Country Acres South - May 6, 2023

A hobby he can A hobby he can A hobby he can

Hale collects antique tractors

BY AMY KYLLO | STAFF WRITER

PINE ISLAND – It is the mid 1960s and a very little boy perched atop a 1951 Allis Chalmers CA is driving a tractor for the first time. The tractor belongs to Grandpa Grover, and he is probably letting his grandson, Brian Hale, drive tractor much sooner than his parents would like. Today, Brian is all grown up, but the Allis Chalmers still owns a place in his heart, and his shed.

Brian and his wife Gayle own an antique tractor collection that is 21 tractors strong. Their collection is branded “All Hat Farmalls.” The name came from an interaction Brian had with an old farmer, who found out that Brian simply collected tractors and did not have land or a farm, and said Brian was one of those “all hat” guys. The name appealed, and the Hales’ collection name was born.

Brian has a background in agriculture. He grew up on a crop, cattle and hog farm in northeast Iowa. His collection of tractors started with family tractors. Brian is not the first in the family to collect tractors, his dad enjoyed collecting, and attended tractor clubs and parades.

“I got dragged along because I was labor,” Brian said.

Brian’s dad was integral for his first antique tractor purchase. The plan was to buy a Farmall C together with a one row corn planter attached. However, Brian’s mother wanted kitchen cabinets instead, so Brian ended up buying the tractor outright.

When Brian’s father passed away unexpectedly, he had a decision to make about one of his dad’s tractors, a Farmall Super C.

“We actually had one [the Farmall Super C] of Dad’s tractors sold,” Brian said. “The morning that guy was going to come get it, I called him and said, ‘I’m sorry, but I decided I can’t sell.’”

Though Brian already had several antique tractors, that day became a turning point for their collection.

“That’s when Gayle and I probably officially decided we’re gonna become tractor collectors,” Brian said.

Hale page 2

PHOTOS BY AMY KYLLO

(Above) Brian and Gayle Hale stand with an International 660 Wheatland April 5 in the Hales’ shed in Pine Island. Brian is looking for an International Harvester Wheatland 706 or 806 as his next purchase.

A 1938 Farmall F-20 stands April 5 in the Hales’ shed in Pine Island. Brian Hale likes to collect tractors that were part of his family farm growing up. Farmall tractors line the back side of the Hales’ shed in Pine Island. The Hales’ have 21 tractors in their collection.

SOUTH

NEWS STAFF

Mark Klaphake, Editor, mark.k@dairystar.com

Grace Jeurissen, Editor, grace.j@star-pub.com

Amy Kyllo, Writer, amy.k@star-pub.com

Tiffany Klaphake, Writer, tiffany.k@dairystar.com

Jan Lefebvre, Writer, jan.l@star-pub.com

Ben Sonnek, Writer, ben.s@saukherald.com

Sarah Colburn, Staff Writer

Story ideas send to: grace.j@star-pub.com, mark.k@dairystar.com

SALES STAFF

Laura Seljan, 507-350-2217, laura.s@dairystar.com

Julia Mullenbach, 507-438-7739, julia.m@star-pub.com

Missy Traeger, 320-291-9899, missy@saukherald.com

Tim Vos, 320-492-6987, tim.v@star-pub.com

Mike Schafer, 320-894-7825, mike.s@dairystar.com

Warren Stone, 320-249-9182, warren@star-pub.com

Jaime Ostendorf, 320-309-1988, Jaime@star-pub.com

Bob Leukam, 320-260-1248, bob.l@star-pub.com

PRODUCTION STAFF

Pat Turner | Amanda Thooft | Nancy Powell

Maddy Peterson | Cheyenne Carlson

Karen Knoblach | Annika Gunderson

Deadlines: Country

Hale from front

One of Brian’s favorite tractors, and most memorable purchases, is his Grandpa Grover’s Allis Chalmers CA. When his grandpa went to an assisted living home, Brian’s uncle told him to figure out a fair price and buy the tractor if he wanted it. The only problem with purchasing it was that Brian had just bought a motor home and had promised Gayle that he would not buy anything else that year that had a steering wheel.

“We bought it,” Brian said. “But I made her pay for it, write the check, sign the check and give it to her because I said, ‘I made a promise to you.’”

Today, the Allis Chalmers is lightheartedly referred to as ‘Gayle’s tractor.’

The couple restored the tractor and brought it to a family gathering so that his grandpa could see it in its glory. The paint even says “Grandpa Grover’s” on the side.

Brian said that the tractors that are the most sentimental to him are ones which are connected in some way to tractors his family has had. Choosing the most

STR

Publications bli ti

“Committed to being the eyes and ears of our communities.”

special tractor is difficult.

l s d

name

All Hat Farmalls was the name Brian and Gayle Hale chose to brand their collection. Though the couple doesn’t farm, Brian grew up on a crop and cattle farm in Iowa and his dad enjoyed collecting tractors.

“[It is like] picking your favorite kid,” Brian said. Most of Brian’s collection are red. However, he does have diversity, such as the Allis Chalmers in his collection.

“I guess the last tractor we bought was actually, it’s not a sin, but close to it,” Brian said. “We bought a John Deere.”

The John Deere is the only green tractor in Brian’s collection and he has taken a lot of teasing for the purchase. Brian said that he has bought Gayle many tractors as birthday and Christmas “gifts.” The John Deere, which was purchased in December, being the most recent of them.

Gayle is able to reciprocate.

Hale page 3

PHOTOS BY AMY KYLLO

An International 1206 stands April 5 in the Hales’ shed in Pine Island. Brian looks for tractors that run smoothly, have good tires and don’t smoke excessively or drip tons of oil.

shed

Island. Gayle had to write the check and purchase the tractor because Brian Hale had promised he would not buy anything else with a wheel the year they had the opportunity to purchase it.

Hale from page 2

“He gets things for his birthday too,” Gayle said. This year, Gayle will be gifting Brian a new kitchen for his birthday.

Through tractor collecting, Brian has created a community. He and his friends created a club called Zumbro Valley Classic Iron through a casual tractor ride among friends that started 17 years ago. The first year Brian and his friends decided to do the ride there were about 40 tractors, now, they get well over a 100. The club has members of all types, from those with extensive and expensive collections, to young men and women with one old tractor.

“That’s the fun of it though is the networking of people you’ve met, the friends that I’ve made,” Brian said. “Some of my best friends are on that tractor club.”

Brian has two friends who do the majority of the restoration work for him on his purchases.

“I do enough of it to get in their way,” Brian said. Brian has found in the last years that the price of parts makes doing the restoration work cost prohibitive. Recently, he has worked toward buying tractors that have been already restored because it is more cost effective in the current climate.

Brian looks for tractors that run smooth, have good tires and don’t smoke excessively or drip tons of oil.

“There’s always going to be a certain oil drip,” Brian said. “They’re like old dogs, they always got to mark their territory.”

Brian finds his tractors through word of mouth, online and auctions. Gayle said that auctions sometimes cause surprise purchases.

“That’s happened several times where he goes to an

A John Deere 830 is parked April 5 in the Hales’ shed in Pine Island. Brian Hale describes buying a John Deere as “almost a sin.”; the tractor is his first John Deere.

auction to look at something and then he comes home with something completely different,” Gayle said. Gayle said that people will call Brian for advice on buying a tractor. For Brian, if their family is connected to the tractor, his buying advice is clear.

“Yeah, don’t even think about it,” Brian said. “If you got the means, buy it.”

Brian’s son and grandson have become a part of the collecting journey as well.

“Grandson takes after me,” Brian said. “He’s all about the tractors.”

Brian plans to keep on collecting. Next on his list to purchase are an International Harvester Wheatland 706 or 806.

PHOTOS BY AMY KYLLO

Gayle Hale’s 1951 Allis Chalmers CA stands April 5 in the Hales’

in Pine

The stupendous, treacherous, lavish world of stories

Heinous villains, poison sandwiches, opulent dresses and things numbering in the quadrillions all populated the amazing world of stories that I created for myself as a child.

I created stories for myself as I walked around our yard in big loops imagining up the sensational adventures of our cats. These cats, which in my mind switched seamlessly and unremarkably between being cats and being human, had the wealth and adventures my young experience could only dream of.

When it came to luxury, Sweetie, my favorite cat and heroine of my saga, would be dressed in ornate, opulent dresses of my mental design and surrounded by almost otherworldly riches. She also, unironically, was married to England’s King Henry the V who died in the 15th century, inspired by the fact my sisters and I were studying him in school.

Beyond the rich arrays of clothing, the great threat in the stories were catnappers, who kidnapped myriads of cats in order to kill them for their fur. Heroic cat rescues ensued, and the catnappers were thwarted with poison sandwiches and other ploys my devious little brain dreamed up. When it came to the catnappers, considering I was a pretty sheltered kid, there was little of the poetic in the justice meted out to the perpetrators.

In the barn, I remember my mom milking cows as we took turns telling each other the next installment of the story we were dreaming up together. The storyline was likely a copyright violation on the “Swiss Family Robinson,” but nevertheless we enjoyed telling the next segment of our fictitious family’s adventures. I remember being particularly fascinated by the concept of raw hide, mostly because I was too lazy to have my characters make their hides into leather.

Story telling came indoors too. Curled in the house, my older sister brought children’s literature to life, reading aloud with accents and intonations that captured my

imagination and transported me to other worlds of “The Chronicles of Narnia”, “The Wind in the Willows” and “Little Women.”

When I was a little girl, my mom put reading two picture books a day on the chore list for my older sisters to read to me. As I grew older my homeschooler mom worked to find historically accurate, well-written novels that depicted the time and place we were studying in history. One sister would read out loud from the novel while the rest of us helped mom finish making dinner. The stories we read painted mental pictures of places far, far away. I credit my love of history back to the firm idea made in our kitchen that history is all about stories.

I have always had the largest respect for a good storyteller who can captivate everyone at the kitchen table with the most ordinary story, who knows just the right balance of hyperbole and facts to enthrall an audience.

Stories unite us.

Every year, my family has a big party of friends and family come deer hunt on our land. Half the time is spent hunting and the other half is spent sitting around deciding what we are going to do, eating food and telling stories. Hunting deer in the woods is fine, but the story time, camaraderie and joshing are what makes the season special. The best moments come when an old story is retold, draped in the new splendor of a little exaggeration.

Today, as a grown up, sadly no one is reading me two picture books a day and I do not wander in circles telling myself fantasies of cats wearing fancy dresses and foiling catnappers. Yet, storytelling is still part of my life, but this time, it is your stories. Your farms, your dreams, your goals, your lives. I feel blessed to be immersed in the world of stories and have a tiny part in bringing to consciousness tales worth telling from southeast Minnesota.

Sunshine & Flowers by Amy Kyllo

CZMay6-1B-TV

Catering

local nutrition

Desens provide meat to surrounding school districts

BY SARAH COLBURN | STAFF WRITER

EYOTA – Each month, Peter and Jessica Desens deliver 200 pounds of hamburger, 1,200 beef hot dogs and 500 hamburger patties to local schools.

The Desens family operates Goldenrust Farm, and in addition

to supplying foods to six area school districts, they also spend time each year talking with students during their lunch period about the process farmers use to bring food to their tables.

“We want to encourage kids to get to know more about agriculture and where their food

comes from, that it’s not just made in a grocery store,” Jessica said.

The Desenses take pride in their work and raise beef, lamb and pork.

Peter said the relationship with the schools and the students is important.

“It’s mostly just knowing the kids are getting a healthy meal, that it’s local, and we can actually say where it came from,” he said.

plying food for area schools was not always the plan for the couple. They were selling cuts of meat at the farmers market but did not want to compete with the grocery store on who has a lower price for hamburger. They were looking for other ways to distribute their foods.

They partnered with Carrie Frank, who at the time was doing the food purchasing for Dover-Eyota Public Schools.

Frank worked with a number of farmers to purchase goods within the community. Frank said she would get everything from apples and watermelon to corn and squash locally. Her efforts were buoyed by Minnesota Thursdays, an initiative for schools to provide Minnesota-grown goods on the first Thursday of the month.

Frank’s efforts expanded beyond that.

“My menus couldn’t be specific on the fruits and vegetables,” she said. “I always figured out what the farmers had.”

Goldenrust Farms, out of Eyota, provides hamburger, hot dogs and burger patties to the DoverEyota Public Schools. This hamburger came from meat produced at Goldenrust Farms.

When Frank reached out to farmers to begin supplying meat for the schools, she learned about the positive economic impact the effort was having. One family she worked with was able to offload an animal a month just to fulfill the school order for one day.

ers to be meat for the learned about the

Now, Frank continues to foster a relationship with farmers and has opened Carrie Frank Consulting where she works to broker deals between schools and farmers. She writes grants on behalf of her clients and submits them to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. The dollars help school districts purchase local foods from farmers. Some grant dollars are also available to help schools add new equipment to aid in working with local producers.

For Frank, it is a mission and a dream.

“When I buy from a family, 100 percent of the revenue stays in the community,” she said. “The cows are raised in the community; the farmer buys grain in the community.”

Desens page 7

PHOTOS SUBMITTED

Peter, Jessica and Matthew Desens take a break from speaking at the Minnesota School Nutrition Association Conference in August 2022. More than half of the family’s meat production goes to the school lunch program in six area school districts.

Welcome to Solar Connection.

Services

Install for businesses, homes and farms

Testimonial

Solar Panels for the Passive House: John & Nancy

After years of searching for the perfect home that fits their needs or would be excited to renovate, John and Nancy decided to build! Around that same time, they attended the Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Center’s presentation about the Passive House movement – an exceptionally rigorous building standard that results in a home which, using the latest technologies, has the smallest carbon footprint currently possible.

The concept hit home. John says he doesn’t consider himself an “environmentalist” per se; he just believes in living within his means.

“We believe in energy conservation. We believe in protecting our valuable non-renewable resources. But we’re also big believers in electricity and living the lifestyle we’ve come to know within reason, but just to do it more efficiently and more economically.”...

To see more testimonials visit us at www.solarconnectioninc.com

Desens from page 5

Frank said the animals are treated by a local veterinarian and harvested by a community butcher.

In addition to helping create relationships, Frank has provided testimony on the floor of the Minnesota House of Representatives, talking about the importance of the Farm to School program.

For the Desenses, the relationship with the schools comes with specific guidelines.

They work with Dover Processing to get the portion sizes correct – 2-ounce hotdogs, 2.5-ounce patties – so they fit with the U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines.

The couple is working on creating a pork patty from ground pork, and they are figuring out a price point that makes it competitive enough for the schools.

Frank and the Desenses saw an increased reliance on local food as the pandemic restrictions impacted supply chains.

Typically, schools order food to be delivered on a certain day of the week, which would come from a large, often national, supplier.

With restrictions,

there were disruptions and delays to the schedule, leaving more room to rely on creating relationships with local farmers. Those relationships need to be planned so farmers can schedule harvest dates, book with a processor and get foods packaged for distribution.

“It’s not something that everybody is used to dealing with,” Peter said.

Because the food is locally produced, there are additional challenges when it comes to variation.

“The shape is different, and the coloration can be different because we’re not adding coloration to the product,” Peter said. “Kids are picky, and if they see a slightly different color or texture, they won’t eat it.”

Peter said as the meat is processed, they pay special attention to the coloration potential of things like liquid smoke or the fineness of the texture of the meat if the processor uses a different grinder.

Because demand has increased, the Desenses are working on potential supply chains that could snap up their steaks, meeting the need of serving steak in the summer and ground beef in the winter.

“One of our main goals is to figure out the right balance with that,” Peter said. “It’s a struggle. It’s a hurdle.”

They are working to

establish relationships with restaurants and grocery stores to utilize the steaks that are not being used in the Farm to School program.

As the Desenses do their work on the farm they have managed for the last 11 years, they said they want to be sustainable.

“We want to leave it better than we found it,” Peter said. “We need to have a profit that can pay for itself, but also, we can’t just deplete the land. You have to maintain it and rebuild it, and the livestock are an important part of that.”

The couple is working to improve soil health and make it possible for their children – Matthew, Samantha, and Tori – to take over if they so choose.

“We wanted to raise our kids around cattle and livestock,” Peter said. “Instilling the work ethic, it’s important for kids to learn the value of having chores and responsibilities.”

The Desenses rotationally graze their animals and allow them to rejuvenate the soil. They manage 15 to 20 cows, grazing most of the youngstock which are either used as replacements or are placed in their feed lot. They also raise 25 ewes. Right now, providing meat to the schools is just over 50% of the business at Goldenrust Farm.

“It was a surprise,”

Peter said. “It’s not where I thought I would have been 10 years ago, but it is rewarding and fulfilling to know it is possible … to crack into the local school market and have local goods.”

PHOTOS SUBMITTED

(Above) Jessica Desens sells Goldenrust Farm meats at a farmers market. The Desens work to be sustainable on their farm and provide meats for the community as well as local schools.

(Right) Matthew Desens eats lunch at DoverEyota Elementary School. Area farmers, including his family’s business, Goldenrust Farms, provide fresh produce and meat to the school district.

Rusnak makes maple syrup on her egg, vegetable farm

BY AMY KYLLO STAFF WRITER

KENYON – For Rae Rusnak the early spring months are more than cold mud.

“I’ve always been amazed at the early, the really early spring,” Rusnak said.

Rusnak is a maple syrup maker who raises spring crops like rhubarb, horseradish and asparagus in addition to the vegetables and eggs

on her organic farm.

“This is a real serious time of year,” Rusnak said.

Rusnak said that though it may not be the season for barbecues and planting the garden, the trees are awakening, early plants and wildflowers are coming and birds and animals are noticeably active.

“It’s not snowpack frozen that I can’t do anything,” Rusnak said. “There’s a lot of things happening right now.”

She appreciates how maple syrup gets her outdoors. Rusnak has been making maple syrup for nearly 30 years. She started in 1995 on a small scale and has since grown her efforts, making 30-to-50 gallons of syrup each year. She taps 100 to 150 maple trees depending on the sap run. Making syrup ties into her passion for the early spring season.

Rusnak page 10

PHOTO BY AMY KYLLO

Rae Rusnak holds her maple syrup April 10 on her farm near Kenyon. Rusnak produces maple syrup and raises vegetables and eggs on her farm.