Field Trip to Hawaiian Farms

I have so much to tell you about my Hawaiian field-trip to see what other "Paradises" look like.....

Our journey began on December 30 flying over to Honolulu for a cruise around the Hawaiian Islands.  One of many firsts for Farmer Joe and myself, so combining a little business and lots of pleasure, we dug out our summer clothes & headed out to see firsthand the kinds of crops the tropical farmers raise over there. Our Hawaiian Field-trip included an innovative coffee farm, a cacao farm, and a pineapple plantation. 

Coffee Farm 

We took a tour of a coffee farm called "Kona Joe".  This particular farm has started training their coffee trees to grow on trellises like the wineries do for their grapes.

Farmer Joe by the coffee roasting machine

A view of the coffee trees

The beans are hand-picked when ripe, sorted and then roasted.

The beans being sorted into different categories

Freshly roasted beans.... the smell was heavenly

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One new thing I learned was that dark roasted beans have less caffeine than a lighter roast.  Below is a video of the beans being bagged once the process is complete and ready for sale.

Cacao Farm

Next stop was a tour of a local Cacao Farm.... Coffee and chocolate, does it get any better than that!?  Plus they had samples too.

The only chocolate grown and processed all in Hawaii

The chocolate farmer explaining his crop

Cacao pods that grow on trees and are harvested by hand every 2 weeks

A pod cut open

A view of the bean when it has been cut out from the pod and the extraneous
(white part) removed from the bean

The beans are placed in a special box to allow the extraneous matter around the bean to naturally dissolve

Next the beans are placed in the open air drying rack to help them cure.  The
nice warm weather and sun helps this process. The beans are then roasted
and it looks much like the coffee roasting bin.

THEN  the final product.... yum chocolate as seen below.

It looked like an overgrown fondue pot and made our
mouth's water

Once the chocolate is ready to be poured into forms for their chocolate bars, it will be refrigerated until it's set up.  Of course seeing the liquid chocolate helped the sales at the end of the tour.  =)

Dole Plantation:

A few days later we went to the Dole Plantation  took a tour of the pineapple farm all from the comfort of a little open air train through the grounds.  All of the pineapple grown on this plantation are now for tourists to purchase and ship home.  Dole now raises pineapple overseas where it is also canned there as well due to high labor costs in the USA.

Farmer Joe & I in front of the plantation, they had "Dole" spelled out with plants

A picture of the in the gift shop of the original roadside stand

The sign says the cycle has 3 fruit harvests, the 1st pineapple is ready to pick in
18 months, second is at 32 months and 3rd is 45 months 

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The train as it winds its way through the plantation grounds 

The plantation had many other plants, such as banana trees, other exotic fruit trees, sugarcane fields and many other kinds of flowers & plants.

This is what a field of pineapple looks like. 

A pineapple in the growing stages.

A picture from the showroom of what an actual harvest looks like

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Info on the varieties

The beautiful grounds on the plantation has many kinds of trees as well and I just wish I could grow one of these in my yard....

I loved the "gum trees" they did not look real,
but they were.  The bark is so unusual.

Close up of the gum tree. It looks like a painted tree

A banana tree

Sugar cane fields

Well there you have it, a snapshot of how coffee, pineapple and cacao are grown (some of my favorite foods & drink). Everyone has their idea of paradise, and for this farm-wife and her farmer, ours' is rural Idaho, but it is fun to see what else is out there. I hope you enjoyed this tropical crop tour.  The next field-trip will be closer to home and I am in the process of obtaining permission to film it (so make sure and come back soon). More pictures of the trip can be found on the At Home on the Farm page.   I  hope 2012 finds you healthy and happy and I am looking forward to a new year of adventures.  As always, please feel free to email me if you have any questions at idahofarmwife@gmail.com and I love the comments.  All my best, Gayle

Christmas Blessings from an American Farm Family

A very merry and blessed Christmas to you

Thanks to a great blogger buddy(thanks Judi Graff), I have a new media gadget to show off, so I have updated the blog to showcase our farm family highlights of 2011!

Does anything say Merry Christmas like a little red tractor with a green wreath on it?

As we gather for this blessed holiday, I as well as the rest of my farm family, hope the holidays are a time of love and togetherness for you.  I'd love to know what your special traditions are, so please feel free to email me and share what makes your holiday special.  As for us, this year we needed to shake things up a bit and my family seems to let me be the crazy event planner (sometimes they wonder what I'm getting them into -but generally they co-operate).  And what are we planning this year?  Well being German descendants, we usually open gifts on Christmas Eve day, so we are doing a "progressive Christmas Eve Dinner" with my side of the family (along with a couple of college kids who couldn't make it home for the holidays) and we will open gifts at each of the homes we visit.  This way we get to see each other's houses all decorated up and spend the day together laughing, eating and enjoying each other and more eating.  We all will gather and start out at 8am for coffee & pastries/fruit at my baby brother's house, then about 10:30am we will arrive at my other brother's house for hors d' oeuvres (thankfully this brother is no longer single as a few years back we came to his house for hors d' oeuvres and he set out a head of broccoli and a head of cauliflower still complete in the bunch with a bowl of dip.....  =) and my youngest daughter said "you are such a bachelor", poor guy),  then around 1pm it's off to my oldest daughter's house for salad, there the little ones will go down for a nap, then around 4:30pm we will head to my house for the main part of the dinner (turkey, ham, potatoes, stuffing & gravy).  Shortly before 7pm, we'll head to church, then about 8:20pmish we'll end up at  my mom's house for dessert and finish off the day. 

Christmas morning finds Farmer Joe & me having breakfast at our oldest daughter's house where we can see what Santa brought the little girls. Then later on that day we will gather for a dinner with Farmer's Joe & Jay's side of the family as his sister Laurie & family will be here from Seattle.  Lots of eating seems to be the main theme here.  Just thinking about it makes me feel like I'd gained 5 lbs. =)

As always, here is a taste tempting treat..... Pumpkin Truffles.  If you know me well, you will find out I don't like complicated recipes with lots of steps, so I modified the recipe for ease - so make sure and read the tip  on dusting the truffles with cocoa powder.  The recipe is on the OMG  Dessert page.  I hope you get to make it and enjoy it. It goes really well with a good glass of red wine!

Pumpkin Truffles

It just isn't Christmas until you see the local Christmas play at church.  Of course, the cutest little kids were the "cows" (yes I'm a bit partial) and  make sure and watch the video where one of the cows was mis-behaving during one of the songs, more on that at the At Home page.

Last minute instructions before the play

As always, many thanks for stopping in and I hope you  share your special holiday traditions with me (idahofarmwife@gmail.com).  Who knows, maybe we will copy what you do as we are always looking to do something new for the holidays.  I will be taking some time off and won't be posting until mid-January. I am looking forward to 2012 and hope the new year finds you happy and healthy. All my best, Gayle.

Agra-Diva 101, Perceptions and Choices

A New Day is Beginning (from harvest 2011)

Okay, I lied, this blog will not be about family like I said in last week's penning (although you can read about that on the At Home Page), as a recent event got my “tinsel all in a wad”  …… First let me start out saying that I consider myself as a goodwill ambassador for our farm; farming is our passion and way of life.  And my job is to explain what we do, why we do it and how we live it. Because we do our job, it allows other people to do something else.  Not so long ago, our ancestors had a daily mission - to go out and find food so they could eat that day.  My mom tells me of the times while growing up in rural Montana during the depression how her mom would go out in the early morning hours to fish so they would have some kind of protein to eat for that day. Today, we are fortunate as we do not have to focus on foraging the woods to put food on the table, we as Americans, enjoy the luxury of going to the well stocked grocery stores and purchasing high quality food and not using 50% of our income to sustain ourselves.

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So let me tell you what just happened, as it has been an interesting week for this farm-wife. If you read last week’s blog you will know about the low spot of me losing a loved one and so a bright spot was being asked to write for a food publication newsletter about food, farming and being a farm-wife. The purpose was to connect the consumer with the farmer. The editor and I had spoken a few times and I was to start contributing to her newsletter in January. Although it was not a large publication, she did mention that one of her writers had recently gotten a book deal, so I could see some possibilities here and was excited to start down this new path. When getting down to the nut and bolts of what she wanted from me, content, etc, she mentioned in a P.S. sort of way, about what did I think of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and did our farm use Monsanto® products? Because if we did, it was a deal breaker (her words) as she had a friend who told her all about the evils of this company. Well… I pondered my response, and as the editor has had cookbooks published, I used the following analogy to put this on a personal level for her. Here is what I told her, “imagine you created the most perfect recipe after years of trial & error, copyrighted it, marketed it by selling franchises, so that the franchisees were in a contract with you and enjoying the success from the recipe you created, then one of them decides they no longer want to pay you for the use of your recipe, but still wants to use it in their line of business to make money – well that would be a breach of contract and you would use legal actions to stop them. It is no different than with farmers using Monsanto products as they developed seed and products to help the farmer, and when we use their certified seed, we enter into a contract with them. Plain and simple, you honor the contract rules.” So I told the truth that yes we do use some Monsanto products on our farm, we do not use GMOs, but not because we don’t value the technology to help feed the world, but because it isn’t available in the crops we raise. I further tried to convey that this company spends an untold amount developing a better seed to help farmers feed the world and asked her to please try to see them in a different light. And what was the editor’s thoughts, was she open minded? I was promptly “uninvited” to write for her publication. This is unfortunate as I fear the editor was listening to the half-truths and opinions from the Food, Inc movie and that she was completely fixated on what her friend told her. In fact, if you go to Monsanto’s website, it summarizes what I was trying to say and they did it perfectly, “if there were one word to explain about Monsanto, it would be about farmers. We create the seeds, traits, and crop protection chemicals that help farmers produce more food with less resources.” No I am not a paid Monsanto employee, we are a customer of theirs and are one farm family out of the other 259,000 of us who are charged with task of feeding the next 2 billion people that are predicted to be our neighbors by 2050.


Am I a little disappointed? Yes, but I know there will be other opportunities to write for other publications, and I will continue my blogging and farm advocacy work just as I am doing and “telling the farmer’s side of the story”. This recent setback just reinforces the need for farmers all over the country to be ”real and to be open about what we do” and most of all, be approachable. So with great anticipation for next year and because I am the “boss of me” I choose to persist, be positive, to innovate and be a significant factor for American Agriculture and to tell its story.

Thank you again for stopping by, I read every comment & love ‘em and above all, please email at idahofarmwife@gmail.com if you have any questions. I’ll sign off for now as a farm-wife, a mom and agra-diva. All my best, Gayle.

Tis the Season, A Celebration of Life

Greetings my friends! All is quiet on the farm front and since I last posted my Thanksgiving blog I've had happy and sad events that have shaped my little world. I was privileged to have been invited to share my farm advocacy story at the 1st Executive Women in Agriculture conference in Chicago last week and met awe inspiring & amazing women from all over the country. It was a great experience and one I will always treasure. But just before I boarded my plane, I received word that my beloved step-dad had passed away from his courageous 6 year battle with bone cancer. So this past Monday, we buried him and were thankful that he was no longer in pain and know that he will be missed by all who knew him. My step-dad loved the holiday season and was so much a part of our lives that even though he is no longer here to celebrate with us, I am finding my family is banding closer to each other more than usual, and it is like a comforting, warm blanket of love. Despite having a hole in our hearts, we recognize the need to get up, brush the dust off of ourselves and live our lives. We are all aware we need to continue making those precious memories, as when the end is near, all you have is family & memories.  With that thought in mind, the next few blogs will be focused more on this farm-wife's family as December is a quiet time on the farm.  But next month I'll start taking you on "field trips".... and I have some interesting things planned.

And as the air is getting crisper, we have had our first snowfall, and the holiday decorations are going up all over our town, it's getting me into the holiday spirit, Tis the Season! Here are a few pictures of how our farm house is decorated for the holiday season.



I've found many of my treasures from yard sales, estate sales and shopping at thrift stores.  The stains on the vintage table cloths would tell me the tale of laughter, drinks and good food during a gathering, so I embrace the stains and holes as well as  dents, chipped paint or whatever from my other treasures, as just knowing that perhaps these items were lovingly used by previous owners make it all the more special to me.


Snacks in mason jars that are in an old milk bottle basket




I love old enamel ware



The table that greets you when you walk through the front door



The sign on the bear says "1 day of coal
364 days of fun, I'll take my chances" 

  For some reason, my one of my daughters said that sign was "so me"..... I think that is a compliment. =)



I had candy canes on the bottom shelf, but
our dog kept eating them, so had to move the goodies
up to another shelf




These are acutal toys that my grand-angels play with when they come over



And yes, I've been baking.... this little goody is a White Chocolate cake.  I am undecided on what flavors mean "Christmas", so I've been driving my husband crazy by baking so many different kinds of cakes. I made a Gingerbread bundt that was okay and a few others that looked good on paper, but the results were disappointing.  This one was good and it is blog worthy for my reader friends. 





White Chocolate Cake with White Chocolate Cream cheese frosting
(look for the recipe on the Cake of the Month page - for December )

As for Farmer Joe, well he has been busy attending Ag related meetings in his role as president for the Idaho Grain Producers Association and working in the farm shop.

So for now, I'll sign off, but as always I am SO GLAD you stopped by and feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or leave me a comment.  All my best, Gayle

Happy Thanksgiving From the Anderson Farm to You

Happy Thanksgiving

As we gather to celebrate a bountiful Thanksgiving with family and friends, this farm-wife would like to give you a insight on who the Anderson Farm family is, so as you sit down for your dinner, you might feel a connection to those of us who grew the wheat for your rolls, breads and baked goods.  Plus you might be interested to know that if you are serving hummus for an appetizer, there is a very good chance it came from this area & maybe even our farm, and lastly, if you are spreading mustard on anything, it could have come from our farm too.  We are 1 farm family out of roughly 259,000 more full-time farm families who, just like us, grow the food we all eat.  And as you are saying your prayers, and if you think of it, please include a special blessing for all of these hard working farm families. =)

Me, Farmer Joe & Josie - the spoiled dog

Farming has come a long way from the days of Farmer Joe's grandpa and dad as shown below

to being able to provide more food with less ground and less of a carbon footprint

Below is a short Flickr photo sideshow of our farm family.  Although our girls chose different careers and no longer work on the farm as they once did, none-the-less they are proud to have been raised with an Agriculture background.  So far, the 2 oldest grand-angels have told their grandpa that they want to drive the tractors and combines. Zack, our nephew and son of  Farmer Jay and Lisa is a great worker when he goes out to work on the farm  and he likes to hang out with his dad and uncle Farmer Joe. So who knows, we may have Zack, Brinley and Natalie running the farm in a few years. 

And lastly, as the Thanksgiving holiday is a focus on food, I wanted to know what consumers thought and what questions they would ask a farmer.... so last Sunday afternoon, Farmer Joe and I went out and posed that question to random folks.  We went to several different grocery stores from national chain stores to the local organic food co-op to ask the question, "if you could ask a farmer a question, what would you ask?"..... and here is  what I found out.


      
Here are the answers to the questions asked:
• 97% of U.S. farms are run by families, farmer partnerships or co-ops, per Farm Facts.   If a family farm is incorporated (i.e. Corporate Farm) it simply refers to the organizational tax structure of that farm operation.

• The crops grown by the farmers are based on what can be grown in their particular area as well as what is profitable to grow. For instance, we grow garbanzo beans vs peas as the market price is much better for garbanzos than dried peas.

• The use of herbicides or pesticide on crops is only used when needed and the products we use are highly regulated and tested by the Food & Drug Administration. The rules that govern what can be used are far more stringent in the U.S. than in foreign countries. When we use products on our crops, it could be compared to when a person gets sick and goes to the doctor for medicine to help them get healthy; it’s the same for plants- we are trying to keep the plants healthy for optimum yield results. We eat the same foods we produce as the consumer eats and as a practice, I try to only buy products grown in the U.S.A.


• We have not noticed an increase in conventional farmers converting to organic methods, but a few farms may do small organic sections as a speciality. We feel the consumer should have a choice of conventional vs organic. Typically organic is more expensive, for example one grocery store had a dozen eggs for $1.39 produced in a conventional way vs the $4.59 for organic, free range eggs.  It simply depends on what the consumer wants to pay for their food. Americans spend just 9.5% of their income on food- less than any other country, plus it is the safest as well, per Farm Facts.


• As for the question about baby animals from dairies, it depends on the sex of the animal and the operation of that dairy. As we have friends in the dairy business, the females may be kept and added to the herd for milk production, and as for the males, they may stay for breeding or get sold.
 • And lastly the women who talks about Ireland’s practice of telling you who raised that product… well it goes back to what I am trying to do, connect the consumer to the farmer. Let them see the regular American Farm Family who raises the food that they eat.

And I can't let you go until I share my latest cake find located on the Cake of the Month page...

Pumpkin Poundcake

Are you drooling yet? 

Again, Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. Please make sure to check the At Home on the Farm as I'll be posting more on what a farm engagement party looks like. We have invited our family and farm friends to meet Kaitlyn's financee, Andrew on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so quality time in the kitchen is definately in store for me. As always, thanks for stopping by and let me know if you have any quesitons by either posting a comment or emailing me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com. All my best, Gayle

When Nature Gives You A Break, You've Gotta Take It

Today is Veteran's Day and we give our eternal and heartfelt thanks to all who have served to make our country safe.

In our part of the country, any nice day after October 20 is a bonus as the weather can turn cold, rainy or snowy and we can count on being out of the field until Spring.  After last week's light dusting of snow, Mother Nature has granted us a few more spectacular warm Fall days here on the "Palouse". Farmer Joe and Farmer Jay took the opportunity to get a few more things done on the farm as the weather forecast is calling for rain and snow this afternoon as well as the rest of the week.

Here is a video from the seat of the tractor cab to give you a peek at what it looks like driving down our country back-roads.

Next are two videos Farmer Joe shot of us planting some grasses and plants along the ditch as part of our on-going wildlife conservation efforts.  Farmers take our environmental conservation efforts seriously as well as do our part in promoting wildlife habitat.  The first video shows the tractor planting the grasses and the second video shows you what it looks like from the seat of the tractor.

And of course, I wanted to share my newest and perfect Fall  yummy, "Apple Butterscotch Squares" on the OMG Dessert page.

Tomorrow this farmwife will be heading 100 miles away to see the newly engaged daughter try on wedding dresses and where her older sister, Jen will also be trying on bridesmaids dresses.  So my part, as well as my mom's, will be doing the appropriate "ooohs and aaawwes" as the girls try on all sorts of dresses. =) More on that will be on the At Home on the Farm page.


As always, many thanks for stopping by, I hope you will try some of my favorite recipes and settle in for cozy moment with a cup of coffee or tea and enjoy your baking efforts.  Please feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or leave comments, as I love to read them and appreciate the time that you have put aside to read the blog. All my best, Gayle

The wheat has been seeded all comfy in their beds, with visions of harvest still in our heads…. okay so maybe I won’t quit my day job to write off-beat versions of that favorite Christmas poem, but  I am a serious holiday junkie and now that harvest is over and our "fall working season" is on the down-hill slide we are rolling into a quiet time on the farm and straight into the holiday season!  I love this time of year and am seriously thinking of starting my holiday movie watching tradition a bit early as we just had our first dusting of snow….. But first, here on the farm, Farmer Joe kindly taped a short video to show you what we are doing on the farm before it goes to sleep for the winter.

As for life on the farm..... well we have some big news, and invite you to read about it on the At Home on the Farm page

And if you love desserts, check out the Pumpkin Chocolate cake with a cinnamon cream cheese frosting and a chocolate ganache glaze ...... yummmmm on the Cake of the Month page.

As  the quiet winter season on the farm is settling upon us, I will be taking you on "field trips" such as getting to see barges being  loaded with wheat that will make their way down the river system to get shipped overseas and whatever else I can think of.  Plus  if YOU have any requests, let me know and I'll see what I can do to make it happen.  As always, thanks for stopping by. Well my friends, take care and feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or leave me a post.  All my best, Gayle

An American Farm Family Telling Our Story

Hooray! With great pleasure I have added the video from our 3rd annual “Dinner on the Farm” that Farmer Joe and I host during two week-ends in September. This is a free event and our way of connecting the farmer to the consumer. My friend and former co-worker, Camille Rigby taped & edited this magnificent footage from one of our dinners held last month. The images she captured show the true quintessence of what I try to say in every blog: that we love farming, we are an American farm family who makes our living providing food for the consumer, and we want to tell you our story as well as answer your questions and concerns about American agriculture.

I’ve been blogging about our farm for the last 2 or so years and this blog has taken on a life of its own. It shapes the way I think and view things around the farm. Farmer Joe and our hired-man, Cody have joined with me in giving you a “hands on insight” of what we do, day in and day out.

One of my goals with this blog is to be able to have a broader audience and give the consumer that connection to where their food is grown and who grows it. I also hope to someday garner the interest from one of the major women’s magazines and have a regular column that answers questions from the consumer about where their food comes from. So far Better Homes & Gardens, Country Living and a few others have repeatedly turned me down or just ignored my suggestion and offer to write for them. So I will keep doing what I am doing and am thankful for each and everyone one my blog readers. =)

In December, I will be in Chicago to be on a forum for Top Producer’s Executive Women in Agriculture to talk about being an “Advocate for Ag”, and if you have something you would like me to share about what you like most from this blog, please post a comment or email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com . Thanks and as always, appreciate you stopping by. All my best, Gayle

Seeding Wheat the "No Till" Way, Fall Work 2011

On our farm, we are no till farmers, which basically means we seed our crops directly into the soil with minimal disruption of the ground. This is a soil saving process as well as a cost saving one for us and we feel, a better carbon footprint for the environment.  It takes special equipment (which is expensive) and, while we, and many other farmers in the area utilize this practice, not all farmers buy into the "no till" way of doing things.  It basically comes down to what is best for your own farm.

Here is a short video of Cody (our hired man) in the tractor pulling a shredder that breaks up the wheat stubble into little pieces.  It is sort of like composting and it helps the crops and the soil by helping keep weeds down, keeping moisture in the ground, preventing erosion of the soil and making it a better condition for the tiny wheat seed to grow.

Hot off the press from Farmer Joe..... a look at seeding wheat. 

Thanks for stopping by, email me if you have quesitons at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or feel free to post a comment.  All my best, Gayle

Fall Seeding

Just as the weather has seasons, so does farming.  Well besides the inside farm joke that "the only seasons we  know are before harvest, harvest and after harvest",  we actually do have 3 distinct farm seasons and we call them "spring work, harvest, and fall work".   And our life, both personal and business, revolves around those farm seasons.  In fact I can still remember (27 years ago) being  newly engaged to the farmer and finding out the that the only months that would not interfere with farming were November - February..... so we had a beautiful  winter wedding.   So when I say our personal lives revolve around farming, I am serious. =)

As I look out my kitchen window, all of the fields have now been harvested, the weather has turned from summer into fall and our new focus  is on getting 1/3 of our farm planted into winter wheat.   What does a typical day in the life of a farmer look like in Fall Work?  Well come along and I'll show you.

But first, here is a picture of Cody washing up Farmer Joe's combine before it gets put away for the year.



The combine is put away without it's header

Farmer Jay doing maintenance  on the seeding drill which puts down fertilizer & seed



Anhydrous ammonia truck filling the tanks on the tractor

And Farmer Joe explains......

A still shot of the "nurse truck" being filled

Each year, to aid the University of Idaho, we set aside some acreage for the wheat lab to do test plots in actual  field conditions.  Here are two staff members plotting out the areas for different wheat varieties they want to grow down at the Tammany farm.

Test plots being staked out

And finally (yea) it rained. The ground has been rock hard, so the rain was very welcome and it will make the process of seeding go much easier.

As always, thanks for stopping in, and now you get to see what a fall seeding day looks like. If you want to see what the farmwife does while the farmer is working, check out At Home on the Farm page.

Feel free to email me at idahofarmwife@gmail.com or leave a comment.  All my best, Gayle