Year: 2010

I overheard  my daughter Maddy (8) correcting her younger sister Maleah (5) last week.  Maleah was using the word “dirt” as they were playing with BRIO train tracks, a Lincoln log house and a few little people. Maddy, in the casual course of conversation, responded to the word “dirt” by saying that it is actually “soil.” Maleah agreed and they went on playing. 

As their farming father, I was particularly happy to hear my 8 year old refer to “dirt” as “soil.”  For me, my soil is everything. It determines what kind of farmer I am and what crops I can grow. Yes, I am a farmer that raises vegetables, nuts, fruit, cattle and hay, but for the most part those are the crops that my soil allows me to raise. Essentially, I am a soil farmer. Soil is a gift from God. It holds all the essential minerals that plants need to grow. With the addition of some water and sunshine, I have the perfect environment to farm. Yeah!!!

So when Maddy uses the term “soil” instead of “dirt” I pay attention because she is showing respect to the building blocks of life.

Dave Hedlin of Hedlin Farms has said more than once, “Dirt is what you sweep off the kitchen floor and soil is what you grow food in.” Amen!

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Have you noticed that we are now on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr?! We are taking advantage of these new forms of media to keep in touch with you, let you know about special promotions and clue you in on what’s happening on the farm. We’re uploading scenery photos from the farm every month. Join us and watch the seasons change! I have posted a picture of my little ones playing with their BRIO train tracks and Lincoln logs. Go and check it out and feel free to share with us a picture of your kiddos having fun.

Facebook.com/KlesickFamilyFarm

Twitter.com/boxofgood

Flickr.com/photos/klesickfamilyfarm

by Ashley Rodriguez

Last April, I was invited by the director, Robert Kenner, to attend a screening of Food, Inc. in Los Angeles. This invitation was all thanks for my brother who filmed much of the movie. I jumped at the opportunity to see the film.

Food, Inc. “lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA” (www.foodincmovie.com). It does so in a way that is honest and not intended purely for shock value but to inform and educate the often misguided and undereducated consumer. If you haven’t seen the movie yet I highly recommend it and as a very proud sister I have to point out that Food, Inc. has an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary.

What struck me the most while viewing the film is that food works best if we let it do what it was created to do. Tomatoes left to ripen on the vine are sweeter, have a much greater nutritional value and a flavor that cannot even compare to the tomatoes that were plucked while still green and left to ripen on the truck while in transit. The same goes for cows.

Cows were created to eat grass. Their digestive systems were designed to consume grass and yet lately, due to ease, cost and control, many cows are being fed grain. Now we all know grain in and of itself is not a bad thing but when cows start eating something other than grass things start to go wrong.

As things have started to go wrong for cows because of their unnatural diet, science has solved the problem by creating antibiotics that combat the diseases that arise. Rather than solving the problem by changing their diet, which would eliminate the need for antibiotics, we are now consuming meat from “cows that are essentially being kept alive by drugs” (baronbeef.com).

So now that we got that out of the way, let’s focus on the benefits of grass-fed beef. For me the most important part is that it just plain tastes better. Richer, meatier and more complex in flavor. But there are other reasons as well. “The animal itself thrives because it is getting the food it was designed to eat and it converts that food to muscle and fat that is higher in minerals, vitamins, CLAs (conjugated linoleic acid) and Omega 3 fatty acids, and lower in cholesterol and fat” (baronbeef.com). Even though grass-fed beef isn’t injected with antibiotics you have a much lower risk of getting diseases associated with beef such as E-Coli and Mad Cow Disease.

To learn more about this and in general where our food comes from I can’t recommend the film Food, Inc. enough. Also, any of Michael Pollen’s best-selling books like the Omnivores Dilemma provide a very thorough look into the world behind the food on our plate.

In the meantime, I highly encourage you to take advantage of this great opportunity to purchase and enjoy grass-fed beef. Not only can you eat it in good conscience but you will be thrilled with the wonderful taste that comes from cows who eat a diet that they were created for.

Ashley Rodriquez is a chef, food blogger, and full-time mom.
You can read more of her writings at www.notwithoutsalt.com

We are tentatively firing up the tractors and getting ready for spring.  I have called the lime spreader and hopefully he will be ready to lime our fields this week.  In farming, timing can be critical and for the Klesick Family Farm, with all of our diversity, we need to lime as early as possible.  This year, based on soil samples and crop observations from last year, we will need about a ton of lime per acre to raise our calcium levels up. The reason I want to apply lime now is because we raise grass for hay and grass for our beef cows and we raise vegetables and fruit.  With all of these different cropping needs, early spring applications allow us the greatest flexibility.

Calcium has been called the “trucker” of nutrients – you could even call it the “life of the party.”  Plants really love adequate calcium and many nutrients attach themselves to it and follow it up into the plant from the soil.  I wish farming was as simple as adding calcium, but then there are magnesium ratios and manganese ratios and nitrogen needs as well as trace micro nutrients like boron and zinc, which are some of the minerals needed to grow the plants. I also have to keep track of the soil bacteria and make sure they are happy because they feed the plants the minerals that I am applying to my fields.

As a rule, I try and keep my soil profile full of minerals for this simple reason: if the minerals are not present in the soil, the minerals will not be in my crops and, sadly, not in your food.  America has too many empty calories on its plate already and my customers are not going to be getting any empty calorie food from me.

Whatever happened to the good old days of adding manure and barnyard wastes to your fields, working it in and growing food?  I think what has happened is technology.  We now can add just the right amount of this nutrient or that nutrient because through soil sampling we now know what we are missing in our soil.  I am happy that the technology exists, but for some reason I still hasten back to Grandpa’s gardens and he never soil sampled. He just cleaned out the chicken house and loafing sheds and worked it into the garden and, voila, green beans and green peas coming out his ears.  I know, because I remember sitting on the back porch snapping beans and shelling peas.

I suppose I have blended both worlds—Grandpa’s and mine.  I use a draft horse for some of the work and I compost lots of materials which I add to our fields in liberal amounts.  I raise beef cows and and so did he. He raised vegetables and fruit for his family and I raise them for my family and your family.

I guess you might say that my farm has a lot of my Grandpa in it.  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Tristan

I have been trying to stay on track myself, spend more time with my family, lose a few pounds, get a little more sleep and exercise daily.  I have been measuring my goals using an excel spreadsheet. It is amazing the accountability that comes from journaling your successes and, need I say it, yes, setbacks.

I have one of those scales that measures pounds the old fashioned way.  Have you ever noticed that 1 inch on that scale looks like a mile, even if it is only 10 lbs.  Losing 10 lbs. is not hard, but keeping it off is the real work.  Keeping weight off requires diligence and a change of habit.  For the last two months I have been pretty religious about getting up at 5:30 a.m. and doing a 30 minute workout.  I don’t have any exercise equipment and I am only using 5 lb. dumbbells, but it is working.  My hope is to encourage you that you can simply affect your goals with an at home exercise program that doesn’t cost a lot of $$$$.

I also use that time when I am finished working out to make a fresh glass of vegetable and fruit juice.  I absolutely love the colors of fresh juice. I posted a picture of this morning’s juice online at my blog.  The picture is straight from the juicer before I pour it into the glass for my wife and me.  The colors in fresh juice are incredibly vibrant, almost neon. The reds, the pinks, the oranges, and greens are bursting with flavor and with vitality.

I have had increased energy, more time on my hands and kept off a few of those pounds that tended to hang around during the holiday seasons (especially since I am a forty something now).  The nice thing is that I have gained some traction on my goals and I have measureable results to document, and more importantly to encourage me to press on.

The success I was personally feeling from juicing fresh fruits and vegetables and exercising was the inspiration for our newest “box of good” – the Juicer’s Box. The Juicer’s Box has the old standby juicing fruits and vegetables with a few weekly menu changes (to spice it up) to make about 12-14 glasses (10-12 oz.) of juice a week.

Keep up on those New Year’s resolutions and if necessary “fire” them up again and start with a slightly different plan than the last one.  You, and only you, can ultimately affect your personal health and your family’s health. Here, at Klesick Family Farm, we appreciate being a part of those healthy lifestyle choices and changes.

Cheers to good health,

Tristan

Lately, I have been thinking about the phrase, “40 acres and a mule.”  My perspective of what this actually may have looked like, back in the 1800s when our government was giving out land, is colored by the fact that part of our farm is horse powered. Although my hunch is that not all of those 40 acres were being farmed, I can pretty much guarantee that that farmer/mule team was always moving J. 

At the last National American Farm Bureau (AFB) convention in Seattle, the AFB president said, “There are those in America that want us to return to the days of 40 acres and mule,” and, of course, he followed up with, “and we are not going back there.”  Why was he making such a big deal about not going back to 40 acres and mule? Everyone knows that only a few of us farmers are using real horse power and the rest are using John Deere or Case or Kubota or New Holland. 

I believe the reason the AFB president made this statement is because the public—yes, the consumer—prefers to eat food from smaller family farms like mine.  But the reality is that most of our food comes from mega farms and mega corporations, and their mega operations are not nearly as pretty and picturesque as my farm.  In fact, our beef cows actually eat real green grass, and our vegetables are raised more like a family garden, and our family lives and works on our farm.  I highly doubt that the presidents of mega food operations have ever farmed in their lives. I do believe that the founders of those mega farms probably did farm and did manage the farms directly, but today all the decisions are made from a corporate boardroom.

But what is the rub? Why did the AFB president call out “40 acres and a mule?” I believe it has to do with advertising—dishonest advertising. In fact, one could argue that it is a case of stolen identity.

Whoa Katie (that’s my draft horse’s name)!!! What do I mean? Well, if you look at all the advertising around meat products (a.k.a., the protein industry), for example, what do you see?  Cows on grass, a beautiful old barn in the background, and a barnyard of different farm animals. In fact, you could very well be looking at a picture of an old time farm run by a farm family and a mule. (Hmmm, that looks like the Klesick Family Farm.) All of the advertising by mega operations implies that they are still raising animals just like grandpa did prior to 1940.  Yet, if the American corporate farm is so proud of their food, why don’t they advertise pictures of their factories and factory farms? Why do they have to advertise their products with a picture of grandpa’s farm? The fact is, it would hurt their sales and quite possibly require them to change the way they raise food. 

Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to the way corporate America raises food. We always hear how American farmers raise the safest and most healthy food in the world. If America’s food is so great then why are Americans so sickly? So I say to corporate America, “If you are so proud of your products and you believe in your farming practices, then advertise your feedlots, your hog operations, and chicken farms for what they are and let the consumer decide what food is healthy and what food they want to buy. Just quit hiding behind my farm!”

Tristan Klesick

by Ashley Rodriquez

I have recently become aware of a sub-culture that exists in the ever growing world of food lovers. The people that exist in this culture are passionate, determined, generous, adventurous, tough, gentle and secretive. They are at times self-less and giving and conversely elusive and greedy. For the mushroom hunter, finding the perfect specimen is the ultimate priority but to share their find and to introduce one to the often secretive world of the forager – well, they are just too darn excited and in love with the fungi not to.

Our day of foraging happened a couple of weeks ago while the sun was still warm and the heirloom Brandywine Tomatoes plucked from the garden prior to leaving, were at their peak. The English language lacks the words to describe the honor and privilege I felt to be a part of this expedition. A permanent grin painted my face as I spent the day with some incredibly passionate local foragers.

In all honesty, my lust for mushrooms is a recent development. As a child I would meticulously peel them off my pizza, remove them from strogonoff and avoid them in stews. I still get slightly squeamish at the texture but can greatly appreciate the depth they lend to many of my dishes. But it wasn’t until taking the proper actions in order to seek out the mushroom rather than simply grabbing them from the store that I was able to truly appreciate fungi.

I have come to honor the mushroom not just for its unmistakable flavor that it imparts but because I now understand it much better (with infinitely more to learn). I have discovered where they come from, the care taken to properly find the best variety and the work needed in order for them to be a part of my dinner.

The more I come to learn about food the more I fall deeper in love with it. Good food is both simple and incredibly complex. The good news for us is that if we choose to select and seek out “good food” – food that is seasonal, often local and grown with skill and passion – then much of the work is done for us and it’s quite easy to convert that food into an unforgettably delicious meal.

Ashley Rodriguez is a chef, food blogger, and full-time mom. You can read more of her writings at www.notwithoutsalt.com