(folksy music)
- Hi, there. Welcome to the farm.
I'm going to go and visit my nephews today.
They're getting ready to show some calves at the fair.
I thought I'd take them a little spot of tea and some scones.
I'm going to go down to Great River Organic Milling
in Fountain City, Wisconsin, to grab some organic flour,
and then it's off to Sunbow Farms
in Eau Claire for some herbal tea.
Gather with us Around the Farm Table .
I'm your host Inga Witscher.
- Gather with us Around the Farm Table .
- A few years ago, I moved up to Wisconsin
I started an organic dairy farm at St. Isidore's Mead.
That's when I discovered
the abundance of Midwestern local food
and small scale farmers
growing everything from green zebra tomatoes to pasture pork.
I'm taking a break from the cows, hitting the road,
and seeing if I can't satisfy my epicurious appetite.
*
- That's great.
(frying pan sizzles)
- This is amazing.
*
- Funding for Around the Farm Table
is provided in part by
Wisconsin Farmers Union,
a member-driven organization for family farmers,
rural communities, and all people.
Wisconsin Farmers Union,
united to grow family agriculture.
Information at WisconsinFarmersUnion.co
With additional support from these community membe
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Televisio
*
- My friend Gordon's been keeping bees here at my farm
for a couple years now, and I want you guys to meet him.
He's a wealth of knowledge when it comes to beekeeping.
Hi, there, Gordon. - Hello.
- How are you doing today? - Wonderful.
- Good.
So, Gordon, I know that
you've been keeping bees for how many years?
- Sixty-five years.
- That's hardly any.
You're practically a beginner.
So, what is it about having bees on a dairy farm like this
that's attractive to you as a beekeeper?
- We need the pasture here, especially
with the white Dutch clover and a few Canada thistles.
- Oh, okay.
- It's good forage for the bees,
and without that, the bees just don't do well.
Right now we're at a pretty good honey flow.
You can see by the height of these hives.
My grandson has been adding these supers,
that's the box that collects the honey.
- Okay.
- I haven't been through these bees for a long time,
but he keeps adding
because as each one gets filled, we add another layer.
- So the honey just builds up on the supers,
is what happens?
- Right.
- So, how important--
I've been trying not to mow the pasture too much or anything,
and the cows are...
I've got less cows this year so they're not grazing a lot.
So, is it good that I have these different species
like the thistles and the wildflowers and things?
They can feed off of all those different plants?
- Most of them, sure.
Certainly, we need a variety.
- Yeah.
- And we've just done
no-till planting in our pastures.
- Oh, okay.
- It's part of the pollinator program.
- Right, uh-huh.
- It's supported by our present government program.
- Good.
- And we put in white Dutch clover and alsike clover,
but there's a lot of other plants
that certainly could be beneficial to the bees.
And I think in a lot of our set-aside land now
we've got inducements to put in plants
that are good for pollinators.
- Oh, good.
- Which is something that was not the case in years past.
- Yeah, that's encouraging.
Now, I know you guys sell honey,
but what are those other byproducts of having bees?
- Well, I have in the back of my truck here
a big chunk of beeswax.
As you harvest the honey,
you get a certain amount of beeswax as a byproduct.
And then,
we scrape propolis out of those boxes.
- What is propolis?
- Propolis is really a resin that the bees
gather from plants, and then, they bring it home
and use if for glue to glue things together.
- Oh, no kidding?
What do people do with propolis after?
- Mostly it's used for pharmaceutical purposes.
- No kidding? - Yes.
The medical profession is beginning to be aware of that,
and there is a doctor in Eau Claire
who actually is promoting the use of honey.
- One day your grandson, Christoff, was over,
and he was milking cows with me and we had a cow come in
and she had... just a big rip off her leg,
like she got caught in something
and it just tore off all the skin.
And so I didn't know what to do,
but Christoff brought some honey out to the barn.
So we said, "Well, let's just try it."
And we just kept putting honey on her for a couple days
and wrapping it up a little bit, and she completely healed.
It was exciting, really, to see how the honey just,
there was no infection, nothing.
It just really... it's an amazing product.
- There's your propolis.
- Wow.
- See how they've got everything glued together?
We scrape that off and then we can sell that.
There's a frame of honey for you.
- Wow.
- That's probably several pounds there.
- Oh, I see it dripping out.
- Oh, is it?
And there's your propolis.
- Okay.
- Propolis is used to close off
any gaps that they can't walk through.
- It's amazing.
- They close it off.
We've got probably
150 pounds of honey on here.
- Wow.
- That's just one hive.
You can add that up to all the hives that are here.
We've got a nice crop coming in.
- Well Gordon, this has been so interesting
to learn this much about bees.
- Well, I think everyone I've ever talked to about bees
has found it fascinating.
- Good! I want you to keep having bees here all the time
because I love the honey that comes out of them.
- Well, thank you very much, that's good.
- Well, hey, come along with me,
we'll go down and get some flour.
(folksy music)
*
- Good morning, Craig. How are you?
- Hi, Inga. How are you? - Good. What's going on?
- Same old... busy, busy... making flour.
- I hear 'ya.
I've been using flour from you guys for quite some time.
Tell me a little bit about
the process of milling flour here.
- Well how we're different is we're stone milling operation,
and there really aren't too may of us left in the country.
So it's a very--
Some would consider it an antiquated way of milling it.
Some would consider it the most nutritious way of milling flour.
So we have big 30-inch stone mills,
which we can go and have a look at.
And we gravity feed the grain into them,
and they're all set by hand, how tight we mill it,
depending on what it is we're milling.
And we consider ourselves to be 100% extraction flour.
So, all the nutrition that's within the grain,
we grind, and it ends up in the flour.
So we don't take anything out.
We don't add anything to it.
- Uh-huh.
That's really good, so it must taste amazing.
- Nutrition and the taste, flavor profile,
is different to what you would find in a modern refined flour
where they've messed around with it and taken things out.
- What kind of products do you guys do here?
- Everything from whole wheat flour,
to teff flour, to millet flour, spelt flour,
barley flour, rye flour, corn flour.
The list is... pffft... you name it.
- Wow, one-stop shop.
- Yeah, if it's a hard cereal grain, we can grind it.
- Now, you're certified organic here.
Is it difficult to source organic grains?
- There's a big demand out there and although the farm
and the organic farm is growing and trying to keep with it,
I think that it's a little bit behind.
For example, spelt, right now, has been very difficult to find.
By new crop, we hope that's going to change.
But we have very good relationships
with the farmers that we go to.
We kind of figure it out, and we get through the year.
- It's hard for a lot of farmers to transition into it because
it takes a three-year transition to transition your land.
- Exactly.
- Which is really expensive.
But I think it's wonderful to have places
like Great River Milling that need organic grain
so perhaps somebody coming into farming,
or somebody who's looking to transition out of dairy farming
or something like that
can start growing organic grains and have a place to sell it.
It's a huge thing.
- Yeah, absolutely.
And if you don't have a huge farm,
we could pretty much buy what you could grow.
- But it's just whether or not the farmer can get through
that initial, perhaps, two to three years
where they're not going to be selling anything.
- That's a big thing and I think
that's where the government needs to step in,
really, and help subsidize that.
If they really want to push healthy food,
I think that needs to happen.
- Yeah, yeah, it'd be a nicer transition.
Now, how far away do you sell your products?
I always see them in co-ops around Wisconsin.
- You'll see it there. You'll see it in Florida.
You'll see it... obviously, we're on Amazon.
So, you can buy anywhere in the U.S. on Amazon.
- We also export to Canada, to Mexico,
to Taiwan, to China, Dubai.
- Wow.
I love it that right here in this beautiful little valley
there's this whole, like, beating heart of flour
going out and feeding the world.
- It'srazy, I know.
- So I stopped down today.
I'm going to be making some scones.
So I was hoping to pick up some flour if you guys have some.
I'm assuming you have some available.
- We do. We mill everything to order.
So we don't keep inventory.
We like to deliver it completely fresh.
So we're going to mill you some flour right now, and then,
you can take it home and bake until your heart's content.
- You are amazing. Thank you.
- Shall we go?
*
(mechanical shaking)
- Straight off the mills just for you, Inga.
- Great. Thank you.
Well, hey, good to see you. - You too.
- Until next time. - Yeah, bye.
*
- Well, hello, Kristina. - Hi, how are you?
- Good, how are you doing? Nice to see you again.
- Welcome to the farm.
- This is a beautiful place. - Thank you.
- I've always wanted to come here, it's just gorgeous.
- Thank you. We really love it here.
- How long have you guys been here for?
- This is my 12th year here.
- Oh, wow. - Yeah.
- Well, I wanted to stop by.
I'm on my way up to see my brother--
I'm trying to figure out ways to diversify my farm a little bit
and add value a little bit.
I wanted to come talk to you about your tea.
- Yeah, absolutely.
- What's the process involved?
- We have about, I think,
about 10 different teas that we sell.
And these are all herbal tea
The biggest issue with producing tea
that you're going to want to sell
is to have a good way to dry your herbs.
- Right.
- And then the other issues with teas that people
don't realize is that what looks like a lot of herb,
when you dry it, becomes very little herb.
All of our herbs are certified organic.
We have about 80 different herbs
that we either grow or wild harvest.
We're actually certified organic
to wild harvest off the property, as well.
- So, what does wild harvest mean?
- It means that you're not actively cultivating the herb.
You haven't planted it, you're not fertilizing it,
you're not doing anything,
it's just growing in the wild here.
And we can go out to our woods or out into the pasture here,
and actually just harvest it in its natural environment.
- What would some of those herbs be?
- Well, one of the biggest ones that was here was yarrow.
- Which we use in a bunch of our products,
and it was actually all throughout the pasture.
Another one is nettle.
That we harvest a lot of, that's just growing here.
- What are some of your favorite herbs to grow in Wisconsin?
- One of the most beautiful ones
that I like to grow is St. John's wort.
- It's a really, really pretty crop to grow.
- That has those beautiful yellow flowers, right?
- Beautiful yellow flowers, yeah.
Skullcap is another really nice one.
I really like marshmallow, which we use a lot.
- Do you have any advice for
how make a really good cup of tea?
Yes, you use the freshest herbs you can possibly get,
and you're going to put it in water,
and you're going to cover,
make sure it's covered, and you are going to
let that tea steep for at least 15 to 20 minutes.
- Wow.
- At least.
You really want to get the flavor out of that.
I'm standing here in front of this beautiful
bowl of our Blueberry Bliss, just like...
(sniffs)
(laughing)
It smells so good, and it's just about freshness.
It really is.
- What are the ingredients?
- Well, the four ingredients that are in this tea
are catnip, and this one is linden,
the other name for that is "basswood,"
which most people know it by, and it's this tree right here.
Spearmint and blueberries.
So, linden and catnip are well-known
for their nervine properties.
So, very calming to the nervous system.
And with linden, what you do,
you can see way up on the tree those little seeds hanging down.
- Sure.
- You harvest just that little leaf and those seeds
when they're in flower
and crunch them all up, and that's what this is, right here.
- And what are the honeys that you have down here?
- Well, if you're going to have a good tea,
it can stand alone, but it always tastes better with honey.
Of course, my opinion as a beekeeper.
(laughing)
So, what we did to combine our beekeeping and our herbs
is that we actually take the honey from the farm
and we infuse it with herbs.
So, you'll take your honey and you put your herbs in there
and you just let them sit for anywhere, depending on the herb,
it might only be two weeks if it's really strong,
but it could be two months.
- Well, Kristina, thank you for this wonderful information.
- My pleasure. - I've got to head out.
Do you mind if I take some tea and honey with me?
- Oh, for sure. Yes.
Here's a jar of the Blueberry Bliss we were talking about,
and this is a little sampler of our Rose Petal Honey.
- Fantastic.
- So you'll have to tell me what you think.
- Thank you so much. - My pleasure.
- Well, have a great rest of the day.
- Thanks. You too.
(cows mooing)
- My brother recently started working at Indianhead Holsteins,
where Bob and Karyn Schauf have generously offered up
some calves for my nephews to take to the fair.
- Hello, Karyn. - Hi, Inga
- How are you two today?
- We are good.
- What a beautiful cow, Is this the famous Tia?
- This is, yes.
- And she just won... What did she just win recently?
- Well, we have a district show
that's several counties together.
And so, she ended up to be the grand champion for the day.
- Congratulations. She's so beautiful.
- Thank you.
- You guys have quite a few amazing cows here.
- Well, we like our cows. (laughing)
- Tell me a little bit about your farm, you grew up here.
- I did, I lived upstairs in that old farmhouse
when I was just a babe until about five years old.
- Oh, wow.
- My grandparents owned this farm.
- And you're so involved with dairy farming.
And I think for me, as a woman who's a dairy farmer,
I love to be able to have wonderful people like you
that can kind of lead the way.
You were "Dairy Woman of the Year" last year weren't you?
- 2013, yes, yes. - That's fantastic.
- Our industry's really good in that
they recognize the women because they know
the women do play an important part
in making a farm successful.
It's a lifestyle.
- It is, yeah.
Oh, hey, baby... hey, baby.
Oh, what a sweetie!
Well, Karyn, I was hoping,
I know that you've generously offered some calves
to my nephews to take as their fair project,
and I know things are kind of
getting ready for the fair today,
so I'd love to help you guys out and make you some snacks.
- Oh, that sounds great. It'll be fun.
- Okay, great.
- Hi, boys. - çBothÑ Hi.
- Are you ready to have me help you out?
- [Both] Yeah. - Okay.
Well, I started showing calves at the fair
when I was these guys' age, and I'm really excited
to be able to pass on a little bit of my knowledge
to the next generation of my family.
So, boys, I want you to pay attention.
I'm going to give you a couple tips.
First thing that you want to do when you're getting the calf
ready for the fair is make sure it's trained.
So, you want to lead that calf every single day.
Every single day!
Sometimes twice a day.
(folksy music)
*
So, when you're showing your calf,
they might ask you some questions.
So, they might ask you the breed of the cow,
or even the calf's name.
Do you have a name for your calf?
- ABC. - ABC?
I love that name.
You also might need to know the birth date and things like that.
And that's just a way
that the judge knows that you're paying attention
and you're a responsible young adult,
like I know you are buddy.
They might even ask you who your favorite auntie is.
Do you have one?
Can you point at your favorite auntie?
That's right, buddy. (mwah)
All right, let's go.
Now, you guys,
can you kind of bring your calves all the way up?
*
You want the judge to know that
you've really worked with that animal
and that animal really responds to you
and you feel comfortable together, okay?
Your calf has to come to the fair
nice and clipped and looking gorgeous.
And when you're walking that calf around in the show ring,
the most important thing, Mason and Ethan,
is to have a big smile on your face
and look like you're having a great time.
And you know, a good smile is going to get you far in life,
farther than a lot of things, so remember that.
All right boys, well,
let's start out with just walking the calves around,
getting comfortable, and seeing how it goes from there.
*
(cows mooing)
(clippers buzzing, cow mooing)
- Well, hi guys.
- Hi, Inga.
- How's it going? Nice to see you.
- Really good. - Hey, you guys.
- We're giving a little demo here,
getting their calves ready for the Junior State Fair.
- Good, are you guys kind of excited?
- Yeah.
- Well, what kinds of things do you look for?
- I was just telling these guys
there's a lot of preparation involved.
They go to the fair and they see these calves being shown,
but there's a lot of work and preparation involved
which starts, actually,
when these calves are very young and these guys are young.
They first have to get equipment,
clippers, brushes, wash brushes.
- The whole works.
- And so you start off by cleaning,
training your calf to lead, tying it up, working with it.
- And I was just giving them
a little demonstration on clipping.
So it's kind of like a little beauty parlor for the calf here.
- I think these guys could use a little clipping, too.
- We could do that. This would do it in a hurry.
(laughing)
- It's nice that the calf is so calm.
So you can tell that the animal has been
worked with quite a bit, if it's this calm.
- They aren't all this calm.
- Not to start with.
- Do you mind if we go take a look at some of your milk cows?
- Yeah, that would be even easier.
- All right, let these guys take over here.
He's so excited. Good to see you boys.
(clippers sheering)
(cows mooing)
*
(cows mooing)
- So, Bob, tell me a little about this cow,
and what you're looking for.
- We as Holstein breeders are trying to develop an animal
that's going to last, that's going to be profitable.
Our goal with this cow,
and she's getting closer to our ideal,
she's a cow that's actually scored quite highly
as a four-year-old cow.
We're looking for a cow that has width and strength.
She has the ability to eat large amounts of feed
to produce large volumes of milk.
And lasts a long time to be profitable for the dairy.
- What are you looking for in an udder on these cows?
- This cow is milking, actually,
145 pounds a day.
So her udder has to be strongly attached,
it has to blend into her body, be strong.
You can see the quality from the veins and so on.
You want her udder to carry high above her hock
so she's not kicking it as she walks.
- You want it wide and high and strongly attached.
And you talk about balance when you talk about a cow,
you talk about balance, about the udder,
some people can look at a cow's head and tell you
what kind of udder she has from the strength and width.
- Interesting.
- The width of the eyes, the muzzle strength.
You know, so her strength and balance passes right through,
right to her udder on this cow.
- Well, Bob, you should be really proud of these cows,
they're just gorgeous.
And I know it's almost tea time,
and Karyn is going to be milking here pretty quick,
Can I use the kitchen here in the barn?
- Absolutely.
- All right, because I wanted
to make you guys a little snack before I left.
- Terrific.
- Alrighty, I'll see you soon. - Okay, thank you.
- Bob and Karyn have this lovely little kitchen
right here in their dairy barn,
so I thought I'd take advantage of the kitchen and make
my mom's famous scone recipe.
My mom has been making these scones for years,
and everybody raves about them.
I just took it for granted.
I had no idea how good they were
until I got to have a trip to England and had scones there,
and I thought, "Boy, these taste just like my mother's scones."
So, I wanted to show you guys how to do it,
it's really simple.
but before I start on the scones,
I want to get the tea started because, remember,
that's going to take about 15 minutes to steep
for that maximum flavor experience.
Think about adding about
a tablespoon of tea per cup of water.
And you need roughly about a cup of water
per person that you're serving.
Oh, it smells so good.
Now, add my water.
Fill it right to the brim there.
And there we go.
Now with the scones, we're going to start
with the dry ingredients first.
It's about two cups of flour,
which means I have roughly enough flour
to make a batch of scones
for the entire community here.
About a third a cup of sugar
and some baking soda.
And a little bit of salt.
And then, you can add dried fruit, if you'd like.
My mother always adds cranberries, and
cranberries are from Wisconsin, so that's kind of perfect.
I like to add dried cherries.
I love that sweet, tart flavor of the cherries.
You can also make the scones savory
by adding in some chopped herbs like dill,
and cheddar cheese, or anything like that.
It's really the basis of a recipe that you
can really experiment with and have a lot of fun with.
So I'm going to add about,
oh, I suppose, a half cup of dried fruit.
Go ahead and mix all this together.
It looks good.
And then I'll zest in the zest from one lemon.
(scrape, scrape, scrape)
I've been using lemon zest quite a bit in my cooking.
I just think it adds such a nice bright flavor to everything
and I just can't get enough of it
Give that a good stirring in.
And then, now I'm going to mix in about, oh, I suppose,
like a cup and a quarter of fresh cream.
Now, these are just cream scones.
These aren't butter scones.
When I make scones at home, I always add a stick of butter
because they just taste really good,
but my mother is a cream scone kind of a lady,
so I'm sticking to her recipe today.
Turn your dough out onto a lightly-floured surface here.
This is the fun part.
Now you can just bring all the dough together,
get all the little bits going here.
And then knead it.
Don't over-knead it.
My mom always says she kneads her scones 10 times.
Not once more, not once less.
If you have a rolling pin
you can use a rolling pin to roll this out.
I suppose you want to roll it out to about an inch thick.
And then you cut them out in any shape you want.
One little tip is you can put these on a cookie sheet
and pop them in your freezer
for a half an hour, or even overnight,
and then pop them out and bake them
just before you want to serve them.
Once you've got all of your circles cut out,
you can put them on a piece of parchment-lined cookie sheet,
and like I said, if you have time, pop them in the freezer
for a little bit so they can set back up.
But if you don't, no big deal.
And you're going to bake these
in the oven at 425
for, oh, about 12 to 15 minutes,
until they're nice and light brown.
Alrighty, well, I'm going to pop these in the oven
and get everything cleaned up,
and then I'll gather the troops.
Remember to steep the tea for at least 15 minutes.
And serve it with a generous dollop of honey.
*
Slather your scones with lots of farm-fresh butter.
Even the kids love the taste of
this fresh wonderful herbal tea.
I hope you've enjoyed gathering with us
for some Holsteins, some scones, and some fantastic tea, and
I hope you'll join us next time Around the Farm Table .
I'm your host, Inga Witscher.
(folksy music)
(hair clipper buzzes)
(bright guitar music)
- Funding for Around the Farm Table
is provided in part by
Wisconsin Farmers Union,
a member-driven organization for family farmers,
rural communities, and all people.
Wisconsin Farmers Union, united to grow family agriculture.
Information at WisconsinFarmersUnion.co
With additional support from these community membe
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.