Longview Alive! | 20th Edition
Finding Field Agents & Yellow Jackets
Happy special edition No. 20 of Longview Alive! I hope you enjoy the fall foliage and conservation nerdiness. Read to the end to get a glimpse of our former co-host Aaron D. Brown’s encounter with the Yellow Jackets.
The green stuff of summer makes way for the dried stuff of fall and suddenly I am the kind of person who has seed pods, acorn nuts, leaves, and deadheaded flowers in my pockets.
State of the Farm Update
Below is Ricky Eller’s entry for October 2024 in his conservation journal, State of the Farm. Below that is my op-ed about the field agent that
makes mention of, entitled Finding Mike (after Lili’s favorite movie, Finding Dory).October 2024
In October we submitted our applications for the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQUIP). Both programs work on 5-year funding cycles, with CSP requiring a forest plan to be established before subsequent practices are applied for. With luck, we’ll know whether we’ve been approved for our first round of funding in early 2025. We plan to leverage these programs together to support conservation efforts, including a Forestry plan for the 4.5 acres of woodland, removal and management of invasive species, establishing pollinator and wildlife habitats in the field, and restoring/planting windbreaks on the property.
Mike Zuk from the USDA field office returned for further measuring and assessment of the property. This assessment will inform the specific conservation practices that will be included in our application.
State of the Farm
Finding Mike
Last year we were excited to meet USDA Field Agent, Mike Zuk, this year we cannot find him anywhere. That’s because like so many other government employees, Mike is no longer a field agent with the USDA …because he’s no longer employed by our tax dollars …because our tax dollars aren’t being used to help small farms like ours secure funding to protect and restore our natural lands…because there is no funding available for environmental conservation for local farms like ours. Why? Because the men in charge said so.
What was a very real and exciting prospect for our farm’s sustainability efforts to get a big jolt forward is now a quiet hope holding out for the next few years.
More than the funding itself is the vast amount of knowledge and enthusiasm that Mike had about the programs that we were excited to leverage, with or without federal subsidies. I intended to reach out to Mike directly, but our team has found him to be MIA from his work email and online. If I know anything from growing up in rural Lancaster County, it’s that it’s a small world; someone you know probably knows Mike or someone who knows Mike.
Help us in finding Mike. If you see him, tell him we still have a job to do at Longview Farm.
Stay Alive & Get Outside
Speaking of finding people, you can find
making a name for himself on Tiktok. It all started with a video of Aaron IDing yellow jackets in our woods (after a few stings), then he was stung all over again Yellow Jackets gifs in the comments. 4k views later, and the Yellow Jacket’s video was viral. Check out Aaron’s Trending Tiktok and follow him at getoutsidewithaaron.Thanks for reading VISIT LONGVIEW FARM and Longview Alive! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Longview Alive! is written for by Longview Farm for publication on visitlongviewfarm.com
This week’s LA! was written by Jessi Stead