SEASONS

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November 2, 2023

It’s my favorite time of the year. The trees here on the farm turn beautiful colors and as the breezes of Fall begin to blow, the trees release their grip on the leaves and they become a blanket of color for the earth below it. We humans experience seasons too and for me it’s a season of change.

When Monte and I decided to explore being a vendor at the QC Farmer’s Market in Rock Island it meant someone other than Monte would need to take on this roll as he would continue at Freighthouse. That someone would be me. I remember Monte and Alyssa getting up in the dark many Saturday mornings to load our meat and take it to market, turn around and bring home what didn't sell, and do it all over again the next week. In the early days it was the best way to build our business and bring awareness to our regenerative farm. Never once did I wish that I could be the one hitting the alarm button at 5:00 am and doing market but in April of 2022 I loaded my first van of coolers and headed out in the dark.

For the next 99 weeks I was the one responsible for attending and building relationships at the Rock Island market. The Spring of 2023 brought about another team member change and Monte was back in the tractor planting all our fields so we were faced with the decision to pull out of the Davenport market. Unsure of what would happen to sales the reality was we could only be in one place at a time. Our customers did not let us down. We had a great market season with customers pre-ordering for easy pick up, new customers purchasing items at the market and familiar friends from Davenport following us across the river.

This Saturday the market season changes to its winter market hours. You will find us in Rock Island all winter from 10:00 to 12:00. Notice I said us, meaning Julie and Treyten will be at market this winter as I am officially retired from market duties! Some things we finish in life we are really happy about and have no desire to ever do again and some things we will truly miss being a part of. I will miss the market and I will think of you all often as I enjoy my coffee and a morning fire in the fireplace this winter.

I’ve met so many wonderful people at QC Farmer’s Market. It's gone way beyond market vendor and customer. We’ve talked about life and loss. We’ve shared our struggles and health problems. We’ve exchanged recipes and ideas. We’ve built real friendships and I will miss seeing each of you every week. But I know it’s the season, it’s time for me to move on to another part of our farm that needs my time and attention.

I hope you all know how much Monte and I genuinely appreciate the support we receive through your purchases, social media posts, kind remarks, and referrals. While we know without a doubt that raising livestock is the very best thing for the soil, for you and your family, it is not easy. Many days present unexpected challenges and opportunities to fix and improve processes. Honestly, some days are discouraging but if you know us well, you know it’s not over until we win. We will continue to get up every day and keep going. Keep educating. Keep telling our story. Keep filling your orders and coming to market. We just need you to do your part…stay healthy, keep ordering and keep sharing Grateful Graze!

Cheers to an unforgettable season!

Robyn

Digging Deeper

Digging Deeper! I’ll be honest, I haven’t told you everything about us and our farm. Now is the time for the rest of the story. I hope to educate and inspire you to choose healthy food from healthy soil, answer nagging questions, and debunk myths or half truths that you hear. But first, let’s play a little “Did you know?” followed by so what and who cares! Did you know that we grow crops in addition to raising cattle, chickens, and pigs? We farm 2500 acres of Non-GMO Corn, Non-GMO Soybeans, Winter Wheat, Triticale, Winter Barley, Summer Forage Cover Crops, and Winter Cover Crops. ½ of our corn is milled and sent to Italy to make Barilla brand products and ½ of our corn is exported (mostly to Japan) for livestock feed or human consumption. 80% of our Soybeans are exported and 20% are high protein and used for food products. Winter Wheat goes to make bread, triticale and winter barley is for seed production for cover crop seed. Our summer forages feed our cattle herd and the winter cover crops protect our soil from erosion, hold nutrients in the field, help prevent weeds, and improve soil health. https://www.bottens.com/ Did you know most of our farm is dedicated to practice and product based research? Almost every field is comparing a planting technique, products and rate trials, crop rotation and many other experiments. We used large acreage, replicated tests to validate the best practices so we can share our results with other farmers. Did you know I’m a crop consultant and I started California Ag Solutions to help farmers adopt minimum tillage and better nutrient management? Here are some of the crops I have worked with: Cotton (upland, hybrid, Pima), Tomatoes (processing, market), Corn (Silage, Sweet, Yellow, White), Wheat (Forage, Durum, Spring), Triticale Alfalfa, Onion (dehydrated, fresh), Garlic (dehydrated), Cantaloupe, Watermelon, Garbanzos, Wine Grapes, Almonds and several species of cover crops. I also developed or was a key part of several farming innovations including preserved bed cotton, min till and strip till tomatoes, cover crops for tomatoes, Strip till and no till planting equipment for forages, equipment and cover crops for Almonds, Pistachios and Walnuts. Many of which have become standard production practices today. https://www.calagsolutions.com/ Did you know I developed biological based products to improve soil and crops while reducing fertilizer inputs? Our crop nutrition approach focuses on soil health and is based upon using the most efficient nutrient at exactly the right time and place. We focus on optimization, not ease or cost. This leads to maximum profitability while minimizing negative impacts. I get to work with a team of amazing chemists, biologists, and formulators to develop products to fit farmers’ needs. Did you know I started Ag Solutions Network to allow farmers across the country to utilize our products and techniques? We currently work with farmers from Indiana to California helping them adopt the soil health principles within their own farming context. I have visited several farms and worked with their local consultants in CA, AZ, MT, CO, NE, KS, MO, IA, IL, IN, and MI. https://www.agsolutionsnetwork.com/ Did you know that I started the AgEmerge podcast and conference as a way to merge Ag Technology Startups and the Regenerative Ag Movement together to create the farming of the future? I have been blessed to get to know many thought leaders, innovative farmers, researchers and downright interesting people involved in food. Now I get to have them speak at our conferences or be on our podcast. While the podcast is aimed at helping farmers think and farm differently, you might enjoy listening to the podcast. These amazing connections have certainly expanded my thinking. https://www.agsolutionsnetwork.com/agemergepodcast Did you know that I am an angel investor in AgTech startups and provide advisor services to many AgTech Startups? While I’m not Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank, I do invest in companies that can make a promising impact for regenerative agriculture. One that you are most familiar with is www.NoFence.no which makes a virtual fencing solution which we are piloting in the North American Market. I am a part of Ag Startup Engine in Ames, IA and I am constantly advocating for technologies that support regenerative agriculture. https://www.agstartupengine.com/ Some additional investments that I have been involved with include: https://terzopower.com/ https://www.herddogg.com/ https://grassrootscarbon.com/pasture-map/ https://ravenind.com/products/autonomy/raven-cart-automation https://www.pheronym.com/ Did you know we started Grateful Graze as a way to improve soil health? We were practicing 4 of the 5 soil health principles (minimizing disturbance, keep the soil covered, always have a living root, plant diversity) but we had not implemented #5, integrate livestock. So we began raising cattle which then we decided to sell the beef directly to consumers which led to chicken, then eggs, then pork. We have found that integrating livestock is the most amazing thing that we have done to improve soil health. https://gratefulgraze.com/ Bottom line is I’m like a Farmers Insurance commercial, I know a thing or two because I’ve seen a thing or two. So what and who cares? Everything I do revolves around our mission: We believe in doing the right thing, always. No matter how hard, inconvenient, costly, or different it might be. I have first hand experience with many things revolving around farming and food production and I can spot BS, greenwashing, and potential for unintended consequences. I am hyper vigilant to make sure we are always doing the right thing. Now is the time to dig deeper now that you know your digger a little gooder! I look forward to addressing and providing the truth behind several topics. From conventional farming greenwashing industrial ag to food experts simply regurgitating the latest trendy topic for clicks, I will dig deep and provide you with the knowledge you need to be fully informed. Got a great question? Something you’re confused or worried about? Ask it, if it is something I can speak to with experience or authority, I will. If I can’t, I might be able to point you in the right direction. Simply email me: monte@gratefulgraze.com As always, thank you for being a customer and making our regenerative farm possible. We simply could not do it without you. Let’s go deeper! Monte Future Blogs Piggy soy questions Comment was deleted but it was about the unintended consequences of GMO/editing.

Dazed and Confused

Most evenings on the farm are quiet and calm. I said most. The guys finish with the daily chores and tasks around 3:00 and try to get home to their families before too late in the day. Monte and I enjoy going around the farm later in the evening which leaves just enough time for something to have potentially gone wrong.Side note: Something really interesting to me is how often we've had this happen and we had no real reason to go out to check things and found something that could have been really serious. It's like there's someone watching over things here and telling us to go out and check the animals. I'm not sure who or why, but it's a good thing.On Monday evening that was exactly the case. We were enjoying a peaceful evening by the pond and a friend wanted to stop out to look at the Milpa plot we had planted to see how things were growing. Just at sunset on our way back I noticed in the distance a large group of hens far away from their barn on the hillside where the barn had been earlier in the day. We've experienced this one other time when we moved the barn too far during our daily move and the hens were confused and didn't know where their house had gone. We spent a couple of hours that night trying to gather chickens in the dark and putting them into the barn. You can imagine what a great exercise that is in marital communications. When the sun starts to set chickens become kind of lethargic (that's a nice word for dumb) and if they can't roost they will huddle into groups on the ground to sleep laying out a coyote "all you can eat buffet". We would like to stay in the egg business so it's rather important to find a solution to the problem.Having had this previous experience we put the marriage saving call out to Remington and Matthew for assistance. We attempted to get the hens to walk to the barn but it just wasn't going to happen. I suggested to Monte the easiest way to get them into the barn was to move the barn back to them. It worked! They were all happy to see the barn back and started jumping inside while it was moving so they could get settled in and perched for the night. Once they were all back inside and perched, we moved them back to the new location where in the morning would be no problem at all. It's like carrying a sleeping child from the car into their bed...they wake up and have no idea how they got there.For us it was another night of dinner at 10:30 and falling into bed so we could get back up and start fresh again the next day still happily married.No harm...No foul! (pun intended) From the Farm,Robyn

SEASONS

More from the blog

Digging Deeper

It's All A Blur

Dazed and Confused

Grateful Graze