Innholdsfortegnelse for October - November 2016 i Farm and Ranch Living

FARM & RANCH LIVING was founded in 1978, and it was a groundbreaker from day one. Its success came from an interesting idea—focus less on the financial aspects of farming and ranching and more on the personal rewards for families who live on the land. Launching a business venture is tough for anyone; you have to identify just the right niche to make it work. In this issue we profile several farmers who found that sweet spot for their good ideas. Take 13-year-old Lauren Rowe of Rowe Leatherworks (page 11) for example. Lauren and her sisters use the same kind of tools their dad had as a child to make belts, coasters, and other useful items. Read about their business and you’ll agree that buying handmade leather products certainly…

As a 12-year-old girl, I never thought that I would start my own business with family members. But after Dad and I made our first belt from the leathercraft kit that he had as a child, we saw the potential for a new venture. Now, at 13, I am a belt and bracelet maker for Rowe Leatherworks, along with my sisters Jessica, 11, and Elise, 9, who make dog collars, key chains and more. This business has helped me learn time management, marketing, negotiating and crafting skills that will last for life. My sisters and I have grown closer as we work together to come up with new patterns and designs. Besides leatherworking, I like to ride horses and tend the chickens, goats, bunnies, vegetables and fruit on our 3-acre…

“For a hundred years and more, in the heat of summer and cold of winter, it has provided shelter for every manner of creature.” I can see so many things clearly from my front porch. Like the big old Black Angus bull way down there under that cottonwood tree. He’s been busy swatting flies with his tail and playing tag with the blistering sun all day. The light cuts sideways and holds on hard while that burning fireball sinks into the Pacific Ocean. The bull will rest easy soon—a rush of cool air always comes down the canyon at dusk. I can see the big cedar with the tree house that my grandson and I built years ago. I can still see us up high, pounding nails and laughing about…

The rustic white Dutch Colonial barn and farmhouse at Weston’s Antique Apple Orchards in New Berlin, Wisconsin, always caught my eye on the drive home. Dreaming of apple cobbler, I finally found time to stop by on a sunny September afternoon. Genevieve Weston greeted me. She operates the orchard along with her brother, Bill Weston. While I browsed the heirloom apples, she shared the farm’s history with me. “During the Great Depression in the 1930s, my great-grandfather William Markwardt swapped his large house in Milwaukee for this farmland. In 1935, William, my grandparents, Harvey and Alice Weston; my father, Ken; and my Aunt Genevieve moved to the farm.” At first, William raised chickens and had a foundry in the barn’s basement, but both businesses failed. So he, Harvey and Alice…

Ours is a hobby farm in the hills above the hamlet of Belvedere Marittimo, on the northern end of the Tyrrhenian coast of Calabria in southern Italy. If you think of Italy as a boot, we’re on the instep. Most of the year my husband, Ugo, and I live in a tiny garden apartment in Rome, where Ugo is chief of staff of Radiation Oncology at one of the city’s largest hospitals and I work part-time as a writer. I transfer to Belvedere from May through September, and Ugo comes by train for weekends and vacations. The rest of the year, we commute two weekends a month. I stay longer whenever harvest or construction projects demand my attention. While I was studying the Italian language in Rome, on one of…

I have always loved horses, especially quarter horses. I’ve owned a dapple named Cowgirl for about two years, but my sister and I have always had to share her. That’s OK, but sharing can get a little old after a while, especially when you want to take your ride first. So we asked our parents about getting another horse. They agreed that it might be time to start looking, but days went by without anything happening. My sister and I were starting to get anxious. Finally, Dad found a possibility. We piled into our vehicle and went to see the retired Thoroughbred gelding; he was gorgeous. But something just didn’t feel right. The next day, a quarter horse mare named Princess showed up for sale on Facebook, and Mom showed…

Before expanding into a commercial-scale, pasture-raised egg production business, my husband, Jason, and I were backyard chicken keepers. Looking back, it was an idyllic time. I was content with our five ladies scratching around the yard. Jason’s earnest attempt at urban farming provided the confidence to dream bigger. He sought after and received invaluable advice from the fine folks at Lake Superior Sustainable Farming Association, University of Minnesota-Duluth Center for Economic Development and Springfield Farm in Maryland. In 2012 we hatched Locally Laid Egg Co., envisioning farmers market-quality eggs in grocers’ dairy cases. That first year we grew from a handful of hens to about 2,500 Rhode Island Red, Red Star and Bovans Brown chickens. It wasn’t easy. We attempted during winter months to keep chickens in hoop coops modified…

After a trip to the apple orchard, try this spicy applesauce recipe that Marian Platt of Sequim, Washington, shared with our sister magazine Taste of Home. It’s featured in Most Requested Recipes 2016. For a 30-day free trial, go to tasteofhomebooks.com /FRMT. Spicy Applesauce TAKES : 55 MIN. MAKES : 12 SERVINGS 5 pounds tart apples (about 16 medium), peeled and sliced 1 cup apple juice 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 1. Combine all ingredients in a Dutch oven; bring to a boil. 2. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 25-35 minutes or until the apples are tender, stirring occasionally. 3. Remove from heat; mash apples to desired consistency.…

After 30-plus years as a transplanted city girl, I have deciphered most “farmerisms” uttered by those working the land: folks like my husband, father-in-law and our neighbors. Here I’ll explain some words and phrases encountered in conversation with farmers. First, some things have multiple names. For example, the terms chopper wagon, forage wagon and green-feed wagon are all the same thing. The difference between a hay elevator and a conveyor? Not much. A dairy animal may have calved or freshened, but either way has just given birth. And manure is the same as…you get the idea. And then there’s a whole list of terms that are often misused by non-farmers. An udder is the whole bag hanging under the cow, not each little dangly, which is called a teat. Also,…

If you’re befuddled by all the newfangled terms for eggs in the grocery store, you’re not alone. Egg production is big business, with 198 companies producing eggs with flocks of 75,000 or more hens accounting for 99 percent of all the hens in the U.S. Ninety percent of those hens live in cramped cages. Consumer sympathy led to the rise of cage-free production, and concerns over the chickens’ diet and health created a market for organic eggs. Hence the new marketing jargon. Cage-free eggs come from uncaged chickens, which make up about 5.5 percent of the total U.S. flock. However, these hens typically are still confined to a crowded warehouse. It’s a little bit like living in a casino with no natural lighting. FREE-RANGE eggs are tough to describe because…

Many farms sprout a few scarecrows in the autumn. But Remlinger Farms, located in Carnation, Washington, boasts more than 500 of these greeters at its Fall Harvest Pumpkin Festival. They beckon from the highway, welcome visitors to the farm, and point out parking as well as the farm store, restaurant and bathrooms. Scarecrows drive vintage tractors and wagons, hang by their knees from trees and operate antique trucks, plows, fire engines—even an old grindstone. Billie and Jim Nelson, with 20 years of experience, create and deploy this happy-go-lucky fall workforce. Billie took over from the original scarecrow artist in the 1990s and enlisted the help of her husband, Jim. “Jim is the artist,” says Billie, an employee at the farm for more than 30 years. “He paints all of their…

While visiting the family farm, my 16-year-old grandson Conner spied an old Allis-Chalmers D17 tractor in a jungle of weeds beside the barn. His Grandma Vicki told him that her dad, Great-Grandpa Cummings, who died in an auto accident before Conner was born, bought the used tractor—his favorite one—in 1976. Later he left an A-C tractor to each of his daughters, and Vicki got the prized D17. However, the motor seized up not long after she got it. She parked it by the barn, and there it sat, rusting and fading away. After hearing the story about how special the D17 was to his great-grandfather, Conner asked if he could restore it as a Future Farmers of America project. He had seen fellow FFA members at Wapsie Valley High School…

“Our cows weren’t show cows, so they weren’t used to being held in position for pictures.” On our family farm, we documented our cows’ markings so we could tell them apart. Our herd wasn’t registered, but we still kept track of their markings so we could identify them—in case they got sick and needed medication, for example. When the day came to draw in the markings, we’d unfold a thin metal cabinet that hung near the milk house door, draw out a sheaf of papers with preprinted blank cows on them, grab a crusty pencil and head out to the barnyard. Then we’d catch each cow and make her stand still while we sketched her markings. It was slow, tedious work, and we probably weren’t the most accurate artists. I…

We hid a drawing of a horseshoe like the one above on page 40 of the August/September issue. Then we drew 25 names at random from all the readers who found it. Each of the winners received a year’s subscription to Farm & Ranch Living. In this issue, the lucky horseshoe could be hidden anywhere, so keep a sharp eye out. If you find it, enter the contest on our website, farmandranchliving.com, or send a postcard with the page number to LUCKY HORSESHOE, FARM & RANCH LIVING, 1610 N 2ND ST STE 102, MILWAUKEE WI 53212-3906. Do not include subscription inquiries or other correspondence; this mail goes to our contest department. From those submissions, we’ll draw another 25 names and send those readers a year’s subscription or subscription extension to…