Illinois Farm Families Blog

Too much about small towns and family farms falls victim to inaccurate stereotypes. Yet the image of good-hearted, hard-working people generally holds true. (Even if they don’t wear straw hats.)
Our small-town community annually pulls off an amazing and huge Thanksgiving-type feast at our church. We call it the annual Turkey Supper, held the last Saturday in October. We serve turkey and the homemade trimmings to nearly 500 people. The population of our town is 600.
The effort requires 21 turkeys, 81 loaves of bread for dressing, 65 pounds of coleslaw, six roasters brim-full of mashed potatoes, 15 gallons of gravy, 40 bags of cranberries and 23 big cans of green beans. For dessert: 80 pies and cakes! You drool at the thought and certainly salivate at my church’s front door. 
I watched volunteers walk in the church and become mesmerized by the aroma. They shake the urge to eat and take to their stations in the kitchen. The fellowship hall. The Sunday School room. And the choir practice area. 
The effort requires more than 60 volunteers. That includes people to waitress the family-style meal, slice turkey, bake dressing, cut pies and dish food. Meal-time requires a crew in the kitchen and a crew in second room, which serves carry-outs through a front window. Shifts arrive to wash dishes (including 20-plus roasters!). That number doesn’t even include the people who bake pies at home and donate ingredients. The list is lengthy and exhausting. 
As is the work. Hours ahead of the meal, you see people in food-speckled clothes who could benefit from a bath. Or at least a sweat band. We pray a week or two ahead of the event – asking the Lord for strength and guidance in anticipation of the day.
Three generations of my family work the Turkey Supper. My grandma, mom and I all worked in the kitchen this year. Four aunts worked an aspect, too. Several cousins served as waitresses in the past. Our daughter, the fourth generation, helped a little bit last year when we chunked about 80 loaves of Wonder bread for the dressing.
Grandma has been the gravy lady for years. She makes this flavorful topper the way it’s supposed to be: from the turkey broth. She stirs for hours with her arm perched above tall, commercial-type stockpots. 
This year, I inherited Mom’s green bean duties. She instead co-chaired the kitchen operations and washed dishes for NINE HOURS. And like many of us, she didn’t get a bite of it until forking into her carryout meal at home afterwards. 
What a delicious primer to Thanksgiving – which by comparison may be less work!
Joanie Stiers
Williamsfield, IL

Food defines the seasons on our farm.  By spring, we’ve exhausted our winter stores of garden vegetables and plant seeds with visions of fresh salads and side dishes in our heads. Throughout the summer and early fall we eat from the garden, literally.  One morning my kids and I took our spoons out to the melon patch, picked a sweet smelling cantaloupe, sat down and ate right there in the yard.  That was the best breakfast. 

Of course, food in the fall means meals in the field.  Growing up, we lunched in the field.  That was the time of day my dad agreed to stop the combine, tractors and trucks.  We’d toss a blanket on the field’s edge or in the back of the pick-up and lay out our fare.  Most often lunch was a hearty ham sandwich ladened with garden fresh lettuce and tomatoes, an apple plucked from the backyard tree and cut vegetables from the garden.  My mom always had a sweet treat – brownies, pumpkin squares, apple squares, sugar cookies . . . my mouth is watering. 

These days my husband, his dad and brother stop for supper.  My mother-in-law, sister-in-law and I divide the week, each taking two nights. (I am thankful that on this farm we take Sunday to heart and rest for the day.)

We’re not the only farm wives that trek to the fields at dinnertime.  Between 5 and 6 p.m. you might see several combines stopped and a small group huddled around a dropped tailgate or raised hatch of an SUV.  The group consists of the harvest crew, which can range from one person to several and any kids, the farm wife and sometimes passers-by who stopped to talk.  Let me just say, retired farmers and agri-businessmen are smart.  They know when meals are served and who cooks and bakes what.  I always make plenty for the “extra help”. 

I have my go-to recipes and laughed out loud the year my brother-in-law said of the first meal, “Let me guess.  Sausage and rice casserole.”  Guess I had served that several years in a row. 

The kids get to see their dad, because they often go for days at a time not seeing him.  He starts work at 5 a.m. and will go until 9 or 10 p.m.  Meals in the field give the men a break to stretch their legs, talk to each other face to face instead of through the radio and to stop and see what they’ve accomplished. 

Standing in a harvested field at dusk sharing a meal, one can see for miles to where the purple night sky meets the earth. The low voices and deep laughter of the harvest crew fades quickly into the dusty waning light.  I am reminded of how tiny we are in the grand scheme of nature’s life cycle and yet so very blessed to be sharing the thrill of harvest with good people. 

Katie Pratt
Grand Prairie Farms

Ingredients:

1-1/4 pounds boneless beef top sirloin steak, cut 3/4 inch thick
2 teaspoons dark sesame oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 medium red bell pepper, cut into thin strips
3 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce, divided
2 tablespoons water
3 cups coarsely chopped fresh spinach
1/2 cup sliced green onions
3 tablespoons ketchup
2 cups hot cooked rice, prepared without butter or salt

Instructions:

1.    Cut beef steak lengthwise in half and then crosswise into 1/4 inch strips. Toss with sesame oil and garlic.
2.    Heat large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Add beef (1/2 at a time); stir-fry 1 to 2 minutes or until outside surface is no longer pink. Remove from skillet.
3.    In same skillet, add bell pepper, 2 tablespoons soy sauce and water; cook 2 to 3 minutes or until pepper is crisp-tender. Add spinach and green onions; cook until spinach is just wilted. Stir in ketchup, remaining 1 tablespoon soy sauce and beef; heat through. Serve over rice.

Lynn Martz
Larson Farms
Maple Park, Illinois

 

Recipe from Beef It's What's For Dinner.

My 5-year-old daughter couldn’t wait to get off the bus recently and head to the corn field our family was harvesting. In fact, after a quick hug, she asked me to confirm our evening plans in the field and bounced with joy at the affirmative response.

Specifically, she loves to eat supper in the field. It’s her all-around favorite place to dine, trumping Grandma’s house and the nearby sandwich shop with arcade games. In fact, she will have her sixth birthday party in a corn or soybean field this week.

Greetings from west-central Illinois, where we grow corn and soybeans about a three-hour drive from Chicago. Also on some of my family’s farms you’ll find wheat, hay, cattle, pigs, a few barn cats and farm dogs. Corn and soybeans generate our household farm income and makes a living for my parents and brother.

Right now we’re harvesting the crops and have more than a month to go. Unless it rains, we work daily until bedtime or later. Harvest keeps my husband away from home most waking hours for our kids, ages 5 and 3. After his 7-to-5 farm equipment job, he heads to the field to relieve a member of the daytime harvest crew. The kids and I join him in the field to share some experience-based family time. The kids ride in the tractor, visit with their dad and mingle with most of the crew, which includes three grandpas, an uncle and two friends. With the kids’ presence, we often have four generations of our farm family in the same field!

To the kids’ delight, Grandma delivers a hot supper, such as roast, meatloaf, hot sandwiches and pork chops. She is our primary farm family cook. I pitch in with full and partial evening meals throughout the season. The guys are as eager as the kids for this meal, an anticipated segment of their day. Preparing food for about eight people nightly requires prudent stocking-up for us, as we live 22 miles from a city grocery store. The routine task requires commitment and dedication, but broken down we show love and care through cooking. We extend the same care to how we farm.

Most often, the evening meals are threaded with happiness that harvest is progressing. Yet, some days can be stressful, such as when a field’s production is disappointing, machinery breaks down, or field conditions prove challenging. Regardless, the guys greet the kids with smiles on their evening picnic in the field.

Our 5-year-old daughter turns 6 this week. Having a baby during harvest is a blog entry in itself, but for now I’ll quickly say it’s hard to work in a family party. Instead of waiting for a rainy day, we’re taking the meal, cake, homemade ice cream and presents to the field this year. She’ll feel like a queen at her princess-themed harvest party.


Joanie Stiers
Williamsfield, IL

 
Paul and I love to have friends, new and old, visit the farm.  Living so close to Chicago has given us the opportunity to welcome many folks to our family farm from all over the world.  Just Monday, we had eight visitors from Japan.  All of these men and women work with farmers and companies that help to provide food for the Japanese people.  It was most interesting learning about their lives in Japan.  We took them to the fields to see corn and soybeans growing.  We showed them the machinery that we will use to harvest the corn and beans, beginning in September.  We talked about walking through the fields to “scout” or check for diseases and insects that may harm the corn and soybeans. They told us about working with farmers in Japan who grow cattle and pigs and chickens.  One man was a professor at Rakuno Gakuen University.  He works with Japanese farmers who raise dairy cows for milk and cheese.   After two hours of walking around our farm, our guests joined us for a supper of Italian Beef, chicken, baked beans, broccoli and cauliflower salad, tomatoes from our garden, fruit salad, and chocolate cake.  We visited another couple hours and then our new friends had to return to Chicago, where they are staying until they fly home on Wednesday.  It’s always fun and interesting to meet new people.  I hope through the Illinois Farm Families Blog, I can get to know a little more about you.  And you about me.  And I look forward to answering, or at least, trying to answer all of your questions about how we grow your food.  Or anything else you may wish to ask a farmer but didn’t know a farmer to ask!

Remember, we are only a short drive from the city.  We would love to sit on our porch and have a conversation with you anytime!

P.S. In case you were wondering, none of our visitors today lost family members due to tsunami issues.  One young man said his family lived close to the nuclear power plant that was affected but that all his family is now safe.

Donna Jeschke
Mazon, IL

On our farm we keep time in the summer by specific events and activities.  Like when the strawberries ripen and we pick twice, Or when the wild blackberries are ready, and we spend early mornings filling buckets in the patch.  The county fair, several annual neighborhood cookouts and town festivals help us keep track of our summer days.  Perhaps one of the most anticipated summer activities is doing corn.
 
“Doing corn” is not just an act; on our farm it is an event. Growing up, we knew when the first sweet corn landed on our dinner table, doing corn was not far away.  My mom would make the calls to family, neighbors and friends and a few days later our farm would be bustling with activity.

Grandpa Ray and Dad would greet the sunrise, picking a hayrack load of sweet corn from various patches they had planted in an effort to outsmart the cunning raccoons that enjoyed our sweet corn as much as we did.
 
By 7 a.m. people began to arrive and we’d hike out to the cattle pasture to husk that load of corn.  In the shade of the hickory trees, folks settled into the beginnings of the day’s work. Back at the house, we enjoyed a short coffee break of homemade cakes, pastries and rolls while the corn cooked in a big black iron cauldron under which an enormous hot fire burned.  

When the first batch of corn came off the fire and had cooled, the work began in earnest.  We fell into a familiar rhythm. The adults were cutters, wielding their kitchen knives, sitting up to picnic tables with a cake pan or cookie sheet in front of them to catch the cut corn.  We kids also served an important role.  We were haulers.  We hauled cooled corn to the tables, cut cobs to the pigs, and bagged corn to the deep freeze in the basement.  We made sure the cookers had corn from the hayrack to fill the cook pot, the cutters had cooled corn to cut, and the baggers had baggies aplenty.

Doing corn would take the better part of a day.  Everyone joined the clean-up because what followed was a feast of what else?  Sweet corn.  And biscuits, watermelon and other delicious homemade treats.  A simple meal made fantastic by the people with which it was shared.

Not much has changed.  These days we do corn at my house. Now I am the cutter, my kids, niece and nephew are the haulers and we still end the day with a feast of corn.  

As it did in the past, the true reward comes in deep winter, when we pull a bag of sweet corn from the freezer and savor its taste and the summer memories of doing corn.

Katie Pratt
Grand Prairie Farms