Farm Indiana | April 2016

APRIL 2016

Rural Living & Local Food

Sustainable Success

Entrepreneur Nick Carter brings business acumen to agriculture

ALSO

Walnut Leaf Farm // Acker’s Pygmy Pastures // Ag Programs for Veterans

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A monthly publication of AIM Media Indiana, Farm Indiana offers the local news and views of Indiana’s farming world, including features about local families and their farms, agriculture businesses, equipment and technological advances, educational outreach programs and more. Farm Indiana promotes and celebrates Indiana’s rich history and tradition in farming; serves as a conduit of information among growers, producers, farmers, retailers, farming organizations and local food consumers; educates readers about the nutritional, social and financial importance of local food support and consumption; and highlights Indiana local foods and agritourism.

PUBLISHER Chuck Wells EDITOR Sherri Lynn Dugger CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Nate Brownlee, April E. Clark, Katherine Coplen, Katie Glick, Cheryl Carter Jones, January Rutherford, Jon Shoulders, Ryan Trares, Twinkle VanWinkle, Catherine Whittier, Teresa Woodard, CJ Woodring COPY EDITOR Katharine Smith SENIOR GRAPHIC ARTIST Margo Wininger ADVERTISING ART DIRECTOR Amanda Waltz

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FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

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Contents APRIL 2016

5 Field Notes Tips and advice

6 Walnut Leaf Farm 10 Nick Carter 14 Acker’s Pygmy Pastures 18 Military Veteran Farmers 22 Indiana Farm Systems 26 Hope FFA Chapter 30 Seymour Educational

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32 Wild Farm Stories 34 From the Field

Columns by growers

40 Local Food

Amish Country, Gospel Bird

46 Continuing Education

Facility

ON THE COVER

Nick Carter.

Photo by Josh Marshall

FARMERS ARE OUR NATION’S BACKBONE. BOB POYNTER REWARDS OUR FARMERS.

SOUTH CENTRAL

INDIANA’S RAM AG DEALER BOBPOYNTERCOLUMBUS.COM | 812-372-2575 | 3020 N. National Road, Columbus FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

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EDITOR’S NOTE

Never a Dull Day

O

ONE MORNING LATE LAST YEAR, I scrolled past a social media post by the Brown County Democrat. A dozen or so cows, the newspaper reported, had been on the loose in Nashville before being rounded back up in a YMCA parking lot. It wasn’t the first time, the story further explained, that local law enforcement had dealt with animals on the run. And it wasn’t the first time I’d heard about such tales of woe on … or off, as it were … the farm.

This post gave me an idea for a story, which you’ll see written by Katherine Coplen in this issue. This was a story I could have written myself, considering the countless episodes of bad behavior we’ve experienced with our goats … and with our chickens, and with our alpacas, and even with our cats over the years.

The first week we took in our alpaca fosters, Theo and Bacchus, for example, I made the mistake of leaving the gate open. While alpacas are much better about minding fences than are goats, alpacas surely don’t mind if they do when they see an open gate. And Bacchus, immediately upon noticing my mistake, stealthily ran for the border.

So it was early one morning, when I was still a little uncomfortable around our new charges, that I found myself chasing dear Bacchus over the entirety of our very

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FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

large (an acre or so) front yard. Alpacas, in case you don’t know, are quite fast. I thought by simply running after this guy — and begging a bunch — that I might be able to coax him back into the enclosed yard.

Some 30 minutes later, I found myself out of breath and full of desperation.

Bacchus was now out on Bacchus (with Theo and goats in the background), the road. I ran inside the fresh from a haircut. house, grabbed the car keys, requested (frantically) my husband’s presence outside and headed out to try to finagle Bacchus back these past few years. Our goats, whom I onto the property. lovingly refer to as dogs with zero manners, Somehow (amazingly, really) and very regularly find their ways out of their with the use of four wheels and a little yard, and grain always pulls them back in. horsepower, I literally steered Bacchus Keeping animals has taught me so many back home. Upon our return, my husband wonderful lessons … about love, forgiveness, and I put our heads together and came up compassion and commitment. The lesson with a stellar plan: food. We walked to the I took away from chasing Bacchus around feed bin, filled a container with grain and the yard that day also easily lends itself turned to show Bacchus his familiar dinner to handling life’s larger bowl. From that moment on, where we problems. When in walked, Bacchus followed. He strolled right doubt, remain back into the enclosure. calm. And always It was a lesson well-learned and one that bring food. we’ve come back to over and over again

FIELD NOTES

BY CATHERINE WHITTIER

TURF

TIPS

Quarter shows size of the farm’s berries.

Encouraging Healthy Growth

With 8½ acres of blueberry bushes, Matt and Esther Prelock of Prelock Blueberry Farm in Lafayette generally prune their plants between November and March. “It takes a few years before you can actually prune anything,” says Matt, with regard to new plants.

For older plants, canes that are 6 to 8 years old should be removed to encourage new growth. “Like us older folks, old canes start to get gray and scaly,” he says.

The Prelocks remove a couple of canes from each plant annually so that each bush has no more than 20 canes on it.

Pruning should be done with sharp shears in order to make a clean cut.

Jags or tears should be avoided to ward off disease or pest invasion. Canes should be cut as close to the ground as possible. The Prelocks prune to keep the picking range from knees to Matt Prelock shoulders and do not allow fruit to touch the ground. “The more you prune, you might have less fruit, but you will have larger berries that will ripen earlier,” he says.

When the berries begin to grow, early ripening is important in the war against the berry’s enemy: Japanese beetles. They become a problem in mid- to late July, so the quicker the berries ripen and are picked, the better. Blueberries are typically picked on the Prelock farm in early July.

For more information and the Prelocks’ favorite blueberry recipes, visit prelockblueberryfarm.com.

JEFF HERMESCH, Purdue Cooperative Extension educator for Decatur County, offers us several tips for caring for lawns this spring.

By the time April rolls around, he says, homeowners should have a couple of early spring activities marked off their checklist. “These activities include doing some light raking of the lawn with a leaf rake to help stand up some of the matted turf and help the new emerging turf break through while also removing dead tissue.”

Homeowners also need to perform maintenance on lawn mowers, which need general tune-ups and blade sharpening.

“When you start mowing, use the onethird rule, which means to never remove more than one-third of the grass height in a single mowing,” he says. For best results, Hermesch adds, mow grass 2.5 to 3.5 inches tall. “Mow in different directions and let the grass clippings remain on the lawn to return nutrients back to the soil.”

For early season fertilizer applications,

Hermesch suggests homeowners resist the urge to fertilize in the spring. Spring fertilizer applications cause unwanted growth surges and summer root loss. “Most lawns only need two fertilizer applications per year in September and mid-November,” he says.

“If you apply a pre-emergent herbicide that contains fertilizer, purchase products with most of the nitrogen in slow release forms.”

While rolling a lawn is not generally recommended, if you must roll your lawn, Hermesch says to do so carefully, because there are still many wet areas where rolling might actually do more damage than good.

“Rolling is popular this time of year to flatten out mole tunnels and mounds, but can result in soil compaction,” he explains. “Rolling should be followed with a core aerification, which will help relieve compaction by removing 2- to 3-inch plugs of turf and soil.”

For more turf tips, contact your local Purdue Extension Office or visit purdueturftips.blogspot.com.

through the

GRAPEVINE

When it comes to growing grapes, most serious vinedressers know that excessive humidity can lead to problems with fungus, according to Michael Ball, farm and homestead design consultant at The Sustainable Life in Noblesville.

“Reliance on chemical fungicides can be mitigated by proper layout of the vineyard,” he explains.

Care should be taken to ensure that there is proper air flow around the vines, which will make fungus less of a problem. Since humidity can get trapped in the landscape, as well as in pockets around plants, those factors

should be considered when deciding where to plant.

If the initial design and layout of the arbor aren’t optimal, grapes are easy to move. “Grapes can be transplanted at any time, but optimally it is best to transplant any perennial when it is dormant,” in either late fall or early spring before buds break, Ball explains.

“Most people use an arbor, which allows for the vines to grow too close together,” he says. “I prefer to grow on two or three wires, spread far apart (12 inches) and on one vertical plane, not stacked.”

Grapevines oftentimes aren’t pruned enough, he adds. “You should be able to see through a grapevine at all times. Grapes do well with heavy pruning, as do most fruit-bearing trees, vines and bushes.”

The Sustainable Life develops organic food production systems on a farm scale or a homestead scale. It operates several farms that go beyond organic production methods in Noblesville, ranging from a 1/8-acre urban farm to a 5-acre forest garden. For more information, visit thesustainablelife.us.

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

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Family Land

Mike and Kris Maroska preserve their property for future generations

By CJ Woodring Photography by Josh Marshall

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FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

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The Maroska family, from left: sons, Jason and Andrew (with his son, Colton); their grandmother, Susie; Mike (holding Andrew’s daughter, McKenzie) and his wife, Kris.

IN INDIANA, as elsewhere throughout the United States, the trend for young professionals and baby boomers to move to metro areas remains on an upswing.

But for many Hoosiers, home is where the barn is. And that barn is often a restored historic structure, a keepsake lovingly handed down through generations and cherished as a priceless heirloom.

In order to encourage, support and acknowledge these gatekeepers of rural culture, Indiana Landmarks (indiana landmarks.org) and Indiana Farm Bureau (infarmbureau.org) present the annual Arnold Award for Rural Preservation.

The prestigious award honors the memory of John Arnold (1955-1991), a Rush County farmer committed to preserving Indiana’s rural heritage.

Mike and Kris Maroska, owners of Walnut Leaf Farm, were presented the award for 2015. Susie Maroska, Mike’s mother, accepted the award, the first presented to a Hancock County owner since the program’s 1992 launching.

“It was really an honor to get this,” Mike says, “and for people to recognize we’re trying to take care of our past for the next generation.”

“The Maroskas’ barn was nominated by a member of our staff in the central

regional office,” says Tommy Kleckner, Indiana Landmarks’ western regional office director and coordinator of the Arnold Award program. “It rose to the top immediately because of the appreciation Mike and Kris and his mother have for the farm, and the care they’ve taken in rehabilitating the buildings.

“It’s also unique in its extensive use of fieldstone in the barn foundation, garage and stone wall out front. Such use really makes Walnut Leaf Farm unique and extremely picturesque. Not that picturesque is one of the qualifications,” he adds, “but it really enhances the property.”

Preserving Heritage

The 185-year-old rural Greenfield farm, where the couple raise sheep and cattle, grow corn and soybeans and bale hay — while also remaining employed off the farm — has been in Mike’s family for six generations. Rolling terrain showcases historic outbuildings and the 19thcentury gable-front farmhouse.

The first floor of the main barn is used for equipment, feed and implement stor-

age; hay is stored in the loft, sheep and cattle in the basement. A small transverse frame barn stores equipment.

Adaptive reuse can be seen in the historic chicken house and original smokehouse, now used for wood storage and as a gardening shed, respectively.

The family heritage began when Samuel L. Alford, a distant cousin, homesteaded the land, which Mike’s great-grandfather, Johnston Frank, purchased from him.

Frank established the farm in the 1830s. He hand-built the farmhouse and first barn in the 1850s, eventually adding two other barns, the fieldstone garage and shed. An addition was made to the house in the early 1900s. Subsequently, the farm was owned by Mike’s maternal grandparents, Floyd and Charlotte Rash.

Mike Maroska has fond memories of summer visits and happy family reunions.

“I recalled my time spent here and enjoyed the place so much, and I wanted that same experience for our sons,” he says. “But I also felt I had an obligation to keep the farm in the family, even though it’s a lot of work.”

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

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The barn was built in the late 1800s and the stone wall in 1914. Below: The loft where hay is stored.

members; the farmstead now consists of Kris is a city gal who grew up country just 20 acres. Mike also farms about 100 dreamin’. “Ever since I was a little girl, I adjacent acres, which are owned by his always wanted to live in the country,” she mother, Susie. says. “I have always loved animals, and I She didn’t grow up on the farm. She wished every birthday for a horse. When and her late husband, Charles “Andy” I met Mike, he lived on a small farm with Maroska, moved his parents, and there for a time afthey had sheep, ter their marriage. pigs and cows. So “The Maroskas’ barn was Still, she cherishes when we got marnominated by a member of our fond memories and ried, we knew we staff in the central regional office. understands the wanted to live in It rose to the top immediately setting’s familial the country and because of the appreciation Mike significance. have animals.” and Kris and his mother have for “I was married in When Mike’s the farm, and the care they’ve that house in 1951, grandfather Rash taken in rehabilitating the almost 65 years passed away in buildings.”— TOMMY KLECKNER ago,” she says. “I am 1989, the couple proud that my son bought the farm and daughter-in-law were able to purchase from his grandmother Rash’s estate and and restore the property and continue to raised two sons there. farm the ground. We hope to keep it in Down through the years, the original the family for generations to come.” acreage has been divided among family 8

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

That translates to a lot of hard work, Mike says, considering he and his wife work full time, he in facility maintenance at the Daily Reporter, and his wife as assistant manager for Miller’s Jewelry, both in Greenfield.

When they first moved in, the farmhouse and outbuildings were beginning to need a lot of work, he says. They sided and insulated the house, also installing a new roof and windows. They reroofed, rewired and remodeled the three-story bank barn and painted it a few times, ever mindful of retaining as much of the original wood as possible. They reroofed the garage and shed.

They also restored a 23-acre wetland, three shallow ponds that attract ducks, geese and other wildlife. “We also planted five-and-a-half acres of trees,” he says.

“And we always have a garden.”

Aside from the wetlands, for which they sought professional consultation, the couple undertook the work on their own.

In addition to the Arnold Award, the Maroskas have been presented a Hoosier Homestead Award from the state of Indiana and an award for rural preservation from Greenfield Historic Landmarks, further evidence of their stewardship at a time when dozens of Hoosier barns are razed each year. And dozens of small, historic farms are consolidated into large ones.

“It’s a good feeling to know we’ve been able to keep it going,” Mike says. “Once

TM

Above: A Haflinger Shetland Cross named Smoke. Above, right: Mike, Jason and Kris Maroska. Below: This 1920s Chambers is the main stove in the house.

barns become obsolete in their owners’ eyes, they don’t want to spend the money on them, so they just tear them down.

We’re just trying to keep ours for the next generation.”

In the Maroska family, the “next generation” is 28-year-old Andrew, who’s married and has a family, and Jason, 24, who lives at home. Whether either will take over the farm is still an unknown, Mike says.

“Jason definitely wants a farm. But whether this one or not — the house has seven bedrooms — I don’t know. There’s a lot of upkeep on a historic building.”

Despite the work and the seemingly never-ending upkeep, Mike says he’d do it again. And he suggests that others, thinking of doing the same, follow their dream down the restoration path.

“I would say it’s a big responsibility, but well worth the effort. Get as much professional advice as you can.”

As for their own barn, “keeping it in the family has always been important to us,” Kris says, “and because it’s important, it was wonderful to get the Arnold Award.”

“We’re just trying to be good stewards,” her husband says. “And as long as I’m around, this barn will be here.”

4329 North Highway 31, Seymour, IN 47274 812-522-5199 Monday thru Friday 8am to 5pm FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

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Market Master

Entrepreneur Nick Carter returns to his agricultural roots

T

O SAY THAT Nick Carter has his finger on the pulse of Indiana’s local food movement is probably an understatement. As an Indianapolis-based entrepreneur, Carter has created and co-created a few of the most successful farm-related business startups in the region, including Meat the Rabbit, which has become the largest distributor of farm-raised game meats in the Midwest, and Husk, a massively successful produce processing operation he 10

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

BY JON SHOULDERS // PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOSH MARSHALL

co-founded in 2013. But Carter’s insights stem from much more than just a keen innate business sense.

Having spent the first 18 years of his life on an 80-acre livestock farm his grandfather purchased in 1936 in the small town of Russiaville (Carter says he can always tell an outsider because they are typically unfamiliar with the correct pronunciation, which is Roo-shuh-ville), one of Carter’s earliest memories at 4 years old is helping his father operate a moveable wooden fence to herd swine. By

age 11, he had already learned to drive his father’s truck to transport grain. “That’s actually not that uncommon for kids who grow up in agricultural settings,” he says.

“It’s not like you’re out joyriding. You’re just taught at an earlier age so things can get done around the farm.”

Carter says his father, who took primary operational control of the family farm in 1975 — eight years before he was born — passed along a sense of responsibility and entrepreneurship that stayed with him over the years and contributed to his

many successful business ventures later in life. “I filed my first Schedule K tax form for farm income when I was 9 years old,” he recalls. “My brother and I had our own livestock that my dad put us in charge of, and we would buy grain off of him for feed. At one point we rented pasture land from him and things like that, to help teach us not only hard work but ingenuity and problem solving. My dad made me an entrepreneur. All the skills I learned that I apply today, I learned on the farm.”

While working toward a bachelor’s

Nick Carter and his father, Tim, stand on abandoned train tracks that cross through their Russiaville farmland. Opposite page: the Carter family homestead.

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

11

Nick Carter in the family barn.

degree in business in Indianapolis at age 20, Carter secured a job selling computer software, further stimulating an already burgeoning interest in technology that had been piqued in high school industrial arts classes where he became familiar with computer-aided design programs.

Immediately upon graduating, he left his sales job and founded Carter and Co., his own sales and marketing consultancy for small businesses. “My interest has gradually turned to technology — primarily software — and agriculture, and working on a confluence of the two,” he says.

“That happened kind of slowly. I always had dreams of being an entrepreneur, but initially I didn’t see myself in ag at all after I moved away from home.”

Perhaps he couldn’t shake his bucolic background, or perhaps the local food 12

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

movement that began to grow in central Indiana throughout the past five to seven years started to take hold of his imagination, but several years after finishing his business degree, Carter began formulating a business model with a focus not only on agriculture generally, but on local growers and sustainable practices. “I guess I realized I wanted to get back into ag, but I knew I wasn’t going to go out and buy a 1,600-acre farm and a combine,” he says.

In 2011 he launched Meat the Rabbit, Indiana’s first state-certified processor and regional distributor of rabbit meat, with the processing expertise of Adam Moody, a fifth-generation Indiana farmer and the owner of several Moody’s Butcher Shop locations around the state.

To this day, Meat the Rabbit products include rabbit and quail raised exclusively on

Indiana farms without the use of hormones or antibiotics. “I knew nothing about the food market at the time, and I decided I would just learn by doing,” Carter recalls.

“Local food was a growing trend at the time, and more growers were looking into alternative agriculture and different ways of looking at agronomy and how to make money off of the same acre. It’s all fascinating to me from a business standpoint.”

Carter sold Meat the Rabbit in 2014 to Tania Cruser, a first-generation rabbit, quail and chicken farmer based in Pendleton, and Cruser says the business has doubled in size since the transition.

“Nick is a great idea guy, and I think every one of the businesses he’s been able to start is important to him,” she says. “He’s found a nice niche in the local food world, and I think he’s even helping to create the sense

of importance around it, which is wonderful for those of us who are knee-deep in it.”

In 2010 Carter began a friendship with Chris Baggott, owner of Tyner Pond Farm in Greenfield, and over the following two years they struck up several conversations about the lack of fresh, local vegetables in big box groceries around the state.

Carter and Baggott had become acquaintances through TechPoint, an advocacy organization that promotes the growth of Indiana’s technology sector, and after connecting with Moody for further input, decided that a central Indiana processing and distribution facility for locally grown veggies might help fill the gap. In May 2013 the trio launched Husk.

Husk products, which now include frozen sweet corn, green beans, peas and squash, are currently stocked in more

Clockwise: Nick and his wife, Kendra. The family property extends to the treeline. Nick and Kendra’s children chase chickens.

than 300 groceries around the Midwest, and the produce in every single bag can be traced back to its original farm via a stamped numerical code. Through a service Carter created and named Crop Stalker, consumers can visit a Web page printed on each bag of Husk vegetables and enter the code to see which farm their product came from.

Carter is not surprised in the least about the business’s quick rise in popularity. “You see all the fresh produce at the farmers markets, but there’s a big segment of people who can’t or don’t attend those,” he says. “It was just a matter of asking why those products aren’t in the mainstream food supply.”

Additional local food businesses such as Amber Waves Granola and Urban Ladle, a purveyor of artisan soups, are now being processed and promoted through a service that Husk’s co-founders decided to implement under the Husk umbrella and dub Farm League. Carter calls Farm League a local food incubator that resulted from the constant stream of interest from entrepreneurs in taking advantage of Husk resources and connections for their startup local food businesses.

Another topic raised during those initial conversations between Carter and Baggott was the integration of technology into the local food movement. Once Husk was fully operational, they agreed that more channels were needed to bring products from local growers into customers’ hands, and that a Web-based solution could be the answer. “It’s almost a logistical impossibility when it comes to getting those things into big box stores, but technology is a great equalizer,” Carter says.

The result of those discussions is Farmers Market.com, an online local shopping outlet through which users can enter their ZIP code to find the nearest market host location, shop for locally sourced products and purchase them online. Each customer

order is then sent to the local market host for customer pickup on designated days.

In January, Moody’s Butcher Shop in Fishers became the first market host location in central Indiana. “I feel like this is something that will grow with time,” Moody says. “Ultimately a food delivery system would be an ideal situation, but with produce and dairy that gets tricky, so this is at least a good next step.”

In January, Carter and Baggott announced that Husk had been sold to Lifeline Farms, a Connersville-based organic produce operation. Carter is proud of Husk’s success but is excited to have transitioned away from the company in order to spend increased time in his role as president of FarmersMarket. com and looks forward to finding additional ways to bring local food producers and consumers closer together. “I think we’re just at the tip of the spear of this local food movement and over the next 10 to 20 years it’s only going to accelerate,” he says. “Because it’s like a snowball — the more consumer dollars that come in to local food, the cheaper it can become and the more viable those producing farms can become.

Then, the more income that gets created on farms, the more jobs they can retain, and there’s going to be more employment.

So the community and culture is going to continue to be much more connected to where its food comes from.”

Carter’s dad still owns the 80-acre farm he grew up on, and this spring father and son will work to continue the diversification the family farmland has undergone.

He looks forward to getting his hands dirty and traversing the same terrain on which he first developed his work ethic and entrepreneurial spirit, not to mention his premature driving skills.

“We now have chickens on the farm

for the first time since the late ’50s and early ’60s, and already the poultry just in one season has made a notable difference in the pasture productivity, since poultry tends to increase grass production and soil fertility,” he says. “This spring we’ll be adding swine for the first time since 1997. It’s a full transition plan to get the farm back to the fully functioning and diverse farm it was when I was a kid.

I think you’re going to see many more farms diversifying to get more out of their acreage.”

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

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Emily Acker and Romeo, a 1-week-old Boer goat.

Below: Pregnant Boer goats step up on the gate to greet Elizabeth and Steven Acker.

back to

THE COUNTRY The Ackers left the suburbs behind to build a family farm

By Ryan Trares // Photography by Josh Marshall

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FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

Emily feeds a Boer goat crackers.

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INSIDE THE WELL-LIGHTED Acker kitchen, a tiny brownand-white goat paws at the bottom of its cage. The animal is only 2 weeks old. Since it is too young to be outdoors during the final weeks of Indiana’s winter, it has come inside to await spring’s arrival.

Emily Acker named the goat Romeo, a moniker she picked for two reasons, she says. The first because the brown spot on its back looks like a heart. The other reason speaks to the reality of having a livestock farm.

“In the story of ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ Romeo died a tragic death at a young age,” she says. “And so will he. He’s going to market in the summer.”

Over the span of six years, Emily and her parents, Elizabeth and Steven, have gone from city living to embracing food production and agriculture in the country. They have created a family-run farm in southern Johnson County called Acker’s Pygmy Pastures. While the focus is on Pygmy goats, the family also raises chickens, has planted grapevines and fruit trees, and bred rabbits.

Their ultimate goal is to start an agritourism site where adults and children can learn about life on a farm.

“All of our friends who live up in the city love to bring their kids down to pet everything, to see everything, to bottle feed the baby goats,” Elizabeth says. “We want to get more into growing our own food, eating out of our own garden, having honey bees. We can share that with kids who don’t know where their food comes from.”

Acker’s Pygmy Pastures features a herd of registered commercial goats and a flock of Silver Laced Wyandotte chickens to sell for meat. The goats live in a series of fenced-in pens, with small sheds where the animals can escape the weather.

Their newest addition is a Saanen dairy goat, a Swiss breed to provide milk.

“Pygmy kids that are born and need to be fed, this one goat can feed them all,” Elizabeth says.

The lifestyle is a far cry from what they’d known most of their lives. The family had lived in White River Township in a traditional neighborhood. Emily attended Center Grove schools, and they had settled into the routine of suburban life.

But in the back of her mind, Elizabeth always wanted to go back to the country.

She had grown up in rural areas, surrounded by farms. That was something she missed.

“The longer we were in White River Township, and the bigger the school got, the more we didn’t like it,” she says.

In a series of discussions, Elizabeth and Steven talked about making a move, finding a new place to live in a more remote

part of the county. If they did it, they wanted to time it during Emily’s natural transition in school, when she would be going from elementary to middle school.

But for a long time, their plan was nothing more than an idea. Until one night when Steven couldn’t sleep.

Up watching late-night TV, he saw a commercial for a website called I Love Alpacas. The advertisement illustrated how to invest in alpacas, start your own farm and create a business.

“He waited a few weeks before he mentioned alpacas to me,” Elizabeth says, “and I said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

The motivation to start a farm was there. But the Ackers needed to work out a FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

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Reddington, a 2-year-old full-blooded Pygmy goat.

Below: Emily feeds Romeo a bottle.

CROSSROADS PYGMY GOAT CLUB

Spring Fling WHEN: 8:30

a.m. April 30

WHERE: Johnson

County Fairgrounds livestock pavilion, 250 Fairground St., Franklin COST: Entry

fee is $7 each

HOW TO ENTER: Contact

show chairwoman Elizabeth Acker at (317) 627-5436 or grnwdackers@sbcglobal.net.

Entries are needed by April 22 to be included in the show book, but entries will be taken at the show if needed.

labyrinth of logistics before their country life could start. Foremost was finding property for the farm.

Steven’s family owned land in the Amity area, and his mother still had a parcel that was available. She offered them 20 acres to build a house and start their farm.

Elizabeth’s father was skilled in construction and offered to help build a house for them. By June 2010, the Ackers moved into their new homestead.

“It was a family effort, out here every weekend or whenever we could to work on it,” Elizabeth says.

In the time it took to build their home, the family reconsidered their plan to 16

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

raise alpacas. Before investing thousands of dollars in such a large animal, they thought it might be prudent to start with something smaller, she says.

Emily suggested trying goats. She was already a member of 4-H, having joined the organization to show quarter horses.

Now, she wanted to show goats.

Before the house was even finished, they purchased two Pygmy does. The goats lived in the garage while construction was ongoing. Every day, Emily would come out to the property to walk them to their pen, feed them and groom them.

“We just fell in love with those goats.

After that, we decided to focus on Pygmy

goats,” Elizabeth says. “We liked the goats and decided not to do alpacas.”

The family’s participation in 4-H previously had been minimal, but now, they threw themselves into activities to learn how to operate a goat farm.

Slowly, they picked up techniques to raise the animals. The family rises early to feed them and clean pens. They learned how cleanliness helps prevent disease and when it’s the right time to take the animals to the veterinarian.

“The (4-H) goat club really helped us,” says Emily, now the president of the club. “We had to experiment a lot to see what worked.”

Over the years, the family has connected with local farmers and people in the agricultural community. They Emily, Steven and Elizabeth Acker.

have discovered that most other farm families are more than happy to offer advice and help them along the way.

“The longer we’ve done it and the more people we’ve met, the more resources we’ve found to help do this,” Elizabeth says.

They lease their goats to 4-H’ers, helping children who live where it’s impossible to keep a goat to learn about the animals and compete in the county fair. They can either pay $50 for the season for their goat or come down to the farm to do 10 hours of non-goat-related yard work for the Ackers.

“They also have to spend a certain amount of time with their goats — cleaning water troughs, feeding, mucking stalls with Emily,” Elizabeth says. “Emily teaches them how to trim hooves, give them shots, all the things they need to learn for 4-H.” Elizabeth and Steven have discussed what they’d like to do once Emily graduates from high school. She is a junior at

Acker’s Pygmy Pastures WHAT: A 20-acre farm featuring Pygmy goats, as well as chickens, rabbits, fruit trees and a garden.

WHERE: Amity OWNERS: Elizabeth and Steven Acker,

and their daughter, Emily

INFORMATION: ackersPygmypastures.com

Edinburgh High School and plans to study veterinary medicine in college.

Though they’d need to form a business plan and put more thought into the idea, their interest is in opening their farm to the public.

“It’s something we can do as a family that we all enjoy,” Steven says. “We’ve all shown the goats at competitions, so it’s a way for us to work together.”

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

17

Air Force veteran Sara Creech inside the hoop house at Blue Yonder Organic Farm.

True Service

A

The government finds new ways to support veteran farmers

BY JON SHOULDERS PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOSH MARSHALL

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FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

AS A SURGICAL NURSE in the U.S. Air Force, Sara Creech served her country for four years until the end of 2006, including two years in Qatar as part of a forward surgical team. These days, however, Creech can most often be found in jeans and work boots instead of fatigues and combat boots, tending the 43 acres of land in North Salem on which she officially began farming three years ago.

Before Creech lost her husband, Charles, to cancer in May 2011, the couple had spent time educating themselves on the health benefits of organic, locally

grown food, and talked of owning and running their own farm someday. In the fall of 2011 Creech, a Michigan native, decided to pursue that dream as an enjoyable and challenging means of continuing her post-military life and purchased property in North Salem in January 2012. After intensively researching and studying agriculture and business, she launched Blue Yonder Organic Farm, where she currently maintains produce, chickens, turkeys, ducks, goats and sheep.

“I started by planting 40 fruit trees because those take a long time to be ready,” says Creech. “Then I bought some chicks, and it just grew from there.

I almost immediately felt the positive effects of being out in nature and getting your hands dirty. It has a way of calming and healing.”

Creech feels farming can be beneficial to military veterans who are transitioning to civilian life or looking for a new professional direction, and when reflecting on her personal journey, one benefit stands out distinctly.

“When you’re in the military it’s just you and the other members 24/7, and when you leave it’s like you’re all by yourself, and it can be hard to reconnect with a community,” she says. “With farming, you learn that by necessity you have to get out in the community to sell your

Left: One of the many fruit trees planted on the farm. Below: The Creech home.

Bottom: Billboards purchased at minimal cost and repurposed to protect livestock from wind and rain.

A products, market yourself and continue to learn. That idea of getting and staying connected to people is important, because there are veterans that sometimes stay disconnected after they return, so it’s a good challenge for them.”

ACCORDING TO A 2013 report compiled by the National Economic Council and President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, between 240,000 and 360,000 service members leave the U.S. military each year. The Agricultural Act of 2014 — also known as the U.S. Farm Bill — passed

by Congress has expanded the range of programs and incentives for veterans who choose to pursue careers in agriculture as they transition to civilian life.

“Our service members receive a tremendous amount of training, and by the time they get done they are well-qualified for a lot of different jobs,” says Lanon Baccam, an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan in 2004 and 2005 and the current U.S. Department of Agriculture military veterans liaison. “Some of them may be interested in the kind of work that falls in line with their experiences in the military, and I think farming and ranching can fit that mold. Also, the disproportionate number of veterans that come from rural America who are serving is FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

19

The hoop house is a work in progress. Creech hopes to have several more garden beds completed early this spring.

Mesclun mix lettuce.

a signal to us that we should be there to receive them and help them, and make sure that they have meaningful employment. We can do that through farming and ranching, and that will help revitalize rural communities.”

The USDA’s Farm Service Agency now offers loans specifically for beginning farmers and ranchers, as well as a microloan program for small-scale and niche farming operations, both of which Baccam says veterans should learn more about. “Go to your local V.A. (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs) or USDA center and start a conversation,” he says.

“There are plenty of agencies that are eager to help and take care of these men and women. Our microloan program in particular has been hugely popular for operating expenses.” Some veterans may be exempt from the term and interest rate limits typically set on USDA microloans.

In February, the USDA announced a partnership with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to expand job opportunities in the agricultural sector through Hiring 20

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

Our Heroes, a program offered through the chamber that offers resources for veterans, transitioning active duty personnel and military spouses who are entering the civilian workforce.

One of Creech’s first steps toward becoming a full-fledged farmer involved a trip to Arkansas to attend a week-long, hands-on training program on sustainable farming for veterans called Armed to Farm, offered through the National Center for Appropriate Technology. She also secured $21,000 in USDA funding, a portion of which she is currently using to finish construction on a new hoop house.

Creech now offers an educational training program at her farm called Operation Groundwork, for which she oversees intensive, one-week educational training sessions and field trips to other Indiana farms for groups of 10 veterans. “I realized through the Armed to Farm program that there are people just like me going through challenges and similar experiences,” she says. “I realized there needed to be more of this when we all go back

home, so when I left there I said to myself, ‘I know I want to farm, and I know I want to do outreach to veterans myself.’”

Creech says she hopes to encourage veterans to get involved, even on a small level, with where their food comes from.

“The power of nature to heal is really there if you look for it,” she explains.

“There’s something really powerful about seeing something start as a seed and grow into something that’s beautiful that can nourish you. It can be as simple as

Sara Creech’s family, from left: her parents, Jim and Sandy Laning; her boyfriend, Tom Bollman; and her grandfather, John Ravenberg.

By April E. Clark

SUPPORT FOR planting some plants in your backyard, getting a couple chickens or volunteering at a farm somewhere.”

Veterans seeking agricultural support programs can take advantage of the following links for information on technical assistance, training resources, grants and more. »To access a USDA service center locater, visit offices.sc.egov. usda.gov/locator/app. »General information about USDA veteran farming programs can be found at nal.usda.gov/veterans-agriculture. »For details on USDA loans for beginning farmers and ranchers, including current interest rates and a micro-loan fact sheet, go to fsa. usda.gov/programs-and-services/ farm-loan-programs/beginningfarmers-and-ranchers-loans/index. »Learn more about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Hiring Our Heroes initiative at uschamberfoundation. org/hiring-our-heroes. »For additional information, dates and locations for the National Center for Appropriate Technology’s Armed to Farm program, go to ncat.org/armedtofarm. »Details on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Transition Assistance Program, which includes training and resources for military service members adjusting to civilian life, can be found at dodtap.mil. »Visit hgbh.org for information on the Homegrown by Heroes labeling program for veteran producers. »For more information on the Operation Groundwork training program at Blue Yonder Organic Farm in North Salem, visit operationgroundwork.org (training dates for 2016 are June 19 through 25 and Oct. 2 through 8).

HOOSIER VETERANS In July 2014, Blue Yonder Organic Farm became the first farm in the state to acquire the Homegrown By Heroes label, which was founded by the Kentucky Department of Agriculture in 2013 and is now a national labeling program administered by the Farmer Veteran Coalition designated for agricultural products grown or cultivated by veterans.

Blue Yonder also receives support through Indiana Grown, an initiative of the Indiana State Department of Agriculture. The program educates consumers on the importance of buying Indiana-grown products and helps Indiana farmers and producers as they process and sell.

This February, Indiana Grown announced a new partnership with Homegrown By Heroes. “Helping our Hoosier veterans, who have selflessly served our state and nation, is a pillar of my administration,” said Gov. Mike Pence in a press release about the partnership. “As our economy continues to grow, the Homegrown By Heroes program will help ensure that our Hoosier heroes have every opportunity to succeed when they return home from serving our state and nation. After putting their lives on the line for our freedom, helping them achieve success in their civilian affairs is the least we can do.”

The goal is to support members of the military while addressing the veteran unemployment rate, which continues to rest above the national average.

Products can bear an exclusive Indiana Grown Homegrown By Heroes label. “That’s a great way for us to start the conversation about military and veterans in farming, and it opens a lot of doors,” says Sara Creech, owner of Blue Yonder Organic Farm.

“I think veterans in Indiana are pretty isolated, but lately there’s been a lot of interest in veterans and agriculture, and that will fill that need for us to all get connected.”

Former Navy Petty Officer Alan McKamey, owner of Heritage Meadows Farms

in Clayton, is another veteran participating in the Homegrown By Heroes initiative. He and Creech know each other from working at local farmers markets, a necessity for small farm operations like Blue Yonder and Heritage Meadows that need exposure to their products.

McKamey, also a Pike Township firefighter who has been farming with his wife, Amy, since January 2013, hopes Indiana Grown and Homegrown By Heroes will provide more opportunities for small farms, especially involving veterans in agriculture. By participating in the program, McKamey and other Hoosier veterans, including Creech, can use an exclusively designed logo on business signage and product labels. This special signage helps consumers easily identify products made by local veterans.

“I like the principle of what they’re doing,” McKamey says. “So much of our food doesn’t come from Indiana; it’s imported from other states, and a lot of people don’t know that. We need that to change.”

McKamey says he would love to see more veterans embrace farming and the pursuit of healthier food production, which has been life-changing for his family. He appreciates the peace and quiet of life on the 23-acre farm, as well as being able to produce 85 to 95 percent of his family’s food.

“The farm is really about us being selfsufficient and getting away from industrialized food processing,” he explains.

“We actually bought the farm because we wanted a place where we could make it our own. We started out with chickens to raise as a healthier lifestyle for ourselves, then we got a pig or two, and fell in love with them. Now we raise everything in pasture, with non-GMO feeds, and we have chickens and eggs and pork. That led to ducks and lamb. It’s grown into what we always wanted. It’s been a learning experience, and I wouldn’t change it for anything.”

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

21

ALL SYSTEMS GO Grain storage business has served growers for generations

BY CJ WOODRING

22

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

PHOTOS PROVIDED BY ADAM TROST

E

quipment is a major component of a successful farm operation. For most growers, that includes storage, handling and drying systems.

With locations in central and northwest Indiana, Indiana Farm Systems has been the go-to company for many farmers for decades. And a 2015 ownership transfer ensures the family-owned and operated business will continue for decades more.

Established in Russiaville years earlier as Hendrickson Distributing Co., Indiana Farm Systems (infarmsys.com) provides full-service farm and commercial grain storage, grain handling and grain drying systems, from conception and design through installation and after.

As a dealer for Brock, Westfield and DMC products, IFS employs a combined staff of 18 in Russiaville and Hebron.

President Dan Trost built grain bins when he was a college student in his home state of Illinois before working as a sales rep for 10 years. His next move was to Indianapolis-based Farm Fans, where he served as district sales manager before undertaking the role of product manager for GSI Group (gsiag.com) in Assumption, Illinois. Finally, he returned to Farm Fans as district manager until 1992.

Trost and a partner established Indiana Farm Systems in 1993.

Grain dryer

“It’s the same thing I’d been doing for 15 years at the time, and I felt I was pretty good at it,” he says. “An Ohio dealer and I were partners for about five years, then I bought him out.”

In addition to sales, Trost worked on Farm Fans dryers for 35 years, often involved in design work, and adding to his expertise in construction, service and manufacturing of grain storage.

IFS isn’t unique in Indiana — Trost says about 20 such companies are located throughout the state — but few others, perhaps, carry the name recognition and cachet. Or provide service for systems they didn’t install.

“Farm Fans sold out to GSI about 2000,” Trost says. “They’ve been merging both lines of dryers into one. So all the old Farm Fans service is being lost because it’s not being supported at a manufacturer’s level.

“I’ve sort of become the ‘old guy’ and help other dealers troubleshoot problems, so I work by phone with individuals from the East Coast and Florida to everywhere in between,” he explains.

“Somehow, my name just comes up on their list as someone to contact.”

As for installations, Trost hopes that the company’s decades of hands-on experience paired with 21st century technology and customer service make IFS an industry leader.

“Our thing with service is that we try to get to somebody on the same day if they call in by 2 p.m.,” he says.

“It helps to bolster our relationship, and they remember us the next time they want a grain dryer or anything else.”

Although a typical customer doesn’t exist, Trost says, most owners of a large FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

23

the future, I see myself heavily involved in the operation side of it and having somebody else running sales.”

SALES AND SERVICE

Dan Trost. Opposite page, Adam Trost.

24

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

farm, ranging between 3,000 and 15,000 acres, are adding to current systems rather than replacing them. And about 60 to 75 percent of those installations are to repeat customers.

IFS limits its work range to a 50-mile radius, Trost’s reasoning being that, “if you do a good job, you don’t have to go any farther than that.”

Customers typically know in which direction they want to go, he says. And when it comes to the size and type of equipment and conveyors, systems are uniquely individualized, he says.

“Some people have a certain bushel need because of a contract. Others want to put in as large a container as they can within a specific space. We fine-tune what they want, tell them the options and what it might cost.”

Although Trost says he’s not quite old enough to retire, his succession plan ensures the company’s survival for at least the next 30 years: In January 2015, he transferred ownership to his son, Adam, and Adam’s wife, Claire.

Adam Trost was 6 years old when his father purchased IFS. Adam spent summers working there, beginning as a high school freshman. After earning a degree in construction management from Purdue University, he joined the company in 2010.

The 29-year-old is involved in sales and company operations, scheduling projects, dispatching crews, coordinating material delivery and pickups.

“Dad runs day-to-day stuff, and when construction season comes, I’m out on the job coordinating crews,” he says. “In

Bob Resler is a native Hoosier who grew up in Oaktown in Knox County. Now beginning his 40th year in the industry, he’s been a manufacturer’s rep involved with wholesale and retail sales. He has been with IFS for 24 years, specializing in design and construction management of farm-based and commercial projects.

“I go out and listen to what their (farmers) ideas are,” he says. “If they have an existing facility, I take measurements and draw out what they have now, and then incorporate what they want to do.”

Echoing Dan Trost, Resler considers himself an old-timer, still executing drawings by hand rather than by computer. Once customers approve those drawings, he says, he specs out materials and makes routine on-site visits throughout construction to ensure installation is going as intended.

It’s all about follow-up service and loyalty.

“I have some customers I’ve worked with every few years for 25 years, so I try to build up a relationship with a customer that extends a lifetime,” he says.

Among those customers are Don and Bruce Brown, who farm about 7,000 acres at Tip Top Farms near Battle Ground.

Back in 1990, the Browns made their first major expansion. Resler, affiliated with another company at the time, sold them a farm dryer, which they added on to in stages. When the dryer caught fire in 2008, they looked to a different style: a bigger, commercial tower. They also

looked again to Resler, who by then was employed by IFS. “Bob sold us our first project and directed design and construction of it,” says Bruce Brown. “That project, and the subsequent one he also designed and supervised, was done professionally and with good results.

“Just about every year we’ve made some improvement or expansion, and Bob and IFS have been involved with all of them. We’ve been very happy with their work.”

The brothers built their grain-handling system over a 25-year period, adding commercial-grade Brock bins and a Brock tower dryer running on natural gas, which normally allow on-farm drying and storage of the corn and soybeans they harvest.

Their system recently was expanded

by IFS to include a second contiguous receiving pit and leg that allow for unloading a standard hopper bottom grain trailer with one stop.

The original dump pit, still in operation and also designed by Resler, utilizes a 450-bushel pit and a 9,000 bu./hr. receiving leg; the new adjacent pit holds 225 bushels with a 14,750 bu./hr. receiving capacity.

Those two legs feed two wet holding bins, with a combined capacity of about 115,000 bushels. The dryer has a rated capacity of 4,700 bu./hr.

Dried corn is screened before being transferred via drag conveyors to storage

bins ranging in size from 48,000 bushels to 205,000 bushels each. Total storage capacity is about 1.1 million bushels.

“Most of the bins are built with fully aerated floors and a drag conveyor in a tunnel underneath, so bins are elevated and conveyors are at ground level,” Brown says. “These conveyors add reliability and move the grain more gently when compared with augers, thus minimizing broken grain.”

Brown cites location and service as primary reasons they continue to work with IFS. “They’re conveniently located, which is certainly a benefit if we’ve got something going on and need some help.

And they have good follow-up service.

“And, obviously,” he adds, “we really think a lot of Bob Resler, because there are competitors who do that sort of thing that we could be using.”

As for what the future holds, “our bread and butter typically has always been the farm side of things, and we see a lot of farmers demanding turnkey projects, where they only want to deal with a single contractor and not coordinate with a lot of them,” Adam Trost says.

Today’s technology will continue to play an increasingly important role, he says. “A lot of farmers are wanting to operate from tablets and smartphones. For example, they want instant information on the temperature of their bins. So we’re looking at demands for faster equipment and larger storage, especially as the younger generation comes in.”

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In the Classroom Local FFA chapters

Luke Harker, Haley Embry, Kortney Wallace, Devin Turner, Charles Walton, Aleesa Dickerson (teacher), Annie Ashbrook, Dietrich Smith, Gwen Shoaf, Caleb Calhoun, Tanna Coombs.

Caleb Calhoun works on equipment in the shop room.

Looking ahead FFA students in Hope prepare for whatever life brings them

By Catherine Whittier Photography by Josh Marshall

26

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

W

“WE, THE 2015-2016 HOPE FFA CHAPTER, believe that we should encourage others to challenge themselves to further their personal growth, be a positive impact and be willing to serve. Throughout the year, we will stay involved, stay inspired and amplify FFA.” So reads the FFA chapter mission statement, posted on a classroom wall at Hauser Junior-Senior High School in Hope.

Each FFA chapter officer is serious about the role of leader, and the chapter has been gaining momentum because of it.

For the past two years, Hope FFA members have served as Indiana State FFA officers. For the 2014-15 year, Hope’s Brittany Young assumed the role of state president, and Joshua Calhoun is serving as state sentinel for the 2015-16 year.

These accomplishments have fueled a greater sense of pride and civic responsibility among fellow chapter members.

“Having two state officers in a row has given our members kind of like a push, like (the idea that) ‘We can do this,’” explains Haley Embry, sophomore and Hope FFA co-reporter. “It just motivated our members to try even harder, to push themselves to be better members, and to make our chapter better within our district. We’ve done a lot better job of getting our name out there and getting involved, not just within the community and our chapter, but throughout the state of Indiana.”

In addition to taking state offices, students also have excelled in competitions, making their ways to the state level in crops, meats, speaking contests, ag education and demonstrations. The Hope chapter sends a representative to every leadership contest offered at the district competition in the spring. “There’s prob-

“Having two state officers in a row has given our members kind of like a push, like (the idea that) ‘We can do this.’ It just motivated our members to try even harder, to push themselves to be better members, and to make our chapter better within our district.”

—HALEY EMBRY

Shoaf prepares a slideshow. Left: Chicken eggs in the hatchery.

Coombs tends to the rabbits.

Above, right: Harker and Turner demonstrate a lab experiment that they have performed in class.

ably only been a handful of American Degree recipients in the history of our chapter, and three of them got their American Degrees this year,” says Aleesa Dickerson, Hope FFA adviser and ag teacher.

While it’s true that successes at the state level have motivated students, they explain there is more to the story. Dickerson says that the Hope FFA chapter is steeped

in history, family tradition and community support. “I firmly believe that I have some of the best students or the best students in the state, and because I feel that way about them, they feel that way about themselves,” says Dickerson. “And it’s not just the students. Their parents are constantly giving them the go-ahead to go and do things and saying, ‘How can we

help you make your chapter successful?’”

FFA alumni often offer to help teach skills based on their past successes with FFA, Dickerson explains. “We’ve got all the support in the world from the community,” she adds. “If these guys (students) have an idea, there is someone in the community that will get behind them and help them accomplish it.”

The student officers echo her sentiments. “We’ve all been raised in a small town, and everybody in the community knows everybody — and for the most part, everybody kind of supports everybody — so it’s like a small town/big heart kind of deal,” says Caleb Calhoun, senior and Hope FFA president.

Serving others in the community is an FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

27

Hope FFA officers discuss an upcoming event.

important part of the Hope FFA chapter’s mission. “The whole time you’re in FFA, at every meeting, we have a banner up on our wall, and it’s the FFA motto: ‘Learning to do, doing to learn, earning to live, living to serve,’” says junior Dietrich Smith. “If you take that and kind of break it down, it kind of shows you how you should do things.”

Currently, the chapter is working on Heifer International’s Read to Feed program, where students raise money to purchase livestock, which will serve as sustainable food production resources for families in developing countries. FFA members encourage children in the local elementary schools to secure donations for every minute they read. Chapter members 28

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

then ask local businesses to match the donations. The chapter has a $5,000 goal.

For the past three years, Hope FFA members have set up temporary headquarters in an old bank in downtown Hope, where they host a cupcake drive to raise money for a family in need during the Christmas holiday season. “All the members of the chapter sign up to make cupcakes, and we use the (bank’s) drivethrough,” Dickerson says. “People order whatever flavor cupcake they want, then we put them through the box, like you would at the bank.”

The first year, the chapter assisted a family with food and gifts for Christmas.

The next year, students shopped for a family in a domestic violence shelter.

“This year, we had a family that was in a really terrible home situation. … They didn’t have anything in their kitchen: no plates, no silverware, nothing in their pantry and lots of kids,” says Dickerson.

“We basically bought everything they needed to outfit their kitchen. So it’s just turned into meeting the needs of whatever family we identify.”

Quarterly, students also purchase, cook and serve food at the Monday Meal Site, which is an outreach ministry held at the Moravian Outreach Center at Hope Moravian Church. Anyone who would benefit from a meal is invited to attend.

“Sometimes older people will come in and eat,” explains Kortney Wallace, junior and chapter vice president. “We just

fix dinner for whoever comes to the church.”

Hope FFA does other projects to provide food for the hungry throughout the year. “Our community service projects evolve as the needs of our community evolve,” says Dickerson.

During camps, workshops, and state and national conventions, students have an opportunity to collaborate with other chapters and are often inspired with new ideas related to community service and all other aspects of FFA. “Collaborating, not just within your chapter — but getting out there and reaching out to other chapters, and hearing what they have to say — that really helps you see what you should go forward with,” says Smith.

The chapter funds its numerous activities and travel in three ways. “The first one is in September at Hope Heritage Days,” says Wallace. “What we’re known for at Hope Heritage Days is our fried food.” Students serve homemade french fries, mozzarella sticks, fried pickles, chicken sandwiches, sweet tea, lemonade and soda.

“Then we do another fundraiser in December, and that’s the seed auction,” Wallace adds. Seed companies donate corn, sweet corn and soybean seeds to the chapter, which are later sold to local and surrounding county farmers with the help of a volunteer auctioneer. “All the money goes straight to us, so it’s straight profit.”

“Our Hope Heritage Days fundraiser usually brings us between $4,500 to $6,000 in profit for the weekend, and our seed auction doubles that sometimes,” says Dickerson. “So we’re able to not only really pay for most of what they (FFA

Ashbrook and Wallace demonstrate a presentation they recently gave.

members) want to do, but have some leftover for scholarships and some leftover to invest in our department and our greenhouse and starting new projects.”

The third way the chapter raises funds is by requesting donations from local businesses. This year Hope FFA tried a new approach. Rather than ask businesses for donations multiple times throughout the year, it created a fund drive, which would allow it to make one request. FFA members wrote letters to local businesses, which detailed the chapter’s needs and then followed up with personal visits during National FFA week. “Our first annual fund drive was wildly successful, and we look forward to doing it for many years to come,” says Dickerson. “We visited over 40 businesses and brought in $3,440 with some outstanding promised donations. Those

funds have already allowed us to sponsor new jackets for FFA members and will allow us to sponsor students attending Washington Leadership Conference and other camps and conferences in the fall.”

Overall, Dickerson’s mission with the chapter is to help them leave school prepared for whatever life has in store for them. “If they want to run for national office, I hope they are prepared to do that,” says Dickerson. “If they want to go to trade school and come back here and get a job, I want them to be prepared to come back here and do that. And I want them both to feel like those two things are equal, because it’s just as important for us to have students who are trained in vocational education and are keeping our trade industry moving as it is to have those students who can get on stage and speak in front of thousands.”

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TRAINING IN THE FIELD Seymour facility brings farm education to students

By JANUARY RUTHERFORD | The Seymour Tribune SEYMOUR — In 1948, the U.S. War Assets Administration donated 220 acres of land near the former Freeman Army Airfield to Seymour Community School Corp.

The deed required the district to use the property as a school farm, where students would learn how to plant and harvest crops by actually doing the work themselves.

Through the years, use of the farm for hands-on educational purposes dwindled, and in more recent years, the ground has been farmed by outside parties, providing some income to Seymour High School’s ag department and FFA chapter.

But that’s all about to change with the development and construction of a new $2 million ag-science research farm and edu30

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

cation center. The facility has the potential to put Seymour at the forefront statewide of preparing and training students for careers in the agriculture industry, school officials said.

“Agriculture has changed so much.

We’re not training kids to go out and plant the field like they did 20 or 30 years ago,” said Jeanna Eppley, the high school’s agriculture teacher and FFA sponsor. “We are going to be teaching kids the latest and greatest technology, training them for careers that we can’t even imagine right now.”

Although the number of farmers in Jackson County is dwindling, the number of jobs available in ag-related fields, including ag-science, business, technology

and mechanics is on the rise, and students with an education and training in agriculture are in high demand, she said.

“There are over 20,000 jobs unfilled in the Midwest for ag-related jobs. There’s not enough people, not enough students to fill those jobs,” Superintendent Rob Hooker said.

Eppley and Hal Kovert of Kovert Hawkins Architects recently presented plans for the first phase of the project to the school board, which has already given its initial approval. “We met with the ag advisory committee and school staff and administrators and talked about the elements they want to see in this facility,” Kovert said.

The project is being funded through the corporation’s capital projects fund, which currently has about $6 million. No money will have to be borrowed, and the building should be ready for use by the start of the 2016-17 school year in August.

Phase I includes a 12,000-squarefoot, one-story, pole-barn style building that will house a large machinery and equipment training and shop area, a food science lab with full working kitchen to implement farm-to-table curriculum, a metals lab with welding booths, a classroom for animal science, restrooms, an office, storage and a large parking area. A second phase, if approved, would add a greenhouse and aquaculture lab, a

lecture/presentation hall and additional labs and classrooms.

The building will be located on a fiveacre site along Fourth and F avenues in Freeman Field.

The new facility will allow Seymour to offer advanced courses in food science, plants and soils, and landscape management along with courses in agriculture power, structure and technology and sustainable energy alternatives. Other courses that could be offered include diesel service technology, welding technology and precision machining.

Seymour High School agriculture teacher Jeanna Eppley explains a hydroponic gardening system to junior Libby Roar.

“We will be incorporating technology and science and math classes to make this a research farm,” Eppley said.

Students will conduct experiments, research and complete projects in agronomy, which is the science of producing and using plants for food, fuel, fiber and conservation through soil testing and plant tissue analysis.

“We will be better preparing them for jobs out in the field,” Eppley said.

The facility also will allow the corporation to train students in welding in-house so they don’t have to travel to C4 classes in Columbus.

Many classes will remain based at the high school, with the ag-science and research facility being utilized more for exTRIBUNE PHOTO BY AARON PIPER

periments, demonstrations and hands-on lab activities, Eppley said. Students would travel on their own to the facility as some already do for work-based internships or be bused there. The farm also would be used for internships, FFA functions, field trips and to host elementary school Ag Days, Eppley said.

But local schools wouldn’t be the only ones to use and benefit from the facility.

Besides increasing student opportunities, the farm has the potential to become a magnet facility for agribusiness industries in Seymour and Jackson County, such as Jackson-Jennings Co-op, Kova Fertilizer, Deer Country Equipment, Jacobi Sales, The Andersons and Rose Acre Farms, Hooker said.

Jackson County farmers would be able to use the site throughout the year to learn about new technologies and innovations through ag software and technology demonstrations, equipment/machinery demonstrations, field days, farm safety sessions, ag management and financial strategy meetings and adult education courses and technical certifications.

“We want the community to be involved in our ag program,” Eppley said. “They are the ones who are going to be hiring our kids. We want them to feel like we are delivering an education to the children that they are going to be able to utilize.”

Hooker said the “school farm” could be a game changer in increasing vocational and career training in the county and even attracting agribusiness to the area.

“We could see an increase in enrollment at the high school because of these programs,” Hooker said. “We’re really excited about this project and where it’s going to take us as a school corporation.”

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» WILD Farms Gone

What happens on the farm, stays on the farm — until now. We reached out to Hoosier farmers from all over the state to gather laugh-out-loud mishaps involvin g adorable tiny goats, hungry potbelly pig s and fleeing swarms. No surprise that many of these stories revolve around animals yearning to escape, by hook or by crook. Warning: Our last story isn’t for the faint of heart. BY KATHERINE COPLEN

Fence jumper Our Nigerian goat, Little Billy, continuously got out. We checked fences. We couldn’t figure it out. We decided we needed to watch to see what was going on. To our surprise, we found out that he would wait until our miniature horse was close to the fence. Little Billy bounded and jumped on the back of the miniature horse and then jumped over the fence.

KATHLEEN BOWEN, COUNTRY CHALET FARM, 12696 W. ROAD 50S, COLUMBUS

On the loose

One of (Paramount School of Excellence’s) hives swarmed (left their original hive), and they called me to help catch it. There were a few students who dressed up in bee gear to learn. I showed up and asked if they had branch clippers. Anna, who works with the students and teaches beekeeping over there, asked if I was going to spray the bees with sugar water. “No, I never do ROSS HARDING PARAMOUNT SCHOOL that,” I said.

OF EXCELLENCE, 3020 I knocked the bees into the box, NOWLAND AVE., but they didn’t like it and flew away INDIANAPOLIS

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FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

A new hat

We have tons of crazy farm stories to share from potbelly pigs getting loose to wading in feet of flood water. One particular instance that sticks out is the day one of our favorite goats became a bucket head. We feed all of our farm animals cracked corn for a treat every now Rex Zenor and again. They love it so much Piney Acres we call them cracked corn heads.

Christmas Tree Farm, Well, Ellie, our kid at the time, 1115 E. Road got ahold of the bucket of cracked 1000N, Fortville corn and went to town on it so much she got her head stuck inside the bucket.

She walked around that way for about 30 minutes before we could finally get her head unstuck.

out of sight. It was sad. I should have listened to her and sprayed the bees with the sugar water so they couldn’t fly. All the bees were gone out of sight. We were all kind of down.

We were just sitting on the hillside there for about 10 minutes, and we noticed bees coming back. They landed across the street about 15 feet up. A really nice guy named Jerome came and helped and gave us a ladder. I sprayed the bees this time. It was so many bees they took up two limbs (of a tree). I cut them and brought them down. I was covered in bees. We walked them over to a new hive, and they stayed.

DEEP WATER Our first goat kid was a doeling, Nubian/ Toggenburg. Our teenage daughter, Sarah, bought her with her own money to start a goat milk soap business. She named her Lily.

At only a few months old, she (the goat) really enjoyed going for walks, tagging along like a puppy. One day my husband SCOTT, TERESA AND SARAH AKEY took her for a CREAKEY ACRES FARM, walk around 1061 S. ROAD 250W, our pond.

ALBION She was not keeping up with him, stopping to graze. He rounded the end of the pond, and the weeds were a little high. She lost sight of him and started bawling. He stopped and got her attention. When she saw him, she decided to take the most direct route and bounded right into the pond. While she wasn’t over her head, she was floundering and shrieking like she was being killed. He had to wade in and retrieve her.

All was well, and she learned a valuable lesson, and three years later has never attempted to go in the pond.

BANK

Brown Tiny can be quite the little ornery goat kid. Since she goes with me quite often to run errands, she is a regular at our local farm stores, feed dealer and bank.

One day at the bank she decided to take off and run underneath a glass door near the counter. The tellers looked very worried. I asked out loud if everything was OK. They replied, “Tiny is in the vault.” I’m thinking, “Great! Tiny the bank robber.” So we had to get the branch manager, unlock the vault and frisk Tiny to make sure she hadn’t made off with anything. So somewhere on security footage is Brown Tiny in the bank vault!

Since Brown Tiny likes to run errands, all I have to do is open the truck door, and she will climb in, sometimes getting behind the wheel in the driver’s seat. Brown Tiny hangs out with some of our retired goats, and on occasion we will let them run in the yard near the dairy. We get regular supply deliveries from UPS, and this day it was a number of boxes. I helped the driver unload and get the boxes in the dairy. We talked for a moment, and he jumped in the truck and headed down the drive. Suddenly the truck stopped, reversed and pulled up near where I was standing. The driver opened the door and out hopped Brown Tiny, her tail wagging with delight. The driver seemed glad he found her before he got too far down the road!

ROBBER

MIKE HOOPENGARDNER, REDBUD FARM AND CAPRINI CREAMERY, 7052 S. ROAD 425W, SPICELAND

THE OPEN ROAD When our bull is not among the lady cows doing his manly duties, we keep him in a separate pasture with an unbred cow to keep him company. Last May, to my surprise, the supposedly unbred cow gave birth to a small but very lively calf.

This calf loved to occupy himself by chasing my truck along the fence line. I called him Race Calf because he ran like a race horse. One day, he decided that it would be more fun to chase cars along the fence line close to the road. He weaseled under the barbed wire fence and went after my mother’s SUV at breakneck speed. My mother called from her cellphone saying that my calf was chasing her Sam Roller car. I didn’t realize which Arnold Farms, side of the fence he was 4152 E. Road on until I saw him 150N, Rushville sniffing around the tires of her SUV, which was parked in the middle of the road while she waited for me to retrieve Race Calf. I fixed the fence and made sure that he wouldn’t hit the open road again.

As he got older, he grew out of his car-chasing phase.

But the name Race Calf stuck.

Hard to swallow As a teenager, I was often forced to help my dad with his hobby of driving horses after school and on the weekends. This included fetching horses out of the fields, watering, feeding and brushing horses on the hottest and coldest of days and, of course, shoveling manure out of stalls. Every once in a while, we got to just relax and hitch the horse up to a cart and let it ride us around the fields and the busy roads around our farm.

Around the time I was a freshman in high school, we had an Arabian horse called Jameera.

She was a frisky, energetic type of horse and riding her was always an adventure. She was unpredictable.

JOSHUA WELCH It was a perfect spring day, sunny outside, 80 degrees DRIVING WIND BLUEBERRY FARM, 6410 MICHIGAN ROAD, INDIANAPOLIS with a gentle breeze. We were seated right behind the

horse on the cart — close enough to tap her hind end with the reins — and we were enjoying the ride for several minutes.

That’s when it all happened, though. While mid-stride, the horse began to buck and kick and jump as if it had just got a burr in its saddle. We held on to the sides of the cart so we would not be catapulted off. Then, a substance began to spray out of Jameera’s hind end into my face. I couldn’t jump off because the cart was rolling. To make matters worse, the speed of the cart along with the wind was aiding the substance’s powerful spray into my face and mouth. After being startled, I said, “Dad, the horse is p**sing in my mouth! It’s peeing in my mouth! Stop the cart!”

Dad was cracking up. For some reason, he thought it was hilarious. I was upset. But here’s the kicker. Dad finally gets the horse to halt. I said, “What is so funny? This is disgusting.

Why would you laugh at me?” Dad, after calming down, says, “Son, that’s not pee. That horse just went into heat.”

I ran through the 5-acre field and through our woods and immediately brushed my teeth and washed my face like I have never done so before.

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

33

FROM THE FIELD

CLEANUP/ PREP WORK

»

The Spring List

» It does not seem to matter how much work I do in the fall, there is always ample cleanup work to be done in the spring. The winter winds always manage to blow around some debris. If you find your yard filled with small branches and leaves, remember that can be turned into valuable organic matter for your beds. Pick up — and recycle if you can — any trash that people throw out. In general, spring is a good time to tidy up a bit.

If you did not manage to complete maintenance on tools and machinery during the winter, then spring is the time to do it before the season goes into full swing. Changing oil and filters and sharpening blades are paramount tasks that should not be overlooked to ensure the longevity and functionality of your equipment. It sometimes seems like busy work and is easy to avoid, but you will regret tomorrow what you don’t do today.

BY CHERYL CARTER JONES

LAST MONTH IN THE HEIGHT of my cabin fever, I longed for the onset of the spring to come. Now, it is here, and I am loving every busy minute of it. The bluebirds are already nesting and raising their young, the killdeer are scurrying throughout the fields, and green things are beginning to emerge from the ground. The environment, in general, is starting to come to life again.

Spring also marks the beginning of the period when my work is never done, and each day I long to get just one more thing finished before the sun sets. Those who know me also know I am guilty of occasionally using my truck lights to be able to see to get one last project finished. Watching new growth emerge and plants come to life makes it worth every ounce of effort and every aching muscle at the end of the day. My challenge in spring is to dodge the rain and deal with wet fields — always something, huh?

I am a “list” person. It keeps me focused and prioritized, while also ensuring I do not forget things that must get done. The things we do in the spring set the stage for our gardens to flourish through the harvest season. Here are a few of my high priority tasks.

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FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

SOIL HEALTH » Whether you are starting a new bed or tending to established plantings, plants have nutritional needs just as humans do. It is a good practice to check at least the pH level of your soil annually, but better to have a soil test done to guarantee you maintain the proper nutritional balance in your garden.

If you do not know where to get a soil test done, contact your county’s Purdue Extension educator.

If you need to add any soil amendments, the sooner you do so the better. This includes fertilizers.

My goal is to have all my plants fertilized and any further amendments added by the end of March.

Given the number of plants and little fields I have to tend to, the fact that I am doing it by myself and the predictions for rain, it is a relatively aggressive goal. I am guessing I will be doing a portion of that in the rain to stay on my timeline.

If you were not able to add organic matter into your soil in the fall, it is never too late. People underestimate the value of organic matter in their gardens, whether for vegetables and fruit or flowers.

If I am adding leaves, for instance, I like to make sure that I have run them through my mower or chipper twice to make them as fine as possible. This is of particular value if you are using them in a vegetable garden where a seeder will be used to plant seeds.

Maximizing the health of your soil is a vital step in raising a great garden. It is always better to be in a proactive, versus reactive, mode. Waiting until a deficiency is apparent to address the issue, while it will solve the problem, also causes lower productivity and lower quality of produce.

NEW PLANTS » The delivery drivers in my area refer to me as their job security this time of year. It seems like nearly every day another package or two of plants arrives. By next year, this activity should slow to a minimum — I hope. I am still in the new farm mass planting phase with my perennial plants. Of course, there will always be annuals to be planted each year, either as plants or seeds that I will start in one of my greenhouses.

It is important to get all those new plants in the ground as soon as you can. First of all, shipping is hard on plants, and after all, this is the growing season, so any time spent out of the ground is time they could have been growing and establishing a strong root system in the ground.

If you have time, it is always best to have your beds ready for planting before the plants arrive. It is not always possible, but always better for the plants, and when you have ample time, a person usually does a better job of it.

If you cannot plant your new arrivals immediately, read the directions that come with the plants. It may be as simple as putting your plants in a bucket with a little soil and enough water to keep them moist, but not standing in water, until you can actually get them in the ground. Some plants also benefit by conditioning them to sunlight — setting them outside during the day and returning them indoors at night until you are able to plant them. Others need to be left in the box and kept in a dark place until planting time.

BULB CARE/ PLANT DIVISIONS

ONGOING CARE

» I have daffodils. Anyone who » Some years, it seems that if has them knows how quickly you are able to get the plants they multiply. And do they ever in the ground that is about all multiply! It is important to divide you can do. In reality, that is just the bulbs periodically to give the beginning. Pruning is one them room to grow and do it all of those ongoing annual tasks over again. It is also a good time that is sometimes overlooked to work in some bone meal or soil but is vital to the overall health amendments to help them thrive. and productivity of the plant or Most of my bulbs went a little tree. The thought of cutting off too long without being divided, some branches is intimidating to so my bulbs are smaller than some people. Actually, however, I like this year. it is an easy task They simply ran to ensure that out of room to branches grow grow due to in the directions overcrowding. that are best They will refor the plant or bound, however, tree. Branches and next year, that grow inward I should have a toward the cenbeautiful display ter of a tree (or Cheryl Carter Jones is an Indiana of daffodils to backward) are farmer and the president of the mark the beginbest removed.

Local Growers’ Guild, a cooperative ning of spring.

While you want of farmers, retailers and community I will also have full plants, you members dedicated to strengthening substantially also want to the local food economy in central more than I origimake sure that and southern Indiana through nally purchased. there is enough education, direct support and market connections. For more Those extra bulbs room for air information on the guild, visit can be placed to circulate in localgrowers.org. under trees or to the middle. So establish a new often it is necbed. Sharing the essary to do extras with a good friend or two a little pruning in the cenis also a nice gesture. ter, particularly of shrubs.

Bulbs are not alone in multiMost plants/trees/shrubs plying. Some plants will multiply come with instructions for how by sending up new shoots along to prune them as they grow. If their root system. Other plants not, the Internet is a wealth of or trees multiply through seeds. knowledge, and there is generEach is an opportunity for inally a YouTube video on how creasing your plantings or sharto prune anything you might ing the wealth with others. have. It is well worth the investment of time to read up on pruning before you start.

MULCH » Yards always look so nice in the spring time with a fresh addition of mulch, but mulch is not truly just about appearance. It serves several important purposes. Mulch protects plants against harsh winters by adding a little insulation, so fall mulching is important. People often underestimate how much mulch our plants actually need.

It breaks down and composts over time, turning it into rich, new soil. Adding up to six inches of new mulch in a year is not uncommon. Just be sure not to mound it up right next to the trunk of a bush or tree.

Mulch suppresses weed growth, and I would certainly rather shovel some mulch than pull weeds. Mulch also helps to retain moisture. In a drought year, that is critical to plant survival. It cuts down on the amount of water needed.

When purchasing mulch, it is important to ask if any dyes have been added to the mulch to create a uniform color. It really does make it quite pretty, but if you are putting the mulch around edibles, I highly discourage using a mulch with chemical dyes added.

The dye gets in the soil and then goes into a plant’s root system.

I personally do not want that in something I am going to eat.

My to-do list appears insurmountable, but the renewed energy I receive each spring puts me up to the task. The potential of the harvest gives me drive and the resolve to stay the course. The satisfaction in the end is worth all the effort. Happy spring!

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

35

FROM THE FIELD

Nate and Liz Brownlee and friends pose next to a chicken coop in the backyard of their former Vermont home.

THE VIEW AT NIGHTFALL

Adding

Layers

»

BY NATE BROWNLEE

I LOVE OUR FARM, but it always feels like we’re missing something. Since Liz and I have worked on five established farms, starting a farm from scratch inevitably means you will not have everything you want. We have no cows, and there is no tractor parked in the barn at night. I wish we had old, abandoned apple orchard trees for the pigs to forage under. But this spring we do get to fill one big gap: We’re getting laying hens.

These days, layers are a great introduction to farm life for a lot of people. Farm fresh eggs are the farmers market gateway drug. Experiencing the difference in quality between store eggs and farm eggs often brings customers back looking for other foods to buy directly from a farmer.

And the hens themselves do a good job of winning over fans. Backyard chickens are popular for a good reason; they can start the conversation about where food

After years of gaining experience on other farms, Nate Brownlee and his wife, Liz, moved back to Indiana to start their own family farm, which they named Nightfall Farm. Here, they share stories of the many trials, tribulations, successes and failures in running a family business. For more on Nightfall Farm, visit nightfallfarm.com.

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comes from, they are fun to watch and get to know, and they pay their rent in eggs.

My first experience with backyard chickens, well before my farming days, was in college when I visited a friend and was served Becky’s Super Scrambled Eggs direct from Hans, Franz and Jean-Claude, the hens with Belgian muscleman names. Our relationship started and ended with that breakfast, but years later I would have my own backyard chickens.

Our house in Vermont had five humans under one roof, and five layers under their own roof out back. Liz and I were the only ones with chicken experience, and it was amazing to see the impact those birds had on our housemates. Those chickens taught our housemates the joys of flinging scratch

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Let us protect you... to chickens, the frustrations of those times when the girls did not lay eggs as often as we wanted, and the simple fact of just how much chickens like to peck at shiny things like rings on fingers or the rivets on jeans.

When we moved back home, our neighbors were raising laying hens, so we told ourselves that we were not missing out. We still got delicious eggs from rambunctious little ladies who run all over the place. It seemed cheaper to buy eggs than build coops and start raising hens. We also felt as if we had plenty of chores to keep us busy.

But the good reasons to raise layers inevitably won out. Customers have asked for eggs consistently. Plus, working with your own little ladies makes the eggs taste better.

And there is something different about layer chores. Animal chores generally mean food, water, moving fence, and a check to make sure everyone looks happy and healthy.

Laying hens change that chore dynamic. I get to scratch the Easter egg hunt itch without parents wondering why the bearded man is racing their kids to find all the hidden treasures. Even if the girls do a good job and only lay in their nest boxes, and I am not New laying hen holding my breath on that, you still have to poke chicks at around just to make sure. I know I am not the Nightfall Farm. only person with stories about finding that hidden clutch of 17 eggs long after you would want to find them.

On the other end of the egg, layers are also my favorite animals to feed. Pigs push you out of the way to get their food. It is fun to give the lambs new pasture, but since we use temporary electric netting, you have to build them a new fence first.

But with layers, when they see you move to feed them, their pattering footsteps sound like a rainstorm racing up behind you.

We’re starting with a small laying flock this year, knowing that our farming season will bring many responsibilities and to-do items for us. It will be great to get to know these ladies. And I know having laying hens means more work and another animal group to add to the rotation of our grazing, but starting this summer we will be finishing chores each day with many hard-shelled souvenirs.

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FROM THE FIELD

TRASH and TREASURE

BY KATIE GLICK

I

t’s been a spring tradition in my family for a while. It’s something I have never complained about, usually enjoy and am always proud to do. I wear my most worn boots, which just happen to be covered in green and pink flowers that have faded from being covered in cow manure and mud. And each time before heading out the door I put my hair up, find my gloves and grab the white bag.

As I make my way down the drive, I say a little prayer that I won’t find much. Surely people remember what we learned in school: to have some decency and respect other people’s things. However, I am usually wrong.

Each time I bend down to pick up that beer bottle, fast food bag, an old cigarette butt and more, I am disappointed. I am saddened that I have to pick up someone else’s trash on my family’s property.

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FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

Yes, picking up trash is the tradition. It has become an annual farm chore. As people pass through the countryside and enjoy the beauty, they empty their vehicles of trash along the way. They have no care about maintaining the land and no respect for who might care for it.

My love of the land runs deep. I’ve written before about a favorite quote of mine that I was taught at a young age: “The land is the only thing in the world worth working for, worth fighting for, worth dying for, because it’s the only thing that lasts.”

So when I see that someone has discarded trash in our fields and pastures, I get angry, upset and disappointed. When I sense the laziness of the people who discard waste onto someone’s property, it makes me want to work harder to protect our land and advocate for agriculture. A lot

every weed by hand, but we try to do the best we can to take care of the land, our garden.”

I reacted with some crazy hand gesture and yelled, “Yes! The fields are our gardens, and the pastures are like our yards. Why can’t people understand, respect and appreciate that?” He gave me that “I’m sure you will figure it out” look and turned up the radio.

Maybe the people who throw out their trash didn’t learn about this beautiful Earth and abundant land in school. Maybe they don’t understand of people don’t think farmers work that we should care for the land on to preserve the land, but they do in many levels. Maybe their moms so many ways. We are the ones who and dads didn’t teach them about want the land to last for generations respecting other people’s to come. property. As a farm girl As we were passKatie Glick and agriculture advocate ing yet another grew up on who loves this land, maybe field with trash in it her family I can be a greater example recently, I was outfarm in Martinsville this spring when I walk raged. My husband and now more pastures and fields to is used to it now collect the trash. and lets me get it all lives with her husband on their family farm near Columbus. She I’m sure picking up a out before asking is a graduate of Purdue University “Are you OK?” He and has worked in Indiana politics. few more pieces won’t hurt me, but I do think I need then calmly puts She now works in the agriculture industry. She shares her personal, a new pair of boots so you some thoughtfulwork, travel and farm life stories on can see the bright flowers as ness and sense her blog, Fancy in the Country. you pass me and enjoy the to it all. “People fields full of sprouting crops don’t understand and bright green pastures. I’ll do my that that’s our garden,” he said as he part to make the land last so your kids pointed to one of our fields. “It’s just and grandkids can enjoy it. I hope massive. But we still care for every you will, too. seed and every plant. I can’t go pick

(RENEE JONES SCHNEIDER/MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE/TNS)

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Standing on 4 feet of corn, Jack Buttenhoff, 17, breaks up mold chunks in a grain bin.

IN THE NEWS:

U.S. farm entrapments fall to lowest level in decade WEST LAFAYETTE — Grain bin entrapments and other confined space accidents on the nation’s farms fell to their lowest level in a decade last year, a Purdue University study has found.

The U.S. had 47 accidents in grain bins or other confined spaces in 2015. That’s 34 percent less than 2014’s 71 such accidents and the fewest since 46 were recorded in 2006, the study found.

Last year’s accidents were reported in 13 states, mostly in the Midwest’s Corn Belt region.

The study, an annual report prepared by Purdue, found that 25 people died last year in either grain bin entrapments or other confined space accidents. That’s down from 31 deaths in 2014.

Fourteen of last year’s deaths were caused by grain entrapments, which typically occur when a farm worker enters a grain bin or silo to dislodge clumps of grain and becomes engulfed by shifting grain, resulting in suffocation.

Last year’s other fatalities included workers entangled in machinery, falling or struck by heavy objects.

Bill Field, a Purdue professor of agricultural safety and health, said many nonfatal entrapments go unreported each year because there’s no mandatory national reporting system. He said some victims and their employers are reluctant to report accidents because doing so can create work delays or higher insurance costs.

Field said getting an accurate accident count is crucial to efforts to improve farm safety.

“We need to know where the needs are so we can focus our prevention and rescue training efforts in those areas,” he said.

Iowa led the nation with seven accidents last year. Others were reported in Arkansas, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Wisconsin and South Dakota.

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www.davesfarmservice.com FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

39

LOCAL FOOD

EAT, PLAY, LOVE

L

in Amish Country

Artisan Restaurant brings ‘something special’ to Elkhart

BY CJ WOODRING

Bend. It’s been pretty much a one-way “LIVE. WORK. PLAY.” That’s the slogan of SoMa (Supstreet. So we thought if it was nice enough, porting our Main assets), a community-driven initiative people in South Bend would bless us with for renewal and revitalization of Elkhart’s downtown their patronage, and it would also bring South Main Street area that enables entrepreneurs and people in from other towns.” businesses to invest in the historic downtown.

Janowsky says he often hears people are Make that “Live. Work. Play. Eat,” if you throw in the surprised that the region, crippled when work of Kurt Janowsky, one such entrepreneur and a the RV industry collapsed in 2008, is suprestaurateur whose name is synonymous with excellent porting an upscale level of dining, despite cuisine throughout St. Joseph and Elkhart counties. the fact manufacturing is on the upswing.

A South Bend native and resident, Janowsky owns or partners in a host of regional restaurants.

The 52-year-old’s most recent addition to the Navarre Hospitality Group (navarrehospitalitygroup.com) and to the north-central Indiana culinary scene is Artisan Restaurant, which opened in January 2015 in the heart of Elkhart’s Arts & Entertainment District.

Located in a historic building — Janowsky is an ardent supporter of adaptive reuse — the contemporary restaurant offers upscale ambience and service. The venue has already garnered the prestigious AAA Four Diamond Award for 2016, one South Bend of fewer than a half-dozen Indiana restaunative Kurt rants to do so.

Janowsky at Artisan “We wanted to open something special Restaurant. and not offered elsewhere — small, intimate, fine dining — that would bring people in from out of town,” he adds. “I think we did that.”

And why was Elkhart the selected site? “Because the city has been really good to our company over the years,” he says. “So it’s kind of a payback, a ‘thanks for supporting us,’ to open the restaurant here.

“Plus, people from Elkhart have always gone to South

40

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

“But why wouldn’t it support us?” he asks. “There are about 200,000 residents in Elkhart County, and including nearby markets, a million people within a halfhour of us.”

“I JUST DIRECT TRAFFIC” To say he has a lot on his plate would be an understatement: With a combined staff of 250, including his two sons and daughter,

AMISH COUNTRY TOURS & TRAILS Janowsky sets the standard for what appears on thousands of guests’ plates. And with more than 30 years in the industry, he has found his calling.

Janowsky became executive chef at Knollwood Country Club, Granger, at the age of 18. At 20 he purchased the Loft Restaurant, a former South Bend venue. He also served as co-owner of the Ice House in Mishawaka; the Emporium, South Bend; Baxter’s Food and Spirits, Elkhart; and the Matterhorn.

Yet the South Bend native nearly attended MIT to become an engineer.

“I’m a math guy. I was a good student and had options coming out of high school,” he says. “But I’d been a cook throughout high school, and the bug had bitten me by then. That’s what I wanted to do.

“Now I’m watching my younger son, a high school senior, doing the same thing: He’s also a good student, but says he wants to be a chef.”

The industry veteran currently owns Café Navarre and The Exchange Whiskey Bar in South Bend, while also operating with partners at O’Rourke’s Public House, South Bend and Rocky River Tap and Table, Granger. They are among the most popular dining destinations in the region, each offering a unique and distinct experience.

Janowsky enjoys the work, he says, although it involves many hours and making many sacrifices. “It’s what we do, and we’ve been able to assemble a really good team,” he says. “You don’t do all this by yourself. I have great people who do the heavy lifting for me now. I just kind of direct traffic.”

Though the restaurant isn’t for everyone, he says, “we’re trying to keep the price point modest. We’re also going to try to keep it approachable. We don’t want anyone too intimidated to go in. Diners don’t need a jacket and tie, so it’s comfortable, and we want people to just enjoy the food and ambience and have fun. Fun is what makes a memorable dining experience.”

FRESH, SEASONAL, LOCALLY SOURCED FOOD A great portion of that dining experience is, of course, the restaurant’s ever-changing menu, a presentation of chef Matt Jay. An Elkhart native and honors graduate of the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in New York, Jay worked at renowned restaurants that include the MK in Chicago (mkchicago.com) and the Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island, Michigan (grandhotel.com), before returning to his hometown.

History, art and cultural heritage are combined in Amish Country’s tours and trails. Most are free and self-guided; a few are seasonal.

Whether you walk or drive, the outings offer countless opportunities to explore the unique northern Indiana region and its many offerings.

ELKHART COUNTY

LAGRANGE COUNTY

ArtWalk

Quilt Gardens Tour

Free, self-guided tour through downtown Elkhart showcases regional artists’ works in all mediums against a background of musical entertainment.

Wednesdays in May, July, September and November.

Nineteen gardens (more than 1 million blooms) planted in quilt patterns and more than 20 gigantic murals reflecting quilt patterns are featured in this colorful tour. Showcased May 30 through Oct. 1 in seven Amish country communities along the Heritage Trail.

Gateway Mile’s RiverWalk Culture Trail Nearly two dozen historic sites and structures are featured along the downtown Elkhart trail. Highlights include Wellfield Botanic Gardens, the Havilah Beardsley House, Ruthmere Mansion and the 1917 Memorial Bridge, which honors the city’s war veterans.

Nappanee 16-mile Locke Town Loop Driving Tour Travel past Amish and English farmsteads in a bucolic tour featuring the Village of Locke, Borkholder Dutch Village, Continental Divide, historic downtown Nappanee, Amish Acres and more.

Quilt Gardens Tour

Menus focus on small portions and multiple courses featuring locally sourced ingredients and specialty products. Guests may order a la carte or select from sevencourse tasting menus.

Jay, 37, says it’s the kind of food he’s always wanted to serve. “With 40 to 50 customers an evening, rather than 300, it allows me more time to focus on the food, making sure techniques are correct, and to perfect it so guests have the best experience they could possibly have.”

Menu selections throughout the year

VARIOUS COUNTIES

Indiana Heritage Trail Ninety-mile audio driving tour wends through northern Indiana’s Amish country communities of Bristol, Elkhart, Goshen, Middlebury, Nappanee, Shipshewana and Wakarusa.

Download free, self-guided map and pick up free audio CD from the Elkhart County CVB, B&Bs and other locations.

Northern Indiana Art and Earth Trail Spanning seven counties, northern Indiana’s seven artisan trails introduce more than 150 artists, venues and new works, while providing an opportunity to visit studios, workshops, galleries, shops, restaurants and inns. Trails are always changing and can be picked up at any point or combined with parts of another.

Northern Indiana Foodie Trail Trail spans counties from Porter to LaGrange. Amish Country venues include Das Dutchman Essenhaus and Antonio’s in Elkhart County; Blue Gate Restaurant, JoJo’s Pretzels and Foltz Bakery in LaGrange County.

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

41

LOCAL FOOD

WHILE YOU’RE THERE …

Spring in the heartland is Mother Nature’s first showcase of the year.

And in north-central Indiana Amish country, that equates to fun, food and a maple syrup festival. The following are a select group of attractions that will appeal to all ages. Visit amishcountry.org for a full listing of the region’s destinations and events.

Chef Matt Jay in Artisan’s kitchen.

stopping along the way in Roanoke include seafood and game, as well as (Huntington County) to dine at prime beef and free-range poultry Joseph Decuis (josephdecuis.com), raised in Indiana. “They’re organic, also a AAA Four Star Award restauno antibiotics or hormones,” Jay says. rant. He notes that improvements “We’re really serious about that.” have been made to U.S. 31, expeditThe Artisan also serves Rolling ing travel time to the Elkhart region.

Meadows pork belly, Kruse Farm “When there’s something in your baby spinach, Strauss Farms rack of own state, you hope people will lamb and Cook’s Bison short ribs, a support it,” he says. “Our region’s guest favorite that Jay says is “really blessed with a simple and like myriad of travel the best pot roast destination options you’ll ever have.”

“We wanted to and a wonderful As for spring open something selection of dining tastings, he says special and not places from casual halibut and spring offered elsewhere to fine dining. lamb will definitely — small, intimate, “Three of the be on the menu, fine dining — that state’s five 2015 along with a bison would bring people AAA Four Star dish and morels. in from out of town. restaurants are in “We’ll transiI think we did that.” north-central Intion into cooking — KURT JANOWSKY diana, plus a dozen lighter dishes ... microbreweries and more vegetable great chef-driven forward ... more restaurants with outstanding food. of the local spring greens such as So it’s really a vibrant food scene. ramps (wild leeks) and fiddlehead Better than people think, and you ferns, and using a lot of pesto oils don’t have to leave the state.” with them.”

Artisan Restaurant is located at A wine list offers 300 selections 505 S. Main St., Elkhart. Call (574) and, Janowsky says, stocks about 355-3355 for reservations, or log 10,000 bottles. Although Indiana onto Yelp on the restaurant’s website wineries aren’t currently represented, (artisanelkhart.com). The bar opens he says the restaurant will soon offer at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Satselections from South Bend’s winery. urday; dining room opens at 5 p.m.

Janowsky suggests prospective Private dining is available for eight guests from the metro Indianapolis to 100 guests. region make it a weekend getaway, 42

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

Bristol STOP at the 1830s working Bonneyville Mill and its 223-acre namesake county park. Hike, bike, picnic or cast your line in the nearby Elkhart River for the catch of the day. (elkhartcountyparks.org) SHOP at Camille’s Floral (camillesfloral. com) for South Bend Chocolate treats, Century Farmhouse handmade soaps and Lakeshore soy candles; Lavender Patch Fabric & Quilts (lavenderpatchquilts.com) for fabric, quilts and related accessories.

SAVOR breakfast, brunch or munch at Evans Sidewalk Café (574-848-7110); a 12-inch deep dish Kitchen Sink pizza at Chicago’s Downtown Eatery (574-848-5800); or a Quinoa Burger at Red Bird Café (redbirdcafe.com).

Elkhart STOP in Elkhart’s downtown Arts & Entertainment District and visit the renovated 1924 Lerner Theatre (thelerner.com), the 36-acre Wellfield Botanic Gardens (wellfieldgardens. wordpress.com), the Midwest Museum of American Art (midwestmuseum. us) and view more than 6,000 works, and in the Garden District to visit Ruthmere Mansion, a 1910 Beaux Arts mansion now a house museum (ruthmere.org). Hop on board the

Wellfield Botanic Gardens in Elkhart

National New York Central Railroad Museum (574-294-3001) or visit the Hall of Heroes Museum (hallofheroesmuseum. com), the world’s only super hero and comic book museum.

SHOP at Stephenson’s for fine fashions and accessories (stephensonsofelkhart. com); The Black Crow on Main for antiques, collectibles, new and restyled furniture and an on-site coffee café and gourmet shop (theblackcrowonmain.com); recently opened Dwellings (facebook. com/dwellingsinelkhart) for eclectic home furnishings, custom painting and decorating advice by former owners of The Black Crow on Main.

SAVOR a SugaRush Dessert at b on the River (b-ontheriver.com), a bakery, café and gift shop; pepper-crusted bleu sirloin steak and a view of the Elkhart River at McCarthy’s on the Riverwalk (mccarthysontheriverwalk. com); hand-crafted ales, lagers and pizzas at Iechyd Da Brewing Co. (iechyddabrewingcompany.com); Octopus Churrasco, the Elk Burger or Rib Night (the fourth Wednesday each month) at 523 Tap & Grill (523tapandgrill.com).

Middlebury STOP and check out the Essenhaus Classic Car Cruise-in on Thursday nights May through September (essenhaus.com); to ride the Pumpkinvine Nature Trail or watch the 17th annual bike ride June 18 (pumpkinvine.org).

SHOP at Cinnamon Stick Boutique (mycinnamonstick.com) for apparel and accessories; Old Creamery Antiques (574-358-0188) for antiques and collectibles; the Market Place of Middlebury for unique items from more than 50 vendors (themarketplaceofmiddlebury. com); Dutch Country Market for Amish and other homemade jams, jellies, noodles and honey, and watch the bees in their hive.

Shipshewana STOP at Hostetler’s Hudson Auto Museum (hostetlershudsons.com) to view vintage classic cars; at Davis Mercantile (davismercantile.com) and catch a ride on the 1906 Dentzel Carousel; at the Blue Gate Theatre (riegsecker.com) and catch a show.

Downtown Nappanee

SAVOR Amish comfort food at Das Dutchman Essenhaus, Indiana’s largest restaurant. Complex incorporates a restaurant, bakery, specialty shops and an inn (essenhaus.com); daily specials, fresh bread and scrumptious seasonal baked goods at Aunt Karen’s Café (facebook.com/auntkarenscafe); eats, sweets and sides at the Pumpkin Vine Café Coffee Bar & Tea Room (themarketplaceofmiddlebury.com).

Nappanee STOP at Amish Acres Historic Farm & Heritage Resort (amishacres. com), home to the 1911 Round Barn Theatre, northern Indiana’s premier repertory theater, as well as the Restaurant Barn, The Inn at Amish Acres and a host of specialty shops.

SHOP at Coppes Commons’ (coppescommons.com), home to 10 retail shops and the Hoosier Cabinet museum; Dutch Village Market (dvillagemarket.com) for antiques, crafts and food; the Shingle Shoppes, small, home-based Amish cottage industries located along the back roads; Annalea’s Boutique (annaleasboutique.com) for cool clothing and accessories.

SAVOR peaches and marshmallow cream ice cream at Rocket Science (facebook.com/RSIceCream); Angry Orchard Hard Cider at Hunters Hideaway Bar and Grill (574773-7121); and bacon-wrapped chicken thighs at the Culinary Mill Market & Deli (culinarymill.com).

SHOP at Shipshewana Auction & Flea Market (tradingplaceamerica.com), the Midwest’s largest flea market. 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, May 3 through Oct. 1. Extended market weeks Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day and Fall Extravaganza.

Antique Mall, featuring more than 100 dealers, open May through September.

On-site Auction Restaurant serves Amish home-style cooking; Yoder’s Shopping Center, three stores in one (yoderdepartmentstore.com).

SAVOR food and fun May 6 and 7 at the 2016 MayFest (Shipshewana. com); JoJo’s hand-rolled soft pretzels at Shipshewana Shops (shipshewanashops.com); Amish-style cooking (more than 25 kinds of pie) at the Blue Gate Restaurant & Bakery (bluegaterestaurant.com); yummy cinnamon rolls at Bread Box Bakery & Café (shipshewanabakery.com).

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Wakarusa STOP for the 47th annual Wakarusa Maple Syrup Festival (wakarusamaplesyrupfestival.com) April 22 to 24; for the 12th annual Wakarusa Bluegrass Festival (wakarusabluegrassfestival.com) June 10 to 12, featuring workshops, stage shows and jammin’.

SHOP at Yoder Brothers Antiques (yoderbrothersantiques.com) for eclectic items; for gadgetry at the Wakarusa Pro Hardware Store (wakarusaprohardware.com), where original hardwood floors, pressed tin ceilings and a floor-to-ceiling wall of more than 1,000 wooden drawers make a visit a one-of-a-kind experience.

SAVOR Jumbo Jelly Beans (jumbojellybeans.com) at the Wakarusa Dime Store in the former Wolfberg’s Department Store, founded in 1907; pizza and hand-dipped milkshakes at Cook’s Pizza (574-862-4425).

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

43

LOCAL FOOD some different things. I am the sole owner in this endeavor. Originally there was another business partner in mind. Unfortunately it did not work out in the end, and I made the choice do this on my own so that I could fully create the vision I had all along.

COUNTRY

Cooking

What are your thoughts behind the philosophy of what you serve and prepare?

Chef Q & A: Eric Morris of the Gospel Bird

BY TWINKLE VANWINKLE

Gospel Bird in southern Indiana is the culmination of head chef and owner Eric Morris’ years of learning and, of course, eating lots of good food. He has trained under some of the most respected chefs in Louisville’s food scene and has contributed to the startups of several successful restaurants.

Named after the Southern slang term for the lunchtime meal after church on Sunday, Gospel Bird has boldly spread its wings in New Albany with incredible fanfare.

You’ve already had several successful businesses in Louisville, so what made you want to cross the bridge into Indiana to open Gospel Bird?

I’ve been trying to open a business in New Albany for more than three years. New Albany is a small and beautiful town with a rich history. You could just sort of feel that the boom was coming … and it did.

Ian Hall led the way with everything he has done/is doing for the dining scene, as well as Ryan Rogers and Matt McMahan.

Louisville restaurants such as Dragon Kings Daughter, Wicks and Toast have crossed the bridge and opened locations there as well. The market isn’t saturated just yet, and there are plenty of things that New Albany is still lacking as far as the dining scene goes. However, the reception of this concept has already been wonderful, and people have been very supportive/ understanding as we work out every kink.

We built the kitchen for major volume, but what we are experiencing even exceeds that.

Where did the concept for Gospel Bird originate?

The beginnings of Gospel Bird started with a previous concept I was involved in called Loop 22 in Louisville in 2014. I partnered up with the owners of Hammerheads and Game to open a Southern-style concept that included a rotisserie side to the menu.

We felt it made a great product and added to the slow-cooked comfort style of food associated with the South. A lot of the items at Gospel Bird are from that restaurant, just tweaked a little and a little better as I progress as a cook. Conceptually, the restaurant itself didn’t fit the concept very well so eventually we changed the idea entirely, and I split off on my own to try

44

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

Love and perfection. This style of food takes a lot of time to prepare, whether it’s smoking meats, stripping, rinsing, and slow cooking collard greens, grits, baked beans, etc.

Everything is a process from beginning to end, and it takes some serious organization.

All chickens must be brined for 24 hours and rotated constantly, for example. That’s what is so great about this style of cooking. Sure, you can buy foie gras, pre-dry-aged beef, etc., and pair it with some vibrant colors and put a huge price tag on it. But slow-cooked Southern goodness takes time, effort and patience. These are things that you simply cannot rush, and they are things that should be affordable and approachable.

It makes our lives extremely difficult in the kitchen because cooking this style of food at high volumes takes serious preparation. But when you do it right, it’s some of the best food you’ll have.

What kind of produce do you use and who are some of your suppliers? Local? Seasonal?

Any notable local farms?

I’ve been using a few farmers out of Louisville thus far, but being that we are new to New Albany I haven’t met any Indiana farmers just yet. All of our greens come from Greg at Grateful Greens, and they are a beautiful product. Nikki at Lost Creek Acres always has beautiful produce, and we are just waiting for Mother Nature to do her thing so we can start using what she has to offer again this year as well as the other local farmers. We can’t find anyone local to provide our chickens at such a high demand, so we use Creation Gardens to source them. Our sorghum is from Bourbon Barrel Foods, and it is a wonderful product.

What types of food do you serve and what kinds of specials do you have?

Smoked, fried and rotisserie chicken, collard greens, grits, rainbow trout, okra, buttermilk biscuits, barbecue, etc. We will almost always have specials. I have a great culinary team that can cook anything under the sun.

Tell me a little bit about your background in food and where you came from. Do you have training, or are you self-taught?

Everything I know in this business/craft has been through the guidance and help of those around me. I’ve worked under some very passionate and talented chefs who took the time to teach me when I was willing to learn.

I spent many years working under Anthony Lamas (chef and owner of Seviche, A Latin Restaurant in Louisville) who really helped me dial in on my craft.

He was tough on me, but he always said it was because he believed in me. The amount of talent that went through his kitchen during my time there was crazy. Most of the old crew I worked with are now either successful restaurant owners or executive chefs at some top tier places. I consider my time there my culinary school. I’ve worked at a ton of places but nothing remotely close to that as far as so much talent under one roof.

What’s at the heart of your passion for sharing locally grown and made products?

Locally grown products are more than what comes out of the dirt. It is a unified group of people who are all supporting each other, providing jobs and growth amongst the community. The more I sell, the more they sell, and we feed off of each other. I know where the product came from, and they trust that I will treat it as well as they did once purchased and prepared for guests. It’s a win/win for everyone. A beautiful piece of squash or heirloom tomato that has literally been passed from one set of hands to another before it hits the plate is a beautiful thing.

PHOTOS PROVIDED

»

What’s your food philosophy?

Pickled Pink

Simple, bold, beautiful. Good product is beautiful on its own, and my job is to take its basic flavor profile, pair it with other flavor profiles and create the painting, so to speak.

BY TWINKLE VANWINKLE

What’s your relationship with farmers or what kind of relationship do you like to have with your farmers/suppliers?

Many folks can or preserve foods at the end of the summer and early fall, but there really isn’t a season for canning. Of course, you want to wait until certain foods are in season to get the ripest, best-tasting batch. Even though I have to wait until late summer for ripened tomatoes, I really try to have some sort of pickled veggie or relish in my fridge all year. Quick pickled carrots or onions are an easy way to fancy up a mundane sandwich or a salad. And a winter relish can add some much-needed flair to a less-than-exciting dish.

So when spring begins its first foray into new growth, I’m literally in the trenches at the farmers market fighting over the earliest rhubarbs of the season. Rhubarb is the early spring ruby of the farmers market. Although it peaks in late summer, rhubarb causes crazed bakers and jam makers to get up two hours earlier on Saturdays to ensure they get it before it’s gone.

The recipe is simple, with only eight ingredients. Sweet apples, ginger and rhubarb come together in a tangy combination, while fragile fronds of fennel add a touch of anise to the combo.

The outcome makes for the perfect sidebar to a spring salad or sandwich, or to simply be eaten straight from the jar.

Some of the farmers I buy from used to be chefs that I had the pleasure to cook with. I consider them good friends, and they know to call me when they harvest. If it is something not on the menu, it will be used as a special.

I had some heirloom tomatoes last year that were so incredible that I literally sold them as slices on a plate with sea salt. I wanted people to taste them on their own and experience the simplicity of something so delicious. We keep honest relationships with them and get very excited when they pull up. I wish you could witness when one of the farmer’s trucks or van would pull up, and you’d see half the kitchen run toward it to see what they could get their hands on. This is common in a lot of local restaurants, which is a wonderful thing.

What’s something you’d like those local farmers to know?

Stop in as much as possible! We are always interested in something. If perhaps not that day, at least we will know what you have to offer and what you have coming up.

What does slow food mean to you?

One of the most important movements out there … you are what you eat and people need to understand the difference between fast food and chef-driven food prepared not only by the chefs but by the farmlands around them.

What can someone expect from a meal at Gospel Bird? How you would put that meal into words.

Elevated country cooking with influences from all over the south. All the food is made from scratch. Cornbread in castiron skillets, potatoes hand mashed, collard greens hand-stripped, chicken and pork smoked on our patio daily.

RECIPE

Makes about 4 to 5 pint jars

2 pounds rhubarb stalks, cleaned and cut into 2½- to 3-inchby-½-inch pieces 1 inch of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced 1 apple, preferably a Pink or Honey Crisp 5 to 10 4- to 5-inch fennel fronds 3 cups water 1½ cups champagne vinegar 1 cup sugar 3 tablespoons kosher salt About 6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Gospel Bird

Chef/Owner Eric Morris 207 E. Main St., New Albany, (812) 725-1054 facebook.com/Gospelbird

Ginger Rhubarb Pickles »Sterilize your jars and lids and let dry completely. Even for refrigerator pickles, this is a good habit to have. »Rinse your rhubarb, apples and fennel fronds and let air dry. »Rhubarb can tend to have some stringiness, like celery, so make sure to pull off the tougher strings from the outside before pickling. Trim the leaves and cut into 4-inch stalks. »Slice your apples into half moons, leaving the peel on. »For the ginger, you’ll just need a few slices per jar. Peel the rough outer skin away and slice as thin as possible, enough to have 2 to 3 slices per jar. »Fennel fronds are tender, similar to dill weed. Trim down to 3 or 4 inches. One or two per jar is plenty.

»Once everything is rinsed and dry, place cut rhubarb into a sterilized jar, adding a tablespoon of lemon juice to the bottom of each jar first.

Tuck in apples, fronds and ginger and set on a dry cloth. »Pour water, vinegar, salt and sugar into a heavy-bottomed, medium-sized pot and simmer on low heat until sugar dissolves, about 10 to 12 minutes. Stir occasionally to incorporate.

Once everything is dissolved, pour hot liquid over rhubarb and other ingredients, leaving a good half-inch between the pickles and the top of jar. Gently shake and screw lids down tight. »These pickles will last in the refrigerator for about three weeks, or process for longer. »To process for a longer shelf life, place jars into a large,

NOTE: Since rhubarb is highly acidic, it doesn’t necessarily need any additional acids for preserving or canning. It can be safely canned by the water bath canning method with the addition of either acid or sugar.

This recipe contains a little of both: lemon juice and sugar.

heavy-bottomed pot or canning pot filled with lightly boiling water about 1/3 of the way.

Make sure your jars are covered by water by at least an inch.

Process for about 20 minutes, then remove from water and set on a dry cup towel. »Let jars come to room temperature before refrigerating or opening, approximately 24 hours. »Ginger rhubarb pickles should be ready to eat after 24 hours in the fridge unprocessed or two days processed.

Processed pickles’ shelf life is approximately three months.

Twinkle VanWinkle is an Indianapolis-based food writer and experienced chef with Southern roots. She has more than 23 years of professional cooking under her apron strings and loves to share her unique perspective on food, foodways and culture with others. Needless to say, her family is very well-fed.

PHOTOS BY TWINKLE VAN WINKLE

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

45

CONTINUING EDUCATION

Bring Back the Bees How to pull pollinators into your garden

BY TERESA WOODARD / CHICAGO TRIBUNE Author Rhonda Fleming Hayes’ garden buzzes, beats and blooms, thanks to the thousands of hard-working pollinators in her eyecatching Minneapolis front yard. She’s one of the lucky ones: Nationally, bees, butterflies, birds and other pollinators are threatened by habitat loss, parasites and pesticides. In her new book, “PollinatorFriendly Gardening,” this master gardener and pollinator advocate urges gardeners to attract these winged friends by planting pollinator-friendly blooms. Her book offers fascinating insights to plant-pollinator relationships, provides categorized plant lists and offers practical steps gardeners can take to make a difference in the pollinator world. We talked with her about how to plant your own pollinator-magnet garden and more. Here’s an edited transcript.

What value do pollinators bring to our gardens?

By now, most folks have heard the sound bite that bees are responsible for every third bite of food we eat. Without bees and other pollinators like butterflies, birds, moths, flies and bats, our dinner plates would be lacking in color, flavor and nutrients. Bees are in trouble for a number of reasons, but the major issue is habitat loss, including millions of acres just in our country. While many environmental issues are distant, abstract problems, the great thing about pollinators is we can help them right in our own backyards.

Garden by garden, I hope we can make up for this habitat loss by planting more food for them, and more food equals more flowers.

What plant traits do pollinators value?

In general, bees like flowers in blues and yellows with a shallow landing area. Butterflies are attracted to reds, purples and pinks, and prefer flat, daisy shapes. Hummingbirds are attracted to red tubular flowers. But there are plenty of exceptions — like hummingbirds who are all over salvia “Black and Blue.” A good way to identify local pollinator plants is to observe plants in your neighbors’

46

FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

gardens or a nearby botanical garden. Walk around and see what flowers have the most pollinator visitors.

What are five universal must-haves for a pollinator garden?

I recommend five natives — milkweed, aster, goldenrod, salvia and liatris. A couple bonus must-haves are zinnias and sunflowers since they’re so cheap and easy to grow and attract so many species of pollinators. My favorite moment this summer was when a hummingbird started harassing a monarch who was sitting on a “Moulin Rouge” zinnia in a stand of 20 other blooms and apparently ignoring a popular purple zinnia from the previous season. It’s funny what proves popular to every season.

Besides flowers, what trees and shrubs are valuable to pollinators?

Don’t just think of a single flower bed, think

about your whole yard — trees, shrubs, ground covers, vines, herbs, vegetables and fruit bushes. They all have value for pollinators.

Fruit trees are especially important in the spring time as one of the first major sources of nectar and pollen. Other sources are crab apples, linden, chestnut and tulip trees, and shrubs like chokeberry, serviceberry, lilac, raspberry brambles and blueberries.

I have a long hedge of wild rugosa roses and raspberries along my driveway. In the summertime, it literally buzzes with bumblebees and bees as they work away.

In your book, you talk about creating a season-long buffet of overlapping blooms. What are some of the challenges to making this happen?

Spring blooms are something that people need to really work on. In summertime, it’s easy to throw out a few flowers and get bees, but in spring, they’re really hurting. One of the first sources of nectar is one of the most reviled flowers — the dandelion. So think about leaving some dandelions in a part of your yard or wait to mow until they’ve bloomed.

Spring blooming bulbs, like scilla and alliums, are other good early nectar sources.

Annuals and herbs can also help fill in gaps between various bloom times.

You challenge gardeners to go beyond a single butterfly garden patch to a more holistic yard approach. Please explain.

True butterfly gardens are more than just a few pretty flowers. Unlike bees, butterflies need larval host plants to feed their caterpillars.

One of the most well-known — monarchs — can’t survive without milkweed. They’re specialists, and their young need milkweed

to survive and can’t eat any other plant. A lot of people are surprised to hear trees are one of the major larval host plants for a lot of butterfly species. So if you already have an oak, willow, cherry or cottonwood, you’re already providing lots of good food for those caterpillars. Herbs, especially dill, parsley and fennel, are another great source for butterfly habitat. Just plant extra for them.

What are a few easy steps for homeowners to make their backyards more pollinator friendly?

First, plant more flowers. The busier people get, the more they choose foliage over flowering plants. But those flowers are what are lacking for pollinators.

Second, avoid pesticide use. My book goes into great depth on this topic explaining why and when pesticides threaten pollinators and how to avoid using them.

I have a visible, quarter-acre in the city and don’t find the need for pesticides. Still, I get great compliments all the time.

Third, allow for nesting sites. Honey bees go back to hives, but many wild bees are ground nesters and need bare soil for nesting. This can worry some people, because they don’t want to come upon a nest of bees with their mower or shovels. So I always say possibly there’s a corner of the yard, slope or unused area to leave unmulched for these nesting bees. Other bees use hollow stems or beetle tunnels in old logs for nesting, so consider leaving pruned debris and fallen branches in a spot for them.

How can gardeners also make their pollinator gardens more neighbor-friendly?

Naturalistic native gardens don’t have to look weedy or unkempt. Keep short plants in the front and tall in back. Add crisp edges or mowed strips to contain natural plantings.

Introduce larger flower and leaf shapes for balance. Add human touches — like a piece of garden art, a birdhouse, a chair or other decorative piece — to show “a cue to care” or hint that the garden is being tended.

Consider adding a “Bee Safe” yard sign and point out pollinator activity to passersby.

BY KATHERINE COPLEN

Spring Farm Events APRIL 2 Gardenfest

Spring has sprung and so have gardening events all over the state.

We highlight events coordinated by the Purdue Master Gardener program this month, which includes an event just for kids and lots of hands-on activities.

APRIL 1

Center for Commercial Agriculture Webinar Sign up for this free crop outlook webinar with updated information from the USDA’s Prospective Plantings and Grain Stocks Reports. Time: 9 a.m. Information: agribusiness.purdue.edu

APRIL 2

Green Thumb Project Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp will present two programs on the best plants for Indiana landscapes, including information on bulbs, perennials, annuals, woody vines, shrubs and trees. This event is free, plus includes hands-on projects: 1) selecting, storing and planting bulbs; 2) storing a bare root tree; and 3) dividing and planting hostas. Refreshments, door prizes and more are included. Time: 9 a.m. Location: Hancock County Public Library, 900 W. McKenzie Road, Greenfield. Information: (317) 462-5141

APRIL 2

Organic Gardening for Beginners The last of a four-part series coordinated by Fall Creek Gardens features a discussion of crop rotation and succession planting; seed-saving and seed storage; season-extension methods; and fall prep for spring planting. Time: 1:30 p.m.

Location: Unleavened Bread Cafe, 3001 Central Ave., Indianapolis. Information: fallcreekgardens.org

Garfield Park Workshop: Just for Kids You’re never too young to start learning about gardening. This Garfield Park Conservatory event features an instructional, hands-on experience for your young one (over the age of 5). Attendees will get a lesson on herbs, what they are, how to plant them and how fun gardening can be. Time: 10 a.m. Cost: $5.

Pre-registration is required. Location: Garfield Park Conservatory, 2505 Conservatory Drive, Indianapolis.

Information: herbsocietyofcentralindiana.org

APRIL 2

Ohio River Valley Woodland and Wildlife Workshop You’ll learn tips and tricks for making the best of your property at this one-day workshop.

Forestry and wildlife experts from Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana will present and answer questions at this seminar. Time: 8:30 a.m. Location: Clifty Inn at Clifty Falls State Park, 1650 Clifty Hollow Road, Madison. Information: (812) 662-4999

APRIL 3

Seventh Annual Organic Gardening/Introduction to Permaculture Workshop Soil, garden design, plant selection, plant care, harvesting, propagation and more are covered at this free introduction to permaculture workshop.

Time: 1 p.m. Location: EcoVillage Community Center, 5907 W. County Road 375S, French Lick.

Information: indianacommunity.org/events

APRIL 4

Getting Your Garden Started Doug Kennan, owner of the Magic Bulb, will discuss planting seeds, cuttings, propagation and more, plus provide samples of germinating seeds and cover conditions needed to start your own garden. Refreshments will be provided. Time: 6:45 p.m. Location: Clay Township Center, 10701 N. College Ave., Carmel.

Information: herbsocietyofcentralindiana.org

APRIL 9

30th Annual Gardenfest Gardenfest is 30 years strong and celebrates everything that’s great about green thumbs. The festival includes three speakers: Jane Savage on native plants for beauty and wildlife; Amy Mullen on designing the garden that fits you; and Broch Martindale on new and improved perennials. Plus it offers vendors for soil pH testing, activities for kids and free native tree seedlings to the first 400 attendees. Time: 9 a.m.

Location: Boone County Fairgrounds, I-65 at Exit 138, Lebanon. Information: bccn.boone.in.us

APRIL 9

Thinking Outside the Flower Pot This floral-focused program is only $10 and covers floral arrangements, gourds and birds.

This event is open to the public, but seating is limited so registration is requested. Time: 8 a.m. Location: Warrick County 4-H Fairgrounds, Alcoa Building, 133 West Degonia Road, Boonville. Information: (812) 897-6100

APRIL 12

Greater Lafayette Local Food Summit You’ll learn about local food systems in the Greater Lafayette community at this summit.

The focus is on food hubs, production, councils and other related topics, plus ways to strengthen ongoing community efforts. Time: 9 a.m. Location: Tippecanoe Arts Federation, Main Gallery Hall, 638 North St., Lafayette. Information: (765) 474-0793

APRIL 20

Creating a Certified Wildlife Backyard Habitat Master Gardener Donna Pouzar (a landscape design specialist) will help you turn your backyard into a wildlife backyard habitat through the National Wildlife Federation. At this seminar you’ll learn the five basic elements to provide in your yard to qualify, plus some sustainable gardening tips. Time: noon.

Location: Michigan City Public Library, 100 E. Fourth St., Michigan City. Information: (219) 324-9407 FARM INDIANA // APRIL 2016

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