Day 11 began with an early wake up in Radcliffe before we took off for Coon Rapids. In Coon Rapids, we began with a stewardship day at the Whiterock Conservatory. During this session, we helped to remove invasive plants that the grazing goats did not eat. The two plants we dug up were Dame’s Rocket and thistles. These plants had been brought over from Europe, and they have taken over ecosystems in Iowa. The goats eat some of these plants, but we had to try to remove them for good. One of the most interesting things was that a donkey was the guard animal of the herd, and if you got to close to the goats the donkey would push you away from the goats. After a lot of hard work in the field, we went back to the cottage we were staying at for a much-needed break and lunch.

After lunch, we went to Liz Garst house to talk about everything farming. We got some background on her and Whiterock Conservancy as a whole. The biggest takeaway from the talk with Liz was natural resource protection and conservation. The scariest thing she said was that half the topsoil has been eroded since the land was the first farmed. To prevent any more Liz was a huge fan of cover crops and pushed people around her to do the same. Liz underscored many points made by the Iowa Environmental Council and Andy and Eric at the Grinnell Heritage Farm.