publicity
Recently Janna Goerdt, the farmer behind Fat Chicken Farm, and reporter from the Virigina, MN weekly newspaper Hometown Focus interviewed me for an article she was writing about 3 women farmers. The article was in preparation for the second annual Iron Range Earth Fest. Jean Cole from Hometown Focus kindly gave me permission to reprint the portion of the story about us here at Bear Creek Acres. Thanks Janna and Jean for the lovely profile!
• • • Shannon and Mary Ann Wycoff had always been “do it yourself” type people, according to Mary Ann.
When they wanted fresh vegetables, they learned to garden. When they wanted to till that garden soil, they bought a brokendown tiller and made it run again. When they wanted humanely-raised meat, well, you can guess what happened.
After moving to an old Embarrass farmstead with a picture-perfect red barn, the family wanted to raise food and meat for their own use. Shannon, who works at Northshore Mining in Babbitt, was supposed to order two piglets from a co-worker. Instead, he ordered four.
Here’s what he told Mary Ann: “Everyone says not to worry, you’ll have no trouble selling [the extra two].”
It turned out that Shannon was right. The night before the Wycoffs planned to take the pigs to the processor, someone called to order the last available meat. In the meantime, Shannon had ordered more feeder pigs.
And so it began – soon enough the Wycoffs were raising eight pigs at a time, then 12, then 25, Mary Ann said. They added beef cattle and “chicken tractors” that the Wycoffs move around their fields so the plump chickens can peck at bugs and fresh grass.
And the more animals they added, the more they sold. They sell the meat from Bear Creek Acres directly to customers, to the Natural Harvest Co-op in Virginia, and at area farmers markets.
“We never looked at each other and said, ‘Wanna be a farmer?’” Mary Ann Wycoff said. “It just happened by itself, it was entirely unexpected and unplanned. We still haven’t said, ‘Wanna be farmers?’”
They have tapped into a market that wants their products for a variety of reasons, Wycoff said. Some customers want to know the animals were raised humanely, others want to support sustainable and local agriculture, she said. Some customers believe they are getting a more healthful product, and others “like to get to know their farmer,” she said.
Shannon Wycoff still works in Babbitt, and, though it’s a hard way to try and earn a living – “there are lots of ways of losing money doing this,” she said -- Mary Ann has found that the rhythm of farming at Bear Creek Acres suits her.
“I don’t do monotony easily, so I like the constant challenges of farming,” she said. And she looks to others to help her and her family meet those challenges – whether they are neighbors, fellow farmers, retired farmers, or anyone else willing to talk about their own experiences.
“Every day, I’m reading something, learning something,” she said. “I could do this for 100 years, and never know anywhere near enough.”
Guess where I was last night!
Give up?
I was a speaker at Natural Harvest Food Coop. I spoke for nearly an hour about local meat. The Co-op's Board has made it a mission to learn more about the local food economy this year. So following thier monthly meetings they are inviting speakers. They were very attentive and very kind. I was awfully nervous!
There were even a couple people in attendance who weren't Board members and didn't even have to be there! (Thanks for coming, Janna, Gina, and the nice couple from the Cook end of Lake Vermilion who's names I can't remember!)
Do you know about the Co-op? It's a great store. We are so lucky to have such a well stocked treasure. Remember you don't have to be a member to shop there - like the sign say's : Open to the Public.
I brought a camera with me so I could take a picture of the store. But I left it on the back seat of my car. Sorry.
It was a fun night. Thanks for having me Natural Harvest.
I just came from a delightful lunch at the Coates Hotel in Virginia, MN which is where the Rotarians meet for thier weekly lunch meetings. I am not a member of the Rotary Club. No....I was the entertainment! They asked me to talk about our farm. I think they saw on our web site that I had done a little talk for the Historical Society and were in need of a speaker.
I met some really nice people and had a tasty lunch courtesy of the Rotary Club. The Rotarians seem to delight in good clean fun and one another's company.
I also found out that the Rotarians are working hard to fight polio and are helping a village in Peru get clean water. Locally, among other things, they distribute dictionaries to 3rd graders and host that great fishing contest for kids in Virginia each June.
I'd like to tip my hat to the Rotarians for showing me a good time today and tell them to keep up the good work.
Thanks, Rotary! It was an honor, and I had fun.
Recently, I had a fun opportunity to talk to the
Virginia Arena Historical Society. They are an active bunch who take the preservation of the history of Virginia, MN very seriously.
This group has a lovely museum on the edge of Olcott (aka Northside Park)
in Virginia, Mn. It’s really an overlooked treasure.
I was invited to share my family’s story…
The Wycoff’s – Unexpected Farmers.
I’d like to thank them for that chance.
I was so nervous and had not done anything like that before, but their smiling, encouraging faces got me warmed up and I spoke for about 45 minutes!
Can you believe it?
They were generous and asked a few questions
and some even asked for business cards!
Some folks stopped to share farming stories from their youth. I just love hearing people tell me about what their farm or their grandparents farm was like.
It was a great time, and
I was honored to have been asked.
Bear Creek Acres’ 15 minutes of fame has now increased to 25 minutes since The Timberjay, our local newspaper - which has editions for Ely, Tower-Soudan, and Cook-Orr, did a wonderful feature article on us. ( I checked their site, and it doesn’t look like you can read the article online.) You can read it here. One of the editors, Marshall Helmberger, came out to the farm and interviewed Shannon and me about a week ago. We weren’t quite sure what he had in mind, and Saturday we were thrilled to see a long article with several color photographs about The Wycoffs, Unexpected Farmers.
Unexpected Farmers relates to our story of never planning to farm. We had only intended to raise food for ourselves - but selling one pig turned into selling 3, then 6, then 12…and so on. Marshall and his family personally support our commitment to helping protect our local food supply as well as shopping locally. He is a gifted writer and really captured us in a nutshell. One of our customers, Mickey, was quoted in the article saying nice stuff about our meat.
This sort of thing – the newspaper and radio interview - just doesn’t happen to us.
I know that next week we’ll fade back into obscurity,
but for now we’re sure enjoying it.
What fun!
Thanks to The Timberjay for inviting me to "reprint" Marshall's colomn and photos on my website!
For a Kugler Township family, a surprising demand for wholesome,
locally-raised meat has produced a growing business and an
opportunity to rejuvenate a once-thriving rural farmstead.
Shannon and Mary Ann Wycoff weren't planning to become farmers when they bought the old Saranpaa farm, located south of Tower, four years ago. The 167-acre plot had last been tilled in the 1980s and many of the old fields were growing back to brush.
The land offered the family a home in the country, a place Shannon
says he was eager to return to after nine years living in Silver Bay,
where he worked at Northshore Mining. While the family had thoughts
of raising a few animals for their own needs, they quickly found that
friends and neighbors had other ideas.
They started with four pigs, figuring they'd eat two themselves and
sell a couple to help cover their expenses. The two extra pigs sold
right away. "Then people started asking for chickens, too," recalls
Mary Ann.
The family, which includes 16 year-old Taylor, 14 year-old Jack and
12-year old Maggie, took small steps at a time as they entered the
business, but each time they'd buy a new batch of livestock, the
animals would sell almost immediately. So 100 chickens became 200
chickens, and this year will become 900 chickens. Four pigs became 60
pigs. "And then people started asking for beef," said Mary Ann.
So was created Bear Creek Acres, the Wycoffs' burgeoning home-based business that has tapped a powerful desire by a growing number of area residents for safer foods that are locally-grown. "The whole
shop-local movement is really taking off," said Mary Ann. "And
concerns about E. coli, growth hormones and antibiotics in
industrially-raised meat is another big issue for people."
While the Wycoffs' animals don't meet the definition of "organic,"
because the Wycoffs use conventionally-raised feed, they only
purchase feed that is free of antibiotics and animal byproducts. And
unlike conventionally-raised meat animals, the Wycoffs' animals rely
heavily on their own natural instincts for much of their food, and
that fact is doing wonders to improve the farm's overall productivity.
The chickens, for example, spend most of their day outside, where
they feed in a small, grassy pasture. The chickens' pens, known as
"chicken tractors" are easily portable and the Wycoffs move them each
day to keep the birds in fresh grass and to help spread their
valuable manure evenly around the pasture.
It's an approach that was popularized by Joel Salatin, a Virginia
state meat grower who has become a leading critic of the
industrialization of agriculture in the U.S. In permanent,
highly-concentrated animal feeding operations, animal waste has
become a major disposal problem for meat growers around the country.
By returning to sustainable practices, Salatin has argued, animal
waste again becomes a valuable commodity that is crucial to
maintaining farm productivity.
The Wycoffs say they've already seen the improvement in their own
pasture and they're using their animals to restore pastures that had
filled in with brush as well. Their pigs are especially good at
clearing brush, said Shannon, who points to areas of recovering
pasture that were once choked with alder and willow, but have since
returned to grass after the relentless rooting of the pigs killed off
the brush. "They do a heck of a job for us," he said.
For the farm's dozen or so head of cattle, grain is usually just an
occasional treat. For most of their lives, they feed as cows have
done for centuries- on grass. The Wycoffs do supplement the grass
with grain for a few months before slaughter to improve the flavor.
While the couple is considering experimenting with grass-finished
beef, they said most Americans haven't yet acquired the taste for it
and probably wouldn't like it.
But local residents are clearly clamoring for the taste of the meat
the Wycoffs are producing. "It's fabulous," said Mickey White, of
Embarrass, who has been buying pork and chickens from the Wycoffs for two years. "I like that it doesn't have any hormones or antibiotics.
It's also very tasty," she said.
"People who've eaten it say it's fantastic," said Ann Carter, with
the Natural Harvest Food Co-op in Virginia, which began carrying the
Wycoffs' meat this past winter. "The main thing for us is we know how
they're raising their meat and how the animals are being treated. And
with all the meat scares in the past year, just knowing where your
meat is coming from helps," she said.
The Wycoffs' meat has also been a hit at the weekly farmer's market
in Ely, where Mary Ann said she's been regularly selling out each
time. "It's just worked out great," she said.
And the couple's plans continue to be geared towards growth.
According to Shannon, they plan to increase their production of pork
and chickens next year, and will be able to offer individual cuts of
beef by then as well.
So far, the couple says that they've poured their profits back into
the farm. Shannon continues to work at Northshore, which means
farming is his second job, at least for now.
But he said the farm has the potential to raise far more livestock in
the future and they're hoping that the time and money invested
rejuvenating the land will pay off in the long run.
It's hard not to be optimistic, considering the response they've
received so far. "People tell us our meat reminds them of what
chicken and pork used to taste like," she said, noting that
industrially-raised meat often lacks the flavor and texture that
older people, or people who grew up on farms, still remember.
While their small scale production means their meat costs a bit more,
Mary Ann said price is often not as important as people think. "I
think it gives people a sense of well-being, and that's worth a lot."
Last week I was contacted by Scott Hall at KAXE ....91.7 FM on your radio dial . He was wondering if I'd be interested in being interviewed on the Morning Show that he does with Maggie Montgomery for their Local Food segment every Wednesday morning. I would be a fool to pass up a great opportunity like this, but I got butterflies just thinking about it. Scott had such a nice, calm, reassuring voice when he asked me to do it, and I had been listening, when I could, to some of their interviews because I sure found them interesting.
I decided to suck it up and say, "Yes, thank you."
All week I was on pins and needles. Last night it seemed like every time I fell asleep, I woke up from a dream in which I was saying something absolutely stupid on live radio. Then I started to worry that now that that stupid thing was stuck in my head.....I'd actually say it.
Well, I had nothing to worry about. Maggie didn't ask me any hard questions. I don't think I embarrassed myself. It's just like Scott said...just a nice conversation about something I'm familiar with and enjoy.
Actually, it was fun and I wouldn't lose sleep over it ever again.
Silly me.
Well, I had my 15 minutes of fame. I went to the KAXE archive (where it's available for a week ) and downloaded the interview to my computer. So now I have it forever. Or until my computer crashes because I don't back stuff up very often.
By the way, KAXE (91.7FM) radio is a very cool station out of Grand Rapids. It's a community station which means that lots and lots of the stuff on it is done by volunteers who are regular people like you and me. It also means that they ask for public support sometimes. On occasion, they also are a bit wacky - which is fun as well.
Check 'em out. They're good people.