Morgan Denton
Professor Rob Williams
Ethics and the Environment
2 December 2013
PAEP Reflection
The Audet’s Blue
Spruce Farm: Cow Power
The
PAEP project was a great learning experience. It was a great way to get us out
into the community to learn about local organizations that are taking steps to
be sustainable and trying to help the environment. The first day when my group
met I wasn’t sure what exactly we should do. We started doing some research and
I started thinking about what was around the area. I couldn’t think of anything
that I found interesting in the Burlington area but instead I thought of the
Blue Spruce Farm in Bridport. When I was in high school we went on a class trip
to the farm and I remember going on the tour and hearing about what the farm
was doing to be sustainable. So my group and I decided that we would do our
poster on the Audet’s Blue Spruce Farm.
Norman
and Mary Rose Audet bought the original farm in 1958 and within the next seven
years they had five children. In 1970, they had a devastating barn fire but
were able to save their herd of cows. The second generation of the Audet family
decided they wanted to focus on the comfort of their cows. Currently, the Blue
Spruce Farm had three barns and they are currently milking 1300 cows, with
about 30 employees. During the spring of 2004 they started to build the
digester and it was ready to use in January 2005. In November 2011 they doubled
the size of their digester.
The
digester that was installed at the Audet’s is a 16-foot deep tank that is
oxygen free. In this tank, it takes waste and turns it into biogas acting as if
it were a stomach. The tank is kept at 100 degree F, which is the temperature
of a cow’s stomach. The waste is collected by a huge squeegee that runs
throughout the barn non stop and the waste is then pushed into a drain then
makes its way to the digester for a 21-day period. During this process,
microorganisms produce methane gas. This methane gas is collected at the top of
the tank and then goes through a pipe and the gas is used to fuel the generator
that is used to produce heat, hot water, and electricity. The electricity that
is produced then gets dispersed into the grid. During the first year of
producing cow power the Blue Spruce Farm produced 1M-kilowatt hours. The Blue
Spruce Farm produces enough electricity for 300 plus homes (Blue Spruce Farm
website).
The
Blue Spruce Farm is all about trying to be as sustainable as possible. The
Audet’s are all about keeping their cows comfortable. The Audet’s have thermostat-controlled
walls and rubber coated floors. Their cows never walk on concrete. Depending on
the temperature outside and in the barn the walls with either go up or down if
it’s too cold or too warm in the barn. As far as bedding for the cows, they use
the dry digested manure instead of sawdust that was shipped in from Canada. Not
only are the Audet’s trying to reduce their carbon footprint by using all they
can from the waste in the digester but they are also thinking about their
community surrounding the farm. The odor is also eliminated which makes a lot
of people very happy. Not only are local households running off of cow power
but business’ are as well; businesses such as Vermont Clothing Company, Long
Trial, and Handy Toyota. The Blue Spruce Farm was the first farm in Vermont to
be a cow power farm (Blue Spruce Farm website).
As
we have read in the Ethics and the Environment book there has been a question
raised whether or not animals have rights. I do believe that animals have
rights but I believe that the Audet family is doing a great job in supporting
and taking care of their animals. As Marie has said over and over while talking
with her throughout the semester, comfortable cows are happy cows. I think that
cow power is a great idea and a great way to use the waste in many different
ways. Other farmers that don’t have this technology are just spreading the
manure on the fields for fertilizer where as the Audet family is really using
all aspects from the waste to their benefit as well as the cow’s benefit.
Group
projects are always difficult. Finding a time for all of us to get together was
very hard and very frustrating because we could never seem to find a time that
worked for all of us. I was able to contact Marie on our first day of working
together and she was great and got right back to us and was able to bring us on
a tour that same week but not everyone was able to make it so we decided to
wait till everyone could go. A few weeks went by and Marie said that she
wouldn’t be able to meet with us in person because we would be gone on trips
for the farm. However, then the government shut down and that was in our favor
because her trips were unfortunately canceled but we were able to have a tour. Only
two of us were able to make it but we made the best out of it. It was truly a
great experience. While walking around the farm with Marie and learning about
their way of doing things was great and a fun way to learn about their farm.
The site visit definitely made the project. We also had a great opportunity to
watch a film, The Film: Cow Power that was produced by college students about
cow power and participating farms in Vermont. I was very honored for Marie and
the students who produced the film to share it with us. Marie was more than
willing to help us with our project and was very honored that we chose her
family farm.
Overall,
this project was a great learning experience. I really enjoyed it and being
able to pick something that I am very passionate about and love to learn about
made it even more interesting for me. Working with a group can be frustrating
at times but we all pulled through and it was such a relief when our poster was
completed. At the beginning of the semester when I saw the requirements for
this project I was very overwhelmed and wasn’t sure how well it was going to
go. I am very glad we had this opportunity to go out in the community to learn
about something we were interested in. It was a great experience and I am very
thankful for all of Marie’s help.
Works Cited
Audet,
Marie. "Blue Spruce Farm | Audet's Cow Power." Blue Spruce
Farm | Audet's
Cow
Power. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
<http://www.bluesprucefarmvt.com/>.
Cow
Power: The Film. Dir. Allison Gillette. Prod. Michael
G. Gray. 2013. Online.
DesJardins,
Joseph R. Environmental Ethics: An Introduction to Environmental
Philosophy.
Australia:
Wadsworth Cengage, 2013. Print.
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