Bill on "Snarles"

Life truly is a journey. How you get through this journey, much like any other trip you take, depends on the roads you choose and the things you encounter along the way. Some roads get you there fast, some not so fast. Some of the people and places you meet and visit are good, others maybe not so much. But “fast and or good” at least on the surface may look like the best route, can also deprive you of some really interesting experiences along the way. Some force you to look at and deal with things you don’t see in the “fast lane”.

My Susan G. Komen 3 Day for the cure "mates"

Now don’t get me wrong, given the choice of not hearing those words over the phone from my wife Michelle “I have cancer” would have been my prefered choice. But after you hear them you have to say, “ok, what’s next?” And begin your journey down a path you would not have choosen to take. That path led us to the Susan G. Komen 3 Day for the cure. This is a 60 mile 3 day experience that requires fund raising but is really about so much more.

Little Pink houses 4 U n me!

2011 in Cleveland found Michelle walking with her brother in law Tim Bakan and Bill on Saftey Crew. If you are going to walk 60 miles in three days you MUST train or your body won’t do it. Trust me I know, I’ve seen it. SGK takes care of you if you can’t, but if you want to walk every step you need to prepare. And if you are a runner or “in good shape’ and think that will work, it might, but don’t necessarily count on it. It’s mostly about Feet. Feet, feet, feet, how many, many feet you meet. They need to be prepared, they need to have walked.

Aid station and pit stop

How do I know? As a member of the Safety Crew I had the priviledge of helping and seeing just about each and every one of the 950 walkers. We are different that most of the other 330 crew members in that respect, in that we see just about everybody sooner or later often multiple times. Each crew member and every they do job is important, we just got the “glory” job. Over three days you make friends, see struggles, and watch victories unfold.

"Crossing guards"

We would leave out about a half hour before the first walker hits the road at about 6:30am, then we as a group escourted the last walker in the gate about 13 hours later. Our job is to keep them safe, but also so much more.

The long pink line

Over the next few blog posts I’ll lay out how these three days unfolded for me. Because you often hear about the Susan G. Komen 3 Day for the cure but until you have lived it or had a very in depth explaination of what it is, you cannont begin to understand it. It starts with a promise, because everyone deserves a lifetime.

The nut does not fall far from the Tree

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

Pre-opening ceremonies

Maize Valley Farm Market and Winery will be sending a team to the Susan G. Komen 3 Day walk for the cure in Cleveland Ohio in 2011. This is part 3 of the story of how this family farm business came to “adopt” this as “official cause”. Both from a personal standpoint but also from an event and business perspetive how we try and raise awereness and funds. That’s why it is part of the Ohio wine and more blog, this part of the “more”.

Now that is a real bad cliche’! We often say when we lose someone to breast cancer something like, she “lost her battle” with breast cancer. What the f**k does that mean? A battle is a subset of a war are those men and women who get breast cancer warriors? Well you’re not till it punches you in the gut as it did us.

At least for us, even when it came very close to us we had sympathy for those affected but sort of covered our ears and went “Laaa, Laaa, Laaa, Laaa” when the discussion really tried to get “focused”. You don’t really take up arms and Lock n Load till it takes a shot at you, then baby, “it’s on”.

Who's da bad ass?

Gonna “Rewind” now a bit from dropping Chelle off day of the walk to one of “My Darkest Days”, and I ain’t talkin’ about the band from Canada either! You see in order for you to understand why I began to understand why the SGK walk was important enough to tell others, I need to tell you how breast cancer has reached into our lives beyond my wife Chelle.

When I heard “those words” on the dock I was dropped to my knees, a blackness shadowed over me, I felt powerless to help “my girl”. Maybe I overreacted? I am a data guy I needed data what did this mean? All of a sudden I was in a fog, my reference points unknowable, my objectives and options unclear.

Mary Ellen Cole Bakan

Overreacted? I did not know, THAT was the problem! The fog, the blackness of my heart and soul was maybe a result of the “war” I was sucked into. My sight was obstructed. I feared this battle, you see this was not the first time I saw a one. Pictured above is not just a tractor and a wagon but my Brother Tim returning from the pumpkin patch with a load of guests, pumpkins and memories.

Sitting on the wagon was his wife Mary Ellen Cole Bakan with their daughter Anne. A daughter they were not even supposed to even be able to have, today the biggest living memory we have of Mary Ellen.

Orange, my favorite color!

Mary Ellen was our un-official “pumpkin lady”, nobody out of ignorance nor mallace ever left our pumpkin patch without paying for the time, labor and toil it took to raise the crop. With a smile and comforting tone as big and beautiful as the blazing color of the fall folliage around you, that only a 4th grade teacher could deliver, she could walk up to anybody and be sure she did her part to help keep this farm “sustainable”.

The change of season brings certain well “certainties” if you will. Just as those colorful fall leaves decay to give us aromas we only ascribe to fall, or that the models on the L.L. Bean cataloge are having a great time! I was certain EVERYONE leaving the pumpkin patch had PAID for their pumpkin!

Tim and Mary Ellen “worked” for FREE for us on the weekends, I’d pay a King’s ransom if I could to bring her back for my brother. They had our back, I’ve done the best I could the almost past three years to have Tim’s. I feared that someone would have to have mine. That’s how this party got started for us. More to come.

Maize Valley Farm Market and Winery will be fielding a team for the 2011 Susan G. Komen 3 Day walk. If you would like to join us please get in touch. Because everyone deserves a lifetime!

Ya know when Michelle wanted to do the 3 day walk I “hesitated” to help when she asked. I must confess, my bad. Not so much doing the “Walk” but rather telling everyone and asking for their support.

You see I’m a guy I just do stuff myself. I told Chelle, “It will be hard for us but, let’s just write a check, and you walk”. That is NOT the point she said! This is about awareness, of the big picture. My “training” for the SGK walk had begun before I helped her take her first steps.

As with most “arguments” we have had over 25 years she just waits till I see she’s right and I apologize. That is where I started to grasp what this is really all about. And if you know me, once I get ahold of an idea, I tend to “ride it hard“, I hate missed opportunities and under used resources. Forgive me for “chronologically jumping around a bit” here getting this story started.

Whooo Haaaa, we are just getting warmed up!

Fast forward to the day of the walk. when I dropped Chelle off it hit me. After months and hunderds of miles of training and fundraising, I had to let go now. Now was her time to step into something really big! And coming from a dairy farm backround that was usually not a good thing!!! But in this case she was about to enter an experience bigger than either of us had ever seen.

Now listen, we are Buckeye Alumni, that is where we met and we have seen “big games” but these 900 souls plus 300 crew members dwarfed anything we had ever been a part of at “The Shoe”. This was about life and death, I’ll put my money on a cancer survivor anyday after seeing this .

Cheer a lot

I am not a writer, I am a farmer, but my self imposed title is the “Fun TSAR”, I wear many hats. Part of my struggle to help with this at the start was I had to overcome my feelings that we were special. Not so much because we had a “situation” (no Jersey Shore pun intended) but rather EVERYBODY has a “cause”!

We have a son that has “many” “Autistic” behaviors, Hati had an earthquake, St. Jude’s needs help, I lost a cousin on 9/11 there are tons of places and people asking for your help. Why should anybody care about us and our cause more than anybody elses, I hated the idea that our cause is “better” than anybody elses.

I wonder where we go? Let's follow the guys in pink...

But this one punched me in the gut and I was PISss’T OFF. Where do we go from here? That started months earlier. When I began to see how we fit into the big picture. I will try not to use too many cliches’ and analogies to describe things.

I’ll try not to minimize what other’s have suffered through by my shortcomings in telling our story, I’ll try and show how we fit into the big picture and how everyone deserves a lifetime!

Little pink houses

“I’ve got cancer”, those words were spoken to me on August 31st 2009 as I stood on the dock behind our farm market and winery. On the other end was my wife of 23 and on half years who I let go to the doctor alone because I had grapes to haul that day. And besides, we were pretty certain they were just “calcium deposits”, they were so small. Looking back I’m glad they were. One and half year’s later I now have a wife of over 25 years and a Breast Cancer Survivor.

Komen for the Cure

We are so lucky. How did we react, how else could we like we do everything else. We ran straight at it. Our (My wife Michelle’s) journey was thankfully pretty short compared to so many. I can say that because I was not the one who had a lumpecotmy, which was not enough, but the lymphnodes were ok. So a “double” followed and now we are finishing up reconstruction things look good! No chemo, No radiation.

All the while, we thought we will get through and also how do we do that. The Susan G. Komen 3 Day for the Cure Cleveland walk turned out to be a big part of that. About a month after my wife had her major reconstuction surgery she took her first steps toward really healing. 3 days, 60 miles sound hard? No not really when you see the journey some of the other 900 walkers in the Cleveland walk have endured. We are lucky.

Opening Ceremonies

What does Ohio Wine and More and Maize Valley Farm Market and Winery have to do with all this. Well I will try and explain over the next few blog posts about what the 3 Day Walk is about. It’s a little about marketing, its a little about wine, its a little about giving back what we can because everyone deserves a life!

Stomp the Grapes 2010

Cruise In July 22nd 2010

Pink Poker Run 2010

Cane Burning Par-Tay

Hartville Radishes from Maize Valley Farms

2010 was a great year at Maize Valley Farm Market and Winery, thank you! We really mean that. We are a family farm business that has been making a living with the soil since the 1800′s. Throughout all those year’s my wife’s family the Vaughan’s have been leather tanners, school teachers, carpenters, and all along farmers. You see you just did what you had to do to survive. As Dorie says in finding Nemo, “just keep swimming, swimming, swimming!

We grow about 52 different crops on about 700 acres but the most important crop is fun! Fun = memories and we try and build special events that cement those memories and last a lifetime. Our event calendar is loading up for 2011. We are working on making new events and adding and improving old ones too.

Look for our Vines, Wines, and Pines, cross country race to expand to include a “Farmathlon”, yea it’s gonna be cool! We are working on the half marathon and with any luck will be able to handle the expected growth up towards 2,000 runners.

The Pink Poker Run to raise money for Susan G. Komen 3 day for the cure will be back with a “Bike Rodeo” on the back side of it and hog roast.

We are pulling the plug on the Haunted corn maze and will be planting pumpkins in that area and making the woods part of the wagon ride paths. Plus the Pony Express is going to make it’s way back into the Corn Maze design.

The cane burning Par-Tay is gonna have a bigger pile, the monthly “Vintner Dinner” series keeps selling out so look for some new ideas coming there, the cruise-ins’ are every week starting in May and well wait to ya see the giant Hill-Slide we are building…..! Whew, and that’s not all! Stay Tuned!

At Maize Valley, We Make Great Wine…FUN!

I'm Walking 60 miles in 3 Days to help find a cure can you help me?

Michelle with me at Daytona Bike Week

Why I’m Walking

I’m walking because I can. Because so many can not. Because this disease has taken so much from so many. I’m walking for my sister in law who fought to the end, for my dad who grew up without a mother , for my aunt who started her fight 30 years ago, for my mom who started her fight 2 years ago.

I’m walking for myself – to prove that the past year has been just a speed bump in the road of life. Many of you know that I was diagnosed with breast cancer August 31, 2009. Since that time I have had two surgeries, the second being a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction. That means they took the old ones with the cancer and gave me new ones (although it’s been a little more involved than that).

I’m walking for my children, that they may never have to walk. That they will never have to hear the words “we got the results, it’s cancer”. That some day there will be a cure and a world without breast cancer.

I’m walking because someone, walked for me. For without the advances in early detection and treatments, my cancer might still be hidden, my story might have a very different ending.

The Susan G., Komen foundation has been involved with every major advancement in the fight against breast cancer.

Wow Dad this pile is HUGE!

Brett Helping Dad bring in the pile!

The Cane Burning Party will take place in our hilltop Pavilion on Saturday, May 29. Admission is $10 ($5 of which will be donated to the Susan G. Komen Foundation) and will include hamburgers, bratwurst, potato salad, chips and s’mores around the fire. With Live entertainment for “Me and this other guy”.

My wife Michelle was diagnosed with Breast Cancer last August. She is walking in the 3 day walk. You can donate directly and learn more about her journey by visiting www.maizevalley.com and click on her picture and link.

Come on out and enjoy a good old fashioned big ole’ “Bon Faaarrr”, from Back in the Day. The canes are the wood we prune from the vineyard, not disabled persons walking aids either!! When they burn down we have more wood to add! We might even take a “moon light wagon ride” once the tunes die down, C how it goes!

Food starts about 6:00, wine sales in the pavilion too, we “Light it up” bout 7:00, probably hang out till bout 10:00-11:00 ?