It’s mid-September – harvest season at Bull Brook Keep

Wasn’t it just Memorial Day? Yup, another growing season is coming to an end. Fog hangs heavy over the pastures in the mornings. The days are getting shorter and the evenings much cooler. Trees are turning on nearby hills. The sumac at the northern fence post is blazing red, as are the hawthorn berries. Bees are a loud cloud above the chive blossoms, and bright yellow heads of goldenrod sway in every ditch and fence line.

The herd has been grazing happily all summer and fall. As usual, they take a mid-morning lie-down from about 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM. It’s a sign of a healthy, contented herd.

And that’s a major goal: healthy cattle raised on healthful grass. Another is to work in harmony with the season.

And so, it’s time: We begin the 2021 beef harvest in a few days. If you’d like to order, please do so early to secure your beef.

Please know that you don’t have to buy half a cow to enjoy the great taste and high nutrition of grass-fed-grass-finished beef. Our variety packages start at just 30 pounds. (A variety package includes ground, steak and roasts.)

Don’t hesitate to call, email or text with any questions. We’d like to be your farmers.

Sylvia & Dave Toftness

Deep Roots Radio wrestles with good food (wink), Saturday, July 24, 9-9:30AM Central

Join co-host Dave Corbett and me tomorrow, July 24th, when Deep Roots Radio goes on the road to learn how national wrestling champs are pinning a spotlight on local food. We’ll be at the Amery Farmer’s Market from 9:00AM to 9:30AM.

Join us at the market, or tune in on the radio or on the web: 93.1FM in and around Amery, WI, or www.wpcaradio.org all around the globe, 9:00-9:30AM Central.

Tune in!

See you on the radio!

Sylvia

It’s the Eat Local Co-op Farm Tour! Come visit our farm July 10, 10AM – 4PM

This is one of the high points of summer: the Eat Local Co-op Farm Tour!  Collectively sponsored by a dozen Minneapolis/St. Paul MN natural food cooperatives, the annual event encourages co-op shoppers to walk, bike or drive to rural and urban farms within 80+ miles of the Twin Cities.  Cancelled last year due to COVID, the tour is back! Yippee!!

This is Bull Brook Keep‘s fifth year on the map, and we sooo look forward to meeting

Bull Brook Keep’s 100% grass-fed Buelingo beef cattle

you. We’ll walk the pastures, meet the moos, sample some beef (oh, yum), and watch a demonstration of rotational grazing. (That’s where we move the herd from grassy field to grassy field so that they can enjoy fresh grass and get some exercise.)

We’ll move the cows at 11AM, 1PM and 3PM. Please join us. And since there are other nearby farms participating in the tour, you can visit several of us in a single trip. Here’s the map.

So, come on out. We’re an easy ride on good roads no matter where you’re coming from. Wear comfy shoes, hat and shades.

See you soon!

Sylvia & Dave Toftness

I guess I’ll do it tomorrow

The evening was wonderfully cool, and although the light was fading fast, I was sure I had just enough time to get my herbs transplants into the garden.

I had my trowel and garden fork, a little map showing where I’d place the plants, and a kneeling cushion for my knees. I’d sprayed down my jeans against ticks and my ball cap against bothersome mosquitos.  “Let’s go, Siggy.” And so my corgi and I climbed a slight rise to a generous plot set aside for medicinal herbs.

I could see the herd just across the field. I’d moved them to a fresh paddock just hours before. And there was a cow, #7, a red-and-white Buelingo, trumpeting across the fence to the next open field. She was calling for her calf. She had been pacing the fenceline for a good half hour, and her call was sounding more and more desparate. Where was her calf? Born just this morning, the little red-and-white heifer was strong and healthy and had immediately followed her mom around on long, wobbly legs.

Where was she?

The cow’ was getting more agitated as the dark edged in.

Up until a couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have been too bothered by the scene. Calves love to slip under fences and walk away from their dams. But last year, we lost two calves to coyotes and I just didn’t want to chance that again.

And so, I got off my knees, dusted off my jeans and headed to the garage for a flashlight.
“Come on, Sig. Let’s find this little girl.”

Fortunately, it was a very brief search. The calf was nestled down in some long grass just a few yards from the fence. It’s amazing how well calves can disappear in high grass. There can be a dozen of them right in front of you, and you’d never know.

new Buelingo heifer

It took quite a bit of jostling to wake her and get her on her feet (very young calves can be tough to move)  and headed back towards mama. Meanwhile, the entire herd had lined up along the electric fence line, and watched me struggle with the little animal.

I eventurally pushed the calf back under the fence where she was reclaimed by her dam.

By then, it was nearly dark, and Sig and I walked back to the house by flashlight.

The herb transplants will have to wait till tomorrow.

Sylvia

 

 

Praying for rain

“I know to you, it may sound strange, but I wish it would rain.
Oh, how I wish that it would rain.
Oh, yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah”
The Temptations

It’s been weeks since we’ve had anything that’s amounted to anything. Stretches of grass by the house and driveway have gone pale tan. Parched blades crackle underfoot. Every night, after I brush my teeth and put the dogs in their kennels, I check the 10-day forecast, and I’m nearly always encouraged by the little rain and thunderstorm icons. My spirits lift with the hopeful percentages: 50%, sometimes 60% possibility of rain two or three days out.  And for the last 6 weeks or so, I’ve awakened to evaporated promises.

I look skyward and grimly watch the clouds shrink as the day progresses. Come evening, I often see thunderclouds build to the south, and virgo ghosting far to the north. But here? Nada.

Fortunately, the permanent pastures are still holding out — better in the low areas than on the higher, drier ridges, of course. We don’t  plow or till, and the rotational grazing we use with our beef cattle is helping maintain good soil texture and moisture, but we need rain. There’s just no substitute for it.

Praying for rain.

Sylvia

 

 

John Govin welcomes thousands of visitors to cuddle new lambs and farm babies every spring.

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John Govin welcomes thousands of visitors to cuddle new lambs and farm babies every spring.
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If it fits on your lap, we’ll help you hold it.

Is there anything cuter than a new lamb? Or softer than a day-old chick? Well, maybe it’s the curly tail of a tiny piglet, or the agile jumps of a week-old kid.

All will be on display, and ready for a cuddle, beginning this weekend on John and Julie Govin’s farm in Menomonie, Wisconsin. It’s their annual Lambing Barn and Farm Babies event . “Our motto is – If it fits in your lap, we’ll help you hold it,” said John during our Deep Roots Radio chat. An easy drive from the Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota metro area, the Govins have welcomed thousands of visitors – young and old – to this event for the last 16 years.

The Lambing Barn runs four weekends in 2021:  March 20-21; March 27-28; April 2-3, and April 10-11.  This spring, he’s taken extra COVID-19 measures to promote wellness and fun on the farm.  If you’re into agritourism, the Govin’s farm offers many activities through the summer and fall.

I hope you enjoy this interview  with John, and go online to purchase tickets to this spring time event.  I’m going Saturday, March 20th, and hope to see your there!

Sylvia

Lisa Kivirist on 1st ever nat’l conference on cottage food biz and food freedom April 6-9

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Sourdough w roasted beets

The first time I handed over a fresh loaf of my artisan mild French sourdough and received cash in exchange, I was amazing satisfied and proud of the transaction. I’d done it. People had sampled my home-baked bread, found it to their liking, and purchased several loaves!

That was a few years ago, and at that time, I didn’t realize I was joining a countrywide community of home-based food entrepreneurs. It’s a sector that’s growing rapidly as a part of the food freedom movement. And, interestingly, it took a jump because of the pandemic. More and more consumers were searching for local food, including baked goods.  Who knew!?

Well, as it turns out, there’s a lot to know about, and to benefit from, when you decide to bake and sell hearth breads and muffins, or cook up and sell jams and pickles. Some states have really broad and welcoming regs, while a few others are somewhat restrictive. Still, both cases present lots of opportunity to build a cottage food business in your home kitchen.

The ins and outs, laws and opportunities are the focus of the first ever Home-based Food Entrepreneur Virtual National Conference, scheduled for April 6-9, 2021 wherever you have internet connection.

How to get started!

Lisa Kivirist, eco-innkeeper, author, and long-time advocate for home-based baking businesses, is one of the four conference keynote speakers. With husband John Ivanko, she has co-authored several books about building businesses on farm-based/environmentally-anchored foundations, including the popular Homemade for Sale.  In this Deep Roots Radio interview, Lisa describes the conference program, and reviews the current state of this sector.

I hope you enjoy this interview and sign up for the virtual conference. I hope to see you there.

Sylvia Burgos Toftness

 

Woman entrepreneur makes Wildflour – a small town natural foods store – rebloom in time of COVID

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Woman entrepreneur makes Wildflour - a small town natural foods store - rebloom in time of COVID
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There’s hope!

COVID 2020 – a year of pandemic, illness and isolation. We all learned about social distancing, working from home, and how to make sourdough bread. We clocked hundreds of hours on Zoom for professional meetings and family gatherings.

Lots of us dusted off our sewing machines and made face masks.  Our hearts broke as we learned about the hundreds of thousands brought down by the coronavirus. Businesses shuttered, and schools closed, and opened and closed again. Home-schooling was redefined.

Vaccines are on their way, but it appears distribution may take many months, and lots of political haggling.

It was in this chaotic context that Tessa Ingham purchased the local natural foods store, changed its name to Wildfour Market and set to work for the health of her community – Amery, Wisconsin, population 2,902.

Wildflour joins the steadily growing movement of agriculturally-based businesses in this small city just 70 miles east of the Minneapolis/St.Paul, Minnesota metro area. In the last 10 years, numbers of organic farmers have moved to the area to grow and market produce, meats, eggs, artisanal cheeses, mushrooms, fleece and fibers, and certified organic herbs and medicinal herb products.  The Amery area is also home to farm-to-table restaurant, microbrews, wineries, coffee roasters and distilleries using many locally-grown ingredients.   

I hope you enjoy this Deep Roots Radio interview with Tessa Ingham about hope and imagination, investment and grit in the time of COVID.

Sylvia Burgos Toftness

GrowingStronger 2021 – break-the-mold, 5-in-1 virtual conf for people who grow and love sustainable and organic food

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What do you do when your annual conference is scheduled for February 2021, and COVID makes it impossible to gather the usual 3,000 attendees for three days of networking, workshops, shared meals, dancing, inspiring keynotes and more? Well if you’re MOSES (the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Services nonprofit), you decide the break the mold.

This year, GrowingStronger2021 is a collaborative effort put on by five powerhouse organizations with deep roots, long histories, and credibility in the organic and sustainable farming sector.

I hope you enjoy this Deep Roots Radio chat with MOSES Executive Director Lori Stern as she describes this break-the-mold event. As a farmer, and food lover, I can hardly wait.

Sylvia

 

COVID exposes smaller-scale meat processing shortages – what to do

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COVID exposes smaller-scale meat processing shortages - what to do
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In spring 2020, consumers all across the country experienced shortages of fresh and packaged foods; and for most of us, this was a first in our lives. We found ourselves staring at sparsely-stocked grocery shelves, nearly empty dairy sections, and signs warning us that we were limited to the number of poultry or beef packages we could add to our carts.

News stories told of COVID outbreaks at the very large scale meat plants, and the resultant dramatic cuts to production. We became familiar with pictures of vegetable fields being plowed under, and of farmers emptying milk tanks to the ground.

The lack of capacity in the big factories trickled down to the small-scale livestock producers because more and more consumers began searching for locally-grown beef, pork, lamb, and poultry. All that protein had to be handled at smaller-scale processors – and they quickly became swamped.

Now, we find ourselves with over-burdened processors and the need to build capacity. But can we?  A smaller-scale processing plant is an expensive enterprise to upscale, refurbish, or start-up. Are there options? What about the policies that might help this along?

In this Deep Roots Radio interview, Lauren Langworthy, Special Projects Director for the Wisconsin Farmers Union, describes the issue and the series of farmer/processor/policy maker conversations and webinars now being held to address the challenge.

The next five webinars will be held at noon, Central Time, on January 14, January 28, February 11, March 11, and April 8, 2021. They are free, register here.

I hope you enjoy this very informative interview.

Sylvia Burgos Toftness