After much consternation I have been able to get my two wonderful daughters to assist with some of Maize Valley’s Social Media work!
Breanne is absolutly thrilled with me!
This year has been, well just tough. It started with a long, snowy and cold winter. We went right into a VERY wet and long and cool spring. Now we are looking at some extremly dry conditions. We still raise crops on about 700 acres and this weather pattern has made it challenging to get all the field work done AND keep bringing out all the new cool events, products, ideas and good times at Maize Valley.
X-Country Runners
It has been hard to keep up with the Ohio Wine and More Blog too. So I (Farmer Bill the Fun TSAR at Maize Valley) have enlisted the assistance of my off spring to help PAY THEIR CELL PHONE BILLS , among other things I am putting them too work.
Cara on the climb
To be fair they are awesome kids. We started Cara working at the age of 9 selling produce, making change and meeting people when she was 9 years of age. Breanne has been mowing in the vineyard, helping in the corn mazes, and a whole lot of watching her little brother all the while too.
With Mom and little Bro Brett at Put in Bay
But now I need their help even more with the most important thing, telling our story. You see the house they grew up in THEIR Greatgrandfather was born in. Their grandpa is still growing the crops today, and their Mom and Dad try and provide for them selling all the great things Maize Valley grows and makes. Now we need them to help us continue to tell that story.
A "Survivor Mom" w/her 2 Daughters
So I introduce to you the “Next Generation” of Maize Valley Farm Market and Winery to help tell you the “Rest of the Story”, Cara and Breanne Bakan. I hope you enjoy their perspectives of what it is like to be a “farmers daughter”.
Me and my little girls helping install a engine in my cafe racer bike
About 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.
Last years crop of Red Raspberries just recently found its way into the bottle in the winery but it’s story didn’t start there. There was a great deal of work that went into getting that rich red goodness into that glass carrier of pleasure.
Red Raspberry Beds
Well the snow might still be on the ground but we are getting ready for those long hot daz of summer!
Along with all the “good-for-you” vegi’s we grow at Maize Valley we also grow fruit. One of the most sexy fruits out there has to Red Raspberries. Especially when Todd my brother-in-law and our wine maker balances the sugar with the acidity and makes our Red Rasperry wine.
Visiting Relatives
Like most things on the farm Rasperries take a great deal of work. The first years we pruned the berries we used a chain saw and walked down the rows all bent over and such swinging the saw back and forth. We then graduated to a weed eater with a metal saw blade on it. This was better but still not a whole lot of fun. Now we thing we got it down! I bought this 40 year old sickle bar mower last fall and what was old is now new again.
1952 Ford F5 Farmers' Market Truck in the shop for winter repairs
At Maize Valley We Make Great Wine…FUN, that is just “how we roll”! And these trucks are a big part of how we do actually “roll”. I found this truck in warehouse about eight years ago with 3,343 original miles on it. We used it here or there around the farm and parades etc. for a while till we really “put it back to work”. You see this truck travel thousands of miles a year again now in the summer attending area farmers’ markets and wine festivals.
Last summer when coming back down I-77 from the Cleveland Garlic Festival I just heard something “not-right”. More just a feeling I had in my gut. I couldn’t find anything but a few weeks later it gave my brother some starting trouble then one day on the back from a market in Akron it just about quit. He limped it home and there it sat.
Old School simple
We were only running on five out of six cylinders, and figured we broke a valve. It was near the end of the season so we got by but were not looking forward to the work or expense of fixing this. So today I got after it in the shop to try and start to get a idea of what we needed to do.
Well this was a Monday and I pulled the valve cover off to find that only a push rod had come out of adjustment and slipped out of its seat….SWeeeeTt! I popped it back in, tightened it down and she ran great! Even a blind nut can find a Squirl some daz!
At Maize Valley yes we say “We Make Great Wine…FUN!!” But we also still grow a whole bunch of stuff besides just grapes and make wine. There are five family members currently involved in our farm. Todd makes the wine, Michelle runs the store, Bill is the “Fun TSAR” and does stuff like this blog, Donna handles the banking and running and all “that” kind of stuff and Kay grows the vegi’s.
Tomatoes waiting for a new home
These tomatoes should hit be ready end of May or so we are planning on and have flavor like a field rippened fruit should have growing in the soil. It is really tough competing with the imported tomatoes from the South. We try and grow a great local product early that we can sell at farmers’ markets and sell in our market and also serve in our entree’s in our Winery Cafe’.
Come on little guy, U can do it!
There are also Asian Greens, Spinach, Lettuce and Radishes in this greenhouse.
We have tried a variety of early growing techniques over the years. Some have worked better than others. One year we tried to cover melons with a “row cover” that covered the beds in the field. That worked great till two years of back to back wind storms pretty much gave us the counties largest kite.
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.
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.
