Maize Valley Vintner's dinner
Archive for the ‘Buy Local’ Category
Wordless Wednesday
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012Fall Harvest is here, We offer a “Vintage for all the seasons of your life”
Wednesday, September 21st, 2011
Can U guess my weight?
Well we have survived another wonderful summer here in Ohio and now it is time to harvest the fruits of our labor.
Opening weekend wagon rides
This past weekend was “Opening weekend” at Maize Valley. We sort of have a “soft opening” to say we don’t promote it too much. We like to get our new staff in and run them through the paces a bit so they can learn the ropes.
Many of them are returning veterans from years past, and many it is their first job ever!
New things for the NASHOG pig races
This year I am handing the NASHOG Pig races over to a new staff member we call Kaw-Girl-Kelly. She is doing fine! But some days I’m not sure who is training whom, the pigs or her??!!
Great neighbors "Down Range"
We are blessed with great neighbors “down range” from our pumpkin cannon. Yea they R a half mile away but I have reached out and touched a few of their Christmas trees over the years. This year they are daring me to “Target them”. C our pumpkin patch is right next to their trees this year and they should get lots of folks checking them out for their next ride to gather experiences with their families.
This Day found us still baling hay
We are a working farm and we were working right up to the day we opened baleing hay and picking grapes all in the same day while giving wagon rides and shooting pumpkins!
Brett Says the Bale Crawl is READY!
And Don’t forget our big dog the Pumpkin Cannon and it Carnage!
What happens to a pumpkin after it flys about 1/3 of a mile
As I looked around it all seemed so small this weekend but I know what is coming next. Thousands and Thousands of people who come to us to build memories to last a lifetime.
A Vintage for all the season of you life at Maize Valley
Wagon Rides, Pumpkins and so much more! :-)
Tuesday, August 30th, 2011This post is written by Bill Bakan, “Farmer Bill” the Fun TSAR at Maize Valley
Green Pumpkins!!
Welcome to our pumpkin patch!! At Maize Valley we make a pretty decent claim at being Ohio’s most complete fall harvest destination. No we don’t have everything that everyone may have at other pumpkin patches or corn mazes but we have a pretty “complete mix”.
We are a diversified family farm that offers a monthly 5 course china plated, guided paired wine tasting dinner series called “Vintner Dinners” as well as wagon rides to the pumpkin patch for school groups and the general public.
Bridging the gap bewteen what could be seen as two completly seperate worlds is a whole host of other menu and activity options designed to take our guests through all the seasons and “Vintages” if you will, of their life.
"White" pumpkins early growth
Coming up is the fall harvest season, the end of a long year of work and joy. About 12 years ago I stepped into a corn field and killed the corn and thereby carving a design into the field in the shape of the Goodyear Blimp creating our first corn maze. There was no looking back but we did not stop there either.
Coming up this late summer and fall we have balloons lifting off, clam bakes, Pig races, coorporate group outings, car crushing metal dinasaours, a life flight helicopter landing, Motorcycle rally’s, car cruises, garlic festival and wine pours. The list is pretty extensive, It is just how we roll.
Farming about 700 acres and approx. 40-50 different crops helps to keep us “real” but at the same time keeps us flexible and diversified enough to not only survive but continue to grow over the past few years.
It hasn’t been easy, but nothing worth having ever is! 
From the Fields to the Table!
Thursday, August 11th, 2011
Lunch time!
Lunch time for everyone! Hey everyone it’s Cara, I could have just made something out of the freezer but why do that when we have fresh produce from grandpa right out the back door!
So how did I do it? Well, the sweet corn was cooked in the oven! Yup, throw it in there husk and all! At about 350, let it cook for 35 to 40 minutes. It is the BEST and ONLY way to cook your sweet corn. However, be careful when it comes out, it’s going to be much hotter than you think, but the little silks come right off!
The potatoes were very easy as well, just cut them up! And then I threw in some shallots, green peppers, and yellow summer squash, then I added some olive oil, garlic powder, salt, and pepper! Just let them cook untill they’re nice and brown.
It’s such a simple meal! And it’s made with all the fresh produce that Grandpa grows! Try it and enjoy!
Cara’s 1st blog post!!! a day @ the roadside stand
Sunday, July 24th, 2011
- Cara and little Bro Brett getting started!
So what is coming up down on the farm you ask? All kinds of things my Dad says it’s been a tough start to the year with all the rain but things are sort of catching up now. I turn 18 next month but I have already been selling produce grow on our family farm for Half my Life!!!
Grandpa Kay cultivating beans
This blog’s name is “Ohio Wine and More” yes my family owns and operated a winery and a vineyard but it is so much, well “More”! For me growing up a “Farmer’s Daughter” has meant
“Lettuce” show U what we do! Oh I crack myself up sometimes
Monday, April 4th, 2011About a day before I shot the video of making the raised beds in the greenhouse from the former blog post they had just finished planting some lettuce with our “oh so cute” little planter.
At Maize Valley we used to farm about 3,000 acres and had all the “big equipment” that went with it. Combines, semi trucks, custom applicators, etc. etc. Many machines have come and gone but the little ole’ tractor in the pic above was my wife Michelle grandfather’s tractor. Ethan Rohr was his name and he along with her Grandmother Bernice who is still kicking at about 98yrs+ young lived about 100 yards down the road from our home in what was our dairy farm.
BIG three row planter!!!!
I guess my point is we are very much blend of the old and the new and we are always changing. Farming is tough and many don’t make it, but you have to be smart too just like any other like of work. This planter is as about as far as you can get from our old days with a 12 row corn planter and still be farming.
Soil in greenhouse after planting was done
There is so much “hand-wringing” now about how tough the economy is. Well yea, but we would be unemployed too if we had not had the will to change and re-train ourselves to think differently in how we grew stuff and how we sold it. We had to change and it was tough, we had to learn new skills and adapt to evolving landscape that we were invested in.
I’ll try and do my best to follow this crop along this spring for you.
Wordless Wednesday! Got Bread?
Wednesday, March 9th, 2011
Winter growing update, what’s coming up, down on the farm!
Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
The green mile?
New this year at the local CVCC winter farmers market will be a crop of fresh radishes.
Countryside Winter Farmers’ Market at Old Trail School
January 22; February 5 & 19; March 12 & 26; and April 9 & 23
9am until Noon
2315 Ira Road
Akron, OH 44333
If you have never had the chance to go into a greenhouse on a cold winter day, I’m sorry. It is hard to describe. It is not so much just the heat, the getting in out of the cold is the obvious part.
Indoor Radishes
I guess it is the smell of “concentrated life” about to explode, almost a tropical buzz is around you. It’s something like sauna with rich humidity filling your senses and touching your skin but with the rich aroma of potting soil and the stark green colors you find as you enter this plastic oasis, briefly escaping the cold “Negative Photograph” world of winter on the outside.
It’s what living on a farm is all about I guess, as we try new things to adapt to what the market gives us.
Got Wood?! The Ohio LEAD program, pioneers and the economy; thanks Dave Longaberger
Thursday, February 3rd, 2011
My Dad's 30+ year old Stihl Farm Boss
A few year back I was in a Leadership program called the Ohio LEAD program. The letters stood for “Leadership, Education and Development”. About 30 of us from around the state were put on a whirlwind program to expose us to a variety of situmulus, situations and experiences.
One of the stops was at the Longaberger basket facility in Dresden Ohio. We got to sit down with Dave Longaberger the patriarch. We sat in the school room he failed in, I think it was 3rd grade maybe more than once? We were sitting there because he now owned the entire school as he did with many other significant places around the town. Dave failed and succeded at many things in his life in spectacular fashion was the message I took away from our meeting.
Dave with his work boots and “greenies” (green cover-alls) was a hands on “doer” of a person, owner, manager. LEAD gave me many experiences however this one sticks in my mind in the top three. Dave taught me not to fear life as a business person, to “just do it” before it was popular. But this was not something so trivial as sports, what he was talking about it was life, business and family.
Today we just need more people trying to be “Dave’s”. You see failure is a necessary part of success, you can’t soar with Eagles until you push your way threw some slimey egg shells. Untill you understand the cost of failure can you appreciate the rewards of success.
After Dave the company has not been so well able to adapt to the times. Dave was unique, Dave was “Hungry”.
The logs I am cutting in the videos came are the last to come from the local Longaberger facility that produced the slats for the famous baskets. These were the rejects from the lathe they spun down in search of the perfect piece to make those one time collectable baskets. But even as rejects they serve a purpose to me. I will use them to remember Dave, and remember to take chances.
There are three kinds of lies…‘Sexy Forever – How to Fight Fat After Forty,’
Wednesday, January 26th, 2011Ohio wine and more talking beef and pigs? Yes we are a winery, and farm market but we still raise a few animals yet now and then to see previous blog post. Along with growing grapes and making wine we grow lots of food too. Today people are more concerned where their food comes from and how it is raised. That is good, it can only lead to more healthy choices being made! But they also need good and balanced info. Good accurate science balanced with passion to take greater responsiblity is a great combination.
The first six words above are a quotation which is often attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, the 19th century British Prime Minister. The source for this view is the autobiography of Mark Twain, where he makes that attribution. Nevertheless, no version of this quotation has been found in any of Disraeli’s published works or letters. The earliest reference yet found anywhere is to a speech made by Leonard H. Courtney, (1832-1918), later Lord Courtney, in New York in 1895:
Mark Twain
‘After all, facts are facts, and although we may quote one to another with a chuckle the words of the Wise Statesman, “Lies – damn lies – and statistics,” still there are some easy figures the simplest must understand, and the astutest cannot wriggle out of.’
There’s no indication that by ‘Wise Statesman’ Courtney was referring to any specific person, although it may be that Twain thought that he meant Disraeli.
The next eight words are from the famous health expert, Suzanne Somers….‘Sexy Forever – How to Fight Fat After Forty,’
I don’t often “recycle blogs” but after the whole “vacine scare” which rerouted and misdirected tons of resources as well as indirectly gave whopping cough a new foothold to work off of. Having a son with many Autistic behaviors we have looked at this you might say “from both sides now”.
I caught this blog via some of my agricutural blog buddies and thought it was worth reposting.
http://purplepoke.blogspot.com/2011/01/today-shows-ag-love.html
I am not saying either side is 100% right but we in agriculture get smacked everyday square in the face of what I call the “physics of life” where common sense along with a good education and information are the necessary tools of survival.
When nut case celebrities confuse passion and book sales with communicating a accurate and useful message it just drives me nuts! Thank you to NBC and Natalie Morales of the Today Show for having the integrity to not just nod their heads like a bobble head doll which happens all too often when some “public figure” comes along with “all the answers”. And oh yea, it’s in my book!
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
