Village@work

Ben Leffew, Preserve Manager
Laura Baird, Assistant Preserve Manager

We’re happy to report that on February 26 and 27 Shaker Village completed our prescribed burns for the year! Over 450 acres of native prairie was burned with the help of 32 trained burn crew members.

Now, you may be asking yourself – What!? They set their fields on fire? On purpose? Why would they do that?

Glad you asked. Here’s the scoop.

From 2009 to 2014 Shaker Village converted 1,000 acres of pastures and hay fields dominated by Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis) and tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) into wildlife habitat. We used a bottom-up approach to wildlife management…instead of focusing on managing a specific species, we managed the habitat to support as many species of plants and animals as possible.

This new habitat is thriving – supporting a greater diversity of wildlife that in turn, support a healthier ecosystem overall. It does take quite a bit of management, though!

The most effective management tool we have at our disposal is prescribed fire. According to our burn plan prescribed fire is used to, “control woody encroachment, create bare ground for ground dwelling wildlife, and create quality brood rearing habitat for songbirds.” Cody M. Rhoden, Small Game Biologist with Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife (close partners in this process) says, “We use prescribed fire because it does things to the system we know will benefit wildlife in a natural way, as opposed to mowing, masticating, chainsawing, etc. These tools will do a very similar job to the system, but with fire we are using something that has arguably always been a part of open herbaceous grasslands.”

Essentially, we burn off the old to make room for the new. Many plants have evolved with fire for millennia and respond with a flush of new growth after the fire. Wildlife takes advantage of this new growth in a variety of ways throughout both the nesting season and migration.

Aerial photos courtesy of Dan Stratton.

While the fields look black now, you can still see some unburnt patches. Areas with higher density of cool season grasses, game trails, and woody stems didn’t allow the fire to carry through as well as other areas with a higher density of combustible fuel. This is okay. Greater diversity in the types of vegetation left after the burn lead to a higher quality wildlife habitat.

Once July rolls around and the fields look overgrown as you hike through the Preserve, pay attention to how some fields look a little greener (burnt) vs. some fields that look a little more disheveled (unburnt) with dead material from previous growing season present.

If you would like to learn more about the Preserve at Shaker Village, please email us at [email protected]!

Maggie McAdams, Assistant Program Manager

Gender equality was, and is, a hallmark of Shaker belief.

In modern times, much of the Shakers’ progressive social structure may be taken for granted. Make no mistake though – the role of women in Shaker communities has historically set the society apart from the world around them in very meaningful ways.

Throughout the history of the Shaker movement, female leadership and influence has given shape to much of what we identify as “Shaker.” This can be traced from the time of Mother Ann Lee, who led a group of Shakers to first settle in America in 1774, and continues through every Shaker sister who has come after her. At Pleasant Hill, this legacy concluded in 1923 with the death of Sister Mary Settles.

Sister Mary Settles came to Pleasant Hill in 1859 with two small children. She claimed to be a widow and found refuge with the Shakers at Pleasant Hill, a place she called home for the final 64 years of her life. While Sister Mary took on many roles and became a leader in the community, her most significant contribution to the site was her role as an educator.

As the 19th century came to a close, the population of Pleasant Hill was dwindling.

The Shaker community at Pleasant Hill closed its covenant in 1910, with twelve Shakers remaining, including Sister Mary. As the Shaker community and buildings opened up to the world, Sister Mary became a local celebrity. People traveled from near and far to chat with her and perhaps snap a photo. Once the last Shaker Brother passed away in 1922, Sister Mary became the very last Pleasant Hill Shaker.

At a time when the community and religion was fading around her, it seems that Sister Mary did what she could to keep the story alive. She always welcomed questions on the Shaker faith, and was well-read and ready for a good conversation.

She is reported to have voted in the first election women were able to in 1920. In fact, she was quoted in a newspaper article, when asked if she voted, “Of course, isn’t the equality of women part of our religion?” Gender equality was indeed part of the Shaker faith, and every level of leadership had both a man and a woman at the helm.

Sister Mary was happy to give her opinion on matters of the day and was, by many reports, a great conversationalist. She was a staunch defender of Shakerism, and wanted people to understand the society as she did. Of course we remember them today, and study them actively, but as of 1922, Sister Mary was the very last Pleasant Hill Shaker, and more and more Shaker communities around her were being disbanded. The world was closing in, and it seems that Sister Mary decided to spend her time helping curious people of the world understand her way of life.

How should we remember Mary Settles today? As a mother, a leader, an educator, the “Last Shaker,” a celebrity, an advocate for women’s rights? All of the above?

At Shaker Village, we believe that studying the history of the Shakers, of Pleasant Hill and of people like Sister Mary gives us perspective on our own beliefs, roles and identities. Which begs the question: How will you be remembered?

J Dylan Kennedy, Farm Manager

During these last weeks of winter, feeding animals becomes our most regular, and important daily task on the farm. The cattle have exhausted all the grazing opportunities, which are slim in the first place, and even the free-ranging ducks have trouble finding unturned leaves and mulch hiding more bugs to eat. Very soon these resources will be plentiful, but for now we feed, and we put a lot of thought into how we feed.

Let’s talk about the ducks.

At Shaker Village we speak a lot about stacking functions, meaning we like to do tasks that accomplish multiple goals for us at once. We also don’t “fertilize” – at least as not in the traditional sense. Instead we manage soil fertility, and our animals are a big part of that. Any time we feed our animals anything that wasn’t grown on our farm, we’re bringing not only the grain, but the fertility that grew it. By thinking of it in this way we can take advantage of that fertility by planning where and how we feed.

In the image below you’ll see our ducks pecking at fermented grain that we have spread along a single garden row. This is something we like to do in the winter time. The snow on the ground today allows the effect the ducks have on the ground where they are fed to be better understood. The ducks usually defecate while they eat, so the area where they are fed receives a focused application of the nutrients which the ducks have ingested over the last several hours. Besides leaving droppings, they turn the top layer of mulch and soil over where they eat, maybe finding bugs, but also helping to aerate thereby promoting microbial life. We are also introducing new microbes into the soil through the fermented grain, or sour mash, that the ducks are eating. These microbes will likely not persist in the soil for long, but will fuel the soil food web, which we want to be as active as possible.

Of course, our ducks aren’t the only ducks that have this ability. The ducks, like all of our animals, are just doing what ducks do. It’s our job to understand as much as we can about what they do and when and how they do it, so we can take advantage of those actions instead of working against them.

The example of ducks can be applied to cattle and other livestock as well, and we are becoming even more intentional about how and where we feed our cattle. In the coming months we’ll be feeding Shaker Village animals mostly off of our own grounds again. Until then we’ll make the absolute most out of all the nutrition that comes from off-site, feed our animals with it, store it in our topsoil savings account, and withdraw it in the form of vegetables or more animal feed when we need it. It’s the circle of life (cue Lion King soundtrack.)

J Dylan Kennedy, Farm Manager

The latest news on the farm is pretty big for us. Our resident cattle herd has finally made the jump out of the limited pasture available to them for years, and into the areas on the north side of the Village where infrastructure work to accommodate them has been taking place since summer. It’s time to share some more details about why they’re moving and what they’ll be doing.

The cattle are now fully engaged as part of our Village@Work, just as you’ve seen with pigs and ducks in our garden for the last few years. The cows are now a regenerative landscape crew, whose job is to improve fertility and biodiversity on our property in the long term. They do that just by doing what they like to do, and it’s our job to put them in situations where what they like to do is beneficial to our land. That might not make that total sense yet, but hopefully some pictures of the herd and their new surroundings will help highlight the changes they are initiating here.

For the time being the cattle are mostly occupying a tree line that separates two different areas of grass, one a hay field turned pasture, and the other of native grasses. In late February Ben Leffew, our Preserve Manager, will be burning much of the grasses to promote their growth. We can also use cattle to do so. In the pictures you’ll notice our cows love to lay down in the thick dry grasses that were recently standing, it’s just like fresh straw to them. Other than laying the grasses down, they also deposit manure and step dry material into the soil with their hooves. The end result is similar to that of a burn, in that it makes space for the next season’s grasses to flourish, but is also different.

By bringing the grass stubble in contact with the soil, and adding nutrients and microbial stimulants through manure, the leftover grasses from 2018 will break down biologically, further feeding the topsoil and contributing to the overall health of the land. As the seasons progress and conditions change, so will the situations we put the cattle in, but each time, we will be putting them in a position to make a positive impact on the health of our farm.

Stay tuned for more farm updates, there’s always something happening around here!