MONMOUTH, Ill. — What looks like a grave yard of pumpkins is actually an all you can eat buffet for the livestock. Their meals are served up on a silver plater thanks to your muscles and leftovers.
"When you put them out with the trash, we don't know how they're going to breakdown," Eric Engstrom, director of the Monmouth College Educational Farm said. "But one of the ways they can breakdown is anaerobically, so that's potentially creating methane. That's a greenhouse gas and [the pumpkins will just sit] in a landfill somewhere. You bring them out here and our chickens are going to start processing [them.]"
Engstrom didn't always picture himself becoming a farm director. He remembers applying for grants as a when went for his PhD. as a plant geneticist, and says he had no idea what he was talking about. Engstrom pushed himself to do his research and is now a full-time biology professor. It brings him joy to see the kids interacting with nature at such a young age.
"No one lights up quite like they do," Engstrom said. "They can come out here and they can see these animals roaming around. Get to know what chickens and Muscovies and things like that do. [See] what they look like, how they act and how they behave."
But the director says adults are welcomed to stop by the farm and learn something new from the great outdoors, as well.
"There's a lot of nature out here. It's strange to think we're in rural America, but sometimes we have a little bit of a nature deficit. We have neighborhoods and cornfields," Engstrom said.
The farm would still love to take your pumpkin, if you missed Saturday's window. You can reach out to Engstrom for tours as well.