Category Archives: Local

Apple River Farm Tour, July 15, 10AM – 4PM Visit our Farms!!

Well, we’re just one day out from our first annual Apple River Farm Tour – yahoo!!

Pack your sunglasses, grab your insect repellent, and your sunhat for a great day of self-guided tours of up to 9 local regenerative farms. We’re beekeepers, flower growers, humane livestock stewards, chicken keepers, and mushroom growers, apple and berry producers, maple syrup producers, and lots more!

Brochure & Map

Scan the code or click here for your brochure and map.

And after the day of tours, there’s a relaxing event at Dragonfly Garden, just south of downtown Amery.

 

 

 

The participating farms include:

  • Blackbrook Farm
  • Bull Broom Keep (that’s Dave and me)
  • Northwood Mushrooms
  • Schoen Valley Orchard
  • Threshing Table Farm
  • Turnip Rock Farm and Cosmic Wheel Creamery
  • Two Bees and a Bud
  • White Pine Berry Farm
  • Z-Orchard

See you soon!!

In time of need: delish, nutritious pastured meats and veg from local sustainable farmers

Looking for nutritious foods? Meats and veggies that will boost your health – and just when we need it the most? Look to your local, sustainable farmers.

We’re here to help as we face today’s challenges, and as we prepare for a better future. Today, we can offer healthful, delicious foods – as supplies last.

If you’re in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area, and in Wisconsin’s Polk and St. Croix counties, here are farmers ready to help with foods grown for health: of the land, of the livestock, and of the meats and vegetables themselves. Contact farmers directly. We deliver, or you can pick up at the farm. Our farms are clustered closely – you can visit two or more in a single trip. We’re an easy drive through beautiful countryside.

We’re the sustainable farmers of the St. Croix Watershed Midlands. We’re committed to great taste, quality and high nutrition. We use organic practice, livestock is pastured, and meats processed at nearby custom USDA facility.

BueLingo cattle graze lush pastures

Bull Brook Keep: grass-fed-grass-finished beef grown without grain, subclinical antibiotics or hormones. Available now —  #1 ground beef packages, soup bones, summer sausage (without artificial nitrates or nitrites), and variety packages of ground beef, cuts and roasts. Variety packages start at just 15 lbs. See my order page here. Call or text with questions, Sylvia@bullbrookkeep.com, 651-238-8525.

Blackbrook Farmstead: pastured pork and fresh spring spinach. Other products may also be available. Contact Ayla or James, 651-343-2595, blackbrook.farm.llc@gmail.com 

Whetstone Farm: pastured lamb and mutton, stored root vegetables, fleeces. Other products may be available. You can also sign up for their organic vegetable CSA. Contact Emily or Klauss: cell 612-354-6282, home 715-268-8454, whetstonefarmers@gmail.com

Turnip Rock Farm: pastured pork, and to sign up for their organically grown CSA. This farm also raises and milks a grass-fed herd that supplies the wonderful milk for Cosmic Wheel Creamery for fresh and aged artisan cheeses that are out of this world. Contact Josh or Rama, 715-268-9311, turniprock@gmail.com.

Additional farms and resources will be added. Check back often. Thanks.

Sylvia

Saturday mornings at Jewelltown Roastery jams.

Coffee, food, conversation, music…Star Prairie, WI

I couldn’t get this audio file to upload on Facebook, so here it is on my blog. It’s a one minute bite of this morning’s regular jam session at Jewelltown Roastery, in nearby Star Prairie, WI.

In addition to my cappuccino fix, I chatted with several new acquaintances as tunes flowed across several decades. What a great group of musicians!

Hope to see you there.

Sylvia

Bringing it on at Jewelltown Roastery

New pencils, windswept, and drenched

As a kid in the South Bronx, I loved this time of year because it meant new: yellow #2 pencils, notebooks with crisp clean pages, maybe a fresh book bag (this was way before backpacks), and spanking new clothes to start the school year. There would be one or two bright white shirts, a couple of new skirts (no pants or shorts back then), and fancy dresses for special ocassions.

The first couple of weeks might be a bit warm, but then the winds would start as the East Coast shifted into hurrican season. There were days when I’d walk to school at a 45-degree angle into the wind just to stay on my feet. It was pretty common to see an umbrellas tumbling down the street, spokes twisted and fabric turned inside-out by the gale.

 *   *  *

It was pretty calm this morning at Bull Brook Keep. The hydrant that feeds the line to the cow’s water trough is just 50 yards from the back door, but by the time I reached it this morning, my boots were drenched and my jean cuffs were begining to soak through. Late August-early September in the Upper Midwest usually means heavy dews on the grass and fogs that hang above the pastures and hay fields. The mists take longer and longer to burn off as we move through fall, until one day we’re closer to winter and the air dries again.

Parker greets the sun

Russian kale

Every surface was dripping this morning and it took just five seconds for the dogs to look as if they’d jumped into a stream. Ah, nothing like a wet corgi jumping on your jeans for a pat on the head.

Sourdough loaves are baking and it’s time for morning tea. Lots of calls to make this morning, and notes to take as I schedule this year’s harvest and upcoming deliveries of our grass-fed-grass-finished beef. Fortunately, I’ve got a new pen and a spiral notebook at hand.

Enjoy the changing seasons!

Sylvia

WCCO TV shines light on Saturday’s (July 14th) Eat Local Coop Farm Tour – quick video

Wedge Coop’s Allison Heitmiller preps for TV

It was fun on the WCCO TV set this morning. A big thanks to the Mid Morning Team, to the Twin Cities’ natural food coops, and to Allison Heitmiller from the Wedge Community Coop for helping food lovers learn about this weekend’s Coop Farm Tour. Here’s the video.

Our farm, Bull Brook Keep, is again glad to be one of the 30 rural and urban farms on the map. We’ll be moving cows to fresh grass at 10AM, 1PM and 3PM, offering samples and taking short pasture walks. We’d love to hear about your food journey. There are also five other farms within a short circle of us that are part of the tour, making it easy to visit a range of operations – a grass-fed dairy and cheese-making creamery, CSA vegetable, and trout farm – within a few quick miles. These are wonderful, sustainably operated farms producing delicious and highly nutritious foods. At the end of the day, you can relax and enjoy a great meal at the Farm Table Restaurant in downtown Amery, WI.

I hope you enjoy this morning’s interview.

Sylvia Burgos Toftness & Dave Toftness

March 28, 2018 honey pastry chef challenge spotlights threats to bees, impact on ag and food supply, and delicious solutions

Deep Roots Radio
Deep Roots Radio
March 28, 2018 honey pastry chef challenge spotlights threats to bees, impact on ag and food supply, and delicious solutions
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I can’t wait: on March 28th, 2018, I’ll be one of several people confronting a tough assignment. We’ll have the enviable job of judging honey-based pastries created by some of the top women chefs in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN metro area and nearby Wisconsin.

You’re invited to savor the dozens of sweet and savory foods featured at the 5th Annual Dandelion Honey Pastry Chef Challenge, and event created to train a spotlight on the critical role bees and other pollinators play in American agriculture. (Details)

Unfortunately, honey bees, along with the more than 400 native Minnesota bee species and many types of flies, are suffering shrinking numbers due to pesticides and herbicides used on farms and gardens, disappearing habitat, and disease. Without them, dozens and dozens of food crops wouldn’t be pollinated, and we couldn’t enjoy almonds and other nuts, apples and pears, watermelon and squash, strawberries, cotton and tomatoes, just to name a few.

I hope you’ll enjoy this Deep Roots Radio conversation with Kristy Allen, founder/CEO of Beez Kneez Delivery LLC, the Minneapolis-based organization that created and runs this event, and offers beekeeping classes, equipment and local honey.

See you on March 28th!
Sylvia

Just what is a CSA farm? Is there one near you?

from CSA

CSAs, like farmers markets, have been increasing in number dramatically in the last 10 years. Here’s some basic information about CSAs and why they’re a good source of fresh, local produce.
CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, each CSA consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or spiritually, the community’s farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production. Typically, members or “share-holders” of the farm or garden pledge in advance to cover the anticipated costs of the farm operation and farmer’s salary. In return, they receive shares in the farm’s bounty throughout the growing season, as well as satisfaction gained from reconnecting to the land and participating directly in food production. Members also share in the risks of farming, including poor harvests due to unfavorable weather or pests.
By direct sales to community members, who have provided the farmer with working capital in advance, growers receive better prices for their crops, gain some financial security, and are relieved of much of the burden of marketing.

Find a CSA Farm Near You Search National farm databases by city, state, or zipcode

Local Harvest – http://www.localharvest.org/csa/
AgMap – http://agmap.psu.edu/
Search the Business category for the term Community Supported Agriculture or use the Advanced Search to find a local CSA.
Wilson College, Robyn Van En Center, CSA Farm Database – http://www2.wilson.edu/CsaSearch/
The Eat Well Guide – http://www.eatwellguide.org/

Local Food Directories. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service. Includes directories of farmers markets, on-farm markets, CSAs, and food hubs.
https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/local-regional/food-directories
Local Food Directories. ATTRA – The National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service – http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/local_food/search.php