(upbeat country music)
- Hi there, welcome to the farm.
I'm doing some fencing out here today.
But I'm running out of fenceposts.
So I've gotta head up north to my friend Shane's house,
where we're gonna pull some logs out of the forest,
using real horsepower.
And then, I'm inviting the whole crew back down
to Eau Claire, to the Paul Bunyan Museum
for a real lumberjack lunch.
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 pastured pork.
I'm takin' a break from the cows,
hittin' the road and seeing if I can't satisfy
my epicurious appetite.
(upbeat country music)
That's great!
This is amazing.
- Around the Farm Table is funded in part by
Wisconsin Farmers Union,
Heartland Credit Union,
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.
(upbeat country music)
- So, I do what we call "rotational grazing"
here at the Mead.
And that means I move the cows every 12 hours.
So I wanna put them in small strips to graze
so that they can harvest all their feed,
spread manure and then move on to another piece of ground,
so that that ground has a chance to regrow.
And then 30 days later, 35 days later,
I come back and I graze that piece of land again.
In order to have a successful grazing operation,
I need to make sure that I have hot electricity
going around the farm.
The cows will respect the fences when they're electric,
but when they're not, they run off and do their own thing.
So having a permanent fence that I'm building today
is really important.
My dairy farm here is certified organic,
so I have different standards than a conventional farm.
One of those means that I have to use untreated fenceposts
when I'm doing my permanent pastures.
This is an untreated fencepost,
so I'm all good to go here.
But I'm gonna leave this in the ground
until I get my other fenceposts and come on back out
and finish this up,
'cause I've gotta head into the barnyard.
My breeder, Brandon, just showed up
and we gotta breed some cows.
(cows moo)
Brandon's not just the guy that breeds my cows.
He's really a part of this farm system.
Farming is really about a community
of people coming together and helping each other out.
And Brandon is the guy that sits down with me
to help me pick out different bulls
to improve my genetics here, with my herd.
And make myself more profitable
by having those really nice cows.
Let's go say "hi" to him.
(upbeat banjo solo)
Hey, Brandon, how are you? - Good, how about yourself?
- Hopefully good.
So I got this cow to breed,
and I was just thinkin' about all the benefits
of artificial insemination.
I love the fact that I can get bulls from other countries,
and do these different things.
What are some of the other benefits... tell us about?
- Well, first and foremost, we can improve a cow
by correctively mating her.
If a cow needs to help in production,
whether it be her amount of milk she's giving,
or her component level that she's giving,
we can mate her with a bull correctively,
we can fix her soundness of feet and legs,
so that her offspring will be more sound,
or produce more of the product you want.
We've got a bio-security issue
where we can source genetics from anybody else,
and not worry about bringing a bull on the farm.
- 'Cause if we're bringing bulls,
if we're swapping bulls out on different people's farms,
there's issues: we can bring on disease from their farms.
- Very much so. Very much so.
And then your case where you're a seasonal herd,
you're gonna have a good portion of the year,
but you're not gonna need the services of that bull on farm.
- Sure.
- And there's a caring cost
as far as feeding that bull all year,
for him to-- standing around idle.
And of course, with the dairy bulls,
and especially Jerseys,
we all know that Jersey bulls can be dangerous.
- Yeah.
- And, from a safety standpoint we need to--
You know, by using the AI, we don't have those concerns.
- Sure. I'm just wondering,
you get to always come to my farm and see my cows,
and I never get a chance to see yours,
and I thought since last month,
I bought that locker beef from you,
I was gonna pick it up.
But I thought maybe first I could stop by your place,
and see where it was raised.
- Well, sure.
It's a nice day. I'm actually headed home now.
I'm happy to take you out, show you all the pastures,
and you can get an idea what I'm doin' there.
- I'm just gonna change clothes, and I'll meet you over there.
- Sounds great!
(upbeat banjo solo)
- Well, I've made it.
I'm excited to be here because I also get
to see Brandon's dad, Butch.
Ten years ago, I started taking farm classes,
and he was my teacher.
So, it's gonna be nice to see everybody again.
Hey, Butch, how are you doin' today?
- Great! Good to see you! - Good to see you, too!
It's so nice to come visit you guys at your farm!
- Well, we're glad to have you.
- So, this farm has been in your family
for how many generations?
- Well, actually I'm the third generation here.
My son, Brandon is the fourth generation.
My grandfather purchased this farm in 1908.
We are a century farm.
It's a long-term family operation.
- That's nice, you don't see too many these days.
- Well, I think this operation
had to change a lot over the years.
When my grandfather took over this farm,
it had been in cash wheat
until the point where it wouldn't raise wheat anymore,
as many farms were around the turn of the century.
He built the first dairy barn here,
and he dairied until the late '30s.
Then my father took over,
and he had sheep and poultry,
and then began dairying again in the '50s,
through the end of the '70s and then since the 1970s,
we've been pretty much a beef operation.
- That's fantastic.
I'm gonna see the fourth generation of your farm.
Is Brandon out in the field?
- He's out in the field taking care of those cows.
- Okay, good to see you, Butch. - Nice seeing you.
(upbeat flute solo)
- I always get a little nervous around beef cows
for some reason, I don't know.
- You don't gotta worry about these.
They're just fine.
[cows moo]
As we talked earlier about not having a dairy bull around,
there's a bull out here in this group of cows,
you wouldn't even know it's here!
- I know, it makes me nervous!
- It's part of our operation.
We're selling purebred breeding stock,
we're selling show calves,
we're selling some breeding bulls
to other customers to breed
both purebred cows and commercial cows
for the commercial cow-calf man.
And then, of course, like the locker beef
that you got from us,
we do raise our,
we do our own small feedlot with our own calves.
The Herefords are developed very well
to a forage-based system, as far as growing them.
We do not grass fatten our cattle.
We used grain to fatten our cattle with,
but our cows are all bred for and maintained
on a forage-based diet.
- Now, I know we've had this conversation before
with just what we do for a living.
We know the end,
how it's all gonna end for these girls.
What do you think?
We have to have compassion for what we do as farmers.
What do you think about that? - Oh, very much so.
Whether you're a dairy farmer or a beef farmer,
you know what the ultimate end will be.
But, yeah,
you have to give them
the absolute best care that you can
with the time that they are with us.
We always like to kinda' think big and talk big
that we don't get attached to things at time and--
But you have to.
To do a really good job, you have to be attached.
And if you're not,
then there may be some other issues,
but...
you gotta keep 'em properly fed,
properly bedded, properly sheltered.
- They get fed before you do. (laughs)
- Exactly, they do!
And it's our livelihood.
The better care we take care of them,
the better they take care of us.
- Yeah, well, this is great.
I love being out here in the fields, smelling the grass.
And just seeing animals raised,
the way I think that animals should be raised,
which is
out eating grass and being in the fresh air.
- Oh, it's a nice time of year.
Everything is lush here now and it's a fun time of year.
- Well, I gotta go start cookin'.
- Go for it!
I'm gonna get the rest of this herd,
and send them to the next pasture.
- All right, I'll see you next time, Brandon.
Okay, well, let's head up north
and let's get to the logging,
'cause that's gonna be a fun adventure for all of us.
Hey, Shane. - Hey, Inga, how you doin'?
- Good to see you. - Glad you can make it today.
- Well, I need to order some fence posts.
- Awesome, well, we got plenty of those around.
Absolutely. - Good, good.
Any chance I can help in the woods a little bit?
- You know what? You're right on time.
So we just have to do a little harnessing,
and we're gonna be heading off to the woods here, just shortly.
I got a widowmaker we're gonna have to look after out there.
- Sounds scary. - Absolutely.
So, yeah, we're gonna check that out
and just a little harnessing, we're gonna be in good shape.
You wanna stay and help harness? - Yeah, yeah.
- Excellent. Wanna start with brushing?
- Sure, I can do that. - All right, thanks, Inga!
(upbeat country music)
(chain saw grinds loudly)
- That was a little more intense than I thought it was gonna be.
I'm not sure if I want
a glass of water or a glass of whisky after that.
- Yeah, absolutely.
That is the one thing about working in the woods
that is very unpredictable.
That is, hence, why it's one of the most dangerous jobs.
So you just never know.
And dealing with the widowmaker,
absolutely one of the most dangerous.
- Tell us what a widowmaker is.
- You know, widowmaker came from just that name.
The men would work in the woods,
and you'd get these trees crossed up in another tree,
and you just never know, very unpredictable.
A lot of men lost their lives due to those trees.
- My uncle lost his life that way.
- Isn't that something? Incredible.
It's a very sad thing and it's probably
one of the most dangerous parts about working in the woods.
Yeah, to take care of things
like that are important, absolutely.
- So logging with horses.
There seems to be a lot of different benefits to it.
We hardly disturb the ground.
- You know, that's probably the biggest part
of horse logging in itself,
it's just the low impact.
Sometimes you may not get as much done.
Everything in modern days is time and time is money.
So that's big processors,
but it also disturbs the ground now.
Very large amount of it,
so by doing it with horses, very low impact,
a lot of the times you don't even know
we were in the woods
after we've done some logging with horses.
- Now why would somebody want to have this?
Why would somebody wanna hire somebody to come in and log with horses?
- One of the biggest parts to that, Inga,
would probably be the idea that
as you see throughout the forest floor,
there's tons of vegetation that's just coming.
So a lot of times we do this in the winter months,
where the ground is dormant,
so then we're not disturbing
all the new and the young growth coming up,
so very little damage to the forest floor,
which is really what we're looking for with horses.
- Sure. Now, do you see a lot,
is there a lot of people like you out here
doing these things?
- You know what?
It starts a lot probably with a passion for horses.
You really have to understand the animals.
You have to be able to work with them.
As you can see,
there's three of us having to work at this,
not just an operator.
So having a team of horses that works good with you
is important.
There are getting to be more and more people
getting back into the horse logging,
just because we do understand the impact
it has on the environment and so on and so forth that way.
- It's kind of cool.
It's neat to be out here in the woods,
and kind of doing something, it's a throwback thing.
I like doing things that way.
- A day of working in the woods with horses
is probably one of the most rewarding things
I've done in my life.
Hard work, yes, very much so,
but at the end of the day,
you're very proud
and you feel good about it when you're done.
- Now, I've thought a lot about maybe working horses
into my small farm operation,
'cause I've got 30 acres,
I don't know a lot about mechanics.
But I know enough about animals.
- Sure, absolutely.
- I see a lot more people using animal power on farms.
- Absolutely.
There's such a reward to it, too.
You know, we can go to the gas stations,
we can get fuel for these noisy generated type of machines,
but there's something to be said for using the animal.
They're not so much as a tool as they're part of the family.
So it's a reward to work with
a living and breathing animal like that.
You're starting to see a lot more of the horse
kind of coming back into things.
But you also starting to see people where they're
a little more intrigued with costing it up like yourself.
So, very good, yeah.
- If I decide to get a set of horses,
I'm gonna need you to help me pick 'em out.
- Absolutely, Inga, it'd be a pleasure.
- Well, I suppose you're getting hungry.
- Absolutely!
- Well, why don't you all come down with me to Eau Claire,
and start getting lunch ready for the loggers.
(upbeat whistle and flute melody)
Hi, Diane, how are you doing today?
- Good, nice to see you.
- Nice to see you, too.
So, Diane, I kind of always thought
that Wisconsin was just a land of dairy.
I thought it was like that for a million years,
but it's not, is it?
- No, before it became a dairy state,
it was really a lumbering and logging state
so most of the state had a lot of saw mills,
lot of lumbering, especially the central and northern parts.
Eau Claire was a really big part of that.
Eau Claire and the Chippewa Valley.
- Why is that?
- They had the river.
And they had a lot of white pine.
White pine was really desirable
because it was easy to work with,
and it could float, the red pine would sink.
- What were the major logging years here?
- Wisconsin started in about 1840 and went till about 1910,
but really 1880 to 1890 was the heyday.
That's when we produced the most lumber.
- Now we're at
the cabin area of the loggers.
What normally took place here?
- Well, they would come up in the winter.
The trees were so huge, that the sun just couldn't penetrate
through to the ground,
so the land was really muddy and mucky most of the year.
So once it froze, they would come up here.
A lot of them were farmers, or saw mill workers,
and they would come up and live for three months,
work sun up to sun down for a dollar a day.
- Oh my goodness.
- So a lot of sweaty men lived in a bunkhouse
where there was no bathing,
a lot of fleas, a lot of lice,
a lot of sweaty men and wet wool socks,
not the most pleasant place. (laughs)
- That's for sure.
Was it hard for them?
'Cause these people didn't know each other
before coming to the camp.
Was it hard for them to kind of get along?
- It was.
They had a lot of strict rules to keep them
compatible.
No gambling, no card playing.
There were a lot of immigrants here so
they couldn't always understand each other language-wise
but music was a really big part of that.
Especially Saturday nights
that was something everyone could enjoy.
That's also kind of when the storytelling started, too.
- Isn't it interesting how music can
kind of bond all of us together?
Through just through excitement and joy?
- Yes, yes, I love that they would even dance.
And they would have their fiddles, harmonicas, accordions,
and they even danced and the men who were the non-leaders
would put a little bandanna in their pockets.
- How cute!
I can't believe they'd have the energy after logging
all day long.
- Yeah, I think Saturday
because they knew Sunday they could sleep in
and that was their day off.
Gave them a little boost, I think. (laughs)
- Now, I'm cooking for these lumberjacks.
I wanna know a little bit about the history
of who cooked for these folks way back when.
- Yeah, we had a cook and a cookie.
From about 1850 until 1910, men only.
The average lumberjack really was only 5'4, 140 pounds.
But when they were up here,
they ate 8,000 calories a day. - Wow.
- So they really kept the cook and cookie busy.
The cookie that was here would take care of washing dishes,
peeling potatoes, hauling water.
The cook would prepare a big breakfast for the men,
a mid-morning snack,
a big lunch, an afternoon snack, and then dinner.
- I wish I one of those at the farm.
- Yeah, wouldn't that be nice? (laughs)
- I know there's a certain lingo, right?
That they would use when they were talking about food.
What are some of those?
- Door knobs were the biscuits,
swamp water was their tea,
those were two of the most used, yeah.
- That's great.
I'm gonna go cook up a feast for these guys.
I don't know if I have any swamp water,
but I'll try to come up with some.
- Sounds good.
- Thanks for your time, this is great here!
- Yeah, thank you for coming!
(upbeat whistle and banjo melody)
- Back in the old days,
typical logger fare would have been
salt pork, navy beans, little bit of flour,
and maybe some molasses.
But I wanted to spice things up today for my loggers,
with a family recipe, which is Irish soda bread.
Irish soda bread's on the table
at all of our family gatherings
and even just on a weekday night.
Cookie, can I have 4 cups of flour?
Thank you, sir.
So add the flour right to a nice bowl
that you can stir in everything to.
And to the flour, I'm gonna add some baking soda,
1 1/2 teaspoons of salt,
and then I'm gonna cut in some butter.
You want your butter to be a little bit chilled.
Cut that right into the flour here.
Once the butter's cut in,
I like to add Wisconsin cranberries.
And I just get dry cranberries, sprinkle those all around.
Give this a good stir.
And then add 1 1/2 cup of buttermilk.
And slowly get this in here.
This is great, too, you could add some orange zest
or lemon zest to this bread
to add a little bit of a citrus flavor,
you could do dry cherries,
if you happen to live over by Door County.
Use your imagination and it always turns out wonderful.
Gently mix in
all of these ingredients.
I don't wanna over mix this.
I don't wanna knead it so much like I would
different bread recipes.
So I'm just gonna get this coming all together,
like so.
That's looking perfect.
And then I like to cook mine
in a cast iron skillet.
So my skillet's nice and oiled up,
and now I can just pop my bread
right into this pan.
Smoosh this around.
Cookie, why don't you get this in the oven,
do you mind?
Then, I'm gonna clean up and get ready
for the logger pie.
(upbeat whistle and banjo melody)
Cooks were high-ranking members
in the logging camp community.
They had to feed all of these hungry men
over 8,000 calories a day .
But it wasn't only the cooks that were high-ranking,
it was their cookies, too.
The cookies were the first person up in the morning.
They had to wake up all these grumpy loggers,
and they were the last to go to bed at night,
after everything was done.
So, Cookie, since you've been doing such hard work,
why don't you go take a break,
maybe go find the loggers, and I'll cook you lunch.
I wanted to do a logger pie today.
It's my fun version of the shepherd's pie.
I feel like since I'm cooking for a group of loggers,
I can call it a logger pie.
But there's different variations of the shepherd's pie.
So if you're doing a shepherd's pie with lamb,
then it's called shepherd's pie.
If you're doing it with beef,
a lot of times it's called cottage pie.
My parents are vegetarians and when they do their version
of shepherd's pie, they do it with lentils
and they call it a shepherdless pie.
One of the reasons that I like doing shepherd's pie
is because it's basically you're using up leftovers.
So traditionally, it would be something you'd make
on Monday, after your big Sunday roast beef
and mashed potatoes.
To start with, I'm gonna add a little oil to my pan here.
I like to use a cast iron skillet.
Like I said, "If you're cooking at a logging camp,
you should use a cast iron skillet."
And then to the pan, I'm gonna add some carrots
and some celery.
When I cook a lot of the times,
I like to use whatever's on hand.
And I think it's important to do that when you're cooking.
To be able to have a foundation for a recipe,
but then to be able to add maybe what's in season,
or what you have on hand so that you can have
a little bit more fun when you're cooking.
I'm gonna turn the heat up on this a little bit.
I'm gonna cook these carrots and celery down
for a few minutes over medium-high heat,
and get them softened up.
Now I'm gonna add 1 whole chopped onion.
I wanted to add the carrots and the celery first
'cause they need a little bit longer to cook than the onion.
(loud sizzling)
Nothing beats the smell of onions frying on the stove.
Okay, while the onion's getting cooked down,
I'm going to chop up some herbs.
I have some fresh thyme from the garden.
I think rosemary would also work nice on this recipe.
Or any other herbs you have on hand.
Unlike with most food,
you have to cook
to the taste of you and your guest.
So add a little bit more here, a little bit less here,
whatever you wish.
I'm just adding enough thyme here to give it a nice flavor
to have this beautiful logging shanty
with the-- wafting with the aroma of fresh herbs
and it smells delicious.
Now that the onions are cooked down slightly
I'm gonna add some peas.
Peas have always been a classic ingredient
in shepherd's pie for me.
This is a great way to get a lot of vegetables in, too,
without anyone really knowing it.
Now I'm almost ready for my next ingredient.
The most important ingredient, the beef.
For me, it's important to know where my beef comes from.
I wanna be able to support the family farms
that align with the way that I think.
So what's important to me is
making sure that their animals are treated well.
Making sure that they're thinking about their soils
and thinking about the land around them.
I'll add
about a pound of burger
right to my vegetables here.
And get this nice and cooked down until everything's brown.
And the beef's cooked through.
Once the beef is browned,
add a little bit of tomato paste
to give it that nice tomato flavor,
and help thicken it up a bit.
'Cause now we're gonna start
kind of creating a little bit of a gravy for the inside.
And I'm gonna add a little bit of wine.
When I cook with beef, I often like to cook with
using wine as a flavor-adding agent.
When the alcohol will cook off,
and then it'll just be a nice wine flavor.
You can also use dark beer...
...would be really excellent in this, too.
You wanna give it a little liquid
so the potatoes have something to soak up on the plate.
And now, just a little salt and pepper.
A little splash of salt here.
Give this a stir.
And the whole reason I make loggers pie
is to use up leftover mashed potatoes.
It's my favorite way to do it.
And whenever I do have leftover mashed potatoes,
I always have to go out and make the loggers pie.
So with your leftover mashed potatoes,
you're gonna make a nice crust here.
And if you wanted to, you could put
a cup of cheddar cheese in or grate some parmesan cheese
on the top of this.
Another flavor-adding,
I think cheese is great on everything, personally.
So now, you'll just smooth out the potato topping here
to make a nice crust.
You could add a few pats of butter
if you want it to brown up a little bit.
All right, I'm gonna pop this in the oven,
and then I'll go get the loggers for the logger lunch.
(upbeat whistle and banjo melody)
(loggers cheer)
Fuel up the Paul Bunyans around your table
with hardy, beefy logger pie,
topped with a tangy rutabaga mash.
Irish soda bread with a touch of Midwest magic.
Lots of creamy honey butter
and wonderful Wisconsin cranberries.
The perfect sweet ending for this Wisconsin logger lunch,
Grandma's classic, rhubarb crisp.
The brew for the crew,
piping hot black tea.
Remember, alcohol is never allowed at the logging camp.
I hope this has inspired you
to have lunch ready for your loggers
and I hope you'll gather with us next time,
Around the Farm Table!
I'm your host, Inga Witscher.
(loggers sing a folk tune)
(cheers and applause)
- Around the Farm Table is funded in part by
Wisconsin Farmers Union,
Heartland Credit Union,
and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.