Country Acres South - July 1, 2023

hIstory Hot dısh WITH

Dodge County Free Fair keeps to its local roots

BY AMY KYLLO | STAFF WRITER

KASSON – Minnesota has always known that a hot, full course meal in a 9-by-13 cake pan is called a hot dish rather than a casserole. As such, it is fitting the oldest county fair in the state of Minnesota has a hot dish competition.

The Dodge County Free Fair, which is celebrating its 166th year, will be having

a hot dish competition during the fair July 12-16.

The hot dish competition is a newcomer to the historic fair, with this being its fourth year. Kelly Caspers, a fair board member, helped start the competition.

“We thought, well, what better ... than hot dish because that’s a Minnesota thing,” she said.

The hot dish creations have to follow certain ingredient rules. This year, they must have a barbecue protein,

vegetable(s), dairy or canned soup, and a starch.

“We twist the hot dish up,” Caspers said. “There always has to be something fair related.”

Last year’s champion was long time Dodge County employee, Lisa Kramer.

She made a bacon cheeseburger hot dish with fried pickles and topped it with onions to take home the top prize.

“It’s just fun,” Kramer said. “I like to cook. I like competition. ... So, I’d like to edge out anybody else.”

Kramer also participated in the pie competition. When deciding what to make, Kramer keeps her audience in mind to match recipes and flavors with the generation who will be judging them.

Caspers said the fair hopes to publish a cookbook with pie and hot dish recipes after a few years of both competitions.

The Dodge County Free Fair has multiple attractions at the grandstand fairgoers can enjoy like bull riding, stock car racing, a demolition derby, trailer racing and, new this year, autocross races.

Trailer racing, which started a few years ago, has quickly gained popularity at

the fair. Vehicles pulling trailers race while trying to unhitch the trailers of competitors. Participants can purposely ram the trailers but cannot ram the vehicles. The result is entertaining chaos.

Marilyn Lermon, who has been on the Dodge County Fair Board for 28 years, has seen how the community has gained affinity for the trailer races.

“They all come out to watch their friends,” Lermon said. “It

gets to be just a hilarious event.” Adding to the fun is the fact the participants decorate their vehicle and trailer entries as well.

When adding events and planning, Caspers said the fair board is focused on keeping the fair rooted locally. She said they do not want to be flashy but instead aim to keep the fair focused on the basics.

Dodge County, welcome to Country Acres South!

Read about local fairs, agriculture and hidden gems in your area!

PHOTOS BY AMY KYLLO

(Above Left) Lisa Kramer smiles with her grand champion ribbon and engraved glass baking dish from hot dish competition at the 2022 Dodge County Free Fair in Kasson. The fair board hopes to eventually make a cookbook using recipes from the hot dish and pie competitions.

(Above Main) People gather in the grandstands during the 2022 Dodge County Free Fair in Kasson. The grandstand entertainment includes bull riding, trailer racing, a demolition derby and autocross racing.

Ribbons hang from canned goods at the 2022 Dodge County Free Fair in Kasson. The fair board focuses on keeping the fair local and true to its roots.

Lisa Kramer's champion bacon cheeseburger hotdish. Kramer prepared this hotdish for the 2022 Dodge County Free Fair.

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

Dodge County from front

“We really want to instill things that are from our county,” Caspers said. “We really try to amplify that to (say) this is who we are.”

As a county with a continued rich agriculture presence, supporting 4-H and FFA is a big part of the fair.

Kristen Heeren is a long-time participant in the Dodge County Free Fair. Her parents, Carl and Rhonda Weis, who met through 4-H, both showed animals and passed it on to Heeren and her siblings and now grandchildren.

Heeren appreciates the life lessons her children acquire through showing animals at the fair.

“My husband and I really want our daughters to be able to understand

Kids

Fair in Kasson.

fair’s

dairy farms thanks in part to a strong lease

the husbandry of taking care of animals,” Heeren said. “You treat an animal right, it’s going to treat you right just like if you treat people right, they’re going to treat you right.”

For Heeren, the local fair has created a deep sense of community.

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page Real Estate Auctions Certified Appraisals

“The Dodge County

all phenomenal about trying to make sure our kids are successful.” Ron Sheridan, Dr. Square Foot Auctioneer #25-33 | Certified Appraiser #08404 www.drsquarefoot.com | 651-246-4146 | Rochester & Zumbrota

PHOTOS BY AMY KYLLO

show dairy cattle at the open class junior show at the 2022 Dodge County Free

The

animal shows have remained strong in spite of decreasing

program.

Debris flies through the air at the trailer race grandstand event at the 2022 Dodge County Free Fair in Kasson. Vehicles pulling trailers race while trying to unhitch the trailers of competitors.

Core summer memories

This summer I’ve been especially aware that we have reached the critical three months of the year that I live for the other nine months in Minnesota to experience, also known as summer.

The Fourth of July has always been a good day of the summer. Growing up, I remember we rotated every other year on our celebrations between a family gathering that had a swimming pool and going to Wanamingo to their parade.

Sunshine & Flowers by Amy Kyllo

Before and after the parade we would gather at Grandpa and Grandma Kyllo’s in Wanamingo. I remember Grandma offering seconds on ice cream and, like a smart kid, I took her up on it.

We never really went to firework shows because they always landed over, or too close to, evening chores. Yet, then again, we didn’t really need to. I remember standing out in the pasture feeding calves in the warm darkness or standing in the yard and watching bits and pieces of fireworks displays that reached our farm.

On normal days without fireworks, the evenings would still light up with a simpler display. Hundreds of fireflies would twinkle through the night like an Owl City song.

As I grew older on the farm, I always had a love hate relationship with summer. On one hand the weather was great and on the other hand the workload during summer was a lot between the calves and field work.

To me summer meant haylage. Lots of it. It seemed that by the time we put up first crop, then new seeding alfalfa overseeded with oats and peas, and then Sorghum Sudan, it was time for second crop hay.

Buzzing up and down the road in the tractor with the chopper box behind and the radio blasting in my ear muffs, and sitting in the tractor unloading into the bagger, made up many of my summer days.

My radio earmuffs would switch between KROC AM 1340 for the Twins games and the Dave Ramsey show and 98.5 KTIS and 92.9 for Christian contemporary music.

I’m not a naturally good driver or mechanically minded, but I’m so glad that my dad was persistent and insistent that I learn how to drive tractor. Over countless summer hours I became able to fill the role adequately.

Nowadays, everyone likes to talk about having a “Hot girl summer.” I sure had them if it counts as having fresh sweat on top of dried sweat, remains of old sunscreen protecting my 1800s era skin tone from cancer, bits of haylage and dust clinging to everything, grease from hooking up the PTO shafts on my arms and hands and some dried colostrum from morning calf feeding on my jean shorts. You can always tell the difference in moisture on the haylage by how many hay bits are sticking to your skin.

When we were chopping, we had lots of picnic suppers. The family would gather out in the hayfield and sit against a wagon tire or wherever with a sandwich, fruit, juice and some kind of “sweet tooth,” also known as dessert, in hand.

I don’t think we always realize it when we’re making memories. We had so many picnics like that each summer I couldn’t even count them. They were just solid, everyday memories that shaped my life.

If we were super busy, Mom would make us each an individual ice cream bucket with our lunch in it. The lunches were always delicious, but the trick always became finding a way to eat them between and while operating a tractor, chopper box and bagger safely. If someone was running a little behind and you had to wait was the best because you didn’t have to try to eat and pay attention all at the same time.

Crazy how times change. I write this at the kitchen counter of an air-conditioned apartment. My days look drastically different than they did just a few summers ago yet I’m grateful for each of those days filled with everyday memories. As you look at the summer in front of you, I hope you realize the memories you’re making and stop in the hard, dirty moments to realize that for good and bad, those days don’t last forever.

a movement

Quality, community development at core of Frozen Cap Mushroom Farm

BY AMY KYLLO | STAFF WRITER

ROCHESTER – From the outside, no one would ever know thatin the unfinished basement of one very ordinary Olmsted County home is an entire farm. In the basement, shelves hold clear plastic bags of what appear to be molding grain.

y OeCo y oeee.eee,eeoe p gs o ppeo e grain be

In a space around the corner created by the stairwell, two tall, box-like grow tents hold the real sorcery of this cent, substantial yet delicate mushroom forests

In a space around the corner created the two box-like grow tents hold the real sorcery of this Inaspacearoundthecornercreatedbythestairwelltwotallboxlikegrowtentsholdtherealsorceryofthis unusual farm. A zipper doorway fully reveals shelves with magnificent, delicate mushroom forests in miniature growing from the sides of grow blocks like a modern-day fairytale.

Jeremy Herdrich owns Frozen Cap Mushroom Farm. He markets his mushrooms at two farmers markets in Rochester and sells to local chefs at restaurants such as CRAVE American Kitchen and Sushi Bar and Forager Brewery in Rochester.

and to

Frozen Cap Mushroom Farm began 2.5 years ago as a hobby.

Fung n i page 10

Jeremy Herdrich smiles June 5 inside one of his grow tents in the basement of his home in Rochester. Herdrich started growing mushrooms two and half years ago as a hobby and has seen his hobby grow into a business.

PHOTO BY AMY KYLLO

When Herdrich began getting phone calls for mushrooms from people who were not family or friends, he started to realize he had a business.

Originally a native of Fayetteville, Arkansas, in the Ozark Mountains, Herdrich has an entrepreneurial spirit. He can give a recommendation for the best salon products for curly hair, grow micro greens, do construction demolition, grow mushrooms, work with urban development and more.

Herdrich’s mission is a higher standard of mushroom farming, a standard that focuses on quality over merely harvesting a certain number of pounds of mushrooms.

Herdrich’s inspiration is his community. He especially focuses on equipping others to be able to grow their own food.

“I do this for my family; I do it for my community,” he said. “It’s a movement that’s bigger than me. It’s a movement that’s bigger than my community. It’s infectious.”

Herdrich runs his mushroom business solo and hopes to be able to

Good jobs right here, right

do a large expansion in the near future in collaboration with another area farm. He plans to increase his workforce with veterans. Herdrich himself is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps.

“I want to be able to provide a potential foundation or a point of contact for these people that could be going through a hard transition,” he said. “Be able to provide them something that may feed their soul and maybe find a sense of ease.”

Herdrich sources his mushroom grow materials, such as his grow blocks, locally. Spent mushroom blocks are sent to a local farm, community gardens or are free for people to pick up to be used as fertilizer, mulch or to grow more mushrooms.

Local is what Herdrich supports and the way he lives his life.

“Your voice matters the most at the local level,” he said. “A lot of our food is being shipped from

thousands of miles away, and it’s harvested not in its prime and it’s not supporting the community.”

Herdrich has a library of 65 mushrooms cultures. He keeps this library as back up in case he loses a strain. Usually, Herdrich repropagates mushrooms from past mushrooms.

“Once you have one mushroom, you have mushrooms for the rest of your life if you follow the

PHOTOS BY AMY KYLLO

(Above) Black Pearl oyster mushrooms grow June 5 in a grow tent at Jeremy Herdrich’s home in Rochester. Because all his mushrooms are hardwood decomposers, they are growing on blocks that are 50% wood pellets and 50% soy hulls.

(Left) Jeremy Herdrich holds a jar of liquid mushroom culture up to the light June 5 in his home in Rochester. Herdrich taught himself to grow mushrooms.

Fungi page 11

process correctly,” he said.

Herdrich raises his mushrooms seasonally with warm-loving mushrooms growing in the summer and cold-loving mushrooms growing in the winter for a total of about 15 varieties.

“It’s easier to work with the mushrooms than it is trying to force them into something that they don’t need to necessarily do,” he said.

Most of the mushrooms are different types of oysters, but Herdrich also grows varieties like Lion’s mane as well as a selection of medicinal mushrooms.

Effective mushroom growing takes the control of four variables: temperature, humidity, light and oxygen exposure.

Herdrich uses a fourstep grow process. He starts with agar in a Petri dish inoculated with mushroom spores. Once the agar dish has been propagated, he moves the growing inoculation to a small, sealed bag of grain. He uses a combination of 70% oats to 30% millet in the bags.

As the mycelium begins to grow in the grain bag, Herdrich transfers it to a larger bag of grain. In the final step, he transfers a portion of the grain to a fruiting block bag. The

fruiting block is made up of 50% hardwood pellets and 50% soyhulls. All the transfers are done with a laminar flow hood to provide sterilized air so he can do the transfers in the open air.

The mushrooms Herdrich grows are all hardwood decomposers. The fruiting blocks are placed in a grow tent where the mushrooms fruit out. The full process from Petri dish to fruiting takes about two months.

Herdrich sells the harvested mushrooms fresh or freeze dries them. Herdrich said he likes freeze drying because the finished product can be broken into a powder which is useful in making sauce.

Herdrich taught himself how to grow mushrooms.

“I was blessed by my father with this annoying gene of curiosity,” he said. “I’d find out who the best of the best of the best was, and I would reach out to them.”

Mushrooms can be grown in many ways, but Herdrich has opted for a labor-intensive, focused, controlled variables path to growing mushrooms in polypropylene bags.

“The method that … (I’m) getting close to mastering … is the high cultivation, quick turn and burn,” he said.

Herdrich said he hopes his operation will be at a

Jeremy Herdrich uses Petri dishes to check for spore contamination. The dishes rest on a table June 5 in the basement of his home in Rochester. Herdrich uses a laminar flow hood to provide sterilized air so he can do grow transfers in the open air. place where it can self-sustain.

“I want my company to be (a) common asset,” he said.

Someday, Herdrich said he hopes Frozen Cap Mushroom Farm can provide for the community around him.

“I see Frozen Cap

Mushroom Farm eventually being able to purchase a substantial amount of land and be able to have gardens available for people,” he said. “Maybe a healing center for people that are again just coming out of the military. Who knows, it’s pretty much limitless.”

PHOTOS BY AMY KYLLO

165th Winona County Fair • July 12 to 16, 2023

This page is brought to you by these businesses: For more information, visit: www.winonacountyfair.com

A journey of service, faith

104-year-old WWII veteran recalls fighting days

BY AMY KYLLO STAFF WRITER

BYRON – It is the early 1940s and a transport ship bound for the Western Front of World War II is caught in a typhoon. On board is Marvin Viker, a southeast Minnesota United States Army enlistee.

“The captain, he came down from the ship and told us we were in a pretty bad storm,” Viker said.

Down below, Viker was reading a Gideons International New Testament a friend had.

“I was laying on the top bunk bawling,” he said. “Some of them (soldiers) didn’t know what to do, and they tried to comfort one another.”

His friend with the New Testament asked if Viker was saved spiritually. Not content with Viker’s answers of his church activity, his friend asked him again if he was saved. Part way through the storm, Viker met a turning point in his faith journey.

“I said, ‘Now I see what you’re trying to tell me,’” Viker said.

From that moment on, Viker had one prayer.

“Dear God, I hope it’s in your will that I could go home and see my mama and papa, my brothers and sisters (and friends),” he said. “If not, I’m ready to die for you for my country.”

Viker’s prayer was answered, and at 104 years old, faith radiates from him.

“I was never scared from there on through,” he said.

Viker was born July 22, 1918, and grew up in rural Byron. As a young

man, he worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps in Lanesboro. Viker also received a place to live in addition to the uniform, plenty to eat and candy.

On Nov. 4, 1941, he enlisted in the United States Army, just 37 days before the U.S. declared war on Germany and Japan. He weighed 113 pounds, which was only 3 pounds above the lower limit.

Viker started in California but said he remembers never really undergoing basic training.

After California, Viker was stationed near Seattle, Washington, guarding bombs. Viker said there was a concern that after the attack on Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941, that these bombs would also be in danger.

Viker said they could see Mt. Rainier from where he was stationed. He would walk through the woods on guard duty, two hours on and one hour off. Viker said once he fell asleep at the post and a lieutenant found him. However, the lieutenant had mercy on him, and he was not pun-

ished.

Viker’s tour continued, and he was sent to Tampa, Florida, to learn radar. He said he and his team were tracing airplanes out to 182 miles. He became a head operator, working in a team of three on dish radar that had its own generator.

From there, Viker was shipped overseas on his tumultuous and memorable trip that would change his life forever. The ship made its way through the storm and landed in Africa.

Next on his tour was Naples, Italy.

In Italy, Viker said he remembers buying eggs from a local to eat and taking them back to his tent he shared with seven men.

“I took a helmet, put water in there and cooked the eggs because I just couldn’t stand the C-ration,” he said.

According to the U.S. Army website, soldiers were not supposed to use the helmet over fire, but this rule was often ignored, and soldiers even made coffee in the helmets.

Viker page 15

PHOTOS BY AMY KYLLO

(Above) Marvin Viker, a 104-year-old World War II veteran, stands June 9 on his farm near Byron. Viker was in Italy, the island of Corsica, France and Germany, among other places, during his time of service.

(Above Left Inset) Marvin Viker smiles out of an old military photo June 9 at his home near Byron. Viker enlisted in the U.S. Army Nov. 4, 1941, just 37 days before the U.S. declared war on Germany.

Marvin

Viker’s back hoe stands June 9 on his farm near Byron. Viker was a partner in Viker and Sorenson Sewer and Water Inc. for 26 years and has personally used his back hoe in the past five to 10 years.