Finally, it’s here!

Christmas time!

Whew! Now, more than ever, is a time to embrace Christmas.

And what a great time to support local businesses! Especially Local Growers!

As I have in the past, I am highlighting just a few of the many local growers I’ve featured in the past.

While these Local Growers and their products can be found in Minnesota, you can find similar growers, and learn their special stories, in your neck of the woods. For more Minnesota growers, check out the Minnesota Grown website. Otherwise, do a search of local growers in your state.

Many of these growers have websites and online stores.

So here’s my shortlist. Watch for more to be listed as the Christmas season continues!

Eagleview Winery

This winery by Ashby, MN has great pairings for meat and cheese trays, appetizers, the main course and, of course, dessert!

It’s a great gift idea, too!

All grapes grown at Eagleview Winery are Minnesota hardy. The vines can withstand temperatures from 25 to 30 degrees below zero, said Lynda Moerke. Some of the grape varieties have been developed by the University of Minnesota while others are from Elmer Swenson’s lines. Swenson was a Wisconsin dairyman whose grapes were made with withstand the Upper Midwest climates.

You won’t find a merlot amongst their extensive wine listing because the grapes used to produce merlot aren’t hardy for this region. But Eagleview Winery does have grapes that produce a dry wine. The same is true to semi-sweet and white wine varieties.

The wines are great and their marketing wets the imagination and inclination to have a glass.

Each label bears a picture of a frustrated Shannon, Lynda’s husband who partners with her on the winery. The picture was taken when he kept missing his shooting target. It’s the basis of the winery’s Angry Farmer line.

One of the wine offerings, Laughing Chipmunk, is made from Frontenac Gris grapes and is named for the animal most likely responsible for Shannon’s disposition in the picture.

Then there’s Broken Tractor. The semi-dry wine’s label bears the picture of a red tractor with issues.

Another, Busted Wagon, is a semi-dry white. Burning Combine is a wonderful semi-sweet rose blend.

Others include Summer Drought, a dry red and Frozen Tundra which is made from apples. A new wine, Dastardly Goat, is named for Nanna a 4-H project. Nanna ate everything including the bark off the pear tree, Lynda said..

To learn more about Eagleview Winery and to contact them for wine purchases, check them out at www.eagleviewwinery.com.

Camp Aquila Pure Maple Syrup

Making maple syrup is a pretty sweet business for Stu and Corinne Peterson.

The couple taps maple trees on their property 30 miles north of Fergus Falls, MN. They boil it in their sugar house and bottle the final product - Camp Aquila Pure Maple Syrup.

Camp Aquila (pronounced a-Kwill-a) Pure Maple Syrup is well known in the region where it is sold.

It has humble roots.

The two were working in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area when they learned of a family friend and former teacher who was selling his property near Otter Tail County’s Star Lake. The friend had operated that piece from around 1950-1976 as Camp Aquila for boys. It was the teacher’s summer gig, Stu said. But it also had great maple trees.

Stu and Corinne purchased it - 190 acres- in 1983. As they researched the property, they learned, through a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Forest Stewardship Plan, of the property’s potential for a “sugar bush”

They started tapping their first trees - about 50 of them - in 2000. About that time, Stu retired to focus on the maples.

For the first three seasons they tapped from 50 to 100 trees and hauled the sap to neighbor’s outdoor “flatpan” hobby evaporation set up. It was small and inefficient but so much fun and educational, he said.

They sold their home in the Twin Cities in 2005 and moved to the property that same year.

The two continued to focus on processing the maple sap in their own sugar house and purchased a food-grade commercial evaporator. They became licensed by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture as a wholesale food processor. Over time they expanded the number of taps to 1,300 and built a customer base in Otter Tail and Becker counties in addition to a few stores in the Twin Cities.

For more details on their operation, check out www.campaquilasyrup.com.

Locally produced maple syrup makes a great gift especially in a gift basket of pancake and waffle fixings!

GrubDudz aprons, oven mitts and more

Bonnie Bartos is the creator of all things GrubDudz.

She sews it all from, as the title of this section suggests, oven mitts, aprons, microwave mitts and more.

But here’s the thing, she didn’t tap into her sewing gift until later in life.

Her mother tried to teach her to sew when Bonnie was about 8 or 9 and again when she was in her early teens, but they both decided to mutually abandone the idea, she said.

But when Bonnie came upon some wonderful veggie print material, she had a desire to make something with it.

Bonnie enrolled in a quilting class and, when she was making that first quilt, she thought of ways she could make it more efficiently.

“I guess more of those lessons stuck with me than I first thought,” she said.

Bonnie got some patterns and started creating kitchen and household items. She no longer has that original veggie print, the inspiration for her return to sewing, but she has found other fun veggie prints to sew.

She’s made some modifications to her original patterns for working in the kitchen, she said. For instance, she found that, when using most oven mitts, she’d still get burns on her arms right above where the oven mitt ended. To solve the problem, she made the pattern longer so now, the mitts she sews, cover more area on the arm.

Is your pet in need of some special apparel? Get cat and dog bandanas!

She also makes items to prepare corn and potatoes in the microwave!

Bonnie hails from Alaska and a family that is creative and talented. Her father is a sail maker. Her brother is a potter and her mom weaves and spins yarns.

She came to the area working as a physicians assistant and diabetes education.

“I wanted to do something else,” she said. And she started sewing with a focus on food. AS she says, “BrubDudz provides an acceptable way to play with your food.”

Look for more on Bonnie’s GrubDudz items at her website at www.grubdudz.com and on Facebook.

She has an online shop!

Bison!

Want a special Christmas meal or to gift someone this wonderful product for a Christmas present? Check out Sleepy Acres Bison.

Craig and Elizabeth Fischer of Sleepy Eye, MN are one example of producers raising bison. They also offer eggs and pork in their farm offerings.

A bison might seem like a strange wedding gift, but for Craig and Elizabeth Fischer it was perfect! 

The two were “bitten by the bison bug,” as Craig puts it, and, while mentoring with another bison growing family, grew to love the animals. 

Since bison are social animals, the Fischers soon purchased another. Since they started in 2013, they’ve grown their herd to 45 bison. Twenty of them are cows and part of the breeding stock. 

Their operation, Sleepy Bison Acres, has continued to grow. They raise pastured pork during the summer and have laying hens. The bison and pastured pork cuts (plus whole or half animals to stock your freezer) and eggs are available for purchase on their website: sleepybisonacres.grazecart.com. 

Craig is the fourth generation on the same place his great grandfather farmed. While some of the farmland was sold when he was eight, the farmsite remained in the family. Now the couple lives and farms the remaining land with their young family. 

“We got started in farming because we thought about where our meat was coming from,” Craig said. “Growing up on the farm, we had exposure to the products that we would eat and, over time, we wanted to raise our meat and produce the way we thought it should be raised.” 

And he notes that everything they sell is the same product they eat as a family, as well. 

They believe strongly in Local Growers and locally grown. They work with a brewery in Sleepy Eye, receiving the mash used in the brewery process to feed to the bison. In turn, the bison meat comes back to a local coffee shop. 

“The idea is working with local people to minimize waste and maximize value,” Craig said. 

Their main focus in raising pastured animals is the pasture. They strive to have quality forages for the stock. 

“It’s more of a holistic mindset to the stocking density,” he said of how he plans the number of animals in a pasture paddock. “We can influence what forages grow and the quality of them.” 

Both the bison and pork receive mineral supplements to ensure they have all the nutrients for good growth.

The hogs are raised around their farm’s woods. The wooded landscape and succulent grasses lend the meat to have a great texture and tasty meat. One customer, who admitted to not being a fan of pork sausage, said he likes the Sleepy Bison Acres’ sausage. 

And the chickens? The laying hens forage “as they please” around the yard and pasture and produce the most wonderfully vibrant orange yolked, or as the Fischer’s put it in their blog, “farm colored eggs.” 

Check out their farm’s online shop at sleepybisonacres.grazecart.com. And learn about their farm at sleepybisonacres.com.

MEATS

In this time of COVID-19, local livestock producers have seen a growth in sales. In fact, one of our local meat plants announced before the deer hunting season that they would not be processing deer this year. This business had experienced such demand for processing from local farmers that they couldn’t process deer.

People are looking to local livestock producers to get chicken, beef, pork and other types of meat products.

And so can you.

While it might be a challenge getting a lot of locally grown meat products for Christmas, check out grower’s websites to see availability. Some sell individual cuts. And you can order your own bulk meat purchase whether it be a whole, half or quarter.

One local farm that has an online shop is Cornerstone Farm.

Cornerstone Farm offers a cornucopia of fresh from the farm goodness from goat cheeses to beef, from pork to elderberry syrup, to name a few.

The farm, located near Henning, MN, is home to Stephen and Brittany Springer. They started their consumer model, but they were farming before then.

“Stephen grew up farming, but I did not,” Brittany said. “Everything was a learning curve for me. WE got married in April of 2012 and were farming even before then. …We didn’t just decide to farm, it was a way of life that we wanted.”

They changed the marketing of their farm to a consumer model in 2014 when people started asking them where they could get the healthy food the Springers were eating. The business developed from the demand the twas already there, she said.

Jams, elderberry syrup and jams were among the items sold at the Battle Lake Farmers Market by Cornerstone Farm.

Stephen was already raising beef cattle so it provided a good base for what they wanted to offer consumers. Then customers began asking for healthy pork alternatives to they added pork. It got the ball rolling and more items have been added since.

“Our beef is strictly grass-fed and finished,” Brittany said. “They just graze on pasture all summer and are fed organically raised haying the winter. WE maintain a healthy number of cattle to our pasture which is more than big enough so, with our current numbers, rotation isn’t an issue. We raise all our own cattle from birth. The father is Normande and the most are mixed breeds including British Whites, Angus, and Hereford. The babies, are half Normande and half mixed breed keeping the beef to their quality standards

Hogs are also raised on pasture and supplemented with soy-free organic grain that the Springers grow and mix themselves. The breed of pigs they raise depends on what is available for them to buy as piglets, Brittany said. They don’t farrow (have piglets born on the farm).

They also have goats which are raised for commercial dairy production. All the milk is shipped to a creamery in Rockville, MN. There is no organic market in Minnesota for goats milk so, unfortunately, she adds, the goats are raised conventionally.

The chickens, both the broilers or meat birds and egg layers are raised with free ranging walking around they’d lives. They graze on grass, worms and bugs and receive some soy-free organic grains

While the winter months have slower sales, they do make monthly deliveries to metro area dropsites.

Customers can order meat and other products through their online shop at their website cornerstonefarmmn.com.

Brittany Springer of Cornerstone Farm

The meat is processed at one of two local meat facilities including Miltona Meats and Perham Locker Plant.

Specific cuts or whole, half or quarters can be ordered.

There are other special meat offerings like cheddar beef sticks, wild rice brats and more.

Besides the meat cuts, there are other offerings at the site including colloidal silver, eggs, elderberry syrup and organic garlic.

Brittany has been the manager of the Battle Lake Farmers Market where she also has the farm’s stand among other vendors. From the stand she sells vegetables, meats, breads and more.

Although COVID has caused life to shift, the Springers remain busy and active. Cornerstone Farm has grown each year and this year has been no exception, she said.

Produce is sold mainly through CSA shares (Community Supported Agriculture) with extra produce sold at the Battle Lake Farmers Market.

Check out their offerings at cornerstonefarmmn.com. And, for Christmas, consider gifting a gift card for Cornerstone Farm! Check out the details at their site!

Cheese

Instead of “Got Milk?” Alise Sjostrom will most likely ask “Got Cheese?”

Alise is the redhead behind Redhead Creamery located on her family farm near Brooten, MN

Partnering with her in the cheese operation is her husband, Lucas, and her parents Jerry and Linda Jennissen.

At her cheese making facility, Alise makes brie, munster, cheese curds and a variety of cheddars. All cheeses are sold on the website redheadcreamery.com, at the Alexandria, MN farmers market, through specialty stores in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin and through their on-farm Cheese Store.

When COVID-19 hit, they re-thought how to market their product and came up with a plan that’s proven successful. They promoted their website store and began two cheese runs in Minnesota. People could pre-order cheese for delivery along the route that included a Twin Cities run to Minneapolis-St. Paul and communities along the route and another to Northern Minnesota including the towns of Fergus Falls and Alexandria.

Alise got the idea to make cheese when she was just 16. She’d attended a 4-H youth gathering in Wisconsin which included a trip to a cheese plant.

“It was at that moment that I thought, ‘This is what I could do,’” Alise said. “I could come back to the farm, but not necessarily to milk cows. I could make cheese.”

She announced her plans to her parents when she returned from the trip.

“They were encouraging, but they also didn’t know how to make this dream a reality,” she added.

Alise was determined. After she graduated from high school, Alise enrolled at the University of Minnesota where she developed her own college curriculum focusing on cheese and dairy food quality. She also trained at the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese.

After college, she worked at retail grocery to learn the food chain of cheese. Then, for five years, she and Lucas moved to Wisconsin and Vermont where they worked with cheese makers/owners. Alise says they took her under their wing and helped her build more knowledge and understanding of the cheese making tradition.

During the couple’s time in Vermont, she gained a knowledge of European cheeses.

“There was this diversity of cheese,” she said of acquiring more cheese knowledge. “And it continues to evolve and change.”

Today they make cheese 2 to 3 days a week and have expanded their operation to include the on-site Cheese Shop. The farm is also open for tours on Fridays and Saturdays where individuals can learn more about where their food comes from and about the cheese making process.

The story of the cheese starts with the cows of Jer-Lindy Farms. Jerry and Linda farm 240 acres and milk 200-head of Holstein and Brown Swiss in their modern dairy facility.

Linda works with Alise in the cheese making facility.

“My mom works as much as I do,” Alise said. “I have someone who makes cheese. Before that, I was the sole cheese maker. It’s refreshing to work more on the business, but still, I have my hands in the cheese making process.”

There are additional part time workers who help with production and working in the Cheese Store on weekends.

Lucas and Alise have three children, ages 7, 4 and under 12 months. It’s a busy dairy loving and cheese loving household.

Redhead Creamery’s variety of cheese offerings is award winning and quite tasty!

Little Lucy Brie is a great, soft brie. The North Fork Whiskey Washed Munster is washed with locally produced Minnesota 14 Whiskey made at the Panther Distillery in Osakis, MN.

The munster has taken top placings at the Minnesota State Fair earning a fourth place in 2017, first place in 2018 and third place in 2019 in the artisan cheese division.

Alise’s cheddar is also a winner. The St. Anthony Cheddar, with its meaty undertones of cured salami, took a first place in the artisan cheese division at the Minnesota State Fair and, that same year, earned a second placing in the American originals category by the American Cheese Society.

Other cheddars include Tipsy Tilsiter, a sharp cheese in Margie Cheddar, Cave Aged Garlic Cheddar (I’m currently eating this and it’s GREAT!), and Red Temper which is a honey chipotle cheddar. And don’t forget the Rav’n Mad Redhead Cheddar.

Linda has a cheddar named after her, as well. Lucky Linda is a clothbound cheddar which is another award winning cheese. It took 6th place at the World Championship and fourth in 2019 at the U.S. Cheese Championship.

Redhead Creamery also offers cheese and meat platters as well as cheese curds.

Check out their online shop at redheadcreamery.com.

When you visit their sites, leave them a comment and tell them The Local Growers told you to visit. You will find their products great and are produced and grown with love and care.

And check out our site at thelocalgrowers.com for more Local Growers stories!