Ingredients
Preparation
Combine ingredients. Drop spoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. If desired, place half a walnut or pecan in the center of each. Bake at 375 degrees F for 10 to 12 minutes.
Makes 3 dozen.
Cookie and brownie mixes probably rank at the top of the convenience-food favorites list. A typical package at the store, which yields about a dozen brownies, costs about $2.80. The following mix costs about $2.06 and makes enough for two batches of one dozen brownies or six dozen cookies.
Ingredients
Preparation
Place dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Cut in shortening with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Store in an airtight container in a cool, dry place.
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Ingredients
Preparation
Mix first three ingredients to form smooth batter; add nuts if desired. Spread in greased 9-inch square pan and bake at 350 degrees F for 30 to 35 minutes, or until toothpick inserted off
center comes out clean.
Makes 1 dozen.
It’s getting cold here in Minnesota, and that means it’s time to put away some of the motorized tools for the yard and farm.
If you’re like me, it’s awfully easy to push or carry them into a corner of the shed and forget about them until spring.
While it may be easy, it’s not smart. It doesn’t take much to winterize now so we don’t have to spend the best part of a day next spring getting them cleaned up and running.
The first step in any maintenance should be to make note of any spot where oil appears to be leaking. Then clear away dirt, grease or debris before working on fluids or filters. Debris and dirt are also a likely place for moisture to collect and cause corrosion over winter.
Sharpen blades and knives that have dulled over the past season. A few minutes with a file or grinding wheel will save lots of time in the spring. If the blade is too pitted or worn to renew, replace it now.
Give the engine a break. At the very least, siphon out excess fuel and run the tank dry before storing. Better yet is to change the oil and add a stabilizer like Sea Foam to it and the fuel tank if you intend to leave old fuel in the tank over winter.
Best of all is to add it to the fuel tank and oil as directed. Then start the engine and run it until it is out of fuel. As it burns, it cleans engine components, leaving them in good shape for the winter ahead.
Lubricate chains and grease joints and bearings and replace or clean air, fuel and oil filters. It’s easy to forget them, but clean filters protect the motor and maximize efficient operation. A few dollars spent replacing a filter now beats hundreds to replace a motor later.
Finally, before you walk away, jot down what you did and when in a notebook. Place the notebook where you can find it next spring. If there is a problem when you go to start the motor, you’ll know where to begin troubleshooting. More likely, there won’t be a problem, but there will be a lot of satisfaction, thanks to time well spent now.
 Twenty-nine grants distributed throughout the U.S. will be used to help train and educate beginning farmers. |
The USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture will award more than $17 million in grants to 29 institutions in 2009 to address the needs of beginning farmers and ranchers and enhance the sustainability and competitiveness of U.S. agriculture.
“Beginning farmers and ranchers face unique challenges and need educational and training programs to enhance their profitability and long-term sustainability,” said agriculture deputy secretary Kathleen Merrigan during the Nov. 3, 2009, announcement. “The training and education provided through these grants will help ensure the success of the next generation of farmers and ranchers as they work to feed people in their local communities and throughout the world.”
Merrigan announced the funding in Elgin, Minn., at Hidden Stream Farm and was joined by representatives from the Land Stewardship Project, a local grant recipient that provides local and regional training, education, outreach and technical assistance initiatives that address the needs of beginning farmers and ranchers. Eric and Lisa Klein, the proprietors of Hidden Stream Farm, were some of the first graduates of the Land Stewardship Project’s Farm Beginnings course. Since graduating from Farm Beginnings, the Kleins have developed a thriving pasture-based livestock operation that markets pork, chickens and beef in southeastern Minnesota and the Twin Cities.
The grants will be awarded through NIFA’s Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program. BFRDP is an education, training, technical assistance and outreach program designed to help U.S. farmers and ranchers, specifically those who have been farming or ranching for 10 years or fewer.
Congress authorized the 2009 funding for the program in the 2008 Farm Bill, with an additional $19 million in mandatory funding for 2010. Under the program, USDA will make grants to organizations that will implement programs to help beginning farmers and ranchers.
The grants are also part of USDA’s “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” initiative, which was launched in September 2009 to emphasize the need for a fundamental and critical reconnection between producers and consumers. The initiative focuses on major agricultural topics such as supporting local farmers and community food groups, strengthening rural communities, enhancing direct marketing and farmers’ promotion programs, promoting healthy eating, protecting natural resources, and helping schools connect with locally grown foods.
Beginning farmers and ranchers interested in participating in any of the education, outreach, mentoring or internship activities are asked to contact the following 2009 grantee institutions:
 Photo by Sue Weaver Don’t we make a handsome bridal couple? |
I’m a big guy now and very manly—just ask Bella, the beautiful Nubian who came to visit last week. I helped her make babies! Here is the portrait Mom shot of us together before Bella went home.
Today mom looked at the sore where I’ve peed on my nose so much the hair came off. She said, “Martok, you were such an adorable kid; how did you grow up to be you?”
I think that’s called a hypothetical question.
But it made me stop and think about being a kid, back to the night I was born. That was pretty scary—my sisters and I almost died!
Dad taught me to compute when I was four days old, that’s why Uzzi and I are so good at Googling things. |
My first human mom was Emily Dixon of Ozark Jewels. She’s a very conscientious breeder and she loves us goats really much, but a weird thing happened that night.
Emily set her alarm to check my mom in the night but she somehow turned it off in her sleep.
It was 5:30 a.m. when Emily woke up. It was March 4, super-cold and icy, and my mom had never had kids before. Emily grabbed a flashlight and raced to the does’ pen. Duke, the livestock guardian dog, dashed out of the farthest shed when he heard her coming.
Emily found my mom in another shed. She’d given birth and we weren’t there! Emily raced from shed to shed and found us in the one Duke had been guarding. We were dog-slobbery and nearly frozen, but alive!
Uzzi and I were buddies right from the start. He was bigger than me, but I caught up! |
Emily rushed us to the house and placed two of us by the woodstove but my other sister was more dead than alive, so Emily held her in warm water until she thawed out and then tube-fed her warm colostrum. Finally my sister was okay.
My present mom wanted a buckling to raise with Uzzi (he was a month old and came from Emily’s too), so two days later, Emily called Mom to come get me to be Uzzi’s pal. Mom named me after a Klingon warrior: Ozark Jewels General Martok so I’d grow big and strong. And I did!
And my sister, the cold one who almost died? She had triplets on our birthday this year and one of them is Edmund! He’s Mopple the sheep-geep’s buddy, just like Uzzi is my own best friend.
And that’s how I came to be me.
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Computer guru and philanthropist Bill Gates is taking his entrepreneurial spirit to the agriculture scene to help fight world hunger. According to the Microsoft founder, reducing hunger and poverty starts with helping small farmers in developing countries.
Gates announced at the World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa, that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will provide $120 million through nine grants that will focus on improving agricultural methods and increasing agricultural knowledge in Africa.
According to the World Bank, the 750 million small farmers in developing countries face challenging conditions, including depleted soils, pests, drought, diseases and lack of water. Many of the grants will help combat these problems. In Sub-Saharan Africa, two-thirds of the population work in agriculture with only about 4 percent of federal budgets allocated to that industry, according to Gates Foundation research.
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa has already received significant aid from the Gates Foundation through grants to support its Soil Health and Africa’s Seed Systems programs. In its most recent reward, AGRA will focus on creating policies to support farmers in different agricultural arenas, including seeds, soil health and environmental sustainability.
“Many of [Africa’s] parliaments do not have the capacity to effectively advocate for critical public investments in African agriculture,” said Akin Adesina, AGRA’s vice president for policy and partnerships. “There is a lack of evidence on which to base policy and a shortage of highly trained African policy experts.”
He said AGRA will facilitate the establishment of policy hubs at leading think tanks and government agencies. In these hubs, the organization will work with the various African governments to in develop sound policies to support small farmers and sustainable agricultural development.
“As smallholder farmers prosper, their farms will become self-sustaining engines of economic growth that can end widespread hunger and poverty,” Adesina said.
Other grants will be used for improving agricultural methods.
The International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics, which has worked for 25 years in Africa, is using its $18 million grant to increase the production of sorghum, pearl millet and finger millet—three cereals commonly consumed in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The crops are used to make flatbread and porridge, health food for pregnant and nursing women, and grain in alcohol, said William Dar, director general for ICRISAT. The stalks and leaves of the plants are also used as livestock fodder.
“By working on these crops, ICRISAT hopes to touch at the very heart of semi-arid tropical food sources of both humans and livestock,” he said.
The organization has been working to develop varieties of the crops that are resistant to pests, disease and drought.
“ICRISAT developed maturing varieties that escaped terminal drought and varieties that needed shorter growing periods thus giving farmers a chance to increase the number of harvests per year,” Dar said.
Other organizations will use the grants to increase other crops’ yields. The International Potato Center is using its $21 million to develop stress-tolerant sweet potatoes, with the intention of distributing the new varieties to up to one million families in the next five years. In The Netherlands, Wageningen University aims to use its $19 million to help 225,000 farmers in seven African countries increase legume productivity by improving soil’s nitrogen fixation.
Food security has been a major concern among international leaders. With a recent $22 million pledge from the G20 group, a focus is shifting toward supporting small farmers. Gates encourages these world players involved in eliminating world hunger to draw inspiration from the Green Revolution—the agricultural transformation in Latin America and Asia in the 1960s to the 1980s—but also warns them against repeating mistakes such as the overuse of fertilizer and irrigation.
“The next Green Revolution has to be greener than the first,” Gates said. “It must be guided by small farmers, adapted to local circumstances, and sustainable for the economy and the environment.”
The Gates Foundation took its first steps in agricultural development in 2006 when it established the Global Development Program, aimed at eliminating poverty in developing countries. Its mission is to help 150 million farming families by 2025, and it has provided $1.4 billion to support agricultural development thus far.
 Photo by Rick Gush |
As far as I can see, the two countries in the world that grow the most chrysanthemums are Japan and Italy.
Japan grows some spectacular mums, and my favorites are the cascading plants that can hang down 30 feet or more. Pretty amazing when one realizes that the plants are cut back to stubs every year and must grow all that length every year.
These big chrysanthemum waterfalls are amazing and have so many flowers that the green parts of the plants are all hidden.
Italy grows a whole lot of chrysanthemums too; both potted greenhouse varieties and long stemmed cutting garden types. Many of the millions of vegetable gardens in Italy will include a row of cutting chrysanthemums that get harvested at the end of October.
But while Japan and every other temperate climate country grows mums for decoration, Italian gardeners and nurseries grow chrysanthemums almost exclusively for placing in the cemeteries. Lots of countries (France, Poland, China, Japan) use white mums for funerals and grave decorations, but other colors are freely used as decorative garden plants.
Almost nobody here in Italy grows chrysanthemums to decorate their gardens because this flower is used in Italy just for honoring dead relatives. I was going to plant some mums to decorate the vegetable garden, but my wife nixed the idea.
November 2 is the Day of the Dead in Italy, and for the few days preceding this event, everybody goes to the cemeteries to clean up the graves of their loved ones and place flowers on the graves.
 Photo by Rick Gush |
Chrysanthemums are the overwhelming favorites for cemetery use, but lots of other flowers are used as well. My wife and I went to the cemetery on Saturday to take care of her father’s grave and we also visited two other local cemeteries because I like looking at the impressive floral displays at this time of year.
There are more than just chrysanthemums in the cemeteries, and I saw a fair number of anthuriums, some roses and even a fair number of orchids. The city plants chrysanthemums in some of the civic parks in late October but then they replace the mums with other flowers in the second week of November.
All the nurseries, grocery stores and florists do a big business in this period, and I counted seventeen different types and colors of chrysanthemums at the nursery nearest my home.
The cemeteries here are different than those I saw in the states. Instead of lawns, the cemeteries usually have three sections: the big fancy marble family monuments where rich people put their relatives, the ground level tombstones, and the large walls filled with niches.
The general practice is that newly departed persons can be placed in the ground level tombstones area, but after twenty years the remains are transferred to one of the wall niches to make way for new residents on the ground level.
I’m nuts for mums and I’ve finally figured out my own chrysanthemum gardening strategy: Next year, I’ll grow some tall mums to take to the cemetery for the Day of the Dead.
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President Barack Obama recently signed legislation providing $350 million in aid to U.S. dairy farmers as part of the Agriculture Appropriations Bill.
“This will get money directly into the pockets of our dairy farmers,” said Congressman Steve Kagen (D-Wis.), one of the bill’s sponsors. “Many of our farms are family-owned small businesses. This will help these families during these uncertain economic times.”
All dairy farmers, including those from small dairy farms, who market their milk products to the USDA’s Farm Service Agency are eligible to receive assistance from $290 million of direct funding, said Jonathan Groveman, spokesperson for the FSA. However, the FSA and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack are still working on the procedure for the dispersal of funds.
“No matter how the secretary decides to use the funds, there is no way this could hurt small farmers,” said Jackie Klippenstein, vice president of industry and legal affairs for the Dairy Farmers of America. “The question is, ‘Will it be enough to keep some of them in operation?’”
According to Klippenstein, senators Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), sponsors of the bill, had three stipulations for how the funding would be distributed to dairy farmers: It must go to actual dairy farmers, it must be dispersed as quickly as possible, and it must not show regional favoritism. She said there is no doubt that all dairy producers will benefit from the $290 million, but the length of dispersal time will determine how the different-sized operations are affected.
The remaining $60 million not used for direct assistance will be used by the federal government to purchase cheese and dairy products from dairy farmers to reduce their surpluses.
“These purchases will increase dairy product prices, which will lead to higher milk prices, allowing farmers to sell their milk on the open market for a higher amount, equating to a higher profit margin,” Groveman said.
The dairy products will be given to food banks and nutrition programs as part of the Emergency Feeding Assistance Program, he said.
The dairy industry has been hard-hit this year as milk prices fell below production costs. Many family dairy farms across the country were forced to shut down operations. This month’s legislation follows a temporary three-month price hike in July.
 Female hobby farmers can gain valuable experience and homesteading skills by cultivating relationships with women from other generations. |
You probably put great effort and care into nurturing your garden, from seed planting to harvesting. Not a day undoubtedly goes by where you don’t in some way connect with this vital part of your farmstead life. Just as your carrots and cabbage need care, there’s another important “garden” for us farm women that needs tending: our friendships with other kindred growers.
Like our garden, our hobby farm lifestyle thrives when we plant a diversity of friendship “seeds,” cultivating relationships with women from a variety of backgrounds, ages and interests but who also share our same love for the country lifestyle. Developing friendships with women both older and younger than us lets us dig deeper than in typical companionship; they can serve as inspiring resources for improving and strengthening your farming and homesteading skills.
On one level, developing these intergenerational, female farm friendships came about easier generations ago when we lived in closer-knit communities where family members tended to live and work closer together. Both hugs and information were exchanged everywhere from the general store to church. While doing everything from putting up food for the winter to nursing babies, these informal networks of rural women supported one another in crafting healthy, vibrant farm livelihoods for generations.
“Back when I was raising my family on the farm, we didn’t have the Internet or all these new technologies to access information,” explains Joy Rohde, a senior mentor of mine ever since we purchased our Wisconsin farmstead from her and her husband, Del, more than a decade ago. “We learned a lot by example, asking our neighbors and family members for advice, from sharing recipes to gardening tips. There wasn’t any formal structure or plan behind anything, just women helping other women do what needs to get done.”
Today’s world gifts us with different challenges and opportunities when it comes to nurturing farm friendships. Many of us, like myself, came into the rural lifestyle by choice, often trading urban and suburban lifestyles and career tracks for a passion for farm life. We don’t have that instant network of other women that farm families and communities fostered for generations; we need to create our own relationships.
On the other hand, we live in an Internet-linked world today, which opens unique doors of possibility to connect with other farmwomen across the country. Our world today also presents the challenge of a time-strapped society: We’re busier than ever, juggling multiple jobs and responsibilities. As a result, nurturing new friendships can often fall low on the to-do list.
But with a dash of thought and initiative, you can develop friendships with a diverse group of rural women, adding up to a rich quality of life on multiple levels. One perspective is to nurture relationships with women from a variety of age groups, both younger and older than you. Just like the importance of planting diverse seeds in your garden, these “mentor” and “mentee” friendships stimulate our lives and add vibrancy in a variety of ways.
Find a Mentor
I re-read the “Little House on the Prairie” book series with my son Liam. Now, I can appreciate Laura Ingalls’ viewpoints from both an adult and from the perspective as a female farmer. Laura learned her homesteading skills under the loving tutelage of “Ma,” who learned from her mother and on it went. For practical reasons, generations of savvy farmwomen simply passed along their knowledge.
In contrast to generations past, you might not have a built-in family network of women wiser and older than yourself from whom to learn. Here are some tips on finding your own mentors:
Ask Questions
Sincere curiosity goes a long way in developing a friendship with a farm mentor. If you meet someone wiser and perhaps older than yourself who is chock full of the things you want to learn, take advantage of the opportunity to ask questions and pick her brain (perhaps over tea and fresh rhubarb-strawberry pie).
Remember standard etiquette when asking questions and be sensitive to this person’s time. Do your own research beforehand, tapping into any books and websites for preliminary research first. For example, asking anyone “how to start a garden” without tapping into all the abundant resources out there first is not respectful of that person’s time. A more appropriate question would be: “What do you do to deter squash bugs? I’ve tried picking them off and a soap foliar spray but nothing seems to work.”
Sometimes a potential mentor might not live in your immediate area but can still serve as an inspiring connection. When I wanted to get more active in national policy work that supports female farmers, I read about Denise O’Brien, a Midwest farmer who founded the Iowa-based Women, Food & Agriculture Network. My first step was to read anything I could about Denise on the Internet and learned a lot, including her attempt to run for Secretary of Agriculture in Iowa, a race she lost in vote count but succeeded in pioneering a trail for women in agriculture to run for elected office.
I then e-mailed Denise, explaining why she served as such a strong source of inspiration for me and asked if she would be willing to talk and answer some questions. E-mailing and asking what is a good time to call is often a good idea because we all know how busy we get on the farm. Denise warmly and enthusiastically responded to my query and has evolved to be an inspiring mentor and friend ever since.
“Mentoring and supporting other women farmers is an important priority for me,” explains O’Brien, who runs a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) on her farm, Rolling Acres, in Atlantic, Iowa. “As the number of women farmers continues to rise, those like myself who have been doing this for decades need to share our advice and experience with those new to the agricultural lifestyle.”
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