Arbor Day Tree Seedling Giveaway

In celebration of KY Arbor Day the Oldham County Conservation District gave away 3500 trees on Friday, April 22nd.  Smokey the Bear was on hand to greet the large turn out.  Attendees enjoyed a wide variety of trees and received a reusable shopping bag or rain gauge!

The district would like to thank Nancy Theiss, Executive Director of the Oldham County History Center, for allowing us use of her facilities.  A huge thank you also goes to Mr. Ben Ray, Horticulture Instructor at Roederer Correctional Complex, and his class for bagging the trees for us.

Our next tree seedling giveaway will take place from the front porch of the Oldham County History Center on March 30, 2012.  We will begin at 11:00 a.m. (no early birds please) and go until 12:30 p.m. (or until all trees are gone!).  We will be giving away the following species of tree seedlings:

There is a limited supply of each species.  Trees are given away on a first come, first serve basis.  Plan on stopping by - - we'd love to meet you!

2011 Annual Awards Banquet Banquet Slide Show

Jon Bednarski, Sherwood Acres Farm Recipient of the 29th Oldham County Master Conservationist Award

The Master Conservationist Award is the highest recognition presented to private landowners by a local Soil and Water Conservation District for individual land stewardship efforts.  Less than two percent of private landowners or farmers are recognized as Master Conservationists.  To qualify for this award, the landowner must have completed over ninety percent of their soil and water conservation plan for the land under their control. In doing so, almost all, if not all of their of their land-based natural resources are protected from serious degradation and are managed for sustainability.  Their conservation practices and management techniques are those to be modeled and are often emulated by others seeking to achieve similar levels of success.

This year the Master Conservationist Award is presented to John Bednarski of Sherwood Acres Farm. The farm, located on Ballard School Road, was purchased in the late 1990's by Jon and Sylvia Bednarski as a place to raise their daughter's show horses.  Soon afterwards in 2003 Sylvia gave Jon a Father's Day gift of three Belted Galloway cows and Sherwood Acres began.  Today Sherwood Acres is a 50 acre cattle farm in Oldham County at the head-waters of Harrods Creek with an additional 100 acres in Henry County.

As the livestock herd grew to 30 plus head, so did the need to carefully manage their fragile land. Areas along Harrods Creek were fenced off and a woody riparian buffer was planted the stream.  To gain access to land across the creek, a graveled stream crossing was constructed to move cattle and vehicles across the creek without eroding the banks. A large pond was built behind their home and stocked fish from the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.  Every pasture field has an individual automatic water fountain which provides grazing livestock with water on demand. All the pastures are seeded to grasses and legumes adapted to the soil types and the cattle are rotated frequently to insure a good recovery rate of forages.  In the winter, livestock are fed on graveled heavy use feeding pads which enables Jon to keep the cattle from sinking in mud and allows him to collect feed waste and manure that is later spread over fields as fertilizer.  The farm's woods are fenced to exclude livestock and provide a place for deer, turkey, squirrels and other wildlife to flourish.

Sherwood Acres prides itself in being able to produce a "Kentucky Proud Product"; high quality beef from healthy animals, free of growth hormones and steroids, and doing this on land that that does not suffer the consequences of abuse and erosion.  For his efforts in protecting the water resources of Oldham County and the proper management of all lands under his control, we are proud to present Jon Bednarski with a framed certificate and a farm gate sign designating him as the Master Conservationist for 2010.

Gary and Joyce Keibler, Hemmer Hill Farm Recipient of the Outstanding Cooperator Award

Each year the Oldham County Soil and Water Conservation Board of Supervisors select an Outstanding District Cooperator to recognize for their contributions to land stewardship.  The award recipient has to practice good long-term conservation ethics on land they own or manage. As an Outstanding District Cooperator, this individual's efforts in protecting the fragile resources of soil, water, woodland or wildlife resources are often modeled by others in the community.

The recipients of this year's award are Gary and Joyce Keibler of Hemmer Hill Farm.  The 20 acre Hemmer Hill Farm is located off Old Zaring Road in the small community of Brownsboro.  There, they raise 30-40 registered St. Croix Hair Sheep, a couple of special horses and threee donkeys.  Although the farm is small in size, it is intensively managed to meet the need of the grazing anmials that utilize it.  The pasture fields are small and rotationally grazed to get the most out of forages while allowing for forage regrowth.  Each of their six pastures has its own water system; heated water fountains that are supplied water from a cistern underneath their barn.  The pasture and hay fields are periodically limed and fertizled at rates recommended by the results of soil tests and fields are renovated with grasses and legumes to insure the livestock have adequate quantities of grazable land.

The Keiblers' land is in an Agricultural District, a voluntary designation by the Commonwealth of Kentucky that identifes blocks of at least 250 acres of land dedicated to agricultural use and agricultural operations.  They are also very active in water quality efforts within the Darby Creek Watershed and land use conservation concerns in the Brownsboro area.  On a prior farming operation (also known as Hemmer Hill), Joyce was instrumental in helping to establish more than 50 acres of native warm season grasses for wildlife habitat on her family's farm in southwest Jefferson County.  For their efforts in helping the community inititate clean water efforts and their care and management of their renewable natural resources of soil, water and wildlife habitats, we award Joyce and Gary Keibler with the Outstanding Cooperator Award.

Oldham County Students, Teachers and Principals Recognized at Banquet

The Oldham County Conservation District held their 26th Annual Awards Banquet on February 26at the John Black Community Center.  This year, 1033 Oldham County students participated in the Courier-Journal Conservation Writing Contest and the Jim Claypool Art Contest.  Participating schools submitted their top three student entries and from these first, second and third place school winners were chosen.  Each school winner received a plaque and a t-shirt.  County winners in each category were chosen from all first place school entries.  The writing entry of Kennedy Thomas from E. Oldham Middle School and the art entry of Katie Bosko from Liberty Elementary School were selected for this special honor.  Kennedy and Katie each received a plaque and a $50 US Savings Bond.  E. Oldham Middle School principal Lynda Redmon took home a check for $400 to be used for the continuation of environmental education efforts at the school.

Members of the Oldham County High School's FFA were recognized for their accomplishments in both state and nationnal events. 

Stephen Freyer, who teaches at Harmony Elementary School, was the recipient of check for $100 to purchase resources for her classroom.  He was one of several teachers present who incorporate environmental education into their classroom curriculum.

The Oldham County Conservation District would like to thank all the students, teachers and principals who took part in this year’s art and writing contests and congratulate all of the evening’s winners.

The Conservation District sponsors the following events:

• Conservation Writing & Jim Claypool Art Contest
• Arbor Day Tree Seedling Giveaway
• Earth Day Celebration
• High School Envirothon Teams
• Monarch Lifecycle Program
  
• Soil Stewardship Week
• Annual Awards and Recognition Banquet
• Education Field Days and Workshop