Transcript
Brett: Welcome back everybody to Hort Culture. and This is Brett coming at you. Alexis is out on the road spreading the cut flower gospel, but we are joined today by our co-host who has been away for some time and is finally back in the house.
Brett: Jess Bess, Jessica Besson, what is up?
Jessica : I am Hey, it's it's nice to be back again.
Brett: Yeah, what's been going on, you know?
Jessica : ah Just, you know, taking care of kiddos and all all of the above, enjoying the summer.
Brett: How was your 4th of July party? Was it a big blowout? Yeah.
Jessica : It was. it was. it was good. Lots of fun.
Brett: Nice. Well, we're also joined today by two folks who, two two young early career professionals who have been working with you in your office this this summer, Zoe and Khalees.
Brett: what are you What are you all up to?
Mercer Interns: Oh man, finishing up our internship. to- Today's our last day. It's been good, busy summer. You know, crying as we walk out the doors today.
Brett: Cool.
Brett: oh
Mercer Interns: Maybe.
Brett: sad. They're sad to be leaving.
Plant People: The last day. Yeah. Wow.
Brett: Well, we're going to get into that, but I wanted to open by saying um but maybe a little question, get the get the brain rolling here.
Plant People: help
Brett: um What would everyone say is their favorite native grass? No, I'm just teasing. I'm just teasing. I told them.
Plant People: I had one.
Jessica : I was like, oh my gosh, that is not a good one to start off with on my first day back.
Plant People: i had one. i had one big blue stem
Mercer Interns: I'm not sure.
Brett: I'm just teasing. I told them it was like a pretty laid back chill thing and I wasn't going
Plant People: and bread enters something extremely specific.
Brett: Yeah, well, I'm actually curious i'm curious to hear, do you all have, you know outside of your time as students and as as interns in the extension office, do you all have, and and other the other co-hosts, hobbies or interests or things, whether minor or major, that maybe would surprise people or that people don't necessarily know?
Mercer Interns: I feel like we've spent too much time together to have surprises.
Jessica : Who wants to start? Yeah.
Mercer Interns: Okay,
Brett: We would be surprising to us to me. Yeah. It doesn't have to be surprised to police.
Jessica : yeah
Mercer Interns: okay well, she knows. I'm a big horse person. So I have a horse named Gatorade. um And I enjoy riding and competing.
Plant People: Gatorade.
Mercer Interns: So that's kind of a big hobby of mine.
Brett: Gatorade. Did you name it Gatorade?
Mercer Interns: I did.
Plant People: Is it orange?
Mercer Interns: No, he's black. um But, you know, I can have like a blue bucket and he's having a blue Gatorade day or he has a red halter and he's having a red Gatorade day.
Brett: Oh,
Plant People: Oh.
Brett: I gotcha. I haven't tried black Gatorade, so I'll have to see if I can get my my hands on that.
Plant People: Yeah. Good stuff.
Mercer Interns: I'm sure that there has to be like a dark gray one somewhere.
Jessica : you
Plant People: Are you like in a specific discipline in the equine world, the whole, the horse world, or like into trail riding or barrel racing or what are you into?
Mercer Interns: I like to jump. I like to jump.
Plant People: Yeah.
Mercer Interns: Not very big stuff and I'm not super competitive, but I have a ton of fun doing it.
Plant People: Yeah. Good deal. Good deal. I know there's a, and I've learned to ask that question being from Bourbon County. ah where I grew up with trail riding horses almost exclusively. And then I go there, then everything are these faster type horses. And I mentioned trail riding and people's like, ah no, we don't do that here.
Plant People: ah Some people might do that, but yeah, there's all sorts of disciplines I know in the equine world. So yeah, good deal.
Brett: What about you two co-hosts?
Mercer Interns: I don't think it's necessarily surprising hobby. I think it's pretty common, but I i really enjoy scrapbooking. That's me too.
Brett: Oh.
Plant People: It's the cousin of journaling.
Jessica : Did you used to enter in the fair your scrapbook projects?
Plant People: yeah
Mercer Interns: This is a newer hobby. I would say like most college years.
Jessica : Ah, yeah.
Mercer Interns: I didn't, well, actually I did do it when I was younger, but not, I never entered it. But my cousin just had a baby. So I made her a little um scrapbook of his first month and then left her some pages so she could add on. So.
Brett: do you have like ah Do you have like a scrapbooking organizational structure for all the pieces and components?
Jessica : Aww.
Mercer Interns: Yeah.
Brett: What does that look like?
Mercer Interns: I have like a box that has all my paper scraps and then I have a basket that has all my pens and my tape and my markers and all that stuff.
Plant People: So I'm i'm seeing in a picture in my mind. It's more than just pictures, scrapbooking the way that you do it.
Brett: oh yeah.
Mercer Interns: It's mainly pictures, maybe like a couple words or like a paragraph describing like if it's a day or something, but mainly pictures or if I get like a postcard or something from somewhere, stuff like that.
Jessica : Thank you.
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah.
Brett: But then you like, like to attach it or to sort of frame it. There's like things you put like on the corners. That's maybe a shape or a color or something like that.
Mercer Interns: Yeah, like or a piece of color paper or something like that.
Brett: Is that true?
Mercer Interns: Yeah.
Brett: Yeah. It's a lot of framing and kind of creating the overall, the overall image.
Mercer Interns: Yeah.
Brett: Do you find that, do you find that to be relaxing or exciting or stressful or what, how do you, how do you feel about that?
Mercer Interns: Relaxing. I think I like to do it at night. um Like when I'm with my parents or my family, just so I'm not on my phone, I'm still doing something and it's relaxing.
Jessica : Cool.
Brett: That's awesome. That's awesome.
Jessica : i
Plant People: I know that that is ah rather big right now, scrapbooking and journaling and and all of that. I'm kind of glad to see scrapbooking has been a thing since I can remember. And that's way back before 2003 and four.
Plant People: So yeah.
Mercer Interns: he
Plant People: Yeah. I'm glad to see that's still a thing. It's cool, cool stuff. And ah we had this big discussion my family did the other day of ah we have more photos than ever, but we look at them, we feel like less than we ever did because we don't have
Mercer Interns: Mm-hmm.
Plant People: photos out in front of us so I don't know if what you guys feel about that or if you feel anything about that but yeah we were talking i love photos in an album I still love that
Jessica : oh Oh,
Jessica : you have to get one of those ah photo displays. looks like a picture frame, but all your photos.
Plant People: I've got one of those but then you've got to go and update it yeah read like ours yeah yeah
Jessica : my kids oh My kids are obsessed with it. They love it. That's like hours of entertainment. They just take it off the shelf and lay on the floor and watch the photos go by.
Plant People: Yeah, and I do look at the photos more on that, so yeah.
Mercer Interns: Our TV is connected to our Google Photos, so like if we stop watching TV for a while, it'll slide through and we'll just sit there forever just watching the pictures the Yeah.
Plant People: Your screen saver.
Jessica : Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Plant People: Yeah, just kind look and you'll stop as you're going by. ah Mine is connected to my Apple Photos app, but yeah, when it goes to the T Apple TV, it goes to sleep, it'll it'll show that, which is pretty cool.
Mercer Interns: yet
Plant People: It's all the ways of looking at photos, journaling and ah things like that being some of the best ways to look at photos. Yeah, good deal.
Brett: well i've i've recently gotten into um a little bit of very low level coin collecting um
Plant People: You're not going to own that completely like hardcore coin collecting, just low key coin collecting.
Jessica : um
Brett: there's levels to the there's levels to the game i'll just put it that way and i'm not not up in the levels but um it's nice because i'm mainly just going through like coins that are currently in circulation like rolls of stuff and looking through looking for finding dates and putting them in little albums and
Mercer Interns: Thank you.
Jessica : you
Plant People: Well.
Brett: So it's pretty fun. um What about you all? You all got any, any little things?
Jessica : I have grandma hobbies when I'm not chasing children, but a lot, I'm chasing a lot of children as of right now, which is fantastic and has been wonderful.
Brett: You ever catch them or you most mainly, mainly Jason?
Jessica : Um, uh, it depends. It depends on the day. It depends on how fast they are, how slippery they are at the time, if I can catch them or not. Um, but like knitting when I am not really tired of stuff, I knit a lot or quilt as well.
Mercer Interns: Yeah.
Brett: Hmm.
Jessica : So, More of the grandma hobbies that I enjoy.
Brett: I like that.
Jessica : But um
Brett: Well, you know, ah grandmas were were young just like you once you know once upon a time.
Jessica : yeah, grandmas are cool.
Brett: So like, you know, just a state of mind.
Jessica : Right.
Brett: What about you, Ray?
Plant People: and I don't know. It's, you probably should ask what's my hobby this week. I don't know.
Brett: Oh.
Plant People: It's like, I'm into all the things. Let's see a longstanding.
Brett: Well, what is your hobby this week?
Plant People: Well, a longstanding hobby this week and other weeks ah prior, I guess one of my longest standing hobby is collecting old bikes or vintage bikes and rebuilding bikes or building bikes from scratch, like bicycles.
Brett: Oh, I did not know this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jessica : I didn't either.
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah.
Jessica : I've never heard you mention that.
Plant People: I have loved bicycles since I did my first little jump on a BMX bike and crashed it and broke it and had to fix it.
Brett: Bro.
Plant People: But yeah, a yeah,
Brett: I am also very into bikes. I didn't.
Plant People: i
Brett: What do you do? You have any right now on hand? Oh,
Plant People: I've got, I don't know, four hanging on the wall. just ah built a little single speed mountain bike that I'm kind of into right now. It's like a giant BMX bike. But I don't know. I love old and new bikes, boutique bikes, vintage bikes, any kind of bicycles.
Plant People: Love that.
Brett: That's cool.
Plant People: Love it. Yeah.
Brett: Wow.
Jessica : Now
Brett: See, that's why I ask, because, you know, you never really, never really know.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: And then you uncover these fun little things.
Jessica : now you can bond over that.
Plant People: that There you go. We can do our vintage fixies through the streets of Lexington someday, Brett. Yeah. It's going to be good. It's going to be good.
Brett: Talk why, why they decided to make ah components less attractive than the old beautiful vintage Colnago components.
Plant People: Yeah. Yes, that's exactly right.
Brett: Stuff like that that people find really interesting.
Plant People: Kind of like the old tell that's on car. Yeah.
Brett: oh
Plant People: A very specific slice of the population. We found that interesting. Yeah.
Brett: Well, we, you know, i think we as a group have a lot of wide ranging interests. i be I think one overlap for a lot of us is this world of horticulture and plants and all that kind of fun stuff. And. We also happen to work in extension.
Brett: And so you all, I think Zoe and Kalis have kind of gotten a chance to experience a wide range of stuff at the extension office. So i' I'd love to just hear, you know, what your experience has been, what kind of stuff you've gotten into. Was there stuff that surprised you or was different from what you expected or was it all you saw it all coming? um Yeah, I'd just love to hear about it and just let us know again, like,
Brett: What was this position that you did? how did you find out about it? How did you apply for it? Like, what what did that look like?
Mercer Interns: Okay, you would do you want to start? Sure. I a student of the College of Ag at UK, obviously ah big um collaborator and like home base of extension.
Mercer Interns: So I was pretty familiar with the program. And once I got to having enough credits, I was excited to apply. um i had been recommended by advisors and just very aware of it as I was getting to the point where I could start to apply.
Mercer Interns: i think yours was a little different. Oh yeah, um I'm from Mercer, so I did a lot of stuff within the Extension office growing up. I did Country Hand Project and clubs and all the speeches and stuff like that.
Mercer Interns: So Dana Anderson, the 4-H Extension agent, sent me the application um and I applied. Just, you know, maybe I get it. I'm honestly surprised I did get it. I think I am the only person in the internship who's not within a college of agriculture.
Mercer Interns: But um I can see how event and facilities would be good for this job, but I am kind of surprised that it ended up working.
Brett: So you, you, you just alluded to it, but so you're, what's your major and where do you, where do you go again?
Mercer Interns: I go to Western and my major is ah event and facilities management, which is actually within the recreation department.
Jessica : Thank you.
Brett: Okay. And what is that? Like, what can, what would you imagine yourself maybe doing down the line with, you know, after having studied that?
Mercer Interns: So recreation is the facilitation of anything that you're going to do for fun. So for Kentucky, that means a lot of horse parks, bourbon industry, um any or even just corporate event planning in general. I can see myself being really interested in all that.
Brett: Cool. I mean, we do it we do a lot of event planning and logistical stuff like that within extensions.
Mercer Interns: Yeah. yeah
Brett: I'm sure you all. um So so what have you what did you all get into? you know the Back to my kind of original question of what what is what was this about?
Mercer Interns: So much. We were asked in our internship showcase and exit interviews if we could briefly describe what we did this summer. And my response was, I don't know if I can do it briefly because we have done so much.
Mercer Interns: Our summer has been 12 weeks and it's gone by quick, but it's been so, so jam packed. What start with? We started with camp. Yeah, a lot of camp prep for Cloverbud Camp.
Plant People: Oh, wow. Yeah.
Mercer Interns: Yeah. So all of the dietary and medical sheets, all of the cabin assignments, giving everyone's releases, all the orientations for counselors and for kids.
Mercer Interns: Name tags and vouchers and paperwork and orientation. Yes. We had...
Plant People: Talk about event management. Wow. That's awesome.
Mercer Interns: Absolutely. We had our big conference room table that we're sitting at now that we called Camp or like camp War Room, our war room camp, because we had serious planning going on.
Mercer Interns: did we do? Then we went to camp. Then went to camp, and then we had clover buds. Yes. So we spent a combined eight days at camp, nine days. Yeah. Yeah.
Mercer Interns: And then...
Plant People: And all of those overnight camps.
Mercer Interns: Yes. Yes. So it was a Friday night camp.
Plant People: how ah How was that experience? Yeah.
Mercer Interns: I had never been. You had been. yeah i really did not know what to expect. um And I had quite a fun time. We stayed in a cabin. We were not counselors, which I was relieved. I have discovered that hanging out with kids is sometimes fun, um but being responsible for kids is not my cup of tea.
Mercer Interns: So I enjoyed not being actually in the cabins with the kids, but we helped a lot with putting out various fires around camp, making sure kids had shoes and swimsuits when they needed them. And
Jessica : Thank you.
Mercer Interns: Legos were delivered and various little things so that everything could run smoothly for the rest of the staff and counselors. Yeah, I was kind of opposite because I went to camp and I had been a counselor. So I kind of missed, you know, being in the cabin with the kids and being a counselor. So, but I also had fun on the other end of, you know, getting to run around and, you know,
Mercer Interns: put out fires and stuff like that. And then for Cloverbud, we had kind of a station that we were teaching. So we did the ice cream making. um We did it in coffee cans where they put all the ingredients up with their salt and their um ice and shake it all up till they make ice cream. So that was for the little kids, um the six to eight year olds. And that was pretty neat. They enjoyed it.
Mercer Interns: It was very exhausting. It was very exhausting.
Plant People: I think people see camp, like if they've never been to camp, like parents or whatever, and they're like, oh, this is fun week.
Jessica : Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Plant People: But you have a different opinion ah opinion of camp if you're on the inside with planning and implementation.
Mercer Interns: Thank you.
Plant People: Your opinion is really different. I mean, you you may still love it, but you you see all the work ah that goes into that, which is incredible. It's an incredible amount of work to keep everything going.
Jessica : And they got, they went to the, you know, these overnight camps. But then at the same time at our office during the summer, we offer a lot of day camps that are happening.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Jessica : And part of their intern projects, they both got to do, um you know, these these day camps. And Zoe, I wasn't at so much involved with Zoe's because I know yours was offered to adults too, right, Zoe?
Jessica : And then Khalees, I was able to help with hers a little bit by, ah what am I, what the word I'm trying to say ah Willen and Dylan beeswax trying to get beeswax for her her camp and she did some leafy branches so do you guys want to share about like your intern projects and all that went into those
Mercer Interns: wax and snipping some branches off your trees. Yeah.
Mercer Interns: Exactly. Yes. So we got back from camp and we both did planning while at camp, which was an interesting experience and you know various activities leading up to both of our um projects.
Plant People: Thank you.
Mercer Interns: Mine was a three part international foods cooking class series um open to kids and adults. We had crepes, sushi, and we had a Mexican day where we had churros and tortilla chips and salsa.
Mercer Interns: So um my kind of learning goals for that were to increase confidence in the kitchen, to teach tangible cooking skills, um increase folks openness to trying new foods, and um to learn more about other cultures. And so that was a really fun, rewarding experience. So we had three different days with the different um kind of dish and country themes.
Mercer Interns: And we had about 16 people come to each class and super fun experience. We've gotten a lot of messages and people telling us after the fact how much they enjoyed the class, how um maybe their kids hadn't had that type of food before. We got a message yesterday from ah one of our very involved families of pictures of their two kids that had gone to a Japanese restaurant and their kids went straight to the sushi bar and had full plates of sushi after not having tried it before my class. So that was really fun to see them enjoying and feeling really excited and open to trying new things.
Mercer Interns: Yeah, that text message was really sweet. That made my day, yeah. It made my day. It wasn't my class.
Plant People: It's the best when you get positive feedback back. It's the absolute best. Yeah. Yeah.
Mercer Interns: Yeah, so I did um Camp Olden Days, which was a heritage-based day camp.
Plant People: It's good stuff.
Mercer Interns: So i had actually originally started with wanting to do like a plant identification workshop because It's kind a long story, but basically it's something that my grandparents do very well.
Mercer Interns: And i was like, I don't know how to do that. Like I need to, I need to be like my grandparents.
Plant People: Hmm.
Mercer Interns: I need to know how to do that.
Jessica : And the horticulture agent wasn't there to help you.
Mercer Interns: so
Mercer Interns: I know, I know. But we also have a very similar program with our natural resources club. So Dana recommended that I do part of it, but I also just expand it into an overall heritage day, which I really liked that idea.
Mercer Interns: Some activities were leaf printing, beeswax candles, weaving, barn quilt painting, and heritage cooking.
Mercer Interns: So they made butter and fried apple pies.
Plant People: Oh, well
Mercer Interns: And then... um ah Jessica got me eight pounds of beeswax for beeswax candles. I learned how to render beeswax. We had to do that.
Mercer Interns: So me and Zoe spent an entire day yeah um cleaning beeswax. And we also did leaf printing, which is kind of the horticulture related.
Mercer Interns: I printed out these little prints and they they were native ah Kentucky tree species. So we did sassabras, sweet gum.
Plant People: so
Mercer Interns: Or the other ones. You got me.
Jessica : Tulip poplar.
Mercer Interns: but Poplar. And there's two different types of oak. Red oak and.
Jessica : We have red maple and sugar maple.
Mercer Interns: Oh, maple.
Jessica : Yep.
Mercer Interns: Not oak. Yeah. ah But yeah, it was fun. They learned about ah the three different types of sassafras leaves and, you know, tulip poplar stake tree and all that.
Mercer Interns: So hopefully they went home.
Plant People: And you said you didn't you didn't start out with that. That was a change based on, ah like when you first came in, you had to make a change, you said?
Mercer Interns: Yeah, I just, we just have a program called Natural Resources, which is for the children, and it teaches them a lot about, you know, the different plants and, you know, natural resources. So we just kind of wanted to expand so that they weren't, we weren't redoing what they, some of the children would have already been learning,
Mercer Interns: so
Plant People: Yeah, good deal.
Brett: Well, yeah, a couple of things you all said that really um that i I keyed in on that I really liked. One was that you you referred to it as my program. Like you had this sense of, you know, delivering it and and owning it and getting feedback on it and all of that. And I think that's so cool. And it's something that we, you know, when we work with with students or we work with people who are you know early in their careers, try try to encourage that as much as possible that, you know, and so it's really cool that you had that experience.
Brett: And the other thing I think is cool, and maybe you can talk about this, um something in extension we talk about, and sometimes it's hard to understand is that we have all these program areas. We have 4-H, we have horticulture, we have agriculture, we have FCS.
Brett: And while yes, they do have their own identities, they tend to overlap. And it seems like a lot of what you all are doing is overlapping between those program areas. And I'm curious if if you knew that going in or like what your experience with that was.
Mercer Interns: That's kind of something that I've really had a fun time playing with because knowing what extension is and how different agents have their you know program areas they're responsible for, being an intern has allowed us to not have those confines and being able to be more fluid.
Mercer Interns: And our connection between our programs in the different areas like you can't have food without people and you can't have people without nutrition and you can't have you know healthy kids without nutrition and everything you know correlates you can't have adults without kids so all the program areas while they have their own area have a lot of overlap and being able to like play within that has been a fun time I don't know
Brett: What do you, what do you, I'm curious, I'm just curious, Ray and Jessica, what you all think as far as, as people, horticulture agents and people with, with a lot of experience in extension, like the ways that your programs integrate with others.
Plant People: Anything? ah Go ahead, Brad.
Brett: And like, you know, you see, you see it in the, in the programming that, that Zoe and Khalees are offering, but you know, what, what other kinds of stuff do you all, the ways that horticulture interfaces with these other ah program areas?
Brett: I mean, what, mm-hmm.
Jessica : Yeah.
Plant People: It crosses a lot of boundaries, yeah.
Jessica : Yes, yeah. I've had a ah a lot of overlap over the years because I've done in the past, and used to do a plant camp for youth and did insect camp and insect club.
Jessica : So, go you know, partnering up with 4-H that way. And then, of course, with horticulture and vegetable production, a lot of partnerships with FCS about teaching classes.
Plant People: m
Jessica : Like, let's teach a class on how to grow strawberries. We give people strawberry plants or we, you know, We do these other programs like that. And then, okay, let's tie that back into, you might not have strawberries this year, but come to this canning class and learn how to, you know, preserve those, you know, products.
Plant People: Yeah. Preservation. Yeah.
Jessica : So you'll be ready to go next year. Right. So there, and then like the farmer's market is a definite overlap of multiple, you know, program areas that can be for family consumer science, 4-H and horticulture overlapping each other.
Jessica : um And then with ag, you know, we end up partnering a lot with for field day and our like soil testing and all of those kind of things as well. You might have some other experiences, Ray, with your tenure and extension.
Plant People: It's kind of like what you just said, Jessica. It's as integrated as you want it to be. I mean, ag and hort kind of are side by side plant and animal sciences. We focus on the plants, whereas ag is plant and, you know, like row crops and things. So they touch plant science too. We're a little bit more specialized.
Plant People: ah s SCS is a perfect fit. You just mentioned it. We kind of grow it. and they're so good about the preparation of foods and the preservation of foods. And the youth component is is you can do as much of that, I know, in horticulture as you want, ah because it's ah the the youth component of extension can be integrated very easily and completely into any program area.
Plant People: So yeah, I love the integrated aspect. did you Did you guys, in your summer projects, did you work kind of on things outside of what you thought you would have worked with, or did you work kind of with other agencies like across the board or how did that work with your internship?
Mercer Interns: specifically for our project.
Plant People: Yeah. for but Well, just in general, just your summer, just either your project or other things, other activities that you did this summer.
Jessica : Thank you.
Mercer Interns: Well, specifically for my project, obviously I worked with Jessica for the Elite Printing.
Plant People: Mm-hmm.
Mercer Interns: She helped me with that because, again, i couldn't. ah She gave me like a cheat sheet with how to you know, identify and then some facts about each of the different species. jumping with beeswax And talked Tara and Dana about um some of the heritage cooking. Dana had a lot of advice with fried apple pies. That is her special interest. is My favorite day was when we spent a whole day Making and eating fried apple pies. That might be my favorite day of the summer.
Plant People: I was going to say later on, what was your favorite memory? I think we just nailed it. That was your favorite memory.
Mercer Interns: We had to test recipes and someone one had to eat them.
Jessica : Thank you.
Plant People: Yeah.
Mercer Interns: So we did the hard, hard job of eating apple pies all day.
Plant People: Nothing's going to top that for me is just sitting around eating fried apple pies. I bet you they were fresh too, weren't they?
Mercer Interns: yeah, they were good.
Plant People: Oh my gosh.
Mercer Interns: They were really good.
Plant People: Yeah. I just get, yeah. How much more Kentucky and Americana can you get than just sitting around eating fried apple pies? That's amazing.
Brett: What very brief anecdote we ah Annie and ah my wife, Annie and I dropped by one of our local orchards to pick up some um some peaches and some blackberries that they had recently.
Mercer Interns: Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: And she comes out and she has on top of the stack of fruit. She has some apple cider doughnuts.
Mercer Interns: you
Brett: And i was like, oh, my gosh, like that. I can't believe. Wow. This is. And she's like, oh, they're for our neighbor.
Plant People: Oh no.
Jessica : Oh.
Plant People: That's, oh, that heartbreak.
Brett: is ah that Talk about a rug pull. like, yeah, I'm still, I'm still working through it.
Plant People: Heartbreak. Yeah.
Brett: So I appreciate you all letting me share here on the, well, Zoe, I know that um I asked Khalees, but I'm curious, you know, do you have a sense of, I realize it's hard to know.
Plant People: Emotional damage on the ninth degree.
Jessica : Love those.
Plant People: Yeah.
Mercer Interns: have
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: And if you'd asked me, At any point over the last 15 years where I was going end up professionally, I would say, I don't know, including today. But um do you have a sense of where you might like to go with your work after college based on your both your experience within the internship, but also in the, um you know, your degree programs and stuff like that?
Mercer Interns: Yeah, absolutely. I, before this summer had, you know, as a concept thought that extension would be an interesting career path for me. I study community and leadership development as well as sustainable agriculture, which I describe as kind of the intersection between environmental and social sustainability.
Mercer Interns: And I think extension in its concept of being kind of the connecting piece between the university and the resources and the knowledge and everything happening on campus to the community members is a great way to kind of facilitate that growth and progress that I'm interested in making. So this summer has confirmed that I think this would be a good pathway, um especially to start. I mean, we'll see where everything goes and maybe after grad school, things will expand even more, but it's been a great summer and I would, I could totally see myself in this position.
Brett: ah Very cool. Yeah, I think so as we were talking about the the program area overlap and all of that stuff, I think nationwide and at our Kentucky level, we're we're thinking about, you know, these program areas, they are real, they have a history and ah real important utility.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Brett: but also thinking about blurring, blurring some of the lines between how we silo those, those programs to say all of the you know, ag has implications for water quality, which has implications for health or that ah you know, the way that we build houses or don't build houses that impacts on ah food production in know farming areas, which has impacts on farm income and et cetera. and it also has impact on our nutrition. So it's like this kind of,
Brett: seeing the connections and hearing that you all are getting to experience those in this experience in this you know internship is really really cool. And I'm really i'm glad to hear that you all have had such a good dynamic experience and lots of opportunities to do ah a variety of things.
Brett: um we We have some folks who work with us over the summer and I kind of hope they don't hear this because it sounds like a much more exciting than looking at spreadsheets and doing the nerdy stuff that we end up doing up on campus.
Jessica : Thank
Brett: And it's just confirming that the extension
Plant People: Some people like that, Brett.
Jessica : ah
Brett: Extension offices are cooler than extension on campus, confirmed.
Plant People: and
Brett: Agents are cooler than me. You all are cooler than me. It's just unfortunate reality.
Plant People: I mean, how, Brett, you can't top fried apple pies. I mean, XL Spreadsheets are fried apple pies.
Brett: I have
Jessica : It's kind of hard to beat. Yeah.
Plant People: Come on, man.
Brett: yeah i had to go after work to not even get the donuts.
Plant People: Come on.
Brett: i yeah i can't
Jessica : Right.
Brett: you all You all have made me realize and that maybe I need to revise my life plan here.
Plant People: I'm going to call Brett when I start doing my rounds of ah orchard visits here in a week or two. I will let you know, Brett, and then I will invite you to the donut, or I mean orchard runs.
Brett: Thank you.
Plant People: Yes.
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: Orchard visits, production visits. Yeah.
Brett: Yeah, this is about, this is about horticulture. This isn't about pies.
Jessica : ah
Plant People: It is, it is, it is.
Brett: um
Jessica : Well, two other things I've thought of. One that's very horticulture related and Ray and if Alexis was here could definitely relate to this. I was able to take both of them each out on their own separate home visit and to a home visit, which is a classic topic that we deal with as horticulture agents.
Plant People: Oh, no awesome.
Jessica : Help, I have large trees that are dying.
Plant People: Was it a tree?
Plant People: Oh no, the toughest of all extension questions.
Jessica : Or there's something wrong. So, um so they both got to experience that one.
Plant People: Yeah.
Jessica : Calise got to go with me to a frequent flyer that I have, who I absolutely love, who was spray painting his trees black to try to help them.
Plant People: Okay.
Jessica : And, you know, we don't really recommend that, but um so they got to experience doing that and seeing how that challenging visit is handled.
Plant People: Okay.
Jessica : But another huge thing they got to do this summer that they have not mentioned yet ah was county fair.
Mercer Interns: Absolutely.
Plant People: Oh, goodness.
Jessica : And that's a great example of program overlapping because you all got to do it all.
Mercer Interns: yeah
Plant People: the big show.
Mercer Interns: absolutely
Jessica : So do you do you have anything you want to share about that? I know some of it was the first time being around cows and. yeah
Mercer Interns: I mean, a lot of it was new to me. i had been to county fairs in Kentucky, but being on the back end of camps and of really anything that's done in the office is so different than seeing it from the different perspectives.
Mercer Interns: And it was really neat. i had I'm a big horse person, like I mentioned, but I had not been to livestock shows. So that was a total new one. I was also shocked by the variety of entries in Floral Hall.
Mercer Interns: The types like plants and arts and crafts and sewing and cook stuff and not cook stuff and the variety. It was a was a lot of art projects.
Mercer Interns: Yeah. We had to organize.
Jessica : 200, what was it Close 300 art entries that we had this year.
Mercer Interns: Yep. Yep.
Jessica : And you you all did a great job helping manage those.
Mercer Interns: excuse
Plant People: I mean, you talk about event management. That's another great example of lots of details.
Mercer Interns: Yeah.
Plant People: And I don't know, Jessica, I forget what entry system you guys use, but there's a lot of behind the scenes to get the floral hall looking like a floral hall ready for fair. Yeah.
Mercer Interns: Yes, there was a lot of setup. We put all the tables out, put all the entries out when they were entered, lots of scanning, helped with um ribbons and putting the placements into the system.
Mercer Interns: So that was a multi-step, multi-day process for sure. would say the thing that surprised me the most that I dealt with it the entire week at the livestock shows and ah We have, you know, my family has cows and animals. And the first thing you're you're taught is do not get behind a cow.
Mercer Interns: Like, do not stand behind a cow. And these kids are just standing behind these cows and they're putting their cows. I'm standing behind the cow and I'm, I was panicked the whole week.
Plant People: The danger zone. You're in the danger zone, the red zone.
Mercer Interns: house was like, someone's going to get kicked. Like, I can't deal with this. i was like But these cows. We have cows, but we do not show cows, you know, so it's a different kind, guess.
Plant People: Yeah.
Mercer Interns: One thing I learned, too, is how show animals, they're a lot more similar to horses in that they're just docile and used to everything. yeah I liked asking the kids about their animals, and I liked asking the kids about what the judges were looking for.
Mercer Interns: because it was really cute to hear the kids be like, well, they're looking for muscle, but not too much muscle. And, you know, they want really good depth and openness. And I was like, what's depth and openness? And they were like, well, it's the space between the ribs.
Mercer Interns: And they want them to, you know, all the, they were experts in there their area.
Plant People: They knew.
Mercer Interns: Yeah, one of the judges kept saying, this cow is just very feminine. And I was like, she floats around the room. But I'm asking the kids, I'm like, what does that mean?
Plant People: Like a beauty pageant.
Mercer Interns: and it It was pretty fun to learn from them too, especially when they're so small, but they really do know a lot about, you know, their animals and how to show them. And it's really neat.
Mercer Interns: Maybe my family just has bad cows. I don't know. But I was to the whole time.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Mercer Interns: I like, you can't stand there. Like you're going get kicked. I was having a good time. I like giving them pets.
Plant People: it's um It's amazing.
Mercer Interns: Shout out to Scarlet.
Plant People: Just
Mercer Interns: She was my favorite cow.
Plant People: you had a favorite. That's awesome.
Mercer Interns: let I think I was her favorite too. Just, you know, just saying.
Plant People: That's why she was your favorite.
Mercer Interns: She kept coming up to me for the chin scratches.
Brett: Aww.
Plant People: Is there anything ah that, uh, in your experiences and where you've kind of touched on a few things, but, um,
Brett: So...
Plant People: I know you guys have varying levels of familiarity with um extension offices, but anything that kind of surprised you being on the inside of the office this summer that stands out like, you know, just a process or something that was done that you didn't realize or anything along those lines that was kind surprising for you guys?
Mercer Interns: I think so, like I said, I grew up within this extension office. So a lot of like the programming and things that go on didn't surprise me but we were around Dana a lot and she was really good about being like, like me and Zoe may be doing this today, but she's going and she's doing audits or she's doing grant updates or she's doing, you know, some other type of, going to say administrative, but kind of like behind the scenes work.
Mercer Interns: And that's what was surprising to me, the amount of Just, you know, your daily her daily reporting, the grant updates, everything that she had to do, stuff like that.
Mercer Interns: The programming, I feel like, is pretty expected.
Plant People: Yeah.
Mercer Interns: You know, that's what the people see.
Plant People: Yeah.
Mercer Interns: It's what, yeah, it was kind of the stuff that's not as visible, you know, that surprise.
Plant People: We hear that a lot. Yeah.
Jessica : Mm-hmm.
Plant People: the
Jessica : huh
Plant People: The support stuff.
Plant People: Yeah. Yeah.
Mercer Interns: I had a few things that surprised me. I was not involved in 4-H and hadn't been involved in extension kind of as a kid or like within ah participant role.
Mercer Interns: um I've only like learned about it from kind of a campus perspective. And I knew about, you know, the different programs, especially 4-H. We've gotten to know a lot um how many programs they had. But it's one thing to see it. And it's another thing to kind of experience it and seeing how many programs and how impactful they are.
Mercer Interns: We judged at State Communications and the presentations and demonstrations that we saw were on par, if not better, with presentations that I've seen at college. And just seeing how, like tangibly helpful of the skills that the kids are learning are in you know academia or everyday life was so impressive I you know thought I had a good understanding of it but just seeing it so up close and personal gives you a whole nother appreciation for it yeah my mom made a comment I was you know you go home you tell her about your day and she was like I did not realize the extension office ran non-stop like this and I was like tell me about it like I'm just telling you about my day
Mercer Interns: Every day was so different, too. I mean, some days we were making apple hand pies and some days we were at camp and some days we were at county fair and some days we did day camps and every day was different.
Mercer Interns: And it it kept it exciting for sure.
Brett: Well, yeah, so I ah just am so happy you all had this experience. And, you know, as we we are the Hort Culture podcast, and we've talked some about the way that your experiences and are have overlapped with horticulture.
Jessica : Thank you.
Brett: I'm curious, sometimes i'll we'll move more into a just a personal ah relationship situation. you know are there Do you all have particular ways that you interact with plants out in in your lives or in the world? is that you know Has that maybe changed since you've been doing this or is that something that's important? you garden or house plants or just enjoy a beautiful tree or or landscape?
Mercer Interns: Yes, I would say my biggest connection is probably like my horse and his connection with grass is the biggest one. So i pay a lot of attention to the field that he's in, what he's eating.
Mercer Interns: I last summer worked for the forage extension service um for the horse pasture evaluation program. And I cannot walk through a lawn without going, that's fescue and that's broadleaf plantain. And oh, now I know exactly what bluegrass is.
Mercer Interns: And I don't have to just guess about what this Kentucky bluegrasses, I can identify it. So I think that's my biggest connection and thing that I like pay the most attention to just because it's like a big integral piece of his health.
Mercer Interns: But I also have a couple houseplants that I try so hard to keep alive. um One's name is Ophelia and her and I are buds. I've had her for two years and I have successfully kept her alive.
Mercer Interns: So that's my that's my biggest completion.
Plant People: We've had lots of discussion on houseplants and emissions of guilt and houseplant murderings.
Jessica : Yes. Yep.
Plant People: ah Yeah, so houseplants.
Brett: we also We also recently talked with a local agent, ah not local to me, local to Estill County agent, about ah she has a ah set of videos that she has done about taking care of houseplants.
Mercer Interns: That's you. You
Brett: And she's doing one that's more official UK style and another one where it's, I guess, her cat is presenting the information.
Plant People: Yep. Yep.
Jessica : yes
Brett: So she has her cat on screen.
Jessica : yeah
Mercer Interns: You have to.
Brett: So maybe you should check those out, you know, to up your houseplant game.
Mercer Interns: yeah
Brett: Her name is Emma Lee and she...
Mercer Interns: that
Jessica : I'll show you all her. You'll like it.
Brett: yeah
Mercer Interns: Okay, perfect. We also were both gifted pineapple plants. Yes, we are new pineapple farmers. That's pretty cool.
Plant People: Okay.
Mercer Interns: In three years, we will both have a pineapple. I'll call you up.
Brett: I just I just had somebody ask me, apparently there are if there's ah ah some people in Tennessee who are on Tick Tock.
Mercer Interns: um um
Brett: who are growing pineapples in like a greenhouse and they're marketing them like one off, shipping them. You can buy the pineapple. um yeah So you know for those not botanically inclined, we're pretty far outside the range of a typical ah pineapple farm.
Mercer Interns: Oh
Brett: you know You think of Hawaii or you think of maybe places in South America, um Central America.
Mercer Interns: yeah.
Brett: So yeah, i I'm intrigued to hear about your your your exploits as pineapple farmers as you develop the craft and perhaps compare notes with our Tennessee folks.
Mercer Interns: oh yeah Yeah, not too much to note on right now, but we'll keep you updated.
Mercer Interns: I would say my connection to horticulture mainly comes through my family. So most of my mom's side of the family farms we always do like a personal garden.
Mercer Interns: So mainly like a couple rows of corn, ah green beans, potatoes, And we would always have these giant days during, you know, the summer and everybody would have to come and dig potatoes or, you know, pull the beans off, break the beans and then movie we would can them.
Mercer Interns: So it's a very yeah um most personal connection to me, I would say. Uh, because that's kind of, when I think about, you know, horticulture and growing plants, that's what I think about is spending, you know, kind of that time with my family, which was very fun.
Mercer Interns: I didn't get to go this year because I was here, but it was very fun.
Jessica : you live You live here now.
Mercer Interns: Yeah. Um, and then we went on the visit with Jessica to the, to her frequent, you know, customer about her trees or his trees.
Mercer Interns: And um my mom has a couple of trees. I think the tree was a red bud, wasn't it, Jessica, that he was worried about?
Jessica : Yeah. Yep.
Mercer Interns: And he told him that red buds have a lifespan. Like at a certain point, they just, and they're just going to die. You know, they're not going to live forever. And I told my mom that because we have a lot of red buds.
Mercer Interns: And she was like, like, no, like, I'm going to live forever.
Jessica : No, you're not you're not supposed to become the bearer of bad news with trees like me.
Mercer Interns: i I know. So i think my connection is mainly just through my family and just what we have in our backyard and in our garden. Can i add to my answer? You inspired me. I think my family would be very angry if I did not mention my orange tree and my lemon tree back in California.
Mercer Interns: Those are pretty big connecting.
Plant People: Oh, wow. Hmm.
Mercer Interns: We have the best oranges you've ever had. and typically in the springtime, my sister and I have an orange party, which is just a dinner party um or lunch. We do it different times a day different orange dishes. So we have like salads that we put the oranges in. We always have like tons of orange juice.
Mercer Interns: Usually we like grill something up and it's like a nice springtime to hang out with friends. But got to mention the orange tree and the lemon tree. Sometimes my dad comes through and he ships them here, so that's pretty fun. And peaches, right?
Mercer Interns: No, just the two of those. Although my sister's boyfriend has nectarines. Okay. So we have that sometimes too.
Plant People: Not easy to grow in Kentucky peaches or nectarines. We've had discussions on the podcast about that. Those are tough ones.
Jessica : ah hu
Plant People: Orange and lemons, even more so, probably.
Jessica : yes yes
Mercer Interns: No.
Plant People: Not very winter hardy. Yeah, no, not here.
Mercer Interns: No. Dustin, California.
Plant People: Yeah, had just in California, vastly different.
Brett: Yeah.
Plant People: So you guys have had just a wealth of experiences kind of broad, um which is not surprising. um And Brett, you mentioned I'm, You know, yeah I know you guys, it's difficult for you guys have interns and I have some awesome experiences too. But the internship program at the University of Kentucky through extension, both on campus and off.
Plant People: I mean, even after all these years, I'm learning about aspects of that and and all the people that they bring in and to support those interns. And it's pretty, it's a pretty awesome program. And I've always appreciated that about the extension service here in Kentucky, both on campus and off.
Plant People: and all the opportunities for people to get involved. I love that.
Brett: Yeah, i'm I'm curious, you know, we may have folks who are listening who maybe are even thinking about doing this or they know someone who's a student ah who's thinking about doing this. So I just wanted to wait one, I wanted to clarify. So we have somebody from here from UK and somebody here from Western.
Brett: So is it any university in Kentucky is able to you're be able to be an intern in an extension?
Mercer Interns: Do you even have to be from Kentucky? I'm pretty sure at the internship, there was someone from Tennessee. think, I don't think it's exclusive to Kentucky. I can get some info on that.
Mercer Interns: It's pretty open.
Brett: Well, that's good, yeah.
Mercer Interns: I think it depends on um your credit level in terms of like, what year you are in school I think you have to be at least a sophomore applying and they typically open the beginning of September and um applications are due by i think it's typically like the end of October um for the following summer so pretty early I do remember it felt very early it was like yeah
Jessica : Yeah.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: So you all applied and in last fall, September, October, in order to to do it this this spring.
Mercer Interns: yeah yeah
Brett: I mean, starting this spring and summer.
Mercer Interns: yeah
Brett: Okay, cool. And so what would you say, what would you say to someone if they're trying to figure out like, is this right for me or is this not like, you know, what would you say? Some, some of the things you need to have in order for this to work, you know, do you have to be open to new experiences or do you need to be flexible or do you need to like, what would you, how would you explain it to someone if they were, they were asking you, I'm thinking about this.
Mercer Interns: I would say go for it first off because I've had such a great experience. I would say you need to be able to be flexible, kind of adapt. Every day is going to be different. The program areas are different.
Mercer Interns: You can't just be too invested maybe in one area. um I don't know if other interns have one more like specific focus area, but I think at least in my perspective and experience being open just expanded what we were able to learn.
Mercer Interns: um And then there's a big people aspect of this job. So I would say if you are not a people person, you might not have the best time. Yeah, you definitely have to be.
Mercer Interns: able to, you know, be with people and, you know, carry on a conversation, but you also kind of have to be passionate about helping people. i think it's the main thing we saw, you you know, sometimes you get difficult customers, but in the end, like they just want help too.
Mercer Interns: So you have to be open and patient and okay with that.
Mercer Interns: And yeah, I would say definitely, I spent an entire day one day counting Legos, like eight hours straight of taking Legos and counting them and putting them in bags.
Plant People: yeah
Mercer Interns: So you have to be okay with just doing what needs to be done. And I was okay doing that because I know if I wasn't doing it, you know, Dana, the agent, she would have been the one doing it.
Mercer Interns: Like it's not, it wasn't busy work. It was something that had to happen. yeah. i would say be prepared to not do busy work. Like you're here to do stuff that matters.
Plant People: In extension, we talk a lot about, um, Subject matter skills and that's, you know, your formal training in a subject matter. But we also talk and you guys have alluded to this throughout the conversation today with you guys.
Plant People: We talk about those critical support skills. And by that, we mean everything else that gets you through the day. ah That's all the things that you don't anticipate your ability to communicate, work with. ah wide range of audiences, but those support skills, it's awesome that you guys have talked about that and alluded to that a lot in the conversation, both the support skills and the subject matter skills. Yeah.
Plant People: Cool.
Brett: Awesome. Well, Khalees and Zoe, thank you all so much for joining us and sharing your experience as interns at the Mercer County Extension Office this summer. um It's been really cool to just hear what you did.
Brett: And and also, I'm glad that you had such a good experience, which, you know, we all love extension.
Plant People: Yeah. Great conversation.
Brett: So it's it's good to hear.
Jessica : They've been great ones.
Brett: um
Jessica : I got multiple text messages while i was on maternity leave about we got some good interns this year.
Mercer Interns: That
Jessica : And so they were like, wait till you get back and meet them.
Mercer Interns: you know
Jessica : They're good. So ah my short time that I've got to work with them, they've been excellent.
Mercer Interns: makes me so happy. Yeah,
Jessica : So I was glad they could be on here to see a little bit of something else that we do in Extension, right?
Mercer Interns: this is absolutely. Thank you guys for having us on. This has been first time on a podcast for me. I don't know if you've been on one before. I already got my own series on Spotify. This is another two for me.
Plant People: Oh, man.
Mercer Interns: Okay.
Brett: Oh, wow.
Mercer Interns: But another fun thing to add to our list of things we've been a part of this summer.
Plant People: Brett, when does this post? Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
Mercer Interns: yeah
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: I was going to say this might, that you know, appearing on Hort culture can be the crown jewel in your, uh, in your internship experience.
Plant People: That'll be the capstone. Yeah.
Mercer Interns: It is our last day Good way to finish it off.
Jessica : You're going to be famous after this.
Mercer Interns: yeah
Brett: Awesome. Well, we'll make sure to get that, get the episode over to you and let you know when it, when it goes live. Um, so just is a reminder to our listeners, you can follow us on Instagram at pod, uh, Hort culture podcast.
Plant People: Yeah.
Brett: You can also email us at Hort culture podcast at gmail.com. That's a new email address from times in the past. Um, we're going to keep rolling out episodes every week. If you like those episodes and you'd like them to keep rolling out, please take a second to on whatever platform you use rate and, uh,
Brett: Give us a review if that's an option for you. We like five stars. That's our preference if you if that's an option for you.
Plant People: We like stars.
Brett: But, you know, we also encourage honesty as long as it's five stars. I'm just kidding. ah And so, yeah, we hope as we grow this podcast, you will grow with us and we will talk to you next time.
