[light music]
Drive through the dairy state
and you'll notice the landscape is changing.
- Debbie: It's really sad when you see our neighborhood
that used to be full of small dairy farms,
it's getting less and less every year.
- Angela: Small dairy farms,
generations in the making, are disappearing.
- Dave: I feel bad for 'em
because it's hard to make it go.
You gotta do it because you love doing it.
If you're doing it to make a lot of money right now,
it's not in the books.
[tractor engine rumbling]
- Angela: For three generations,
the Bauman family roots have run deep on this land
and they're not about to let that change.
Their name in German means "small farmer."
- Dave: It's in my blood.
My grandpa, he was farmer.
My dad was a farmer.
I farm with my brother.
We've been farming our whole lives.
I've always wanted to be a farmer.
- Angela: Like many small family farms,
Debbie also worked off the farm
and got her hands dirty as a landscaper.
- I like to use rocks.
I love using old pieces of farm equipment
or I'm working with somebody who has stuff
that they got from their parents' farm,
and I'm incorporating that into the landscape.
A lot of it was self-taught.
I'm not an artist, but I said,
in a way, I guess I'm an artist with the plants.
? ?
I was driving around looking for plants all the time.
I thought,
what better way to make my landscaping easier,
if I had the plants here?
- Angela: "Here" is where her dream came into focus.
Right in the middle of their dairy farm
outside of Edgar.
Debbie, along with her husband Dave,
turned her seed of an idea into a business.
- This is my passion, but he's jumped in.
- Dave: I was gung-ho on it.
I backed her always.
She helped me for many years and do what I wanted to do,
so I thought I'd help her and follow her dreams
and do whatever she wanted to do.
- Angela: The cows are gone.
The barnyard animals these days are more decorative.
And the plants come with names like hens and chicks.
- We didn't want to move off the farm because we were still farming the crops,
so it's like might as well make use of what we have.
And so that's why we have the cow lot as the nursery.
So we ripped out all the feeder that ran down it
and made that into a place to put plants on.
- Angela: From cows to coral bells,
farmer Dave is growing into his new role.
- Debbie: It's always kinda fun watching him learn.
It's a little out of his comfort zone.
He knows corn. He knows seeds and soybeans and stuff.
- Dave: I didn't know there were they many different perennials... [chuckles]
...and trees and shrubs.
She says just pot 'em and I pot 'em.
I'm told what to do.
- Hey Dave, you want to give me some hose?
- Angela: The concept of running a nursery
and a farm are one in the same.
The Baumans are just growing a different crop.
- Dave: We still gotta look at them every day.
Take care of them in the summertime.
Make sure their watered, fertilized.
Just like all our other crops.
- Think these got too dry is the way it looks to me.
- Angela: Their still watering, weeding
and watching the weather in all seasons.
- Debbie: You don't know what the weather's gonna bring.
We didn't get the frost blankets off 'til the beginning of May.
And we had to shovel three feet of snow
to get them uncovered.
I'm like, "Oh my goodness! We're supposed to open."
The whole lot was under snow yet.
[whistling wind]
[banjo music]
- Angela: Today, business is blooming,
making this nursery a proven winner.
- So your gardens all ready for the year?
- Well, pretty much so.
? ?
- Angela: Looking back now, the Baumans are satisfied
to see how they reinvented their farm.
- Debbie: But it's really hard for the small dairy farmer
to actually make a go of it right now.
And, a lot of them don't have the option
to probably do what we are,
like turned our farm into a nursery
or follow their dream, that way.
They have to find a different occupation.
- Angela: And Dave found that he can still do what he enjoys.
- We can do our field work yet
and still run a nursery.
It's all we knew how to do.
You never know what the future's gonna bring.
It was a good life. It's still a good life.
[banjo music]