Salute To The Hands That Feed Us

Salute to the Hands that Feed Us A Supplement to

The Clermont Sun The Ripley Bee The News Democrat The Peoples Defender The Ledger Independent

2020

2020 Salute To The Hands That Feed Us

Some facts about bees • The practice of beekeeping dates back at least 4,500 years • Approximately one third of the food we eat is the result of honey bee pollination • In their 6-8 week lifespan, a worker bee will fly the equivalent distance of 1 ½ times the circumference of the Earth.

• A productive queen can lay up to 2,500 eggs per day.

• Mead, which is made from fermented honey, is the world’s oldest fermented beverage.

• A single bee will produce only about 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.

• Honey bees are the only insect that produces food consumed by humans.

• During a single collection trip, a honey bee will visit anywhere from 50 to 100 flowers.

• Honey bees beat their wings 200 times per second, creating their trademark “buzz”.

• Though bees have jointed legs, they do not possess anything like a kneecap, and therefore do not have knees.

• There are three types of bees in every hive: a queen, worker bees, and drones.

• Only drones are male.

• In order to make a pound of honey, a hive of bees must fly 55,000 miles • Honey bees don’t sleep. Instead, they spend their nights motionless, conserving energy for the next day’s activities.

• Honey was found in King Tut’s tomb, and, because it never spoils, it was still good!

• The darker the honey, the greater amount of antioxidant properties it has.

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The amazing world of bees Macy Fawns, Mason County Horticulture Agent

Beekeeping is not an easy job; honey bees are amazing creatures that require a wealth of knowledge and skills to keep them alive and produce honey.

In the United States, more than 400 million pounds of honey are consumed each year, but domestic beekeepers can only produce 150 million pounds, a large portion is imported.

Honey bees are not only important to make honey, but they are also pollinators.

According to USDA, “Three-fourths of the world's flowering plants and about 35 percent of the world's food crops depend on animal pollinators to reproduce. More than 3,500 species of native bees help increase crop yields.”

The Buffalo Trace Beekeepers Association is a group that meets at the Mason County Extension office on the second Thursday of each month at 7 p.m. Members range from people who have been a beekeeper for decades to individuals who don’t have a hive yet.

One of the members is Steve Gallenstein, he has been a beekeeper for seven years and owns four hives. Gallenstein said his in-

terest in beekeeping started as a child as he watched bees in his yard and noticed his father Was not afraid of them.

Caring for honey bees requires knowledge and understanding to have a thriving hive. As Gallenstein started attending the Buffalo Trace Beekeeper Association meetings, he learned how to care for his bees and asked countless questions. A few things he learned along the way that were surprising was that pesticides are not the only thing that can kill bees -- there are also insects can kill bees too such as varroa mites, moths and hive beetles.

Now that his hives are up and doing well one of the benefits of beekeeping is getting the honey. He sells a small amount of honey but typically shares it with his family.

When asked what he wanted other people to know about honey bees, Gallenstein said, “honey bees are important not only for honey consumption but they also pollinate a large portion of crops.”

“Another thrilling thing about honey bees is catching swarms; honey bees swarm typically April and May,” he said.

Honey bees will swarm for a number

of reasons from lack of room in their hive, disease, lack of food or if there is a disruption. A swarm can look like a ball of bees or they can cover an area, swarms do not stay in one location for more than a couple days, if that. If you see a swarm call the

Mason County Extension Office and they will contact a beekeeper to remove it.

If you have questions about beekeeping, please contact the Mason County Extension office at 606-5646808 or macy.fawns@uky.edu.

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Ohio Valley Antique Machinery Show celebrates 50 years The idea of an antique machinery show in Southwestern Ohio was first conceived in the mind of a single man, who on December 30, 1970, called upon a group of his fellow antique farm collectors

to meet with him at his home to discuss the possibility of having an antique machinery show closer to home. At this first meeting, there were only 5 men in attendance - but it was a start. In subsequent

meetings, the name was chosen and a group of men were elected to serve as officers. A meeting was held with three members of the fairboard to discuss dates and the arrangements for using the Brown

County Fairgrounds in Georgetown, Ohio for our show. An application for Articles of Incorporation was filed with the State of Ohio, which was granted March 13, 1971, thereby establishing the Ohio Val-

ley Antique Machinery, Inc. The objectives of the Ohio Valley Antique Machinery Show are to revive and spread nostalgic interest in the steam engine - that great source of power which

made America so agriculturally strong; To focus attention on the steam engine's successor - the internal combustion engine whose purring, putt sound were music to many ears; To relive, for several exciting days each year, the glamorous days of threshing rings and steam engine work; To improve good fellowship as we foster our interest in meetings and reunions; To push for a greater tomorrow backed by the strength of yesteryear's progress.

From our humble beginnings in the early days, and with the help of hundreds of volunteers, equipment owners and operators, and patrons, the organization has expanded and prospered over the years into a most successful show, with, now, over 1300 members. With that growth, the club was able to purchase its own show ground in 1990, located a mile east of Georgetown, at the corner of State Route 125 and Winfield Road.

The show has become an annual event for many families in our region. Dusting off that old tractor that Grandpa used every day on the family farm, or bringing that one rare piece of equipment that was brought back to life after years of sitting idle, the second full weekend in August has becomes a true reunion for our members. The visitors get to witness steam engines working to power a saw mill, or a threshing machine, as it separates wheat.

There is an Old Village, consisting of log cabins, a working blacksmith shop, and a brick, one room schoolhouse. A vast flea market, filled with vendors and crafters selling their wares, and lots of great food, including steamed corn on the cob, cooked with a

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Page 5 steam engine. There’s a parade every day, and great entertainment Friday and Saturday nights, which is closed out each night with an Old Fashioned Spark Show.

For 2020, the Ohio Valley Antique Machinery Show is excited to be celebrating its 50th Anniversary. Come join us on August 13, 14, 15 and 16, 2020, as we salute past and present members of our Board of Directors, who have been selected over the years by our membership, to be the guiding force in the club’s success.

There will be displays of memorabilia from past shows, as well as other great events, which we hope to make this our best show ever. For more information, visit our website at www.ovams.com, or find our Facebook page “Ohio Valley Antique Machinery Show”

If you eat today, thank a farmer.

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Arrowcrest Jerseys Raw Milk serves up artisanal milk to customers Megan Alley Sun Reporter

Facing declining profits in the traditional dairy industry, local milk farmers Lin and Grace Car-

ney switched their business model last year to producing raw milk, and the change has made all the difference.

The Carneys own Arrowcrest Jerseys

A pitcher of Arrowcrest Jerseys Raw Milk.

Photo provided.

Arrowcrest Jerseys Raw Milk owners Lin and Grace Carney. Photo provided.

Lin Carney and one of his three grandchildren greet one of the family’s jersey cows.

Photo provided.

Raw Milk in Goshen.

Their farm is the last dairy farm in Clermont County.

The two milked conventionally, producing product for pasteurized milk, for 32 years before making the switch to producing raw milk — milk from any animal that has not been pasteurized — in February 2019.

The two were motivated to make the change after they saw their profits from traditional milk farming continuously decline year after year.

As Lin explains it, “The prices that farmers are getting are just breaking even, if you’re lucky; it’s just starvation prices, so we just decided we were going to go another way.”

He added, “You can get a decent price on this, and actually make a living; it’s not just breaking even.”

Lin and Grace each have a family history in farming.

Grace grew up on a dairy farm, and Lin grew up on the 63acre farm where the couple lives today.

Lin's family leased out their fields to other farmers, but that didn’t stop him from bringing home some milking cows when he was in high school, the start of his interest in dairy farming.

The couple met in college, at the Ohio State University Agricultural Technical Institute in Wooster.

Then Lin and Grace took over the

family farm in 1983 and started their conventional diary farming business. At any given time, the couple had a herd of anywhere between 40 and 75 jersey cows.

“I just liked the cows,” Lin said about what inspired him to start dairy farming.

Now, the couple has completely changed their business model from conventional dairy farming to producing raw milk, and selling it directly to customers.

The Carneys said that raw milk is part of the whole foods movement, and while they acknowledge that raw milk does not last as long as pasteurized milk, the Carneys say “it’s better for you.”

“People want their food that’s not been messed with,” Lin said.

The Carneys, who currently have a herd of about 40 jersey cows, line the cows up in a row of 11 and attach a milking machine to the cows’ udders.

The milk is then piped, filtered and collected in a 700-gallon bulk tank, and then it’s cooled “very fast,” to a temperature below 40 degrees celsius.

It stays in the tank and is stirred every 15 minutes by an automatic mixer. “[That way], the milk stays mixed together, because the raw milk separates; the fat goes to the top,” Lin explained.

The tank has a spigot attached,

which is what the Carneys use to retrieve the milk to fill customers’ milk containers.

Lin says that raw milk, “Tastes a lot better.”

He added, “After [milk’s] been cooked a couple of times [during the pasteurization process], it doesn’t taste very good; that’s the first thing people notice.”

He said that raw milks lasts for 10 to 12 days before it “turns,” but after that, customers can use the milk to cook with.

Grace added, that the raw milk doesn’t spoil, it sours.

Raw milk also has high butter fat, which is on the list of foods to eat for those on the keto diet, a very low-carb, highfat diet.

“A lot of them are looking for the fat; they’re wanting the raw milk,” Lin said.

Raw milk is also a good base ingredient for producing homemade butter, cottage cheese and yogurt, he added.

The Carneys’ customers are made up of a diverse group of people, ranging from young mothers to seniors.

“A lot of people have been looking for [raw milk], for a long time,” Lin explained.

The search to buy raw milk can be a little tricky, because in the state of Ohio, it’s illegal to just sell raw milk, Grace said.

However, as the Carneys explained it, customers can retrieve raw milk if

Part of the Arrowcrest Jerseys Raw Milk herd of cows.

Photo provided.

they are part owner of a cow — a cow share — or part owner of a herd — a herd share.

So, the Carneys’ customers are herd shareholders. Every share is one-twentith of a cow, Grace explained.

Customers are charged a one-time share fee of $50, which is refundable should the shareholder ever want to give up their share, and a $29 monthly fee, which covers the cost of the Carneys’ work to take care of the cow and bottle the milk.

In return, each shareholder is entitled to pick up one gallon of raw milk week from the Carneys’ farm, which they say figures out to about $7.25 per gallon of A2A2 raw milk.

A2A2 refers to a milk protein in the raw milk, which Lin said makes the milk more digestable than other types of milk.

This business model allows the Carneys to interface with customers directly, and far more than they did when they were running their conventional milking business.

Lin said, “We milked here for a long time, and we were kind of like monks here because nobody ever came here; it’s kind of isolated. Now, there’s all sorts of people coming and going.”

He added, “Sometimes customers like to walk around with the cows while

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The Arrowcrest Jerseys Raw Milk farm in Goshen.

they’re out grazing; it’s kind of fun meeting all the people.”

Grace said, “I think it’s fascinating. We have so many different customers … you know, you just learn a lot about people. You hear a lot of people say, ‘Get to know your farmer, because that’s how you know where your food comes from,’ well from our point, it’s really fascinating to get to know your customer, because they’re amazing. And, it’s so much fun, we’re having so much fun getting to know people.”

The Carneys say that while business has been improving steadily, they still have room for more growth, and to take

on more customers.

Right now they have 64 shares sold, but they could handle 400 shares.

“There’s plenty of shares left,” Grace said.

Those who are interested in learning more about purchasing a herd share may contact Arrowcrest Jerseys Raw Milk via Facebook messenger.

The Carneys will work to set up a time to meet with potential customers at the farm, to try a sample of raw milk and go over the shareholder contract.

Arrowcrest Jerseys Raw Milk has given the Carneys an opportunity to reset their lives.

Where they used to ship off their milk

product, now the family — they have three children and

three grandchildren — is helping to handle all aspects of sell-

ing Arrowcrest Jerseys Raw Milk directly to customers,

and helping to shape a food movement.

Part of the Arrowcrest Jerseys Raw Milk herd of cows. Photo provided.

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“Agriculture is the most healthful, most useful and most noble employment of man.�

George Washington

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Wickerham Brothers produce premium 100% grass-fed beef at End of the Ridge Farms Conservation practices to improve soil health benefit environment, cattle, and consumers Austin Rust Reporter, Champion Media

At End of the Ridge Farms, found just minutes southeast of West Union, in Adams County, Ohio, brothers Dan, Bill, and Mark Wickerham and their families produce premium grass-fed beef cattle. Established in 2001, End of the Ridge Farms utilizes methods geared toward conservation and improving soil

health, which benefit the environment, the cattle, and consumers. Beef from End of the Ridge Farms is sold each year at the Adams County Farmers Market, which will start again May 16, 2020.

In their youth, the Wickerham brothers learned much of dayto-day farm operations by working at all kinds of farms across the county.

“We all worked at different farms, but we

never grew up on a farm,” said Bill Wickerham, the middle brother. “Many of our friends and relatives farmed, and my younger brother Mark was in the FFA (Future Farmers of America) while in school. My uncle had a large dairy farm here in the county, so during my youth I would go there to work.”

Prior to establishing End of the Ridge Farms in 2001, the Wickerham brothers

and their families had purchased and operated an orchard as a side-business while still working full-time jobs. “We did that for a few years, while also raising a little bit of tobacco, and started into livestock - beef cattle,” Mr. Wickerham explained. “We realized that the trees were past their prime, so we let the orchard go, and it wasn’t too many years after that that there was a buy-out

on the tobacco, so we stopped with that (the tobacco) and focused more on livestock.” As the farm’s website (located at www.endoftheridge.c om) explains, End of the Ridge Farms was a small cow/calf operation using conventional methods at its start. As time progressed, however, research and a shared passion for conservation led the brothers to adopt improved unconventional methods which bet-

ter benefit the environment and their cattle, ultimately leading to healthier, more nutritious beef for consumers. The farm focuses on building soil health, specifically, by working to build carbon and/or organic material in its soil through managed intensive grazing and deep mulch pack bedding practices.

“I started with the Adams Soil & Water Conservation District as a Wildlife

2020 Salute To The Hands That Feed Us Specialist in 2003,” Bill Wickerham explained. “All of us have been very focused on conservation.

My older brother Dan was an Environmental Educator with Adams Brown Recycling, and now he’s their Director. Dan and I have been doing the Ohio Brush Creek Sweep since the beginning, - for 27 year now - and he’s actually the one who started it.

All of us are very conservation-oriented.”

At End of the Ridge Farms, the cattle are fully grassfed, no grain.. A grass-fed diet is high in the Omega 3 fatty acids which fight inflammation, Mr. Wickerham explained, whereas a grain-fed diet is high in Omega 6 fatty acids which cause inflammation.

In addition, grass-fed cattle will produce more conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a naturally-occuring trans fat thought to have cancer-fighting properties.

“Cattle were never really meant to eat grain,” Wickerham continued. “That’s something where people found out that they would eat grain, and it’s a quicker way to get them to harvest weight. You can produce a grainfed animal in 14 to 15 months, as opposed to grass-fed, where you’re looking at it taking about two years - 24 to 30 months. The pH in their rumen (the first

stomach) is (negatively) affected by a grain diet. It’s better for them to eat grass.

That’s what our cattle eat their entire lives, so it does take longer to get them to harvest weight, but the result is that they’re healthier; they have higher levels of inflammationfighting Omega 3 fatty acids and more CLA.” Further, Wickerham noted that the

correct ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 fatty acids in a human diet is anywhere from 1:1 to 5:1. Due to a prevalence of grain in our diets, the typical American has an Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio of 20:1 to 25:1.

Cattle at End of the Ridge Farms are fed only grass to promote healthy Omega 3 fatty acids and limit harmful Omega 6; also, they are not fed growth hormones or steroids, and antibiotics are used only when an animal falls sick. Beef from an animal that has been treated with antibiotics is removed from the farm’s direct sale inventory.

End of the Ridge Farms practices managed intensive grazing, wherein cattle are moved into new paddocks (usually) each day, giving

Page 11 the land, soil, and forage in each paddock a resting period of about a month or more and allowing manure to be distributed evenly. The movement and feeding of cattle is controlled through the use of temporary poly-wire electric fencing. The cattle feed on bales of hay, stockpiled fescue, winter and summer annuals, and organic mineral supplements.

In the cold, wet part of winter when the soil temperature is too cold to assimilate nutrients from manure or urine, the cattle are kept in a hoop barn, where they lay on a bed of mulch. This bed is made from carbon sources such as sawdust, wood chips, old hay, straw, or leaves, and it collects the nutrients that would otherwise be lost into a compostable form, eventually turning to soil.

For more information on End of the Ridge Farms and its practices, please visit the farm’s site at h t t p : / / w w w. e n d oftheridge.com, which includes articles of interest, resources, and farm tour info. End of the Ridge Farms will sell its products at this year’s Adams County Farmers Market (held in West Union on Courthouse Square), which starts May 16, 2020 and ends September 26, 2020.

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Barns hold memories for farmers Danny Collins

It probably started life as a tobacco barn, but the small square windows cut into each bent indicate it had been converted into a stock barn at some point, likely for horses.

It had been a long time since it had been used for any thing — small trees grew from the edges of the barn and siding was missing, tin had come off the roof and not been repaired. It was just an old barn between Millersburg and Paris but when it was taken down this fall I noticed it because of its absence from the landscape, it was something that had been constant even as the road had been widened, rerouted and expanded from two lanes to four. It was always there, now it wasn’t.

Driving my wife and kids to yet another horse show, I started wondering what was that place’s history? What was its story? I’m a farmer and I work in barns — taking care of horses, cows, harvesting tobacco are all among the things I’ve done in barns.

The nostalgia I have is kind of unusual I suppose, but the best memories I have of my youth

happened in barns.

Dad raised tobacco and he had a captive labor force in three sons that needed to get out of the house from time to time to preserve my mother’s sanity. Dad’s barn was at the end of a mile and a half gravel road to “the back part of the place.” It was built by my great-grandfather, my mother’s grandfather, who had to rebuild it after it was spun off its foundation by a tornado around 1900. Fixing

the barn was what he was doing when he fell and was knocked out cold. His farm hand who lived nearby in a tenant house brought him to that house and sent for a doctor and priest to heal him or read him his last rites, unusual for a Presbyterian, but his tenant was Irish Catholic and thought it couldn’t hurt.

Great-grandfather Pyles got better but lost his sense of smell, handy when you need to chase a

skunk from under a hen house but not always pleasant when you come home from doing that.

Dad had us at the barn every weekend doing something; it was the spot we started at whenever we were doing any job in tobacco, we spent hours dripping in sweat housing tobacco. I was a top rail man, and if I was too slow my brother Jamie would playfully/painfully stab me in the leg with a stick of tobacco to

speed me up.

Our stripping room was wood and Dad nailed cardboard over the cracks to keep the wind out, an old pot belly stove fed coal and wood kept frostbite at bay, until our grandmother, seeing the squalor her grandsons toiled in, insisted my Papaw build us a decent stripping room.

It was concrete block, with insulation in the ceiling, a real chimney, we alternatively heated with kerosene, that stank

and made me light headed, bottled gas and finally a wood stove I bought at Coast to Coast one winter. I ripped my pants unloading it.

Dad still liked the kerosene, but in an hour or so the wood stove had a better heat, warmer feel than anything else.

I learned our family’s history there, the stories of my dad going to UK and earning the Keeneland Scholarship, how he was valedictorian of the

2020 Salute To The Hands That Feed Us class of 58 at Minerva High School, how mom made him an angel food cake every time he cane to dinner when they were dating and that he didn’t really like angel food cake.

The days were long and we’d always need to “strip one more bench” before we went home for lunch.

John, my little brother was always ready to quit for lunch and Jamie and I would tease him about our favorite meals. It was pure torture but fun loving and happy banter.

As an FFA project Jamie had hogs in that barn, far off the road with no running water so we hauled water, and watered and fed the hogs every day. One night we were fattening a Holstein steer for slaughter and we hadn’t fed it till it was late at night, we went to the barn and when we flipped the lights on a huge rat, “as big as a raccoon” ran straight at Jamie, he jumped up on a tractor and I had to feed that night.

So many good memories of that barn, just thinking of it or when I see it on the farm I’m back in time with my Dad and my brothers.

But this affinity for the “barn” of my childhood isn’t

unique to me. A friend that is a nationally recognized cattle breeder sometimes speaks fondly of his chore of sweeping the dirt floor of their family barn every night, and another friend tells of how his grandfather would take him fishing after he swept his grandpa’s barn.

My wife and I have the stall door of the stall that her grandfather, a coal mine engineer built for the stall of her first horse, one she won many championships on, the stall was over engineered but defiantly that horse wasn’t getting out, I guess someone that builds safety bracing in coal mines isn’t going to cut any corners. Her Dad took me to the barn to help unload hay the first summer we were dating, free labor was something my father-in-law to be couldn’t pass up.

There’s the barn on my friend’s farm where we’d go and help him feed silage and milk their cows.

Usually he had two or three of us come help out so he’d get his chores done and could go to the football or basketball game.

I have two daughters and a wife and all three are horse crazy. I get to spend a

Page 13 lot of time at the barn taking care of horses, bringing the kids to see the horses. This year we got a goat for my oldest to show at the fair and of course we had to get one for the youngest too. In a huge verbal slip-up I said at a store that had baby chicks for sale “we could get some and raise them and have our own eggs.” Now I have chickens and my girls fight (playfully, or bitterly) over the right to carry the egg basket to the barn and bring back the eggs.

There are barns where fathers and mothers have taught their kids to care for livestock, groom show animals for the fair, barns that just passing by a traveler wouldn’t notice till it was gone. But those memories made in the wooden walls reach farther and last longer than the buildings themselves. Barns don’t just store the harvest-- they are a field of memories whose harvest is kept near our hearts.

Danny Collins is a May’s Lick farmer and former Ledger Independent reporter.

He farms on Locust Bend Farm which has been in his family for generations.

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Farming 2020: A Harvest of Challenges Wayne Gates

2020 looks to be shaping up as another difficult year

for farmers in Ohio.

Ohio State University Extension Educator James Morris has been talking with

local farmers about what they are facing.

“2020 has been nothing but a challenge so far. We have been off to a very rough start, so we have to think that things can only get better from this point,” Morris said.

Some of the issues include the effect of the Corona virus on world markets and society and the effects lingering from wet weather.

“We had a brief moment of excitement when the trade deals were approved with China, Japan, Mexico and Canada. We had an opportunity to enter the Chinese market with beef, pork and soybeans.

The Chinese had committed to making some major purchases, and now we get hit with the effects of the Corona virus,” Morris said.

The virus is having far reaching effects in China.

“It has completely altered the Chinese market, making it

very difficult for them to be able to sell anything. Now, we are getting reports that soybeans and other crops are getting stacked up in our transport chain.

What we had opened up has now closed up.”

Morris said prices for soybeans, corn and beef are all down right now.

“Hopefully by the time we get to planting season in the spring, all of these problems will be in the past and we will be back to business as usual.”

The Corona virus impact here at home could also put farmers behind schedule if the state begins to limit public gatherings, Morris said.

“Over the past couple of years, there have been more and more trainings added that farmers are required to have before the start of the year.

If we are not able to conduct those in-person trainings, then that will set every-

thing back.”

Morris said that he will keep everyone informed of any possible changes made by the Ohio Department of Agriculture.

Another issue Morris talked about was the unpredictability of the national hemp market.

“I think the hemp production process has created a lot of uncertainty.

Over the last few months, the hemp market has dropped significantly,” Morris said.

“A lot of farmers in Kentucky have been struggling to sell the crop that they have already paid to produce. They have put the hard work into harvesting this product and now they can’t get rid of it.”

A saturated national market is further complicated by the hemp production process in Ohio just getting off the ground.

“Applications came open for hemp in Ohio on March 3rd.

Right now we don’t

even know how many processors we are going to have, if any, for the state of Ohio,” Morris said.

“Right now, we are preparing to start growing product for a market that we don’t even know exists yet for Ohio.”

Another issue concerning farmers is something they can’t do anything about...the weather.

“Right now, things are a little wet, but things look to be on schedule as long as we don’t have a prolonged period of wet weather,” Morris said.

He said planting is expected to begin in early May. Morris said that he is trying to remain optimistic and is trying to pass along that optimism to the farmers he works with.

“Things are bad now, but that just means there is an opportunity for them to get better in the future,” he said.

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