the forage that was available. While we moved the herd, I checked to make sure that their body conditions were improving. Along with the southside herd, we moved and refilled the molasses tank and mineral tubs to help supplement their forage diet. When checking on the headquarters herd, we found two new calves!!
Taylor Burrell-Intern