Tag: Farmers

Meet Your Farmers – Part 2

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 Myron

Myron
I grew up in Gaithersburg, Md and have lived in the area since 1970. I have about four years of college, but I never completed a degree, nor have I really needed one. While in college, I worked in an accounting department and discovered that working behind a desk was not for me. I worked for 14 years in the Washington DC area as a finish carpenter and cabinet maker working on high end custom homes and additions. That gave me experience to be able to restore the house on our first farm and the house on our current farm.

I am the farm manager. This year, we have made some changes since we have a lot of good help on the farm. I am freed up from some of the day to day work to put more focus on planning, taking care of the finances, feed formulation for the hens, writing the newsletter, and other management responsibilities. I am a farmer at heart and still spend a significant part of the week working with the guys on various aspects of the farm.

As you may have realized from reading my articles in the newsletter, I love to research various subjects. We have a number of websites where I have published my research. In addition to farming and health related research, I have also done considerable research on spiritual subjects and issues facing the church. I am currently writing a book exposing the rampant sexual abuse of children and other failures among Amish and conservative Mennonites. Cathy and I both grew up in the Mennonite Church, but we no longer consider ourselves “Mennonite”.

I love farming and producing high quality, health giving food. I love learning, and what I am finding about the soil, farming, and how it relates to health, is like an unexplored pioneer frontier and adventure to me. Like George Washington Carver, I keep asking God to teach me and it is amazing the things that He reveals is the oddest places. I don’t feel like I have all the answers, because the more I learn the more I realize that life and farming is not as simple as I thought it was.

Daniel

Age 18

Daniel is our third oldest son and is working full time on the farm. His responsibilities include raising the broiler (meat) chickens, and taking care of the new baby chicks. While all of us guys do mechanic work, Daniel is the one with the most intuitive knack for seeing what is wrong with a machine or motor and how to fix it. It is great to have his mechanic skills here on the farm. He bought a fixer upper tractor and has been working on it and learning a lot about diesel motors. He is also a natural at doing electrical work.

He also built a blacksmith shop that we featured several years ago in a newsletter.

Daniel is musically talented and plays the accordion and sings baritone and bass. He also follows in his father’s footsteps by being a natural tease.

Meet Your Farmers

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Each of the next number of months we will tell you a little bit about two members of our family and their role on the farm, their interests, and the talents that they contribute. This month we will introduce the two people that you will likely meet when you come to the farm to pick up chickens or if you call on the phone.

Cathy

Cathy grew up near Hutchinson, Kansas. Her father was a dwarf and passed away from skin cancer when she was 20. She also had a severely mentally handicapped brother and sister who have also passed away. The challenges of helping care for her handicapped brother, developed character and strength in her.

We met in Bible college while we were singing on the college chorale on a 12,000 mile tour through the US and Canada. Cathy is a talented musician and can sing soprano, alto, and tenor. Her favorite instrument is the piano/keyboard, but she can also play the guitar, accordion, and autoharp.

Cathy with her beloved cookbooks.

It is said that an army marches on its stomach (its food). In the same way on our farm, we do our farm work on our stomachs. Good nutrition is important to Cathy and she keeps us well fed with a wide variety of foods and ways of preparing them. She likes to garden, not for gardening’s sake, but to produce the most nutritious food for her family that she can. Cathy cooks almost exclusively from scratch using whole foods from our garden and farm, with only a small part being purchased. Bread, cookies, and other baked goods are made from whole wheat that she freshly grinds into flour just before making the item. Cathy and the girls can or freeze over 1,000 quarts of fruits and vegetables each summer.

If you have a question about how to prepare chicken, turkey or lamb, she is the one to ask. She loves to talk about cooking and also loves to hear about good ways of preparing and seasoning food that you have found. She loves it when people stop by between chicken processing dates to purchase products and chat. Cathy also has a strong interest in heath and how to help people to be healthy.

Kara

Kara is our oldest daughter and is 20 years old. She works full time on the farm as cook and gardener. She also helps with chicken processing, and processing eggs. Kara enjoys gardening and is in charge of our greenhouse where she raises plants for our gardens and flower beds.

Kara, like her mom, is a good cook. The guys say that they can’t tell a difference between her cooking and her mom’s. So if you have cooking questions, she can probably answer them too.

She enjoys singing and can sing soprano and alto. Kara also plays the flute.

Kara also has an interest in health and herbal healing. This past winter she completed a herbal healing course from Dr. John Christopher’s School of Natural Healing and is certified as a Family Herbalist. Kara is the one who makes the Everyday Miracles Salve that has been so helpful to us.