ODA partners with Swain family for farm field trip

When Bibb and Pamela Swain purchased 30 acres of land east of Interstate 75 five years ago the plan was to relax.  

“The initial idea was that my husband wanted a hobby farm to grow some citrus and the ideas just kind of grew from one to the other,” Pamela Swain said. 

Now retired, Bibb and Pamela used their backgrounds in aeromechanical engineering and education, respectively, to envision multiple opportunities and projects for their farm. Those ideas included building an airplane hangar — with the intention to build a plane — breeding red Angus cattle and raising goats and chickens. 

The couple resides on Siesta Key, which is where their grandson Alex Popovich attended Out-of-Door Academy. When Alex was in the first grade, his class was studying the life cycle and needed chicken eggs that the students could watch hatch. 

The class had trouble finding eggs and Alex told his teacher that his grandparents had a farm.

Swain wanted to help, but there was just one problem. 

At the time, the Swain farm didn’t have any roosters to fertilize the eggs. A search on Craigslist turned up more than two-dozen local fertilized eggs, which the Swains provided for the class.

From the eggs that the Swains family donated, the students witnessed 14 chicks hatch. Instead of keeping the chicks cooped up, the Swain family invited the ODA students to bring the chickens to the farm to live. 

For this year’s life cycle project at ODA, the Swain farm provided eggs from last year’s chicks.

The project culminated in a class trip May 18 to the farm. More than 40 students, teachers and parent chaperones boarded a bus and headed 20 miles east to the farm. Students spent the day exploring the farm, climbing trees, swinging on a tire swing, performing arts and crafts and petting goats. But the main attraction was students dropping off their new chicks in the coop and visiting the hens in what the Swain family has named the “Poultry Palace.” 

“The teachers tell me all the time that it’s the best day of first grade, their trip out here. We’re just so pleased to have them. My husband and I love to have the kids out here.”

 

– Pamela Swain

 

Even though Alex was in second grade this year, he was able to tag along for the day to show his classmates around the farm and introduce them to his favorite rooster, Blackie. 

He also cautioned them about the three goats on the farm: Doc, Happy and Bashful.

“One time I was wearing this yellow Life is Good shirt and Doc tried to eat my shirt,” Alex said.

Even though Alex will be attending a different school in the fall, the Swain family will continue the life cycle lessons and farm day with future ODA classes. 

“The teachers tell me all the time that it’s the best day of first grade, their trip out here,” Swain said. “We’re just so pleased to have them. My husband and I love to have the kids out here.”