Lessons from the Past: A Trip to Slate Run Farm

Childhood memories are often fuzzy vignettes distorted by that magical quality of a child’s imagination.  Example: believing my neighbor’s sheepdog was really Barkley, the orange shaggy pet from Sesame Street. Or recalling with absolute certainty that when I was four I jumped from five steps up on the staircase onto a waiting mattress below and had actually managed to defy gravity and fly.  Looking back, I have to figure that these memories simply cannot be true.  So when I recently revisited a beloved place from my childhood while in Ohio, I was delighted to discover it is just as magical as my more easily-enchanted younger self thought it was.

A simple swing, a half dozen sets of wooden stilts, and a hoop and stick are enough to keep kids--and adults--entertained while wandering through Slate Run Farm

Slate Run Living Historical Farm, located in Canal Winchester, is modeled after an Ohio farm in the 1880’s.  While there you may see a farmer dressed in period costume plowing the fields with the assistance of a draft horse.  In the farmhouse the wood-burning stove is blazing and the women are busy canning and preserving the summer harvest.  It is a popular destination for school field trips and family outings, not only because it is full of interactive games and farm tasks, but because it inspires excitement about our agricultural heritage.  Everything on the farm is run as it would have been in the 1800’s, save for the care given to the animals who receive visits from the vet and are fed a modern and very nutritious diet.

Upon doing a bit of investigation, I discover that living historical farms can be found all around Texas, and are featured as centers of both education and recreation.  There is the Barrington Farm in Washington, Texas, where visitors are encouraged to explore and participate in many of the daily chores, such as driving oxen, planting and harvesting, and making soap.  Right here in Austin we have Pioneer Farms, where guests visit 5 different historic sites, from an 1841 Tonkawa Encampment to an 1887 Cotton Planter’s Farm.

Piglets snuggle for warmth in the hog shed

The interactive nature of these farms helps educate a generation that is oftentimes detached from agriculture and the food they eat.  It is, in a way, food transparency on a very basic level.  Living historical farms not only enlighten visitors to farming methods of the past, but for many people, introduce them to farming altogether.

Cuts of meat hang in the smokehouse

While at Slate Run Farm, my family and I take part in everything I remember from my visits as a child.  The stilts and horseshoes are still there.  We are handed a pail of eggs while walking through the farmhouse and are instructed to feed them to the pigs in the hog shed.  On the way over we visit the horses in the barn, but my brother still sneezes from the hay and has to leave the barn ahead of us.  I find him in the smokehouse, enjoying the rich smells of the cured meat.

These experiences are timeless, but not limited to historical farms.   Nearly every farmer I have met with during my time in Texas has encouraged folks to see the farm firsthand.  Many farms offer volunteer days as well, sometimes in exchange for a reduced price on produce. For both the young and the young at heart, it’s time to get out and get farming!

A hand-stitched side table cover brightens up the farmhouse decor

HausBar Farms: Imagine the Compostability!

Dorsey Barger pries the top off of a 4 foot tall waste container and steps aside.  A subtle odor carried by the pre-storm breeze slithers out and wriggles into my nasal cavities.  Decomposing meat.  Not offensive, necessarily, but instinct drives my reaction.  My smile stays obediently in place while my nostrils twitch and my insides squirm. Black wasp-like insects bat about, and wriggling larvae snuggled between feather and bone catch the light from above.  Barger grins from ear to ear. “I can’t stand to throw anything away.”

One of HausBar's two donkeys stops grazing just long enough to pose for a picture in front of the hand-dug garden beds. No gas-powered tools are used on the farm, meaning each of the 51 garden beds was dug with pitchforks and shovels.

What I’m looking at is black soldier fly compost, a method of composting that uses black solider fly larvae to breakdown matter that cannot be added to traditional compost, such as dairy and meat waste.  When a black soldier fly detects a food source, she flies to the source and lays her eggs which hatch on the food and start eating, eating, eating.  When nature tells them it is time to become flies, they crawl out of a channel that is built into the compost bin and fall down a tube.  At the end of the tube the insects are scooped up by chickens who are waiting for the tasty treat.

“It’s almost a 100% conversion of protein,” she explains.  “It’s really an amazing little life cycle.”  I am touring HausBar Farms, an eco-conscious operation owned and run by Dorsey Barger, former co-owner of Austin’s Eastside Café, along with her partner Susan Hausmann.  They supply eggs, chicken and vegetables to Austin restaurants and food artisans.  It is a relatively new addition to the Eastside, but a welcome replacement to the crack houses that only a few years ago marred the now verdant 2 acre lot.  And just as the landscape of 3300 Govalle Avenue has changed dramatically, so has the path of Barger’s life.

Laying hens, taking a midday dirt bath to get rid of mites

“When we started Eastside Café, I didn’t even know what a vegetable growing out of the ground looked like,” she claims.  Barger has clearly gone through a huge transformation in the past 20 years, from a number-crunching restaurant owner to an impassioned urban farmer with a healthy obsession with composting.  When she was put in charge of the garden behind Eastside Café in 2007, something clicked.  “As soon as that happened, I fell madly in love with gardening and chickens.”  She had 3 chickens to start with.  Within a year, that number grew to 300.  “It was just something I fell so in love with.”

But it is Barger’s passion for recycling that truly drives the way HausBar functions.  Besides the black soldier fly composting used to handle the leftovers from the chicken butchery (of which there is not much!  They use nearly every bit of the chickens–brains, eyes, gizzards, feet, etc.), the farm uses three other methods that convert would-be waste into nitrogen and vitamin rich soil.

Kale, kohlrabi, lettuce and radishes spring up in the garden beds

The first method puts the chickens, donkeys, and goat to work.   Mulch from a tree trimming company is spread out on the ground where the chickens and other animals like to peck around.  Between the scratching, eating, and pooping, the mulch is quickly turned to compost that is then put through a screener and used on the garden beds.

Crumbly worm castings assure Dorsey Barger that her soil is rich and healthy

The second method is vermicomposting, which uses worms–usually red wrigglers–to break down organic material into nutrient-rich worm castings. Barger keeps the worms and food scraps in an outdoor bin.  When the worm castings are ready for use in the gardens, she places bananas in a corner of the bin, drawing the worms to migrate to that one area and leaving the rest of the bin clear for harvest.

The last method is fairly common and requires very little to start up.  Thermophilic (heat) composting uses moisture and oxygen to fuel naturally occurring microbes that break down organic matter.  It is the biological action of the microbes consuming the waste that heats up the compost pile, and all that is required to keep this heating and decomposition going is the occasional turning of the compost as well as the introduction of water.

By utilizing all of these composting techniques, HausBar not only recycles the waste created on the farm but also organic waste from local landscaping companies.  The reuse of these materials greatly benefits the earth by diverting organic matter from landfills where it would go through anaerobic decomposition, releasing methane gas into the atmosphere.  It is also a boon to gardeners who are able to return nutrients to the soil, benefiting the health of their crops.  Barger points out one very special product of her compost operation, feather meal, which is a nitrogen-rich powder made of broken down and ground up feathers.  It can be a fairly expensive addition to gardens, but that is a non-issue at HausBar Farms where the waste-not want-not attitude prevails.  “We get our feather meal by taking our own feathers and turning them into compost.  All these little things are so exciting to us!”

Multi-colored eggs, so fresh they are still warm to the touch

Barger is in constant exploration of new and more efficient ways of running her farm.  She builds, experiments, tests, fiddles and makes things up on the spot.  One of her successful undertakings is a mobile feed house that allows chickens–and only chickens–to wander freely in and out throughout the day with constant access to their food while keeping out curious donkeys and goats.  Right now she is experimenting with ways to raise rabbits outside of a cage, a trial made difficult by predatory hawks.

A newborn rabbit, eyes still closed

After nearly two hours of guiding me through her farm, Barger says it is time to get back to work.  It takes me a moment to regain my role as interviewer, as I have gladly fallen into the part of eager student and lost all sense of time.  She extends an open invitation to return and explore further, and I gobble it up hungrily.  Dorsey Barger has led me through an inspiring and educational day, the kind of day I hope to return to over and over.

Dai Due Butcher Shop

This past week I stopped by Dai Due to talk with chef Jesse Griffiths about his seasonal and locally-sourced menu of sausages and charcuterie.  Roxanne Rathge, my fellow intern at Real Time Farms, teamed up with me as we toured the operation.  Enjoy!

“Dai due regni di natura, piglia il cibo con misura”

“From the two kingdoms of nature, choose food with care.”

Small Town, Big Harvest

A 26 foot tall gingerbread man watches over Smithville, a reminder of the record the city holds for world's largest gingerbread man

This past Thursday I drove an hour east of Austin to see what was going on outside of the city, where the highway stretches and the pecan trees climb the skies.  My destination: Smithville, Texas.  With a population that hovers around 3,800, Smithville boasts a tightly knit community.  It is the kind of place where a person can cross the tree-lined streets without checking for cars, but you can’t eat out until the Backdoor Cafe opens back up at 6 p.m. for dinner service. A sad fact, since I have to leave by 5.

It is not long after I arrive that someone calls me over and asks what they can help me with, mine being the one unfamiliar face among the half dozen people milling about and chatting.  I state my purpose, and Ed Yeisley of Diamond Y Farm gently leads me over to another stall and pronounces, “You are in luck.  This is our market manager!”

Market Manager Eileen Niswander's pecans

Eileen Niswander is not only the market manager, overseeing two (in the near future, three) markets in the Elgin/Smithville area, but she also sells pecans and pecan products from her own farm, Yegua Creek Farms.  Located in Elgin, Texas, her pecans are grown in the orchards, then sanitized, cracked and transformed into a variety of treats in the Niswander’s commercial kitchen.  The Niswanders bake 35 kinds of bread, cookies, flavored pecans and tea breads to bring to markets and festivals around Texas.  What really catches my eye are the Champagne Pecans, made with egg whites, sugar, pecans, ginger, cinnamon, salt and champagne.  It takes a strong will not to buy up the whole lot.

Eileen tells me that this market is modest in comparison to the Elgin Saturday market, which features many more of the 39 participating farms, all of whom must adhere to their strict growers-only policy.  But what this market lacks in options, it makes up for in small town charm. With each passer by, a friendly hand goes up in greeting.  There are no strangers here, and the biggest choice the market-goers must make is which friend to buy turnips from this time around.

Asparagus from Diamond Y Farm

Diamond Y Farm, one of the three farms present at the market, is the work of Ed and Charlotte Yeisley who are retired but hardly taking it easy.  Five years ago, they began selling vegetables at the River Valley Farmers Markets, and have since moved into egg production.

The Yeisley's free-range brown eggs

They are extremely proud of their brown eggs, which are some of the biggest I have seen.  The Yeisleys focus on organic and healthy practices, and as such their chickens are free-range vegetarians who have never touched antibiotics or hormones.  I look at the unblemished eggs longingly, knowing that my fridge is already full of organic eggs from Vital Farms.  It is a good predicament to find myself in. The vegetables are freshly picked and hard to walk away from as well.  Chives, radishes, green onions, turnips, asparagus.  I promise to visit the Elgin market in a few weeks to stock up.

Kathy Karisch shows off her garden harvest

The next and final vendor does not technically qualify as a farmer, although her harvest is rich.  I dub this stand Kathy and Ernest Karisch’s Backyard Farm, though it is, in reality, an extremely fruitful garden.  Like the Yeisleys, the Karischs are retired but working hard to bring Smithville and Elgin residents healthy and fresh vegetables.  From sweet and juicy oranges to hearty collard greens, the Karisch’s yield does not necessarily look like the work of a backyard operation.

I am reluctant to say goodbye and move on from Smithville, but with only three farm stands to visit at this market, my work is quickly done.  After a brief stroll down Main Street and a look through the Railroad Museum, I wave goodbye to the Yeisleys who pass by in their truck and I head back to Austin just as the sun begins to set.

Will Work for Food

It is cheaper to shop at big chain grocery stores.  That is a hard fact to ignore when budgets are tight and every dollar needs to be accounted for.  I get that.  When I hear there are 3/$1 avocados at the Fiesta Mart, I get my shopping bags out and bolt right over.  But I feel guilty every time I give in to that weakness.

Colorful beets from Johnson's Backyard Garden

I am not saying that people should feel guilty about where they shop or what kind of food purchases they make.  The last thing I want to do is preach–it is condescending, ineffective and does not account for all of the factors involved in the way a household is run.  It is simply that I care about growing practices and have put in the time to understand why it matters to me.  I have read too many Michael Pollan books, seen too many food and agriculture documentaries, and volunteered on too many farms to ignore the fact that being able to trace where my food comes from is a valuable tool, for my health and for the health of the land and animals that are involved in our food system.

So every time I buy a nameless tomato in the dead of winter, I feel a twinge of anxiety because my best guess is that the tomato I select is grown using chemical fertilizers that are bad for me and bad for the soil.  And it is probably shipped a long distance to get to the grocery store, leaving a nasty carbon footprint that I can’t rationalize.

Freshly picked tomatoes from Wild River Farm

For this reason, I try to eat seasonal and local vegetables, getting back to the original problem.  It can be pricey to buy recently picked organic produce, and for good reason.  Simply put, small farms practicing sustainable and organic agriculture are given very few breaks by the government, and work on very tight budgets to bring healthy produce to their local and regional communities.  They do not necessarily have the production capability that brings in fast, big money.

But take this fun fact into account: according to a 1997 Bureau of Labor Statistics study, the average family in 1901 spent nearly half of their budget on food.  These days, the average percentage of income spent on food is just over 13%.  Our priorities have clearly shifted since 1901, but I venture to say that it is time to shift things once again.  That tomato I bought at the chain grocery store may have been marginally cheaper than the tomato at my local farmers market, but I have to eat more of those conventionally grown tomatoes to get the same amount of nutrients in just one locally grown tomato.  That is because conventional farming practices deplete the soil of nutrients that would, and should, go into my tomato.  And I need my nutrients!

My point is that I found a loop hole here in Austin.  It turns out that I can directly exchange a few hours of labor for that delicious, fresh, local produce I so deeply long to get my hands on.  Every Tuesday through Friday from 8 am to 1 pm at Johnson’s Backyard Garden, volunteers are invited to get their hands dirty for a week’s share of produce.

Broccoli gets bagged and weighed by another volunteer

This past Friday I took advantage of this amazing deal, and along with a friend, trekked over to east Austin in the mist of a chilly winter morning.  There are a lot of things going on at JBG, and a lot of people involved in making thing run smoothly.  When we arrive, the two of us are led to a table ladened with scales and enormous bags of lettuce and instructed to sort out 1/2 lb bags of mixed greens.  As the minutes pass, we are joined by three more volunteers and light and cheerful conversation is exchanged.

1/2 lb bags of mixed greens, ready to be divvied up into CSA shares

We spend the morning bagging and weighing produce for CSA shares, lining the sorted vegetables onto a long series of wooden shelves.  Toward the end of the day we create an assembly line to fill the 100 or so boxes that will be distributed to CSA members throughout Austin.  While we fill the boxes with grapefruit, carrots, kale, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli and beets, each of us remarks on how excited we are to take these beautiful goods home, and the recipe sharing begins.  When we head out at 1, each volunteer with a heavy bag of organic vegetables, there is a sense of extreme satisfaction with the way the morning was spent.

While work share programs may not exist in every town, I already know of two here in Austin and I can only imagine that with a little digging around similar opportunities can be found elsewhere.  If nothing else, you can always contact local farms and offer to exchange volunteer hours for a reduced price on their produce.

My friend and fellow volunteer, Claire Epstein, helps sort and bag spinach

Tomorrow I will be cooking up swiss chard and kale from the Johnson’s CSA to share with my fellow interns, content with the fact that my time was so fruitful.  I urge you to check out their website and get involved as well!