Tuesday, March 29, 2011

My First Skool @ Oh's Farms and Butterfly Lodge

A clear blue sky as the backdrop coupled with soothing gush of wind ushered in 3 bus-loads of VIPs from My First Skool on 26th February 2011.
The arrival of our many little angels.
It was a family outing. The little ones were led or accompanied by their love ones, all ready to tour the Farm.
First stop is the Packing Centre. This packing centre handles not only 1000 kg of hydroponic vegetables daily but also the full range of soil-grown vegetables for our local supermarkets.
The next stop, the young and the seniors were taken to our Production Greenhouse to see how we grow the 6 types of leafy vegetables and 10 types of culinary herbs.
Hydroponics is the science of cultivating plants without using soil. The term hydroponics was introduced by William Frederick Gericke of the University of California at Berkeley in the year 1937.
The Cold Room, the most popular stop in the tour, is kept at a temperature range of 4° to 8°C to keep the harvest fresh and to ensure a longer shelf life.
Next, Tony one of our most experienced guides, captured the attention of our VIPs, enthusing them with the life cycle of butterfly outside the Butterfly Lodge.Butterflies do not have teeth. Come on, don't not be afraid to come in to get close contact with them. We were sure that these kids experienced that butterflies after all are so harmless and pretty. Hey, what was on the Peacock Flower that attracted you ? Take as many photos and capture all the good memories but do not take away anything from the Lodge.Boys and girls, observe the butterflies, how they feed and fly.... You see, this was what I mean by being up-close and get intimate with the butterflies.To take or not to take, that is the question. The butt(butterfly) or the butt...
Please be gentle with me.
Smile, you are on camera...While the juniors were having their breaks the seniors did some shopping.Farm produce, growing materials and potted herbs are on sale in our very own FARMART.
Shopping is therapeutic. Seeing the smile it brings on the faces of the visitors is worth more than what the sale has brought. Totally satisfying!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

ACS Junior @ Butterfly Lodge

Over a period of 3 days began from 21st February '11, ACS Junior visited the Hydroponics Farm and the Butterfly Lodge.
Most of these young pupils dressed in striking red T-shirt paid close attention to the tour guide describing the 4 stages of the life cycle of a butterfly. We could see that an outdoor experiential learning could really engage these young minds.They were waiting orderly and eagerly outside the butterfly enclosure for their turns to come face-to-face with the flying jewels. "Lastly, please follow these instructions. When you are inside the Lodge - no pushing, no screaming and no catching of butterflies... " The photographer being photographed.. "Let me see, let me see..." "Which is prettier, the flower or the butterfly?" "Anymore butterflies landing on my head?" "Hmmm, should I or should I not try catching a butterfly ? " I think I just stand here watching its beauty. "Look! It's a plane, it's a bird, no it's a butterfly..."
"Come, land on my hand, my beauties..." "Awesome! I must take a photo of this beauty..." Now they were ready to answer quiz questions and win some prizes back - of course they brought lots of beautiful memories and photos home as well.

More photos of the learning journey can be found here.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Vegetable Packing Machine @ Oh' Farms

Oh' Farms has been using a vegetable packing machine (Model CXW07A) to increase productivity. This machine was imported from Japan's Suzuki Machinery Co LTd. Oh' Farms also acquires the distribution right of this machine in this region.



Here is a close view.
A longer video here, well you need a bit of patience to see this video.

The following video consists of 3 segments - first segment showing the manual mode, 2nd segment the semi-automatic mode and the last segment fully automatic mode.

If you are interested in finding out more about this machine, please contact Oh' Farms