North Star Homestead Farms, LLC

You can sing praises to the barn cats that catch their weight in small vermin or that sit quivering in eager anticipation as the cow is being milked—hoping for a squirt of warm creaminess aimed their way.  You can compliment the watchful (if noisome) guinea fowl that patrol the edge of the barnyard, praying on ticks.  Or you can enjoy the simple pleasures of watching the pigs root up next year’s garden patch for you, weeding as they go.  But a farm is just not fully a farm without its ever-true farm dog.

There is a black-and-white photograph of our homestead’s original farm dog (or at least the one everybody remembers), back in the days when the Fullingtons were still carving the fields out of the forest.  King was a large, wooly beast of a dog that knew every inch of the territory and loved his people dearly.  That parka of a coat kept King warm even in the harshest of winters, when a week would go by with temperatures hovering around 50 below, when the wind blew driving ice from the north and the snow piled up higher than cars.  Even in weather like this, the cows still have to be milked and the horses fed and watered.

When we moved to the farm, admittedly our first dog was (and still is) not of the typical farm stock.  This is because we brought our little Bichon Frise named Sophie with us from our condominium in Madison, where dog sizes had been restricted.  But despite her diminutive size and white, curly coat, Sophie has been determined to live up to farm standards, even if this proves demanding at times.  She takes watching for visitors very seriously, falls nose-over-tail in love with the lambs each spring, and is always there to comfort anyone who is feeling under the weather or injured—including the five little orphaned piglets living in our walk-out basement right now.  Everyone needs love, and that is Sophie’s specialty.

Still, there are just some tasks that are too big for a Bichon, however ambitious.  As Kara’s flock of sheep continued to grow, it became apparent that having an extra set of hands—or paws—would be a great asset.  Farm dogs come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and types, so finding just the right match for our farm became an adventure all of its own.  Border Collies are, or course, the most common choice for moving and managing sheep, but these black-and-white workaholics flourish best out in the open range or in the show-ring.  For them, some of the day-to-day of farm life can grow boring, resulting in unappreciated behaviors as the dogs try to occupy their busy minds and bodies.

There are other kinds of shepherding dogs, however, including the Australian Shepherd, which is taller, stocking, woollier (perhaps King was an Ausie) and originally bred to work cattle.  But what caught Kara’s fancy the most was an even older and rarer breed known as the English Shepherd.  While these multi-purpose dogs were once the breed of choice on farms across America, their popularity died away as more specialized dogs became common.  English Shepherds herd well, control vermin, guard (at least to some degree) and have an uncanny knowledge of where each group of livestock should be at any given time.  There are stories of English Shepherds discovering that their flock or herd has found a break in the fence-line.  After herding all the animals back through the hole, the dog will sit there, maintaining order, until the farmer comes to fix the fence.  Keeping the routine and everything orderly is their mission.

Today, most English Shepherds find occupations on cattle farms.  Breeders are very protective of their puppies and make certain that they are placed on working farms, where they will be able to apply themselves in the environment they were meant to inhabit, instead of cooped up in apartments.  Kara had to complete a rigorous paperwork and interview process in order to bring home our little English Shepherd, picked especially for us because of her petite size and soft mouth—traits deemed better for managing sheep than cattle.  In fact, she was so much smaller than her boisterous littermates that the breeder’s daughter named her Thumbelina.

Now, when you’re trying to snag the attention of our working farm dog across the expanse of the pasture, hollering “Thumbelina!” is not the most efficient.  That and shortening the name to Thumba projects poorly and sounds a bit like “come,” so we opted for calling her Lena.  A tri-color (black, white, and brown), Lena is sleek, fast, and eager to please.  As she matured, Lena delighted in learning her duties alongside us, which she deemed to also include picking raspberries and digging potatoes (claws and teeth work just find when you aren’t equipped with hands), as well as following the sheep back to the barn and hunting voles in the garden.

Lena’s propensity for maintaining order and organization on the farm manifests in frantic barking when a pig gets loose (those pigs still do not know how to be herded, despite valiant canine efforts), bumping the meat chickens with her nose when they fail to walk briskly as we move the chicken tractors, and a particular incident last autumn with turkeys.  Now, to Lena, it seems that a turkey is a turkey is a turkey.  We were relaxing in our living room, which overlooks the garden and parts of the barnyard.  At that time of year, my heritage turkeys live in a coop to the west, where they have their own run (yard) to stretch their legs and catch bugs amongst the grass.  But with the series of mild winters the area has been experiencing, wild turkeys have become more common to sight pecking along roadways and trundling through the edge of the woods.  On this day, a group of about five were trotting down our lane.

At the sight of movement, Lena perked up, began quivering, then commenced barking and jumping up and down.

“Lena!” I chided.  “Those are wild turkeys.  They’re not hurting anybody.”

But that didn’t matter.  Turkeys are turkeys are turkeys, and they go in the coop to the west, not out by the garden!  Lena barked some more, franticly pacing from window to glass door.  Wild or not, turkeys needed to go IN THE COOP, and this crew was headed the WRONG WAY!  Oh my goodness, was it a commotion…until finally those silly turkeys disappeared amidst the trees to the east.

That evening, during chores, Lena still had to check the spot where she had seen them and check the Jersey Buffs back at the coop to make certain that everyone was still in their proper place.  It did not matter that the domestic turkeys were cinnamon colored, while the wild ones were almost black—turkeys had to stay where turkeys were supposed to be!

Yet above all the animals in her care, Lena loves her people.  Once we opened Farmstead Creamery & Café, Lena accepted this space as her territory as well.  While she cannot come inside, Lena is happy to relax by the porch, watching our celebrity chickens Wooster and Clementine and enjoying the curious children (and adults) who come to pet her.  She also takes it as her special duty to announce the arrival of each morning’s first clients and keep track of all the comings and goings.

From companion to watch dog, from herder to greeter, Lena is part of a lineage of forever true farm dogs that shows just how special the human-animal working relationship can be.  Maybe you’ve already met Lena or have your own special memories of farm dogs past and present, but she’ll probably announce your arrival or give you a tail-swirling escort if we see you down at the farm sometime.

Laura Berlage is a co-owner of North Star Homestead Farms, LLC and Farmstead Creamery & Café.  northstarhomestead.com

You may have seen them in Iowa.  You may have seen them out on the prairie.  And if you make it down to the farm, you’ll see them right here in Sawyer County!  These precision-painted pieces adorning agricultural structures are known as “barn quilts,” and they are growing in popularity—both for the farmers who own the structures and for the public who travels to see them.

Often when we think of quilts, what comes to mind are intricately patterned fabrics lovingly stitched in geometric designs on Grandmother’s bed.  Every piece tells a story and ever stitch is filled with time, care, and love.  Barn quilts also require a fine sense of detail and historicity, but the mediums are different—plywood and paint instead of fabric and thread.  But just as comforting quilts have a rich past, so too does the barn quilt.

The first use of barn quilts dates approximately 300 years ago in Pennsylvania amidst Dutch settlements.  At this time, paint was expensive, so barns typically went unpainted—weathering to a natural gray.  Artistic inclinations have a way of sprouting forth despite all obstacles, and color found a way to distinguish barns by the addition of painted quilt squares in prominent locations on the barn’s exterior.  One of the definitions of art is “to make special,” and barn quilts served exactly that purpose during these colonial years.  Their popularity made it customary to give directions by using the names of the quilt squares on individual barns.  

“Once you reach snail’s trail, keep to the right until you see the drunkard’s path.  Then you’ll have reached the Mason farm.”

Like Old Time fiddle tunes, each quilt block has a unique name that refers to its history, creation, or the imaginative nature of its initial maker.  And, not unlike fiddle tunes, while many blocks may appear similar to the casual eye, careful study will show interesting variations and new twists on basic shapes like triangles, rectangles, and squares.  The patterns used in quilting are inseparable from the physics of piecing bits of fabric together to form a coherent whole that still lays flat when finished, and barn quilt patterns keep to these traditional boundaries, including using established block names.

My Aunt Jana (who grew up on the prairie in Nebraska) has a particular fondness for barn quilts—emailing me pictures of her latest finds.  And when, as an inter-generational family project, we decided to create our own barn quilt, it was the name that inspired the final pattern choice.  Since 1968, when my grandparents purchased the homestead from the Fullington family, this place has always been called “North Star,” which influenced the farm’s official name as North Star Homestead.  When Jana discovered that there was a North Star quilt block, it seemed like a perfect fit.

The North Star block has a significant history shrouded in a lingering sense of mystery.  Before the Civil War decided America’s official opinion on the issue of slavery, tens if not hundreds of thousands of African Americans were ushered to freedom in the northern states and Canada by way of the Underground Railroad.  This was not a real railroad with steam engines or tracks, but a path taken by night with “Safe Houses” along the way to hide the fugitives on their treacherous journey north.  A complex and extremely secret code system for helping slaves escape included the use of quilts.  A widely recognized theory tells that women would hang a quilt bearing the North Star block on the front porch to help the runaways know that they had reached a Safe House.

The age of the Underground Railroad came at about the same time that paint became cheap, and barns were seldom left to weather into silvery gray anymore.  A particular shade of red, as well as a crisp white, happened to be the most economical, and they subsequently coated many a barn across the country.  With the coming of cheap paints and the rise of the advertising industry, it became popular among some farmers to sport advertisements (in exchange for monetary compensation) on the sides of their painted barns, rather than the antiquated barn quilts.

But just as fashions have their cycles, so too did the beautiful barn quilts.  But this time, instead of originating in New England, the resurgence of barn quilts came from the American Heartland—the Great Planes states, Iowa, and other parts of the Midwest.  Many counties in Wisconsin now have maps for taking barn quilt tours, and new barn quilts can be seen on our rolling country lanes every year.  While the early pieces distinguished families making a new start in a New World, today’s quilts honor the efforts of women in agriculture throughout history as well as today.  Grandmother’s quilts may have worn to tatters, but the memory of her loving hands endures.

Painting a barn quilt is a unique challenge.  These pieces are quite large—typically eight feet square.  Lines must be very straight and precise, the pattern well proportioned and bold, and completion requires many coats of paint to achieve a rich and solid saturation of color.  The next major challenge is getting this large piece up onto the face of the barn.  Often, this is done with the assistance of a cherry picker, but when our North Star block was ready for hanging, we were not so lucky as to have such a machine handy.  Instead, our friend and contractor Jon Sorensen erected scaffolding in front of the barn, fastened a pulley just below the roof, and screwed metal straps to the top of the barn quilt.  A sturdy rope was tied to the quilt, threaded up through the pulley, and then affixed to the back of our trusty farm ATV.  It was precarious and nerve-wracking, especially with all those tedious coats of paint at risk of being scuffed, but we were ready.

Jon, his son Kyle, and my sister Kara supported the quilt between the barn and the scaffolding and gave my mother and me the “all clear.”  We inched the ATV forward a little…then a little more…then a little bit more…as we watched the quilt ease its way up and up and up.  Kyle and Kara crawled like squirrels amidst the scaffolding, and Jon was ready with his power drill to secure the barn quilt in place once we reached the top.  Everyone breathed deeply and shook their hands free of tension after all was safe.

The quilt changed our historic 1919 barn completely.  For several weeks after the barn quilt’s installation, it would catch my eye during chores, like when a lady dramatically changes her hair color.  I love to watch the morning sun glisten off the dew on the barn quilt’s face or the mid-day shadows shift like a sun dial over its points, cast from the peak in the barn roof.  Our many farm visitors love seeing the barn quilt and learning about its story, meaning, and creation.

When we built Farmstead Creamery & Café, styled after the silhouette and flavor of our barn, we knew that there would have to be another barn quilt—this time a three-quarter sized version.  It was mid-winter when we painted the piece, so it was much too cold to paint outside or in the barn.  I was holding a brush for some final touchups in the farmhouse dining room when Grandpa called.

“What’s going on up there at the farm?”

“Well, right now I’m painting the barn quilt.”

“That’s great, where are you painting?”

Long pause.

“Well, do you really want to know…” I finally asked.

Another long pause.

“Maybe some things are better just left unsaid,” he replied

We both laughed.

“Just tell Grandma that there are lots of sheets and blankets everywhere.”

Did I mention something about art springing forth despite adversity?  This week, as you drive some meandering country lanes, watch for barn quilts, learn their stories, and enjoy this bit of farming heritage.  See you down at the farm sometime.

Laura Berlage is a co-owner of North Star Homestead Farms, LLC and Farmstead Creamery & Café.  northstarhomestead.com

Living in the Northwoods within the boundaries of the Chequamegon National Forest offers glimpses of a plethora of wild fauna.  From the elegant sandhill cranes that nest in our fields to the portly beaver trying to dam up the creek, from the tiniest ruby-throated hummingbird to the specked white-tailed fawn, wildlife abounds.  But there are certain types of wildlife that can make a farmer nervous, including foxes, coyotes, wolves, bears, cougars, and other roaming creatures that would be happy to have lamb-on-the-hoof for dinner.

Now, I enjoy all the types of wildlife and don’t mind having wolves in the woods…they can have all the cotton-tail rabbits they want!  But I’m not in the business of raising their dinners for them.  Sorry folks, lamb is not on the menu for the wild canines tonight.  So, the question then is how to create boundaries that are humane for both domestic and wild animals yet keep the sheep safe from predation.

We do, of course, have a rigorous system of electric fences, with high tensile perimeters and Electronet mesh fences for individual, movable paddocks for rotational grazing.  But having a second line of defense is always the best strategy.

There are many traditional methods for protecting sheep in the pasture.  An integral part of the nomadic, pastoral lifestyle was to keep personal watch over the sheep, with a wooden flute to pass the time and a herding dog for company.  While this does sound rather relaxing, I’m afraid that the demands of keeping the farm and the new Creamery & Café running leave little room for lounging with the sheep all day. 

If a human is not available for guarding, then there are a variety of animals that can be of service to the flock.  A favored choice is guard dogs, especially the Great Pyrenees, with its thick, white, mop-like coat.  These hip-high dogs live with the flock full-time and look remarkably like the sheep themselves!  But, when defending against wolves, more than one dog is required.  Wolves are wily enough to send a scout at one end of the field to distract the guard dog, while the other members of the pack attack the sheep from the opposite side.  At least three, if not more, guard dogs must be on the lookout for their flock.  One of the problems with this model, however, is that recent genetic decoding proves that all dogs are direct descendents of wolves.  The instinct to herd and guard is only a thin veneer away from the instinct to hunt, and we have heard some terrible stories about guard dogs turning on the sheep—ensuing in a heartbreaking and bloody mess.

What about other four-legged creatures?  Another option is llamas, which stand tall above the sheep and keep watch, as well as spit and stomp.  Llamas are known for their character edge (as well as lovely fleeces) and serve diligently for smaller predators like foxes and coyotes.  But a Vermont sheep farm where Kara interned found that the llamas did not stand up to a pack of wolves—retreating to the barn and leaving the sheep to their fate.  Wolves prove a formidable foe!

This brings us to the animal that became the protectorate of choice on our farm—a donkey.  Donkeys are tall, like the llamas, and come with radar-big ears and alert eyes.  With strong teeth and hooves for stomping, kicking, biting, and throwing, they face their natural predators with a ferocity that proves their adeptness at surviving in rugged, desert landscapes.  There is even a YouTube video of a donkey “kicking ass” against a cougar!  The donkey’s tremendous bray also alerts predators of its presence and alerts us of impending dangers.

Not all donkeys are created equal, however.  For guarding purposes, it is important to have a standard-sized donkey.  While miniature donkeys are as adorable as Eeyore, they do not have enough strength and size to defend against predators, and the ride-able mammoth donkeys are too big and slow for the job.  About the size of a horse, standard donkeys are agile and formidable.  Alongside size, however, the next important trait is character.  A petting-zoo caliber of donkey is unlikely to turn suddenly battle-fierce, whereas donkeys who are wild rescues (or close to those roots) have learned what it takes to stay alive.  And wild donkeys, by nature, are the standard size.

Our guard donkey Belle came into our lives quite serendipitously.  We had just decided that a donkey was the right match for our farm and were voicing this idea to the folks at the feedmill, when someone spoke up, “I just might know someone who has a donkey looking for a home!,” jotted down a phone number, and suggested we try giving these folks a ring.  Just the other day, they had been at the shop and mentioned the donkey.  It turned out that this family had a donkey after all, as well as a few horses, and were in the process of moving to a new location, where the donkey would not be able to join them.

Belle was known for her feisty personally.  Even the ferrier, who trims her hooves several times a year, will remark at how she bucked and resisted his care as a teenager.  I think they call it stubborn, but the trait may also be attributed to her wild-rescue parents.  Either way, coming to our farm was like coming to donkey spa, with lots of space to run around as her paddock followed that of the sheep.  Because she is the only equine on the farm, Belle adopted the sheep as her clan—braying as each new lamb is born and taking her job of guarding seriously.  Nothing bothers Belle worse than when she cannot see her sheep—that and the threat of predators.

My personal theory is that donkeys attained their name from their bray, which when you really listen sounds much more like DON-key, DON-key, than hee-haw.  While the words stay the same, Belle has shown us that there are different brays for different circumstances.  There is a bray for “I’m hungry, will ANYBODY feed me?”  There is another for “HELLO!  Someone is driving their ATV around the edge of the field and I can SEE them!”  And there is yet another one, all to its own, which means, “DANGER, there are PREDATORS!!!”

The last proved its worth one evening when Belle sounded her alarm call.  Apparently, the sheep knew that all the bellering was to warn of an impending attack and flocked tightly together in fear.  We dropped whatever it was we were doing in the garden and rushed out to the field to let the sheep into the barn, managing to just get Belle in as well as a wolf circled the edge of the perimeter fence, looking for a way in.  It was a close encounter!  Subsequently, the wolf tracks have moved from running right past our back door to diverting around the farm altogether—evidence that this natural, harmonious way to set boundaries with the local wildlife is working.

So, next time you’re over for a visit, I’m sure we’ll have our donkey on duty, and she’ll probably proclaim an audible announcement of your arrival.  She’s out there working to keep everything in order, just like the rest of us.  See you down on the farm sometime.

Laura Berlage is a co-owner of North Star Homestead Farms, LLC and Farmstead Creamery & Café.  northstarhomestead.com

I know, I know, I know from working at the Cable farmer’s market since 2001 that you are on a hunt for the perfect tomato.  Red, round, shiny…and without one single blemish.  We’ve been taught from our years of shopping at grocery stores that perfect food is what we should desire and expect.  But our experience of local foods can be so much more!

If you’ve ever kept your own garden, then you will know that raising such uniform, non-blemished foods comparable to what is in the commercial market is neither easy nor reasonable.  Sometimes cucumbers get a curl at the end (due to the lack of full pollination), or a vole took a bite out of your zucchini, or your tomato has a little sun scorch on the top.  These are all simply natural parts of keeping a garden in harmony with nature, where pests are not systematically and chemically obliterated or crops drip-fed a slurry of hollow nutrients manufactured in a former ammunitions plant.  I mention the latter because the rise in NPK (nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus) fertilizers came after WWII, when the manufacturers of bombs for the war effort found that their same ingredients could be turned into spreadable formulas for agribusiness.  A little scary?

So, let’s turn around the idea of eating perfect food to eating foods with character.  I like the thought of “character” because it implies a uniqueness—a definitive sense of place, heritage, and direct link with the people who grew it.  Foods with character have a story, are often heirloom and ancient varieties, and are less common and more delightful to discover than commercially grown stock.  Here are a few key thoughts for embracing foods with character.

Flavor.  Sometimes, the more interesting heirloom tomatoes are as ugly as sin, but what hides beneath that purple-green sheath with its lumps and lopsided bumps is absolutely exquisite.  When browsing at the farmer’s market, ask your farmer what the different varieties are and what they taste like.  Sometimes there may even be samples available.  While we have all been trained to shop for the eye-candy food, the real reward of eating foods with character is their robust, luscious flavor.  The first thing that often happens to roses when they are hybrid for longer stems or better shipping qualities is that they lose their pungent fragrance (ever smelled a wild rose?).  Likewise, often the first sacrifice in selecting foods for better uniformity and packability is the loss in flavor.  Learn to embrace foods that look a little different on the outside in exchange for discovering something truly magical on the inside.

Color.  Eat more color is one of the best things any of us can do for our health—and by that I don’t mean eat more foods with fake coloring in them.  When embarking on purchasing Swiss Chard, choose a rainbow chard with stems that are yellow, purple, red, and green, instead of the traditional ones with white stems.  Adding more color to your plate is not only visually pleasing, but the properties of those colors often carry cancer-fighting elements or important vitamins for healthy nutrition.  Choose foods rich in color, like beets (and be sure to lightly steam and eat the greens too!), carrots, and eggplants.  Why worry if that carrot lists a bit to one side; it probably had to grow around a rock in the soil.  It will still taste just as sweet and crunchy as its straighter bunch companions.

Heirlooms.  Now, I do agree that sometimes in northern climates, you have to raise hybrids.  But the more we can support heirloom varieties (heirlooms being strains of crop that have been cultivated for a very long time), the more biodiversity we are encouraging for the planet as a whole.  If only one type of green pepper was raised everywhere in this country because it always produced a perfect green pepper, what would happen if a blight specific to that variety struck?  Supporting biodiversity by purchasing heirloom varieties of foods is an essential “voting with your dollar” practice worth embracing.  Besides, each one offers a unique eating experience.

In the world of livestock, heirlooms are called “heritage breeds.”  I raise a heritage breed of turkeys called Jersey Buff, which are cinnamon colored.  Sleeker than a traditional Giant White turkey, they dress out smaller than and not as broad-breasted as their standard alternative.  While a Giant White turkey offers that Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving presentation, Jersey Buff turkeys pasture much better, have significantly fewer leg troubles, and offer a wonderfully rich flavor and texture.  There are also amazing varieties of heritage chickens, pigs, cows, sheep, and so much more!  Why stick with an agribusiness standard when so many exciting choices abound?

If your mouth isn’t watering yet for a flavorful, colorful, heirloom food with character, here is a recipe to set you on the hunt—not for the perfect tomato, but for an experience all of its own.

Heirloom Tomato Bruschetta

6 meaty tomatoes, preferably a mix of red, yellow, and pink varieties, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

¼ cup olive oil

2 Tbs. balsamic vinegar

¼ cup fresh basil, stems removed and chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

1 loaf crusty bread

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Preheat broiler in the oven.  In a large bowl, combine the chopped tomatoes with the garlic, oil, vinegar, basil, salt and pepper.  Allow mixture to stand for 10 minutes.  Cut crusty bread into ¾ inch slices.  Arrange slices on a baking sheet in a single layer.  Broil 1 to 2 minutes or until slightly browned.  Divide tomato mixture on top of the bread slices and top each with some of the cheese.  Broil for 5 minutes or until the cheese melts.  Serve immediately.

So, grab your market basket, embrace a bit of curiosity, and try some new foods with character this week.  We’re still picking our heirloom tomatoes, so maybe I’ll see you down on the farm sometime.

Laura Berlage is a co-owner of North Star Homestead Farms, LLC and Farmstead Creamery & Café.  northstarhomestead.com

All good stories start “a long time ago…” which, when you’re a mature 23 years of age, eight years of hard work, study, and dedication seems like one of those legendary ages.  And, just like many of those great epic journeys, it starts in a very different place than it ends.  This is because our voyage into dairy sheep (oops, am I giving it away?) started with alpacas…or the lack thereof.

While my foray into farming began with the feathered dinosaurs we commonly call chickens, my sister Kara’s passion for animals great and small began with a yearning for alpacas.  She was learning to spin and knit, and alpaca fleece is treasured for being hypoallergenic, incredibly soft, and amazingly warm.  These long-legged camelids—which are often shorn leaving fluffy heads and legs—are gentler cousins of llamas and originate in South and Central America.  However, just as the yearning for parakeets and cockatoos never quite manifested into reality, the interest in expensive alpacas was channeled into a different route.

We were new members of 4-H at the time, working on projects in fiber arts, bees, and…here it comes:  sheep.  The $2,000 to $10,000 a piece alpaca pair was reborn as a-$60 a-piece couple of sheep.  Kara’s first wooly companions were a young ewe (said “you”) named Sweet and a whether (neutered male) named Heart—an inseparable and friendly pair.  Sweet, a purebred Hampshire sheep, gave many sets of triplet lambs as our adventures grew into embracing the ovine birthing process.  With the aid of a growing personal library and Mom’s medical skills as a physician, Kara’s veterinary talents blossomed.  This last spring, the entire south wing of the restored 1919 barn served as the nursery, with numbered birthing pens called “jugs” accompanied by detailed records of age, weight, vaccinations, and tagging.   We call it “the maternity ward.”

With sheep come many adventures, like learning to bale hay with put-put 1940’s equipment (little squares, no kicker…if you’ve made hay, you know what I’m talking about).  There’s shearing time when all the thick, wooly coats come off, leaving slim goat-shaped creatures that look at you like “What?”  And there’s the occasional Houdini sheep who loves to escape from the fence and go on little adventures to the flower beds and other such interesting places.  Oh, sorry Grandma, I guess we weren’t supposed to tell you about that one…

But sheep are not goats.  Not that I have anything against goats, but let’s be clear.  Over the last year, I’ve been plagued by folks who don’t know the difference between a sheep and a goat.  So here’s a little lesson to put you in the know, and maybe it will be useful at your next cocktail party…who knows?  Sheep and goats and cows are in a special family of mammals called ruminants.  This name comes from the fact that they have multiple stomachs (usually four) to help them digest more of the nutrients in grasses.  Pigs and horses only have one stomach, like people.  The rumen process makes these particular animals extremely efficient in pasturing systems because grassy “fodder” is exactly the type of food their unique biology has developed to eat.  Goats are excellent foragers of stalky and brushy material, making them excellent for hilly and mountainous areas that are difficult to hay.  Sheep love flat or rolling countryside and lush grass mixed with clovers.  A well-maintained sheep pasture looks very much like a golf course—only minus the chemicals and the motorized lawn mowers.

Also, sheep are actually more closely related to deer than goats.  When I’m asked what lamb tasted like, the closest comparison might be non-gamey venison, rather than liking it to beef.  And, no, a goat is not a female sheep, as I was once informed at a gathering.  A female sheep is a ewe, while the male is a ram.  And, actually, there are more sheep milked worldwide than cows.  What?  Milking sheep?  Really? 

Like all mammals, sheep give milk.  And like all ruminants, they do this via an udder (only this one has two spigots instead of four).  In France, the Lacone sheep is prized for its milk, which is used to make artisan cheeses, while in Germany, the breed of standard is the East Friesian.  Kara grew interested in dairy sheep after attending conferences at the UW Dairy Sheep Research Station in Spooner, the only one of its kind in the U.S.  The cold winters, however, make life difficult for the French and German dairy sheep breeds, so Kara began the arduous process of cross-breeding to mix in hearty English, Welsh, and Finnish stock with the Continental favorites.  In the process, we have had tall sheep, short sheep, black-faced sheep, white-faced sheep, and speckled sheep—all with their own personalities and names.

As the genetic side of the dairy process grew, Kara visited and interned at different dairy sheep farms to learn tips and experience new methodologies.  Through this process, she learned from artisan cheesemakers and studied at the Babcock Institute in Madison to acquire the finer points of ice-cream production.  But, in the end, it was a new, gourmet product that was calling her—gelato.  If you’ve been to Italy, you probably ate your way across the country from one gelateria to the next.  But for those who haven’t made that trek, gelato may be a new phenomenon.  Made fresh, served warmer, and churned with less air in it, gelato is a creamy and heavenly treat that surprises your taste buds with its bounty of flavor.  Also, ice cream is made with a butterfat content between 12 and 16 percent, while gelato is made with a butterfat content between 6 and 8 percent—which is just how it comes out of the sheep.

To continue her journey, Kara studied with master Italian gelato makers on Long Island through the Gelato and Pastry Institute of America, where she developed a recipe to make her own gelato base from scratch (instead of buying a pre-made base).  In her newly-completed dairy plant at Farmstead Creamery & Café, Kara whirs about like a master artist in her studio—blending hand-crafted chocolate paste, nut butters, or Bayfield blueberries to make richly rewarding waves of creamy gelato.  Every scoop is a work of art.

From the gentle pastures on our family’s farm, to the softly bleating ewes coming out of the parlor, to the frothy white milk in the old-style can, and finally the swirled gelato in your home-made waffle cone, this truly is an epic journey of love and care, passion and dedication to the best of all worlds.  It’s a story that connects you with the people and the place where real food comes from, fresh off the farm.  So next time someone asks you, “They’re milking what out there?” you’ll know a little more of the story.

And, just in case you might have forgotten, it’s sheep, not goats.  See you down at the farm sometime.

Laura Berlage is a co-owner of North Star Homestead Farms, LLC and Farmstead Creamery & Café.  northstarhomestead.com

(Traditional Folk Song)

O, I like to rise when the sun she rises

Early in the mornin’

I like to hear them small birds singin’

Merrily upon their laylum

And hurrah for the life of the country folk

And to ramble in the new-mown hay.

Everyone who’s lived it knows that “the simple life” isn’t so simple.  It’s getting up early and working late.  It’s getting down and dirty with the animals and in the garden.  It’s always having more things on the “to-do list” for the day than can be accomplished in a week’s time.  But small-scale artisan farming brings a direct connection with the land and all its creatures that is hard to reach from the office or even inside the air-conditioned cab of a highly computerized tractor.  It’s knowing the shifting of the seasons by the change in the smell of the wind, of learning to read the emotions of livestock by their body language, and of finding sheer joy in the summer’s first ripe tomato.

In the spring we sow and harvest mow

That’s how the seasons round they go

But of all the times to choose I may

For to ramble in the new-mown hay.

Artisan farming has many historical role models.  Thomas Jefferson, who championed the notion that our national backbone was in agriculture, devoted considerable time to diversifying his plantation farm—trying new cropping methods and developing new varieties.  His view of American culture and landscape stands in stark contrast with the Hamiltonian belief in urban growth and the power of industry, the latter of which has grown to dominate our society for at least the past 200 years.  Then in the 1900’s, there was Wendall Barry, who as a philosopher and essayist merged the concerns of environmentalism with a growing movement towards agrarianism—sparking a “back-to-the-land” movement that empowered many to reclaim heritage farming methods, breeds, and varieties.  Today, we have locally focused, pasture-based advocates like Joel Salatin, who demonstrate how small-scale, diversified farming can make a substantial positive environmental and community impact.

In the summertime we work the land

With sweaty brow and calloused hand

But in the warming light of the longest day

We’ll go ramble in the new-mown hay.

There is an Old English saying when a bride is getting married—“Something old and something new, something borrowed and something blue”—and such a phrase might also aptly describe artisan farming.  On our farm, a 1950’s-era tractor may be parked alongside a PVC “chicken tractor,” which is a portable pen for pasturing poultry.  (Though, calling it a chicken tractor is a slightly misleading term…it doesn’t actually involve a motor or the farm tractor.)  A chicken coop may be cleaned out with a shovel and an old manure spreader, while the barn gets cleaned with a miniature skid-steer.  Heritage methods are updated with contemporary understanding of crop rotations and pest cycles, and the mix feels antique yet progressive at the same time.

In the autumn time when the leaves do fall

Then it’s apple pickin’ time for all

But when the cider’s pressed and it’s stored away

We’ll go ramble in the new-mown hay.

Artisan farming is diversified, involving complex cycles and systems that nurture each other.  The pigs root up a new patch of garden, eating roots and weeds and working up the sod.  The next year, the space is a vibrantly emerald squash patch.  In the winter, when some of the squashes start to rot in storage, they’re taken out to the chickens, which devour the seeds and pulp gleefully.  The chickens lay chocolate-brown eggs that help give the farmer energy in the morning, and the manure from the chickens goes out to fertilize the fields.  The field grows hay, which is harvested for the sheep to eat in the winter when there’s no grass.  The sheep offer meat in the fall and wool in the spring, and as they graze the lush pasture during the growing season, they naturally scatter their own manure in the fields.  The pastures are shared with the chickens and turkeys, which scratch away and break up pest life cycles, and the processes of permaculture keep going.  The farmer serves as the orchestra conductor—and the elbow grease—that keeps the system flowing as smoothly as possible.

In the wintertime when skies are gray

We hedge and we hitch our time away

But in the summertime when the sun shines gay

We’ll go ramble in the new-mown hay.

When I think about artisan farming, I also think about all the stories.  There are stories from my grandparents and their times growing up on small farms in central Illinois.  There are stories from last summer’s terrible thunderstorm that hit just as we were bringing in the last loads of hay.  And there are stories about the latest adventures with our cantankerous guard donkey named Belle.  Stories find a way to connect the past with the present, heritage with hopes for the future.  They give us a way to look back and laugh at moments on the farm that were anything but funny when we were right in the middle of all the action, and they give us a chance to remember the kind words and deeds of others we’ve met along the journey.  Artisan farmers are often happy to share stories at the farmer’s market or over a cup of steaming coffee—offering these stories is part of passing on the knowledge, experience, and appreciation of this life choice as a contemporary agrarian.

And I like to rise when the sun she rises

Early in the mornin’

I like to hear them small birds singin’

Merrily upon their laylum

And hurrah for the life of the country folk

And to ramble in the new-mown hay.

Do you know your local, artisan farmers?  This week, take some time to learn some of their stories as we enjoy the bountiful harvest of the summer season.  When you offer a moment to listen, I can almost guarantee that you’ll be invited to come on down to the farm sometime and share in a little slice of the simple life.

Laura Berlage is a co-owner of North Star Homestead Farms, LLC and Farmstead Creamery & Café.  northstarhomestead.com

Parents, be warned.  Big endeavors often emerge from small ideas—a question or a suggestion.  In this case, the question came when I was 11.  At the time, we were living in Arizona, and a friend and I had just finished what was, for us, a rather monumental research project on birds—equipped with our own illustrations and strengthened by a trip to a notable avian sanctuary.  This truly Montessori in-depth research project had sparked my deep, enduring, and passionate affection for feathered creatures of all natures (before this, I had been fascinated with dinosaurs, which really was an evolutionary continuation of interests…just spend some time watching turkeys).

Fifth graders can be rather precocious, so I had plucked up the courage one day to ask my mom, “Mommy, could I have a pet bird?”  We had yet to have a pet anything in our house.  Our lives had thus far been too busy and too absent from home to add a pet into the milieu.  But my 11-year-old self remained optimistic.  Surely a parakeet or a cockatoo wouldn’t be too much trouble.  I could take care of it when I was home from school.  Besides, I was 11, which seemed pretty grown up to me at the time.  I could be responsible, surely! 

I’m sure my hopefulness was glowing from face to sneakers, and my mother’s answer reflected her supreme sense of reality, coupled with her Montessori awareness of never squelching a child’s interests.  “I’m afraid we can’t have a pet bird, Laura, because your dad is allergic,” she smiled reassuringly, showing with her eyes that this point was unavoidable.  “But if we ever move to the farm, maybe you can have some chickens.”

The Farm was an old homestead my mother’s parents had purchased back in 1968.  Way up north in the wilder reaches of Wisconsin, this had been the family retreat well before my time of memory.  It was a place of wintry Christmases with a real tree cut from the majestic forests surrounding the old hay fields, of forts dug in the enormous snow banks beside the perilously long driveway, of Grandma’s roast turkey with dressing and pumpkin pie…  It truly was the “over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house” type of place in an imaginative 11-year-old’s soul.  There even was an old, weathered barn with loose hay to jump in and various dusty and forgotten nooks with antique equipment to explore.

Nobody lived at the farm, which the Steidinger clan had called North Star from the beginning.  At least nobody did anymore.  My juvenile understanding that the family retreat had once been a farm hinted that people used to live there.  That once upon a time there had been horses and milk cows—their names scrawlingly carved above their respective stanchions.  And pigs.  Grandpa always talked about how one part of the hedge he’d planted years ago grew taller than the rest because that was where the old pig pen had been.  And there must have been chickens.

Chickens!  The thought stuck in my mind like a far-off promise.  Chickens were soft, roundish birds that could be picked up and held.  Chickens made curious clucking sounds and went exploring in interesting, small places—just like I was fond of doing.  And chickens came in all sizes and shapes and colors…  Chickens were cool!

And here comes the warning to parents.  A seemingly innocent question, “Mommy, can I…” met with “No, but…” can change your life.  Irrevocably.  Unimaginably.  And yet, it may spark a journey that propels you, your family, and even your community, into a movement that is critical to humanity both locally and globally—you just might one day find you’ve become a farmer.

It started with the library.  With the thoroughness of a graduate student working on her thesis, I checked out EVERY book on chickens from the Phoenix Public Library (which is a pretty big library) and commenced my studies.  Hopefully, this was not too alarming for my parents, who soon were receiving official reports on my scholarly discoveries.  I even made a little hand-written book chronicling chicken diseases, their diagnosis, and treatment.

But a library book was still not a real chicken.  Even a remarkably realistic stuffed puppet that participated in a costumed portrait of my sister Kara and me (which also included a stuffed dog toy, Kara’s animal desire) couldn’t flap, cluck, or lay eggs of its own—despite an eager imagination.  The real chickens would have to wait…at least for a little while.  But they never really went away.

Becoming a poultry fancier, however, opened a world of stories and history within the family.  I began to learn that my maternal grandparents—who had always been a couple dedicated to small-town medicine in my living memory—had grown up on farms in central Illinois.  They began sharing tales about how the team of horses pulled the harrow faster when Papa was nearby, or the corncobs that “jumped” out of the basked on their way across the yard to the wood stove.  There were stories of outdoor summer kitchens, orchards that would make my mouth water, threshing with whole crews of hungry men, and pigs watered (or watermelons chilled) from the ever-gushing artesian well.  It was a world unto itself.

Chickens came significantly closer to reality, when in 1998 Bert Fullington helped us move an old generator shack (which had once been a resort shower house) to the barnyard as the first coop.  The next summer, we raised 25 broilers and a handsome rooster named in Bert’s honor before returning to Madison in the fall.  The next summer, we returned to the farm again…and didn’t go back.  To the chickens, we added sheep, then pigs, then turkeys and ducks and honeybees.  Now we’re full-time farming—restoring the homestead and regenerating the land and its stories. 

I still love my chickens very much—their individual characteristics, their sense of curiosity, and their marvelous propensity for turning kitchen scraps into eggs.  Spending quality time with my feathered dinosaurs and a loaf of old bread provides its own sense of communion at the end of a long day on the farm.  Sometimes I wonder where I might be today if not for the lure of these South-East Asian jungle fowl, their orange-rimmed eyes glinting in the late afternoon sun.

Sweet Pea, a Buff Orpington hen sidles up, clucking amicably and letting me stroke her soft, golden feathers.  And I know that, down on the farm, we’re in this journey together…and it all started for the love of chickens.

Laura Berlage is a co-owner of North Star Homestead Farms, LLC and Farmstead Creamery & Café.  northstarhomestead.com

Every occupation has its own specific vocabulary.  Spinners ply, millers brew, carpenters plumb, and social media enthusiasts tweet.  Farming certainly has its own slew of specific vocabulary—like the complex system of names for the genders and ages of animals, where an adult intact male hog is a boar, the female a sow, the little ones piglets…but if they’re girls they’re gilts and the boys are barrows.  But what really sets farm talk apart is the use of phraseology.  We’ve all heard it straight from the horse’s mouth, from those who are fit as a fiddle and merry as a lark.  But here are a few that, unless you’re a farmer, you might not have encountered before.

Many of these sayings involve animals, such as the notion that you shouldn’t try to teach a pig to sing.  It’s a waste of your time and it annoys the pig.  Good fences make good neighbors, but the best fences are horse-high, pig-tight, and bull strong.  We all know that the early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.  Crying over spilled milk isn’t quite as bad as when someone notes that your behavior is like locking the barn door after the horse is stolen.

References to people and their particular ways of doing things are also common.  Someone new in the neighborhood might not know you from a bale of hay.  Another fellow might be deemed slower than molasses in January.  A chatterbox might well be caught chewing the fat with a neighbor, while the patient type will explain that they ain’t in an all-fired hurry.  It’s all six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Is it a playful sense of language, its own form of insider’s code talk, or just plain old fashioned farm humor that stands behind these sayings?  Of course, if you’re a city slicker who doesn’t know sh*t from Shinola, then you might have a problem catching on.  But the stories behind words and phrases have always held a special fascination for me.  For example, S.H.I.T. was originally an acronym that stood for “ship high in transit.”  This dates back to the age when manure was hauled in sailing vessels to other parts to fertilize fields far removed from livestock raising areas.  Waterlogged manure has a way of overheating and potentially causing fires, so the shipments were marked with the acronym to ensure that they were placed higher up in the ship’s hold, keeping the manure dry and the crew safe from spontaneous combustion. 

A goodly portion of farm-steeped phrases have to do with life philosophy.  Some are rather practical, like knowing that life is simpler if you plow around the stumps—a fitting thought for a region that was homesteaded after the cutover.  Once the timbering trade left the landscape bereft of its majestic white pines, immigrant agencies touted pamphlets illustrating “seven easy steps for pulling out stumps.”  The propaganda was augmented with pre-Photo Shop images of farmers pulling wagons piled with mammoth onions, cabbages, and potatoes.  But those cutover farming days only worked for those who could keep skunks and bankers at a distance, if you know what I’m driving at.

It goes something like this; if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging.  That, and most of the stuff people worry about ain’t never gonna happen anyway.    The biggest troublemaker you’ll probably ever have to deal with watches you in the mirror every mornin’.  And when you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty. 

These might not be the same admonitions that marked our own childhoods, with warnings to look both ways before crossing the street, say please and thank you, and hold the door for folks older than oneself, but they carry their own set of wisdoms.  The knowing warning of never to corner something that is meaner than you could sure come in handy.  The school of hard nocks is aptly summed up by the sentiment that good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that come from bad judgment.  And, if you ever get to thinking that you’re a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else’s dog around!

A mix of humor and humility, appreciation and irony abounds in farm talk.  I can remember one day rummaging around in the machine shed for a board or a wrench or something and just about getting wedged stuck between a hay rake and a wagon.  I turned to my mom with a straight face and said, “Don’t you think we could have gotten these a little closer together?”  She immediately burst out laughing and accused me of sounding like her cousin Jeff, who has a farm in central Illinois.  Irony is far better than complaining.  Doing something foolish and then whining about it is often met on the farm with, “Well, what’dya do that for?”  And who can’t help but chuckle at this notion—forgive your enemies; it messes up their heads.

My grandpa remembers his father saying “Thanks ‘til you’re better paid,” when a neighbor would do him a favor.  Times were tough in the depression era, and everyone knew that lending a hand without monetary compensation was part of the fabric of community life.  Being there for each other is a farming ethos we can all learn from this week.  So, as you remember some of your favorite Old Time Farm Talk, here is one last piece—live simply, love generously, care deeply, and speak kindly.  See you down at the farm sometime.

Laura Berlage is part owner of North Star Homestead Farms, LLC and Farmstead Creamery & Café.  northstarhomestead.com

Cancer has touched every family.  With annual runs and walks, we remember those we have lost to this disease, those who are currently struggling, and those who have overcome the obstacles and stand with us as survivors.  The looming threat of cancer is not an easy or comfortable topic for many of us, in part due to a sense of powerlessness in the face of this scourge.  But what if there was something we could do, every day, to help outwit the wily beast of cancer?  And what if that something was as close as the nearest garden, farm, or market?

Drs. Richard Beliveau and Denis Gingras have recently released an enlightening and illustrative book Foods to Fight Cancer, which offers a roadmap that all of us can follow to improve our odds against contracting or suffering from cancer.  Based on the latest scientific studies, the authors describe the biochemistry behind their suggestions—all of which are based on the right choice of foods.  Decades of research have shown intricate links between diet and at least one third of all types of cancer, which offers hope that proactive food choices can greatly impact personal health with respect to this disease.

We have all heard that “you are what you eat.”  Cancer cells occur naturally in the body, but usually the immune system destroys these mutant cells before they can cause damage.  Making smart eating choices, Beliveau and Gingras say, is the best way to augment and enhance this natural protection and suppression of cancer cell growth. 

As early as the philosopher Hippocrates (460 to 377 BC), who proclaimed “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food!,” healthy diet choices have been a central part of whole-person health.  But the authors of Foods to Fight Cancernote that “The human diet evolved over thousands of years to include the foods most beneficial to our health, but in recent times we have favored a diet that excludes many of these essential foods.  Returning to a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and other important foods is essential to preventing cancer” (43).

The lamentable aspects of the modern Western diet are directly linked with an overabundance of fast, cheap, fatty, and starchy foods currently in the market and on nearly every street corner.  They are easy to access, easy to eat, require no food preparation, and cost relatively little (at the counter a least…has anyone priced out the cost of cancer lately?).  Making healthy diet choices for cancer prevention requires attention and effort, at least at the beginning of one’s initiative.  Once making and keeping these choices becomes part of daily life, the little things like chopping vegetables or picking berries offer their own simple joys.

Here are some great foods (as illustrated in the book) to help your body fight off cancer that you can choose to eat this week, right now.

Vegetables

Brassica Family: cabbage, kale, broccoli, kohlrabi, bok choy, cauliflower.

Lily Family:  onions, garlic, leeks, shallots, scallions.

Solanaceae Family:  tomatoes, peppers, eggplants.

Fruits

Citrus:  oranges, grapefruits, clementines, pommelos, lemons, limes.

Berries:  strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, elderberries, dewberries, and so much more!

To Add to Dinner

Omega-3:  fish, pasture-raised eggs (naturally higher in Omega-3!), olive oil, nuts, flax seed.

Spice Cabinet:  tumeric—it’s amazing to discover this Indian spice!

Soy:  even if you’re not into tofu, roasted soybeans are a delicious snack.

To Drink

Vino:  red wine, in moderation.

Green Tea:  look for Matcha, Sencha, and Gyokuro varieties.

For Desert

Chocolate:  go for the dark, rather than the milk.

To learn more about the finer points of selecting and whether or not to cook many of these foods to release or retain their essential cancer-fighting properties, Foods to Fight Cancer offers both scientific and very accessible guidelines and helpful ideas to get you started.  Choosing fresh, local foods also unlocks greater health benefits than products which have endured the stress of being shipped long distances.

I know that living and working on the family farm has improved my own health and diet since we moved to the area in 2000.  We were pretty healthy eaters already, but working the land by hand, tending animals and plants, and preparing meals together has given me a deep appreciation for the cycles of nourishment that surround us.  Still, there are some foods that often require a cultivated relationship—crops like kale, eggplant, or kohlrabi.  A new member to our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture share program) may find herself stumped in the face of a novel vegetable.  How do I fix mache?  Google searches are often a great way to explore recipes for preparing foods that are new to you.

Changing individual habits, including food choices, seldom happen overnight.  But as we continue to learn from each other, opting for a homemade kale and sausage soup rather than the burger can become an act of empowerment rather than personal denial.  At Farmstead Creamery & Café, one of our goals is to have education be an important part of our initiative.  As we brainstorm interesting possibilities for this autumn and winter, one of our ideas has been to host a workshop (or series of workshops) focused on building greater health before and after cancer.  If such an opportunity interests you, feel free to give us a shout!

Ready to get started with some of these cancer-fighting foods?  Here is a recipe to give a few a try.

Kale Chips

1 bunch kale, deveined and torn into bite-sized pieces

Olive oil, enough to coat

Sea Salt

Fresh ground black pepper

Toss kale pieces in olive oil, salt, and pepper (to taste).  Spread evenly on a baking sheet and place in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.  Flip kale using a spatula part way through cooking.  Enjoy hot or cold!

Here’s to the best of health for you and your family!  See you down on the farm sometime.

Laura Berlage is part owner of North Star Homestead Farms, LLC and Farmstead Creamery & Café.  northstarhomestead.com

The hot days of summer beg of a crisp, cold slice of crimson watermelon—the sugary juices seeping between your fingers and running down your chin.  But this refreshing delight would not be possible without a good bit of help from some of our insect friends.  Now, I know that there are plenty of pesky bugs bothering us this summer, from the whining mosquitoes that lay in wait at the edge of the field to the stinging wasps that attack during the family picnic.  Still, there are many insects whom, without, we would literally be unable to survive.

In order to grow that delectable watermelon, the male and female flowers of the parent plant needed several visits (approximately one visit per seed) from a pollinating insect in order to form a fruit.  Insufficient pollination results in stunted, misshapen fruits…or no fruit at all.  In fact, one third of all the foods we eat require insect pollination.  Wild pollinators, including bumble bees, butterflies, blue orchard bees, hummingbirds, and many more, serve as excellent carriers of pollen as they search for the sweet nectar inside the flowers.  But the workhorses of agricultural pollinators are honeybees.

I learned the art and science of beekeeping from an elderly gentleman I met at the Cable Farmer’s Market.  We have shared adjacent vending positions for the last 12 years.  Now nearly ninety, Mr. Rowe works his hives with his children and grandchildren—spinning honey and stories of dismay at finding that his mother had given away his original few hives while he was serving in WWII.  Now, he has traveled the world to attend special conventions for beekeepers and helped start a regional program to mentor new upstarts in the occupation.  This same program was how I began my journey keeping bees, about 10 years ago.

It takes a unique soul to embrace the care and keeping of stinging insects.  Beautiful, intricate, and socially complex insects, yes…but stinging nonetheless.  The sweet and tangy homestead honey harvested each fall serves as compensation for any summer pricks in defense of the hive, but the real payback comes in the garden.  On our farm, the honeybees serve as the pollination task force, nearly doubling our harvest of insect-pollinated crops in the first year we kept bees.  These include strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, apples, summer and winter squashes, peppers, eggplants, green beans, peas, and even the tomatoes growing in our high tunnels (hoop house greenhouses).

Honeybees visit flowers to collect both nectar and pollen.  These two are mixed together by nurse bees to make what is commonly known as “bee bread”—an essential food for the growing larvae in the hive.  In the process of collecting these foods in the field, the worker bees stuff pollen onto the sides of their back legs until a fully loaded bee looks like she is wearing bright orange cargo pants.  During the dandelion bloom, the whole entrance of the hive will become stained a light yellow from all the pollen-laden bodies busily passing back and forth.  Flowers make extra pollen, hoping for just such a fuzzy bee visit, in which some of the pollen powder from one flower will be rubbed off onto the next.  This essential process of crop fertilization allows us to enjoy the rich bounty of fruits and vegetables that grace our tables each year.

But you need not become a beekeeper to lend a helping hand to native and honeybee pollinators.  Perhaps the best thing anyone can do is to stop spraying pesticides or herbicides that are harmful to bees.  This includes the spraying of lawns and flowers, as well as gardens and crops.  There are plenty of organic and bee-safe options available on the market today, including neem oil and insecticidal soaps, both of which are harmless to bees.  Planting flowers is another excellent option, especially native wildflowers like bee balm, columbines, and white Dutch clover.  Planting such a pollinator-friendly flower garden near your vegetable garden can encourage natural pollinators to discover your crops and lend a helping hand—well, wing.

This week, as you take time to discover and observe wild and honeybee pollinators in your area, try taking a sip from this delicious summer recipe I collected while serving as the 2006 Wisconsin Honey Queen.

Creamy Tropical Smoothie

1 cup orange juice

2 cups pineapple chunks, drained

1 banana, coarsely chopped

¼ cup milk

2 Tbs. local honey

4 ice cubes

Combine all ingredients in a blender and puree until smooth and creamy.  Serve immediately or chilled. 

With your sweet and fruity drink in hand, let us toast the efforts of all those busy pollinators this summer.  You call already start to see the fruits of their labor, and we hope to see you down at the farm sometime.  We just might have some honeycomb fresh out of the beehives.

Laura Berlage is part owner of North Star Homestead Farms, LLC and Farmstead Creamery & Café.  northstarhomestead.com

The cravings start in February, on those days when the teasing inklings of spring melt the snows around the base of the maple trees.  Rhubarb.  In late March (or into April), when the first nubbins of leaves push through the mountains of compost that were heaped atop the patch last fall, the itch for a piece of fresh rhubarb pie is almost unbearable.  Sometimes, I succumb and pull out a bag of chopped ruby and emerald stems from the freezer and reach for the sugar, flour, butter, and speckled brown eggs from my clucking hens outside.

Rhubarb is the promise after the end of a long winter; an anomaly of crisp, tart stems sporting inedible leaves.  Grandparents tell of walking through Mother’s garden with a bowl of sugar in one hand and a newly pulled stem of rhubarb in the other.  Dip, crunch, dip, crunch…I can see their childish smiling faces smeared with hints of crimson and sugar crystals.  It seems like it will be forever until the first strawberries ripen.  But in this moment, the mix of tang and sweet are simply perfect.

Preparing rhubarb is part of a longstanding Northern tradition, with rhubarb and strawberry commonly wedded as jams or in desserts.  But at our farm, spring hails the beginning of the fresh fruit season, marked by Grandma’s beloved rhubarb custard pie.  Passed from mother to daughter in the German farming tradition, the crinkle-crispy top belies the richness in textures below; the tart tanginess of the ruby jewels softened by a melting scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.  Perfect heaven for a hardworking farm girl.

For the many gardeners I encounter at the farmer’s market, growing rhubarb is either feast or famine.  For some, their patches are taking over their yards, one end of the house, or looming like forbidding jungles in their memories of visiting Grandpa’s farm in the summertime.  For others, countless attempts to establish these hearty perennials have been all for naught, much to their lingering disappointment.  Rhubarb holds its own secrets, keeping itself much to itself.  Unless it goes to seed, at which time my honeybees are quite happy to share an intimate acquaintance.

A pound of rhubarb stalks, wrapped in a colorful ribbon, makes a wonderful gift to a friend or neighbor.  Fresh foods are the best presents because they keep on giving in your memory—as they are washed, prepared, and shared with others.  Rhubarb crisp over a steaming cup of rich coffee or aromatic tea makes for great conversations and memories.  If you are one of those poor souls whose attempts at growing rhubarb have been thwarted, there may still be one last chance for a stroll through the farmer’s market or a quick stop at your local farm to snag a late-season handful of long, slender stems.  If you do happen to have some rhubarb handy, here is a lovely way to treat yourself on a warm summer’s day. 

Rhubarb Sauce

½ pound rhubarb, chopped into ¼ inch slices

A little water

Local honey

Cinnamon to taste

Nutmeg to taste

Cook down the chopped rhubarb and water in a saucepan, stirring now and then to keep from scorching.  When the rhubarb chunks are soft and making a red liquid, add the honey (the amount you choose will depend on how tart you like your sauce), along with a good dash of cinnamon and nutmeg.  Stir and cook until fairly thick though still pourable.  Serve warm on ice cream or over homemade pancakes or French toast. 

Already reaching for some rhubarb or itching to go a-picking?  Take some time this week to share your memories and ruminations on the simple joys of rhubarb, and we hope to see you down at the farm sometime.  We just might have some rhubarb custard pie fresh out of the oven.

Laura Berlage is part owner of North Star Homestead Farms, LLC and Farmstead Creamery & Café.  northstarhomestead.com

Maybe you have met the ladies—Laura, Kara, and Ann Berlage—at the Cable Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings, or as a member in their produce CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), or through a friend while enjoying a meal of pasture-raised chicken, turkey, pork, or lamb from North Star Homestead Farms.Either way, you may also have heard some of the buzz that surrounds these ladies’ latest enterprise—Farmstead Creamery & Café.

This century-old homestead (nestled in the ChequamegonNational Forest just off Moose Lake Road) is stepping forward as a regional leader in the growing movement for local, sustainable, and bio-secure foods.As increasing national food scares and documentaries such as Food Inc. bring to our attention the desperate nature of industrial food production, farms like North Star Homestead Farms have been pushing back and offering wholesome alternatives that bring a story and a face to your food.Now, having access to their and other slow-food movement products will be even more convenient and enjoyable.

2011 has been anything but a quiet season at the homestead, with hammers and saws from Jon Sorensen’s Venison Creek Construction bringing a long-researched dream to life.Farmstead Creamery and Café’s design is inspired by the farm’s picturesque 1919 barn, with a “hay loft” upstairs and stunning barn quilt over the entryway.“We created this design to be versatile and accommodate all the different aspects that were part of our goal,” says Laura, a recent graduate of Goddard College’s Masters of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts program.“Farmstead Creamery and Café is very much about creating space for possibilities—merging agrarianism, community, and the arts.”

This is reflected in the project’s mission statement, which asserts:Farmstead Creamery & Café, as an extension of North Star Homestead Farms, is dedicated to building community through local, sustainable, and bio-secure foods that bring out the best of rural living.Mindful of our unique and precious environment, our hand-made-from-scratch ethic strives for egalitarian access to wholesome foods directly from their place of production.Maintaining transparency, offering educational opportunities, and nurturing community are cornerstones in our effort to reinvigorate the culture in agriculture.

Driving down Fullington Road (named after the founding homestead family), some are surprised to discover the gem of a farm just around its natural bend.Now, the inviting barn-like Café, bordered by a split rail fence and topped with a rooster weather vane, serves as the face of the farm—becoming a one-stop shop for everything from fresh produce and meats to home-style bakery goods, jams, eggs, and dairy products.You can even stay a while and enjoy some coffee or tea, soups, sandwiches, or gourmet salads.Alongside the Café stands a large greenhouse, which will hold a new aquaponics unit.This very scientific and bio-secure method of organically raising fish and produce year-round (designed by Nelson and Pade Inc., a Wisconsin company) will greatly augment North Star Homestead’s ability to serve the community long after the summer growing season.“It’s a natural relationship,” says Ann, a family physician and longtime supporter of her daughters’ initiatives, “In which the waste from the tilapia provides nutrients for the plants.The plants then clean the water, which is recirculated to the fish, like a highly-managed pond.”

Inside Farmstead Creamery & Café, however, there are more pleasant surprises to discover.Not only does the “hay loft” provide space for more seating and a view overlooking the homestead, but it can also be used for classes and workshops.A small stage on the main floor can be used for live concerts, storytelling or poetry events, or even presentations on important related issues.“Our goal is to reconnect people with what really matters—and a big part of that is building a healthy relationship with our food and really knowing its story, who grew it, and under what conditions.It’s about reclaiming our connections with the land,” Laura smiles as she calls attention to the interior of the Café, with its large timbers and vaulted ceiling.

Behind where the bakery case and counters will be is a window into another room, which holds a special place for Kara, who has a BA in Environmental Studies with an Emphasis in Sustainable Agriculture.This will be the Creamery & Café’s dairy plant for the production of gelato—an Italian form of ice cream with less fat and more flavor.Kara has been working for years to improve the genetics of her flock of sheep (so she not only has excellent lamb production but also quality dairy traits) while studying the science and art of making gelato.“Just this fall, I went to a course from the Gelato and Pastry Institute of America in New York,” she explains while indicating the future placement of her dairy plant equipment.“There I studied with a master gelato artist from Italy and created my own recipe using sheep’s milk, which naturally has the right butterfat content for the production of gelato.”Farmstead Creamery & Café also hopes to carry other locally produced dairy products to augment the shop’s selections.

The ladies of North Star Homestead Farms put considerable thought into the location for the Creamery & Café, ultimately deciding that staying close to the farm was an important aspect of the project’s purpose.“We see ourselves not only as producers but also as a hub in the greater local food network,” Laura explains.“But it’s more than food; it’s also about education.Many people are now several generations removed from their farming heritage, and it’s important to revitalize that connection.Farmstead Creamery & Café offers something new for the area—it’s a place where that heritage is brought into the present through wholesome products, meaningful education, and dedication to supporting the health of our rural community.”

Farmstead Creamery & Café is still under construction but plans to open sometime early in 2012, with a grand opening during the glory of the summer growing season.

2012 Summer Season and Internships Opportunities

Have a passion for animals and plants?Wondering if the new practices of local and sustainable agriculture might be an ideal lifestyle for you?Looking to stay active and be outdoors this summer?If these ideas appeal to you, then a summer internship at North Star Homestead Farms, LLC might be an exciting opportunity for you.

Tucked in the boundaries of the Chequamegon National Forest in northern Wisconsin, North Star Homestead Farms is a model representative of small-scale, intensive, sustainable, humane, and wholesome agricultural practices.Our pursuits include pasture raised poultry, sheep, and hogs, as well as a large market garden for CSA and Farmer’s Markets, honeybees, fruit production, herbs, and a small commercial bakery.Our focus is on building community, connecting people with the land, maintaining transparency, and giving great service.Owned and operated by three enterprising women, North Star Homestead Farms, LLC offers a constructive environment for personal growth, learning, teamwork, and humor in the everyday rigor of farm living.

2012 is going to be a busy season at the farm, with the opening of our Farmstead Creamery & Café, and we are in search of eager hands and positive attitudes to help make this season successful.While previous farm or garden experience isn’t necessary, we’d love to hear your story and why you may be interested in being a part of our farm’s enterprise.We are looking for interns who are available for four months (approx. mid May through mid September), though we are flexible for extenuating circumstances, such as beginning college.Due to changing labor laws, applicants must be 18 years of age or older.A modest stipend is available to interns, but the real value you will receive from this experience is learning-by-doing—building real knowledge and skills in this growing, exciting food and cultural movement.

Accommodating rooms are available in our renovated farm house, and most meals will be shared with the Berlage family.Wi-Fi is available on the farm campus, as well as unlimited long distance phone service (within reason, of course).Our goal is to help you have a fully integrated experience of homestead living.In return, we expect our interns to work eagerly alongside us, to listen to our council and advice, and to practice responsibility and self motivation.Small scale, localized food production offers an environment to gain personal skills that can serve you in any field, including problem solving, public interface, teamwork, leadership, work ethic, and meaningful goals.

We hope that the opportunities available to summer interns at North Star Homestead Farms, LLC are exciting for you, and we would love to talk with you further and introduce you to life on the farm.Please contact us at the above information to receive an internship application, and we are of course happy to take any questions you may have.

Hope to hear from you soon!

Laura, Kara, and Ann Berlage

North Star Homestead Farms, LLC