A Meeting of Minds

Meet Joyce.

Joyce is the Food Service Director for the Clarinda school system. And she is a maverick in that she is committed to giving the children good, pure, local, organic food to eat.

Like myself, she was impressed by Jamie Oliver and his Food Revolution.

She has already transitioned into homemade chicken nuggets from real chicken breasts in the school kitchens.

She is planning to take on beef next year.

She is even plotting to improve the sacred pizza that the kids love. (She knows that this is the last bastion, though.)

I'm so glad we found each other!

Last weekend, we began our working relationship. She came to the farm and bought all that I had harvested on Saturday morning -- summer and winter squashes, seven kinds of cucumbers, sweet and hot peppers, and a few tomatoes.

We finish each other's sentences about the quality of good food.

We both remember times when our mothers and grandmothers made meals from scratch, and in season.

We are both excited about the addition of organic produce to the school lunch menu.

She is going to have a few of the unique squashes on display for the kids to touch and learn about.

She has obtained a farm-to-school grant to promote local and organic food in the schools.

She is even going toe-to-toe with the USDA!

We represent the baby steps on the road to healthy, flavorful, wonderful eating.

The Way to Do Things

How about a few vignettes from the last few weeks in the country to elucidate rural protocol?

Ok.

Number One:

Puttering around the garden one sunny morning, the girls and I heard a tractor coming down the hill from the neighbor's house. We assumed it was our great friend, Marlin, until it got a bit closer and stopped at the big barn up the hill and we saw that it was Marlin's son, Tyrel, loading up our tall ladder and taking it back up to his Dad's place.

It's customary around these parts to ask before borrowing items. But, as Tyrel headed up the hill, he was conspicuously looking back, waiting for me to notice him. Once I did, I waved, and he tipped his hat to me, and all was well.

Later, I came to find out that the menfolk had arranged for this transaction. They just hadn't informed yours truly about it.

No matter.

Number Two:

Since it's a busy time of year, I decided to go to the farm for more than a weekend. While I was there by myself, one of my chores was to acquire some seed for a food plot that we have which is in need of renewal. The Pheasants Forever people provide free seed to farmers interested in putting a few of their acres into a food plot for wildlife. I had the name of a man to talk to about this -- George. Andre had talked to him earlier in the week and George knew I was going to contact him. When I called him and said that I was at the farm alone, he was stymied. Not wanting to disappoint me, he asked if I would come into town and meet him at his office (he's also a realtor -- aren't all farmers something else?) and he would take me out to his farm, about three miles away, show me where the seed was, and, when my husband arrived, we could come and get it whenever it was convenient. (Oh, George couldn't help with the sack lifting because he had a shoulder in a cast due to a recent surgical operation. He is so hoping that he'll be able to cast in June when he goes on a fishing trip to Canada.)

It never entered George's head that I could heft those 50-pound sacks of seed into my truck. (I really could have, I swear.) I played the demure female so as not to disappoint him. I toured the two barns where the seed was located and I tried to make mental notes of all the good information that George was giving me..."this one is good for tall sorghum...this one for short...this one goes well with those two to create a good nesting ground...bring a bucket because this sack has holes, etc."

It's been two weeks and we still haven't picked up the seed. But I know where it is!

Number Three:

I was emailed from one of the Practical Farmers of Iowa* and asked about our wheat from last year. Could it be used for flour for baking? Why, yes, of course it can! And we have plenty in storage with our mentor, Dan. Ok, well, send us a sample of it so we can test it and we'll maybe sell it to bakeries in Des Moines. Sure! Will do.

I called Dan and asked if he could get us a few pounds of our wheat for this test. If it panned out, he may have an outlet for his wheat, too! "No problem," says Dan. "I'll get it to you this weekend."

We waited and waited.

Finally, on Sunday afternoon, an hour or two before we were to leave for Omaha, I called him and asked if I could maybe come and get the wheat. Dan informed me that he had already left the wheat at the entrance to our property. He didn't want to chance coming the quarter mile to the cabin and risk tearing up our grass road. So thoughtful of him. Would have been nice if he had called.

No worries.

Just getting used to the way things are done out here.

*These are the same folks who are sponsoring our Field Day on June 12th! Hope you can make it. Go to this link to RSVP.

Nice Doing Business With You

I must begin this entry with a shout out to Akin's Building Center of Clarinda, Iowa.

Halla!

(I'd put up link to them, but they don't see the need for a website. It probably wouldn't bring them any more business than they already have.)

As you may have read in this space, we've been building a barn on our land. We got the roof on a couple of weeks ago and it was time to order the walls. We shopped around and found that our local (Clarinda) hardware store had the best deal, so we ordered from them, by phone, one day last week.

They said they could deliver the panels of metal and skylight plastic panels (they even had them cut to our specs for no extra charge). I told them we'd be at the farm on Saturday and could they deliver it all then? (They were very upfront with us that the delivery charge would be $12.50. I thought we could stomach that and gave them the green light.) 'Round about 11am on Saturday morning, there was a knock on our cabin door. It was the guys from Akin's with our walls.

They brought the panels, corners, and screws (which we hadn't ordered, but which they knew we would need). Andre helped them unload the materials and we contemplated the next phase of building the barn. (The goal is to make it more or less waterproof so that we can install a bed so that Andre can finally get a decent nap!)


I don't usually share personal, financial information, but, in this case, I must tell you that the total for the wall panels, et al, came to over $1,500. The reason this is significant is because all of the preceding happened without any money changing hands. We hadn't been in to Akin's to pay for anything that we had ordered and yet, somehow, it all came! I guess they knew we were good for it.

We went in later that day to settle up.

It was in no way out of the ordinary for the folks at Akin's.

God bless 'em!

Green Acres

This entry is added by Andre Konstantinov.

Everyone at work, as soon as they find out that we own a farm, always starts: "Greeeeeeeen Acres is the place to be".....

Is it THAT unusual to own a farm?

I once worked for a small software development company in Glenwood, Iowa. It was, in fact, my first job after I married My Honey and got my Green Card (one of the many, many reasons that I married her...really!). They used to joke that if I did not behave, they would take away my "Pink Card". I did not mind. There was love and care in these jokes. They loved me and I loved the people I worked with.

At that company, it was fairly typical to take off three weeks in September to go and harvest, say, 60 acres of beans. I was a wide-eyed immigrant, graduate student at Creighton University in physics, just taking it all in. Good Lord, I didn't even know how 'John Deere' was actually spelled. Seriously.

Oh yeah, the company developed agricultural loan software.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would care about things like 'yield', 'pounds of nitrogen per acre' and 'mechanical weed control'. I grew up in a city. Food came from the grocery store, and it did NOT have dirt on it.


Twelve years after that time, having bought a farm, I find myself quite versed in the intricacies of ancient tractor makes and models. (I even own a few of them.) I watch the weather with genuine interest. I chart the rainfall. I know when the ground will freeze and thaw. I quiver with anticipation during the fall hunting season. I love that My Honey has just begun her seedlings in the makeshift greenhouse that was once our living room.

I've come a long way since the days of writing code for ag loans, and I'm glad of it!

Day by Day

In this part of the world, we don't pay too much attention to the prognostications of Punxsutawney Phil. It doesn't really matter which way he goes, we Midwesterners always have at least six more weeks of winter at this point in the year. We're used to it, so it's alright. But, having spent some of my formative years just north of Phil's stomping grounds, I still get a little thrill when his day rolls around. Even if he predicts more winter, the fact that Phil's day has arrived means that spring can't be far off.

Even more entertaining than watching a reluctant rodent being pulled out of his cozy hole is the movie, Groundhog Day. Bill Murray stars as a sullen, sarcastic news reporter who is stuck living the same day over and over again....until he gets it right. Along the way, however, he gets to act with impunity, knowing no one will remember his actions the next day. I'm envious. Do-Overs to the max! (Yes, I know it's just a movie, but still...)


His progress in the movie is through his own learning experiences, unencumbered by the passage of time (beyond one day). It's a great movie -- full of fun stuff, serious stuff, and a moral that doesn't hit you over the head. Thoroughly enjoyable and...timeless. (Ha!) Put it on your Netflix wishlist.

One of the more subtle lessons in the film is that of judging a small town like Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania (a real place, by the way). We see through the cynic's eyes, as the story opens, that it's a non-descript, podunk town that he can't wait to leave behind. As the story unfolds, our antagonist, stuck there, begins to see the charms of the town. These charms are expressed in family ties, shared history, social cooperation, and a willingness to accept the newcomer, no questions asked.

Down on our farm, even though they call us "the crazy Russians", we know that it is said with affection, we know that we will never get a bum deal from our small town, we know that our neighbors will always watch out for us, and we know that a handshake is a deal-sealer. People around us are more interested in us succeeding than failing, they realize that we have something to offer, and they know that we're all in this together. I must admit that I used to discount small towns as insignificant. My bad. They are truly the backbone of this great nation and I count myself lucky to be someone who understands why.