Galen torching the bolts

Prepping the bin for “Takedown”

Part of our old grain drying and storage setup

As the saying goes “Back in the Day” yes this blog is called Ohio Wine and More and I usually have you looking at all kinds of stuff besides wine and that is true. We are a diverse agricultural family farm enterprise.

Part of our past was that of an agricultural supply center for other local farmers as well as ourselves. As the landscape changed in our community so did we as a result.

So what once was a 3,000 acre corn, soybeans, wheat, dairy, etc., diverse family agricultural “old school” production oriented enterprise changed into a direct marketing guest/consumer oriented farm market and winery.

At one point I managed our grain storage facility that had about 470,000 bushel capacity. A average semi truck dump trailer holds about 1,000 bushels as a reference point. Over the years we gradually starting growing more vegtables beyond the sweet corn seed my father-in-law threw in the 12 row corn planter on the last round of the season to a more direct oriented vegtable producer.

Here is a view of some of the “old” headed to the scrap yard.

Underground drainage tile repair work

Yea I do talk and shoot a lot of videos but here and there I try and do some real work too. I guess we bloggers who actually get out in the real world and actually do something that contributes to our nations GDP are few and far between but here is one of the jobs that we need to get after in the “off season”.

Water is an essential element necessary for plant life. However too much is not good. All things need balance. When soils become saturated plants don’t do well. I had an animal science professor Dr. Kline, that once told us “Water is TOXIC, right up to here!” as he held his finger just above his nose.

Much is the same for plants so we put pipes or drainage tubes in the fields to remove excess water and improve plant health. It is one of the most expensive aspects of farming and requires maintance. In this case we have several plugged or broken field tiles in this particular part of the field and are just getting started trying to identify the locations and dig them up and repair the spots.

The tile can break, get crushed, or get things like tree roots growing inside that leads to low flow and more plugs so we begin the task of “hunt and peck” as we move about the field. Today I had Galen helping me on hand shovel and Burt running the trac hoe. Here are a few videos as we dig into the soil in search of the damaged tile.

This particular tile drains part of our rear vineyard, corn maze, part of an alfalfa field, and haunted corn maze. We were able to find and fix one of the problems but have more work to do in other sections of the field later this winter.

Lookin' in the sideview mirror

Raking ahead of the baler

Main Drive Shaft...Now we have Two Oh Boy!

Breakdown and shop time

Phillips Machine, saves the day

Making Hay while the sun shines

On our farm we as a family help each other out. My father in law Kay has helped make much of what has become Maize Valley Market and Winery possible. This past week he needed help baleing hay so I chipped in. I thought I was just going to be towing wagons. I spend most of my time at the market and winery and marketing etc.

I was there about an hour till we had a major breakdown. Just like back in the day I thought. This happens a lot especially when you use your equipment hard. We maintain the heck out of it but it still happens. I suppose if farm folks read and watch this stuff you just have to laugh. But we are just putting this blog up for ALL to see and learn so I am not trying to come across like something special, just report on what goes on down on our farm.

I guess it was a good thing I was there as I was able to help out in the repair, via cell phone and google searches from my blackberry in the field I discovered the shaft that broke was a day away and almost $200.00. The cool thing was we were able to tap into our local machine shop and find the same part for about $30.00 and I was able to run over and get it and we were back in business about four hours later. That is a cool part about living near in an area that was once a very heavy steel production center. I love buying steel “buy the pound” vs. covered in green paint!

I don’t know if you have ever “timed” a baler before but I learned how this day, I also used a whole bunch of my vocabulary skills too! After a while I threw the book away and just figured it out. If you ever have to time a John Deere Baler, start with the book then throw it away and use your head.

Last year Kay and crew made about 48,000 little square bales, this year looks like they might close in on 60,000 if the weather cooperates. We got these field done and got about 12,000 bales off of about 45 acres.

Now next week start second cutting, farmers markets, wine pours, vegi harvest, you know life!

Let's dig a little deeper

Pumpkin sprout 8 Days after planting

Agri-Tourism is a big part of what we do at Maize Valley. The new word on the street, er maybe for us the path, is “Imersion Tourism”. We just know it feels right to help people work toward “Hakuna Matata” or no worries and a relaxing fun day in the country can be just the ticket for that.

But we ARE farmers, really we do grow a ton of stuff yet from Watermelons to Wine we do a lot. But we have to sell it too, otherwise we will not be around to do it again as my wife’s family has done for the last 150 odd years here. So a great deal of my blog deals with what a modern direct market producers deals with and what it takes to both grow the food you need to eat to live, but also provide a quality of life aspect that makes life worth living.

Here are some video updates of where our corn maze and U-pick pumpkin patch is 8 days after planting, hope you enjoy.

They don't care about no stinkin' frost!!

As I have said we are much more than just Ohio Wine! As you can see by my posts on Monday the vineyard took a hit with the frost Monday morning, then another slight one on Tuesday too! Oh well to quote the famous philospher “Draphiki” in the Lion King, “It’s in the Past”. And I am trying to get on with that whole Hakuna Matata thing now. I will give update on the vineyard in about a week, it is too depressing to go out there right now with a camera.

In today’s pics and vids check out our other things we grow I have a couple of shots of what is going on “down on the farm” this week. Yesterday Kay, my father-in-law picked up our watermelon sets, today he is planting sweet corn, and “decorative Corn” before P.C. we called it “Indian Corn”. I painted the maze stairs/tower and myself. Transfering the planter over to plant the corn maze and pumpkins tomorrow.

Sorry for the short posts just really struggling to get time to do the work and get the posts up too.

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Grandpa Bakan Mowing

We try and put the “Family” in family farm all we can, why??? Because MY Dad and brother work for FREE and they think it is Fun!! My father-in-law Kay provides the farm with most of the equipment we need and we are working on buying the land from him. On my side of the family my brother and Dad come down and help too.

When people first told me I needed to start a blog I thought what in the heck I am going say often enough that is interesting? Will I have the time, do I have content for 2 to 3 posts a week? Well right now we have so much going on “down on the farm” I am having trouble getting the story told.

Right now we are sort of in “Ag. 101″ mode its seems. Different work at the winery and vineyard and farm comes at different times. Currently we are heavy into the planting mode at the farm with light work in the wine department. We are going to bottle tomorrow so I will have some news on how that goes.

This past weekend was real busy, the winery was packed Saturday night and we were busy in the fields too. I shot some video of the Fret Daddies playing and some other shots too hope to get them up soon so you can see that side of our Family Farm, market and winery!

The following video clip is about four minutes and shows my brother Tim doing some work in the vineyard.

Why is she just showing me just one?

At the top of the page you can see my lovely wife Michelle bundling our fresh from the field Asparagus. I asked her to smile for the camera and she insisted on displaying just one of the spears?

Right next to where the gang was planting onions I spotted our Asparagus. They told me the other day it was ready to cut. You need to stay after it and not let it go to seed if you want to keep it going. It takes Asparagus a few years to really get going and this is it’s second year in the ground and our first harvest.

Did you know that has been cultivated for thousands of years and it was first domesticated by the Macedonians about 200 B.C. Check out the following link to learn more than you ever wanted to know about it.

Todd our wine maker cut some fresh this morning and we are serving it as a special in the winery this weekend. And NO we are not going to make an Asparagus wine!

Galen Weisant plowing down winter cover crop

We try and cover all the fields we can in the fall but especially the ones that are goin to have a fresh marketed vegtable crop growing in them. Some of the rye we also bale in late spring if we are not needing to get the field into production until later in the season. That rye usually ends up in my awesome “Straw Crawl” in the fall for our fall harvest festivals and activities.

We are not a “hug a tree” farm but rather a sustainable agricultural production location that does a diverse array of things. When I say sustain I mean we try and sustain our families first by just doing common sense stuff that preserves our most valuable resource the land. The Vaughan family has been making a living with the land in Marlboro township since the 1800’s and I hope to not drop the ball if ya know what I mean. So we take care of it and use modern technology and old school common sense to make a living with it not off of it.

Quick drive-by video of plow being lifted at the end of the field.