On the Pasture
The Western Kentucky University Agriculture Farm in Bowling Green, Kentucky, provides for WKU’s campus, from farming vegetables, watering flowers, taking care of cows and goats, milking cows and more. Horticulture Technician Jon Parker, Livestock Technician Tesla Trammell and Dairy Manager Shelby Felder are examples of those who work on this farm.
Parker waters the geranium annual flowers on Friday, Feb. 9, 2024, at the WKU Agriculture & Research Education Center in Bowling Green, Ky. Parker has been the horticulture technician at the WKU agriculture farm for three weeks. “In my unit, the horticulture unit, a huge emphasis is on the farm-to-campus program,” Parker said. “So, we’re growing out vegetables that will be harvested on-site, then delivered through Aramark into the eateries on campus.”
Parker holds a vegetable plant on Friday, Feb. 9, 2024, at the WKU Agriculture & Research Education Center in Bowling Green, Ky. Parker graduated from WKU with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture in 2015. “When I was a student, of course, I loved the textbook information that I learned, but actually getting your hands in the soil, actually working it,” Parker said. “You can read about it all day, but once you actually put your hands in the ground, and start working with these plants, you learn a lot.”
Parker tills the vegetable production area on Friday, Feb. 9, 2024, at the WKU Agriculture & Research Education Center in Bowling Green, Ky. Parker said that the horticulture area of the farm had not been tended to since September or October 2023 until he took over as horticulture technician three weeks ago.
A cow looks through the feeding area on Friday, Feb. 9, 2024, at the WKU Agriculture & Research Education Center in Bowling Green, Ky. Trammell described cows as “very large dogs.” “If they know who you are, they can be very loving, and if they don’t know who you are, they can be very curious,” Trammell said. “They all have different personalities, just like dogs.”
Felder cleans the teat of a cow on Friday, Feb. 9, 2024, at the WKU Agriculture & Research Education Center in Bowling Green, Ky. Felder said what keeps her coming back to the farm are the cows. “There’s good days and there’s bad days, and there’s times that it’s hard and frustrating, but there’s also a lot of really good beneficial times,” Felder said. “The cows are part of all of that, and so you never know what each day is gonna bring.”
Trammell pets a goat as she holds a tub of animal crackers on Friday, Feb. 9, 2024, at the WKU Agriculture & Research Education Center in Bowling Green, Ky. Trammell has been the livestock technician at the WKU agriculture farm for over a year, but she has been working at the farm for three years. She says her favorite thing about the farm is getting to work with the animals, while her least favorite thing is the “late-night phone calls that animals are out of their fields and wandering around the farm.”