Saturday, June 4, 2022 | Country Acres South • Page 1
Country Saturday, June 4, 2022
PRSRT STD ECR U.S. POSTAGE PAID PERMIT #4 Madelia, MN
Acres
2 Second Ave S Suite 135 Sauk Rapids MN 56379
SOUTH
Focusing on Today’s Rural Environment
Volume 1, Edition 1
is in their element
PHOTOS BY KATE RECHTZIGEL
Niagara Cave is home to speleothems, fossils and a 50-foot waterfall BY KATE RECHTZIGEL STAFF WRITER
HARMONY - The Bishop family is in its element at Niagara Cave, winding through the stalactites and stalagmites, fossils 450 million-yearsold, the underground stream and a waterfall
that plunges 50-feet. The cave is home to different types of speleothems; stalactites, stalagmites, botryoids, flowstone and columns. “I saw it for sale in a local newspaper and followed up on it,” said Mark Bishop, the owner and manager of the cave. “I was very ex-
cited about it because I have been a rockhounder my whole life.” He and his wife wanted their kids to go to a smaller school district and the family who owned the cave was transitioning out of it. It was April, 1995. Bishop grew up on his family farm near Byron which was like most back in the day and had a diverse mixture of livestock ranging from dairy cows, pigs, chickens and sheep. At the age of 16, his family sold the farm and he later went to pursue
a career as a realtor and worked for the Farm Service Agency in Rochester. But Bishop’s real love was for rocks and more specifically, underground caves. Bishop, who has degrees in environmental studies and physical geography bought the cave in Harmony in 1995 and packed up his wife, Jennifer, and four sons, Eric, Christopher, Ryan and Aaron. Christopher passed away in 1999 and Eric helped out with cave operations until he married and moved to Canada. Now, almost 27 years later, the cave is still in the family and Bishop helps his two sons, Ryan and Aaron, who have degrees in geology, run cave operations along with other employees. His wife Jennifer, a retired nurse, and also helps out with the family business. “I’ve always liked caves and when I was young, my parents didn’t have a lot of money so they used to take me to caves on vacations,” he
said. “When this cave became available, it really piqued my interest.” The cave was discovered in 1924 when Phil Todd, who was running John Kennedy’s land at the time for corn, alfalfa and oats, noticed he was missing three of his pigs. Todd asked his hired hand, Clifford Booth, and nephews, Howard and Gordon Elliot, to track the pigs down and after searching around the farm, they found them at the bottom of a 75-foot-angled sinkhole in the middle of a field squealing, but alive. “They got ropes and lights and lowered themselves down into the hole to rescue the pigs,” Bishop said. “In fact, the building we are in today sits over where the sinkhole once was.” Word got out that these farmers had discovered this sinkhole and three cavers, Joe Flynn, Leo Tekippe and Al Cremer, came up from Decorah, Iowa to explore the cave.
Mark Bishop stands inside Niagara Cave on May 5. Bishop has always loved rocks and underground caves since he was a kid.
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Publications bli ti The newspaper of today is the history of tomorrow.
This month in the
COUNTRY:
3
Welcome to Country Acres South
5
Baughmans boast benefits of Boer goats Cannon Falls
Watch for the next edition of 6 Country Acres South on June 18, 2022
June is Dairy Month
9
The Bishop family (from left) Ryan holding his son, Zachary, Aaron, Jennifer holding Alexander and Mark sit just outside of Niagara Cave near Harmony. The family has been running the cave since April of 1995.
The cavers, the story says, were instantly amazed by the 2-mile size and spectacular beauty inside the cave. The explorers spent many hours in the passageways before coming across the underground waterfall for which the cave was aptly named, after Niagara Falls in New York. “The greatest feature in the cave is the waterfall, so the name was very fitting,” Bishop said. The cavers got to work and removed mud and silt from the sinkhole and the echo chamber. While removing silt and mud from the echo chamber, they discovered the bones of a prehistoric bear. The bones were sent to Luther College in Decorah, Iowa for proper identification, but the bones disappeared and never resurfaced.
Bishop page 3
Bison believers for 30 years Winona
11 Minnesota’s fist breakfast on the farm Rochester
Page 2 • Country Acres South | Saturday, June 4, 2022
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Saturday, June 4, 2022 | Country Acres South • Page 3
Welcome to Country Acres South As you receive this paper in your scenic pastures overlooking the Missismailbox for the first time, we would sippi River. like to welcome you to Country Acres Rounding out our first issue of South! You’re about to experience what Country Acres South, we take a look our Country Acres readers in Central into the history of a dairy tradition that Minnesota have been enjoying since started in Olmsted County and has since 2012. This is our premiere issue in caught wind across the state. southeastern Minnesota that includes Equally important to the stories and the counties of Fillmore, Goodhue, other content of each issue of Country Houston, Olmsted, Wabasha and WinAcres South are our advertisers, who by Diane Leukam ona. Editor, Country Acres will become a growing family with the As our name might indicate, we’re passage of months and years. all about the country and the people We encourage you to look closely at who live here; every issue is packed with their each and every advertisement, because these busiunique stories. You will read about people of every nesses bring the paper free to those of you with 15 age and walk of life who share the bond of country acres or more in our six-county area. Not only that, living in southeastern Minnesota. but our advertisers are the backbone of our rural Our writers love nothing more than to get out communities. They are our friends and neighbors there and meet new people. They come back from who pay local taxes, donate to the many organizainterviews inspired, ready to introduce these peo- tions that come calling, and welcome our support ple to you, our Country Acres South family. You in return. Be sure to tell them you saw their ad in will read about farm life, nature, hobbies, animals, Country Acres South. collections … you name it, you’ll find it here. Country Acres South is scheduled to run 24 isYou’ll meet people like the Bishop family of sues a year, the first and third Saturdays of each Harmony, who own and manage Niagara Cave, month. where underground trails wind through stalactites, Here at Country Acres and now, Country Acres stalagmites and 450-million-year-old fossils. An South, we love what we do and it’s all driven by underground stream and a waterfall that plunges the people we’ve been blessed to call our family. 50-feet only enhance the story that only enhance Now, our family is growing and we are excited to the attraction that was discovered in 1924 when be growing with you. several pigs on the farm disappeared. Many things have changed since we hit the The Baughmans, of Cannon Falls, encourage ground running back in 2012; rural living and agpeople to ask goat questions; they are always will- riculture itself have evolved to a degree. But one ing to mentor those looking into raising goats. They thing remains the same, and that is the amazing, started their goat endeavors 15 years ago as a way vast, wonderful array of people who live and work to clean buckthorn from their woods and to provide in the country. a source for ethnic food interest in the area. And so, to all our new readers, welcome In Winona, Dave and Gail Griffin started rais- aboard; welcome to the premiere issue of Country ing bison on a dare in 1992, and now, they graze Acres South! their herd of 100, along with their calves, on their
Country Acres SOUTH
Published by Star Publications Copyright 2014 522 Sinclair Lewis Ave. Sauk Centre, MN 56378 Phone: 320-352-6577 Fax: 320-352-5647 NEWS STAFF
SALES STAFF
Mark Klaphake mark.k@dairystar.com Diane Leukam, Editor diane@saukherald.com Jennifer Coyne, Writer jenn@dairystar.com Kate Rechtzigel kate.r@dairystar.com Sarah Colburn Staff Writer Grace Jeurissen Staff Writer Christine Behnen Freelance Writer
Julia Mullenbach, 507-438-7739 julia@star-pub.com Laura Seljan, 507-250-2217 laura.s@dairystar.com Missy Traeger, 320-291-9899 missy@saukherald.com Mike Schafer, 320-894-7825 mike.s@dairystar.com Warren Stone, 320-249-9182 warren@star-pub.com Jaime Ostendorf, 320-309-1988 Jaime@star-pub.com Bob Leukam, 320-260-1248 bob.l@star-pub.com
Story ideas send to: mark.k@dairystar.com grace.j@star-pub.com
PRODUCTION STAFF Pat Turner Amanda Thooft Nancy Powell Maddy Peterson Cheyenne Carlson
Deadlines: Country Acres South will be published the first and third Saturday of every month. Deadline for news and advertising is the Thursday before publication.
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Bishop from front
Your local residential and commercial experts since 1922 PHOTO BY KATE RECHTZIGEL
Four porcelain pigs sit outside of Niagara Cave’s lodge on May 5. These pigs mark the discovery of the cave in Fillmore County by Phil Todd’s three pigs.
ness from the lights in the cave to the water in the well pumps, is 100% powered by solar energy.” The cave itself is believed to have been formed 450 million years ago when much of North America was covered by what was called the Ordovician Sea. While it was still submerged, sediments settled onto the floor and began to pile up. And then as it rose and shifted northwesterly, the sediments hardened and formed the limestone bedrock which covers the cave.
The limestone used to cover much of North America but was eroded from wind, flowing water, rain, ice, deposition of new materials, tectonic activity and other geological factors. Due to the solubility of limestone, dolomite or marble carbonate rock, they are more likely to have near surface caves. The cave is located in what is known as a driftless area, as it was not covered by ice in the last ice age and exposed to surface activity.
Bishop page 4
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The explorers leased the land from Kennedy and made improvements to the cave such as leveling the walkways, installing staircases and bridges. They powered electrical lights with a diesel generator and eventually, in 1934, the cave became accessible to the public. “There have only been two times when it was closed, once in World War II and once during COVID-19 in 2020,” Bishop said. The three cavers ran the business from its inception until Al Cremer and his family bought them out and operated the cave until 1981, then Ron Vikre and his family bought and operated the cave until the Bishops bought the cave in 1995. Not long after the Bishop family took over, they added LED lights and updated the electrical power from rural electricity to solar energy. “We were the first cave in the U.S. to be entirely powered with solar energy in 2015,” he said. “Every aspect of the busi-
Page 4 • Country Acres South | Saturday, June 4, 2022
Bishop from page 3 Fine cracks occurred in the limestone during the uplifting and shifting of the earth’s surface and were expanded chemically by water which was slightly acidic from decaying plant and animal material. A subsurface stream also began to flow downward through several sinkholes in the area, widening the cracks through erosion. The driftless area is also home to steep hills, forested ridges, deeply carved river valleys and karst topography. “Karst is known for sinkholes, disappearing rivers, springs and caves,” Bishop said. “That is likely how the cave was formed.” The cave also has three types of limestone bedrock which were hardened into the cave; Dubuque, Stewartville and Prosser. And fossils such as gastropods, cephalopods, brachiopods, horn coral, fisherites, trilobites and others.
“The fossils are a cross section of what was in the cave that existed 450 million years ago; shells, plants and other animals,” Bishop said. “They lived right in this shallow sea near the equator.” Over hundreds of thousands of years, cave passages were filled with sediment from the surface and eroded by stream waters charged with chert particles. Chert is a sedimentary rock, but has silica and an irregular crystalline structure giving it abrasive quality and more resistance to erosion. Seeping water expanded the cave’s passageways and helped to form the different types of speleothems; stalactites, stalagmites, columns, botyroids and flowstone. Rain water also traveled through the topsoil, becoming slightly acidic, and dissolving calcium carbonate or calcite, which would deposit some calcite on the surface and accumulate to further help create the speleothems.
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The echo chamber is pictured May 5. Inside the echo chamber, the cavers discovered what was believed to be the bones of a prehistoric bear.
they can actually grow together and form a column. Botryoids, otherwise known as cave popcorn, are formed when water seeps uniformly out of the limestone wall and precipitates calcite or when water drips from the ceiling or walls and splashes on
PHOTOS BY KATE RECHTZIGEL
(Above) Inside the cave lies an underground stream and a waterfall that drops 50-feet. This waterfall led to the naming of the cave, Niagara Cave, as it reminded the cavers of the famous Niagara Falls in New York.
the floor or ledges along the walls. Flowstone forms when water rich in calcite flows along the walls or floor of the
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“It is a natural limestone cave,” Bishop said. “So that’s how the stalactites and stalagmites are able to form in various shapes and sizes.” Stalactites are formed as weather drips from the ceiling of the cave, they start out as tiny ringlets on the ceiling and later grow downward into a soda straw as water travels through the center and deposits calcite from the tip onto the floor. Stalagmites, on the other hand, build as water drips onto the floor and the calcite builds upward. If undisturbed,
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cave, depositing layers of calcite. The cave is still living and developing and will take years for the final outcome to be discovered. But Bishop and his family truly enjoy taking care of the cave and opening to others with tours. “It’s really hard to pick one favorite part about the cave,” he said. “From the waterfall to the fossils and stalactites and stalagmites, it’s all incredible. I enjoy working with my family and watching people’s reactions as they come out of the cave.” Bishop is thankful for the opportunity to be the proprietor of the only privately-owned cave that offers tours in the state. And, he’s had the opportunity for his kids grow up and take part in the cave and cave operations. They offer tours April through October. Check their website, niagaracave.com, for a tour schedule. “They’ve really kind of followed in my footsteps,” he said. “I’ve really enjoyed sharing Niagara with my family, locally and with the rest of the world; typically, we got (people from) all 50 states and 60 to 80 different countries preCOVID.”
Saturday, June 4, 2022 | Country Acres South • Page 5
Baughmans boast benefits
of Boer goats
PHOTO BY GRACE JEURISSEN
Family developed fond connection with caprine BY GRACE JEURISSEN STAFF WRITER
CANNON FALLS– Sunset Trail Farm, a place where passersby stop to admire the four-legged long-horned caprine, most commonly known as a goat. “This is something Kathleen and I like to do together,” said Paul Baughman. Paul and Kathleen Baughman started their goat endeavors 15 years ago as a way to clean buckthorn from their woods and to provide a source for ethnic food interest in the area. “If you want to start raising goats, find an ethnic calendar and breed for their holidays,” Paul said. After years of trucking, Paul has finally retired and spends much of his time at the farm caring for the goats. During his time trucking he developed relationships with people from
PHOTO BY GRACE JEURISSEN
The horns on goats are used as defense mechanisms. All of the wether goats that Baughmans sell are disbudded, so they won’t continue to grow the horns.
different backgrounds and they suggested he start raising goats because of the lack of available goat meat in Minnesota.
“Before we got into goats, I took every class on raising goats that the U of M had to offer me,” Paul said.
Paul grew up in St. Paul and had limited farm experience coming into their goat business. Kathleen on the other hand, grew up on a cattle and hog farm in Illinois and had a solid understanding of how challenging raising livestock can be. “Going into getting goats many people think it’s easy,” Kathleen said. “Goats need their hooves trimmed, need to be watched for health issues, need proper feed and need regular maintenance.” The Baughman’s raise Boer goats, and currently have 53. Boer is the Dutch word for farmer. Boer goats are known for their docility, meat growth capabilities, brownish-red heads with white bodies, lop ears and their backward-curving horns. The breed originated in South Africa and over the years found their way to the U.S. with the immigration of people around the world. Kathleen loves her unique colored goats, but the Baughman’s make
PHOTO SUBMITTED
In the summer the goats graze in grass pastures and in the woods surrounding the farm.
Kathleen and Paul Baughman own and operate Sunset Trail Farm near Cannon Falls. One of their favorite things is watching their goats grow up at a 4-H of FFA member’s home.
sure to breed some for the original Boer coloring because there are a variety of preferences when people choose their goats. “We sell quite a few goats each year to 4-H and FFA kids,” Paul said. “We breed several does to kid in January, so we can get the 4-Hers taken care of.” The Baughman’s say ‘Kidding’ is the term used for the birthing process in goats. The pregnant doe will carry her kid or kids for 150 days, about 5 months. Being they begin kidding in January, the Baughman’s have a barn dedicated for kidding.
They put in heat lamps and keep the pens bedded deep with straw to keep the newborn kids from feeling the cold Minnesota elements. Once spring rolls around the goats are itching to get out into their 61 acres of fenced in woods and pasture. Goats are browsers meaning they start high and end low. They eat leaves of bushes and trees and will eat grass if it’s one of the final things available.
Baughmans page 8 PHOTO BY GRACE JEURISSEN
A nanny goat peers through the fence line in the pasture at the Baughman’s farm in Cannon Falls.
Page 8 • Country Acres South | Saturday, June 4, 2022
Baughmans from front Many DNR programs ask farmers for groups of goats to clean up different areas with invasive species of plants. “You would be amazed at how much they have cleaned up the buckthorn and the woods,” Paul said. The goats’ stellar clean up job in the woods has made it a great place to take a walk in nature. Paul and Kathleen like to take strolls out in their woods with the goats and their dogs. They had a Kelpie dog named NJ (Not Johnny) that was extremely good at herding the goats. “NJ was a great dog,” Paul said. “He has since moved onto higher headquarters, but over the years he saved us a lot of work.” Raising goats brings challenges, but
PHOTO BY GRACE JEURISSEN
Kathleen and Paul Baughman hold some of their kids May 2 at their farm near Cannon Falls. Kathleen works at a school during the week and comes home to help care for the goats.
in the show ring. They tial,” he said. don’t require large faThe Baughman’s cilities and equipment to spend a lot of their time care for them, so families with the goats. Kathleen can get started with goats will come home after easier than they would work and spend the evewith cattle or horses. ning looking over and The Baughman’s playing with the goats. enjoy sup“ I t ’s porting the like her families t h e r a p y, ” that purPaul said. chase goats One of my favorite Kathfor 4-H or leen agreed. things is going FFA from “It’s fun to the fairs and them. They to watch will travel them beseeing the kids SUBMITTED PHOTO Goats are playful creatures to different show, even if they cause animals do the that enjoy jumping and county fairs don’t win, they strangest climbing on whatever supporting object is in their path. the kids learn so much and things,” she showing said. “It’s it’s great to see and offering the purhow far both our est form of advice. “One of goats and the kids e n t e r t a i n my favorhave come over ment”. ite things O n e the summer. is going to of the adthe fairs vantages - Kathleen and seeing to raising Baughman the kids goats for the show, even Baughman’s if they don’t win,” Kath- is they don’t require large leen said. “They learn so equipment. With the othmuch and it’s great to see er part of their farm busihow far both our goats ness being grass hay proand the kids have come duction the Baughman’s over the summer.” have almost all of their Paul agreed. goat needs right at their “We could sell the fingertips. best-looking animal on They feed mostly the farm, but if they grass hay other than the SUBMITTED PHOTO don’t put in the work to small amount of grain the These goats are basking in the sun while enjoying dinner along the edge of the train it and care for it, lactating goats and kids Baughman property. it won’t reach its poten- get. the Baughman’s are grateful for the many experiences and memories their goats have given them. “With any farming, some years are good and some
years are bad,” Paul said. Kathleen agreed. “The goat market is hot right now,” she said. Many young 4-H and F FFA kids have gotten into sshowing goats, much like ttheir son, William, did aaround the time they first ggot their goats. The Baughmans said, G Goats being smaller than ccattle are a great way for kkids to get their feet wet
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“We believe that what you put into your animal you get out of it,” Paul said. That’s why we spend time with them and watch them closely.” Paul and Kathleen focus on good animal husbandry, and have learned a lot from their 15 years of raising goats. “We make mistakes, and we’ve probably made almost every one in the book,” Paul said. The Baughmans are always trying to breed up. They try to get the best bucks and make their next generation stronger than the last. Something they have done to help the growth of their kids, is to have a few dairy goats or crossbred does that produce more milk. They have noticed how much better the kids on the crossbred does do. “I love a goat with good mothering ability,” Kathleen said. “A good udder and solid feet and legs are important too, but you can’t go wrong with a good mama goat.” The Baughman’s are invested in their goats, and the people that buy them. They make sure that when people buy a goat from them it has already been dewormed, deliced, had its hooves trimmed and been given its vaccinations. “We make sure our goats are taken care of,” Paul said. “It’s a lot like taking care of your own children, if they are sick, you help them.” The Baughman’s encourage people interested in goats to get a hold of a breeder, and ask questions. There are SUBMITTED PHOTO many people, including This goat is more of a solid brown color versus the the Baughman’s, willing typical white body brown head, found on Boer goats. It to mentor those looking is common to find different colors and patterns when into raising goats.
‘‘
crossbreeding goats.
Saturday, June 4, 2022 | Country Acres South • Page 9
BISON BELIEVERS for 30 years
Family sells breeding stock, meat products BY KATE RECHTZIGEL STAFF WRITER
WINONA - At the top of the bluffs overlooking the town of Winona and the Mississippi River, and at the end of Buffalo Ridge Road, lies a 325-acre bison farm which was started on a dare. Dave Griffin still remembers the day. “I owned a construction company and a cement supplier in Winona said that every contractor should have buffalo. The cement supplier had won a small herd in a card game in Iowa,” Dave said. He bought three of them shortly after hearing the story, and his wife, Gail was pleasantly surprised. At the time, the couple was raising dairy bulls for Dave’s dad and working long 14-to16-hour workdays at their intown jobs. Dave and his wife Gail are now in their 70s, bought the three bison in 1992 and have slowly built up their herd over the years to 100 – plus, the calves. They rotationally graze the bison over 110 hilly pasture acres which overlook the Mississippi River and the town of Winona and have them in two separate herds, each w i t h
one bull per herd. In addition to the bison, the Griffins have 50 acres of grass hay which are harvested both for the bison and for sale. More than twenty acres of the Griffins’ land has been set aside for pollinator habitat and long-term bison prairie. Beginning in May of 2021, the family worked with Xerces Society, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Farm Service Agency and Gabe Erickson of LandSpirit Design. They no-till drilled 84 total native species, 57 of which were donated by the Xerces Society. The mixture is approximately 60% grasses-sedges and 40% wildflowers. “The farm already has a large monarch summer population so the mix contained two milkweed species and twenty-four monarch-preferred nectar plants. Species that are preferred by bees, in particular the endangered rusty patch bumble bee, were planted as well,” Gail said. “The long-term goal is to return the acreage to bison pasture verses being part of the Conservation Reserve Program.”
The Griffins have learned a lot through the years about how to work with bison. And, the couple is quick to point out that bison and buffalo are the same animal. With bison being the scientific name and buffalo being the nickname used in the U.S. A true buffalo is actually the African Cape Buffalo and the Water Buffalo. In the seventeenth century, French explorers had never before seen species as “le boeufs,” meaning oxen or cattle. So, arriving English settlers changed the pronunciation to “la buff” and have altered the animal’s nickname over the years, eventually transitioning to the word buffalo. “People in the industry selling meat have gone towards using the name bison because there is an animal called water buffalo and companies were selling water buffalo with the labels just stating ‘buffalo’,” Gail said. “They are night and day different animals and have a completely different flavor and price.” Now this issue has been resolved through USDA, yet bison
PHOTO BY KATE RECHTZIGEL
The Griffin family (from left): grandson, Spencer, Gail and Dave stand in front of their bison herd May 23. The Griffins have been raising bison since 1992 and currently raise 100 bison on their farm, plus calves.
producers are still labeling their meat as “bison”. The Griffins have had a number of different setups for the animals through the years. Gail said keeping the bulls in separate herds is easier on the bison, the fences, and the couple. “During the rut; late July through early September, the bulls fight for dominance, and they fight a lot,” Gail said. “There’s not a thing that will keep bison in during a fight.” The rut is when breeding takes place and males start courting the females. Females will then carry the calf for almost 9 months and have calves that are around 30 to 40 pounds. “Calves can be up and walking within five minutes,” Gail said. In the two different herds, there is an older and a younger herd. With some of the older herd cows, who are over 20 years old, having calves at their side today.
“There are totally different personalities between the herds,” Gail said. “The younger ones don’t have the older teachers like the older herd, so they are a bit more mischievous.” Either way, Dave said, they enjoy this way of life because there isn’t much to do with the animals other than building the fences and handling them once a year for vaccinations. “It just makes us realize how lucky we are, not many people have this,” Dave said. Gail agrees and enjoys watching the calves play this time of year. “They bounce around and it just brings happiness to my heart to watch them play and play,” she said. It’s a big change from their days of raising dairy calves. It was in the days before cell phones and Dave couldn’t leave his job site.
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PHOTO BY KATE RECHTZIGEL
A bison statue overlooks the hilly acres which stand just outside of Rockie Hill Bison farm. The farm first started raising bison on a dare.
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A herd of bison runs across the Griffin’s hilly acres. Bison typically face a snowstorm so that their hair lays flat and the drifts stay behind them.
Saturday, June 4, 2022 | Country Acres South • Page 11
Minnesota’s first breakfast on the farm Olmsted County celebrates its 31st year BY KATE RECHTZIGEL STAFF WRITER
ROCHESTER - The first breakfast on the farm in Minnesota took place on a beautiful sunny day in June of 1988 on Curtis and Myrna Kroenig’s farm in Olmsted County. The farm sits six miles northeast of Rochester and welcomed 809 people for that first breakfast. While the farm is no longer an operational dairy farm, the memory of the first breakfast still lives on. “I had friends in Wisconsin who attended a number of these breakfasts on the farm and started telling me what a promotional event it was,” Dave Kjome said. “I planted the seed here and they really bought into this thing and decided to do it here in Minnesota.” Kiome remembers frying pancakes and sausage on a single electric grill as pigs and dairy cows stood their regular ground on the farm. Kiome is considered the father of the breakfast along with deceased agribusiness committee member, Ambrose King. Kjome, a retired extension educator with the University of Minnesota in Olmsted County, was also was on the agribusiness committee of the Chamber of Commerce in Rochester for 15 years. That chamber group developed breakfast on the farm for the county and supported local farmers and agricultural businesses near town. The first year was pos-
sible with farmers and local business people coming together to cook and serve a breakfast, and share the farming experience with others less familiar. Now, Ron Pagel heads the breakfast with Jerry Dee. Pagel milks 130 cows with his two sons, Jeff and Tim, near Eyota. Pagel’s parents, Clifton and Lea, were also both active in the event as well as many other local farmers and agribusinesses. “The agribusiness committee had this idea as a chance for people in town who maybe grew up on a farm, but were generations removed and still wanted to get their kids out to the farm,” Pagel said. “The first few years, agribusiness committee members cooked all the food on grills; pancakes and sausage. Everybody pitched in to bring a grill, mix orange juice or set up tables.” This year’s Olmsted County breakfast on the farm will take place from 6:15 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. June 18 at Gar-Lin Dairy near Eyota. The Allen family, of Gar-Lin Dairy, milks 1,750 cows in a 50-cow carousel parlor. Kiome is excited for this year’s event. “People will be able to see a carousel parlor and birthing of cows,” Kjome said. “You will be able to get out for some fellowship in the country, see dairy farming at its best with high technology, and have a good meal. It’s something to see.” Pagel agreed. “They have been one
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U.S. army paratroopers land out of a helicopter amidst the Breakfast on the Farm crowd in 1995 at the Schumacher farm near Elgin. The Olmsted County Breakfast on the Farm has been going on for 31 years and was the first one in Minnesota.
of the top dairy herds in the state,” he said. Through the decades, the annual event has travelled to a number of host farms both inside and outside of the county; some chosen as volunteers, but most chosen for their traditional or technologically advanced ways of farming, through the use of robots, or in this year’s case, a 50cow carousel parlor. In 34 years, the onfarm event has only had to be canceled three times; for foot-and-mouth disease in 2001, torrential rain in 2013 and COVID-19 in 2020.
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Olmsted page 12
MOWERS The new generation of TL Series inline bale wrappers from Tube-Line are built to provide producers and custom operators with high efficiency and proven reliability. To ensure that everyone can reap the benefits of the high moisture hay, Tube-Line BaleWrappers are available in multiple configurations to suit your needs and your budget.
TEDDERS Tub & Grain Grinders
FINANCING AVAILABLE THROUGH AGDIRECT AND DIVERSIFIED FINANCIAL The 67th Princess Kay of the Milky Way Brenna Connelly (from left) and Olmsted County Dairy Princesses Ella Bauer and Clara Thompson participate at a recent breakfast on the farm.
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