Farm school
Graze anatomy
Sunshine Harvest Farm, Webster, Minn
Mike Braucher puts his hand alongside his mouth and yells across an empty pasture. "Come, Boss!" he bellows. The 40-something Rice County farmer smiles sheepishly. "That's what my dad used to yell to the cows." Nothing happens. The wind blows across the pasture. Then, suddenly, a herd of cows sneaks up behind us, their giant hooves made silent by the bended blades of grass.
There are Black Angus cows and Shorthorns and Scottish Highlands -- or as I call them, brown ones and black ones. And they all, 31 in total, graze on the 30 acres of knee-high grass in the seemingly endless pasture the Braucher family rents as part of Braucher's Sunshine Harvest Farm, a small family farm about an hour's drive southwest of the Twin Cities that raises grass-fed beef and lamb and pasture-raised chickens.
Everything is free of pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers and hormones. The cows drink from the creek. Cornish chickens -- the meat chickens -- wander all over, at the feet of cows Charlie and Lucy, whom Mike hopes to turn into a milking cow soon, and into the Brauchers' front yard. They eat chemical-free grass and bugs and a feed mixture of organic oats, alfalfa, barley, wheat, corn and minerals. And they just hang out, sort of like stray cats.
Mike and his wife, Colleen, built the farm from scratch 10 years ago, after both had decided they wanted a better life, one that could feed them and others. "It's something I wanted to do my whole life," Mike says, surveying the pasture from the top of a steep hill. The cows are dwarfed, like figurines. "I used to like the way plowed land looked," he says. "And now it just looks like it hurts, like it's an open wound. ... But this, I could stand here all day and look at this."
To be sure, the farm is tiny compared with conventional farms. Last year the Brauchers produced about 40 steers, 90 lambs, 2,500 chickens and 500 layers of eggs -- or about two baskets every day. But from these 30 acres, it seems huge and overwhelming. And for the Brauchers, it sort of is.
Both Mike and Colleen still work full-time jobs to make ends meet. Mike is a structural engineer for a design company in Northfield, and Colleen is an administrative assistant at an elementary school. That means they both wake up before 5 a.m. every day, work on the farm with help from their son and daughter-in-law, go to their jobs and then come home and work on the farm until 10 p.m. But Mike says he wouldn't trade it for the world.
"I love this," he says. "I really believe in this. And I really think I can make a living doing just this. I think things are changing. I really do think [organic farming] is going to work, for everyone."
- Where to find it: The Brauchers have CSA (community supported agriculture) options for all of their goods (www.sunshineharvestfarm.com). They also sell at the Mill City Farmers Market every Saturday. Spoonriver and Cafe Brenda have occasional specials using the Brauchers' raved-about pasture-raised meats.
Good for ewe
Shepherd's Way Farms, Northfield, Minn
There's an old saying that goes, "You've never had cheese 'til you've been shown the Shepherd's Way." OK, it's a brand-new saying, made up just right now, but it's 100 percent true. Artisan cheesemakers Jodi Olhslen Read and her husband, Steven Read, turn grass-fed sheep's milk into a buttery, creamy art form -- a bleu so perfect and tangy it turns even bleu bashers into true believers. And like many local, all-natural farms, the idea was born out of a need to live a life that combines respect for the environment, animals and the local community.
In 1994, the Reads were living outside of Chaska, working in the Twin Cities, commuting more than an hour each way. Both were involved in health and environmental issues, Jodi as a journalist for an environmental publication and Steven in the agriculture department at the University of Minnesota. One day, Steven came home and popped the question. "He said, 'What do you think about milking sheep?'" Jodi remembers. "I said, 'Why not?' The next week we had 40 sheep."
Since then the couple have worked on its Northfield farm nearly every day from 4:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., milking, testing, ripening, washing, cutting and packaging. It's paid off: They've won numerous awards for their finely crafted signature cheese, Friesago, as well as their Big Woods Blue, the creamy Shepherd's Hope (a delicious garlic and herb cheese) and many more specialty blends.
The family had a serious setback in 2005 when an arson fire destroyed 500 sheep and lambs and all of their livestock housing. They've had to slowly rebuild, relying on help from the community, family and friends. Today they have about 300 ewes and hope to resume the milking operation by next year. For now, they purchase grass-fed sheep's milk from local farmers.
"We weren't quitting," Jodi says. "We had a whole day of talking about [the fire], and we spent the whole day going through what's important to us, what do we want to do, what do we need. And I think we both recommitted more strongly than we had before. And that fed the perseverance. We wanted to see this through. It's how you live."
- Where to find it: Shepherd's Way is available at natural-foods co-ops such as the Wedge and Seward Co-op, as well as at Lunds and Byerly's. It's also available every Saturday at the Mill City Farmers Market and occasionally at local restaurants Lucia's, Sapor Cafe, Heartland, the Birchwood Cafe, Barbette and the Happy Gnome.
Crop art
Gardens of Eagan, Farmington, Minn
Linda Halley was a teacher for 10 years before she decided to go back to her roots. Halley had grown up on a farm in Wisconsin. She sold sweet corn by the road. So when an opportunity came in 1989 to learn about organic farming -- something unheard of at her family's farm -- she left her job, moved back to the Midwest and began working with a farmer, whom she would later marry, to learn how to produce something she had only known how to do relying on unnatural chemicals.
"Organic farming really relies on soil," Halley says. "We're farming soil, micronutrients and microbes. Organic food in general is more nutritious than conventionally grown products on average. And that is simply because the soil that organic produce is grown in is taken care of for organic life."
Now farm manager at Gardens of Eagan, one of the first organic produce farms in the Midwest, Halley has returned full circle to her teaching roots, educating the public and local schools about the benefits of organic farming. "To farm organically is much broader than growing a crop," she says. "We're looking at a broad ecosystem: the songbirds, the bugs, the water. We're looking at crop rotation to feed the soil and borders that provide habitat. It's healthier for the environment, the farmers and the end user."
On average, Gardens of Eagan ships about 12 palettes of fresh produce every week to Minnesota stores, and each palette weighs about 1,000 pounds. During peak season, which is now, they ship double that. Halley runs the farm with about five other workers during the spring, and 15 or so during peak season.
In a way, the farm staff has created an organic, life-sustaining system of its very own: "We try to let everyone go home by 5 o'clock," Halley says. "And we try to hire enough people so they can have life outside of their farm work. We have learned that you can hire more people, and more people are happy at the end of the day."
- Where to find it: Look for Gardens of Eagan's in-season produce such as basil, broccoli, cabbage, kale and cucumbers (and in the next week or two, watermelon and sweet corn) at Byerly's and Lunds, co-ops and on Saturdays at the Mill City Farmers Market.
