Week 4 at MSU

My time here at Michigan State University is officially halfway done. I can't believe it! I feel like I just got here. Before I know it, I'll be on my way back to Brigham Young University for my final year of college. Talk about crazy! Week 4 was a good one! Jeanette and I got to do quite a few different things.

Monday

Monday was another day in The Gallery. Instead of being in the stations, Jeanette and I worked with the student supervisors, cashiers, and those hosting. We learned how to work their registers, what items to restock, and what responsibilities the student supervisors have. One of the student supervisors that I worked with is a senior dietetics student just like me! We had fun talking about our programs and upcoming internship applications. It was fun to talk to someone with all of the same concerns that I have about the next year of school.

Tuesday

Tuesday Jeanette and I got to see a lot of different things. We spent a couple hours in the morning in The Gallery doing what we did the day before. It was fun to meet some different student supervisors and learn some new things about the dining hall. After that, a woman named Carla picked us up and took us to the MSU recycling center and surplus store.

We toured the facility, which was a lot bigger than I expected! MSU does so much to be sustainable and help the environment. It never ceases to impress me. 

Some of the giant collection areas before the recyclables get compacted and sold. 

It was neat to see some machinery I had never seen before and get a glimpse of the volume of items that go through the facility. We also saw the surplus store, where items are resold to the university and the public. 

After touring the recycling center, Jeanette and I went to one of the dining halls on campus to see Betty, the health inspector, in action. She's employed through the university and has been working here for a few decades. She pretty much knows everyone and they were all so excited to see her when she came for the health inspection. Not quite the reaction I was expecting :) It was nice to be on the other side of a health inspection and see all the things she was looking for. One interesting thing about that dining hall was they are tray-less. I think it's a very good idea. It reduces food waste because customers can only carry so many things at once, and it's less time and work for the dishroom, which also saves money. 

Wednesday

MSU hosts a conference called Grandparents University every year. Grandparents, many of whom are alumni of MSU, bring their grandkids and attend classes and activities while living and eating on campus for a few days. Jeanette and I went to Holmes Hall where they were staying for one of the conference days. During lunch we mostly just observed how the dining hall accommodates such a high volume of participates in only a couple hours. We came back during the dinner hours and helped out. I was in charge of the softserve machine. It really was the perfect job for me. It combined a few of my favorite things: ice cream, talking to strangers, and children. It was seriously so much fun for me. I got pretty good at making a good looking ice cream cone if I do say so myself :) The kids were so nice and fun to talk to when they came up, and their grandparents were the sweetest! I really enjoyed working this particular conference.

Jeanette gives this conference 2 thumbs up!

Ready to serve some ice cream

The only down side to this conference was the lack of air conditioning. Jeanette and I thought we might die for little bit. We weren't being dramatic at all of course :)

Thursday

At the Student Organic Farm

Thursday was a really fun day! Jeanette and I spent all day at the Student Organic Farm. I was expecting a small, garden. Boy was I wrong! The farm was a lot bigger than I expected. They had tons of plants, some of which I had never heard of! They also had pigs and chickens. Thursday is the farm's big harvest day, so we started off the morning by picking peas. 

Just hanging out in the pea plants

Jeanette picking some peas

This made me want to grow my own peas

Hand painted map of the Student Organic Farm

 I took a lot of pictures this day, so be prepared to see pretty much everything we did :) After picking all of the peas, we washed some carrots that had been harvested and then bagged some garlic scapes for customers. The way it works is people can donate money to the farm at the beginning of the year and then receive boxes of produce each week from the farm. They had 71 different customers to package produce for!

Cute little round carrots being washed.

Student workers in action

 Earlier in the week, the students had weaned the piglets, but the piglets had escaped and gotten back into the pen that their mothers were in. That called for a re-weaning while we were there. Basically, that just meant that the piglets had to be carried to a different pen where they couldn't get milk from their mothers.

Don't be deceived, many of the piglets were anything but calm while being relocated.

 I really wanted to try carrying a pig, but being the girl from the suburbs that I am, it didn't work out for a few reasons. Once I saw some of the pigs being carried, I didn't know if I could physically do it. Those little piglets let out screams like I've never heard before and thrashed around like crazy trying to escape. I was worried that I'd accidentally drop it and cause more problems for the farm. Also, the idea of being covered in pig poop the rest of the day is less than ideal if you ask me :)

All of the piglets, happily weaned

We also found a chicken coop on the farm.

 Later in the afternoon, we took a break from bean picking to watch the potato plants being cultivated with their new tractor hook up. Pretty cool what machines can do these days!

Cultivating the potatoes

 The student organic farm also does their own composting. They use their own compost for their small beds of plants. Unfortunately they don't make enough to do all of their fields, so they buy that compost and spread it themselves.

Loading up to spread some compost

 After we finished picking green and yellow beans (and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes), Jeanette and I did some weeding. We stayed until the rain started pouring.

Jeanette weeding

Weeding the plants

Overall, it was a really enjoyable day. It was a new experience for me, and I really enjoyed it!

Friday

Friday was another field trip day. We went to Paramount Coffee, a local roaster/brewery in Lansing. We toured the facility and go to see all kinds of stuff. I went into this tour knowing nothing about coffee and how it's made, so I learned a lot. 

Green coffee from Honduras

 They had coffee from all over the world! They receive it as green coffee. It's a much easier was to store the coffee, and has a longer shelf life than already roasted coffee.

They had quite a few different roasters in their facility. This was one of their smaller roasters making some different kinds of coffee.

One of the roasters making a pretty dark blend

 They also had some cool machinery that packaged the coffee into the kinds of bags that you see on the shelf  at the store.

Lots of moving parts to this machine

They also had some huge roasters!

These heated up the room quite a bit.

We also did a cupping. This was a lot more involved of a process than I expected. I don't drink coffee, so I just got to observe this part of the experience. Basically, they put very finely ground coffee in the cups, pouring boiling/hot water in, and let is sit. Then we broke the surface, smelled it, and skimmed the foam off. Then the tasting began. During a cupping, the procedure is to slurp the coffee into your mouth so that you get it in all parts of your mouth, see how it tastes, then you spit it out into a cup or the lovely spittoon.

Action shot of Jeanette using the spittoon.

 Coffee apparently comes from cherry-like plants, which are mostly in the tropics/equator regions.

Outside of Paramount

After this tour, I pretty much know everything about coffee except how it tastes! :) 

Overall, it was a great week, with lots of exciting new experiences. Looking forward to the field trip and happenings in this coming week!