Introduction to Rabbit, Red wine and mushrooms the blog for Grey Woods Farm 2022
We purchased our farm in July of 2021 and are starting the
process of managing our farm. My wife
Sara Bancroft grew up on the farm and due to dementia, we were forced to buy
the farm after her mom passed away.
Mental health is no joke, and when a family member suffers, we all
suffer but, in our case, Sara became the target of some brutal dementia attacks
and accusations. The difficult part was witnessing members outside of our
family take advantage of an old woman's mental health and create further
delusions. As caretakers of her world,
we became the target of often crazy statements or inaccurate assessments of
situations, like losing her driver’s license; and watching as she hired lawyers
to get it back, knowing full well she could never get it back. Our two kids,
William and Dawson contributed to the purchase; thus, we will be able to keep
it in the family. The path to this part
of our life has been filled with lots of emotional moments and yet it is still
hard to believe we have ownership in the farm.
Our journey, to this point in our life, seemed almost foretelling in the
sense we have supported small local farms for food and have always tried to
purchase food from small farms. The
local farm economy can sustain itself in times of depression, recession and has
a more robust chance of surviving. Understanding the resources and maintaining
the resources through proper management and education will be our goal. We are both like mind when it comes to land
stewardship and also know we need to produce farm income that is sustainable
for all and can support our own economic needs.
Despite being caretakers and managing the property, mowing,
plowing, maintenance, and repairs we were not allowed to work with the farmer
leasing the acreage or offer any assistance in this area. That didn't stop us from raising chickens, rabbits,
or growing food for the house. Over the
years we learned how to forage for food on the farm, what produce grew well and
hunt other game. We have horses and enjoy
skijoring for winter entertainment. We
planted 51 grapevines back in 2012 and have since bottled our first batch of
wine, fun stuff! I am a trained chef and have been teaching culinary arts for
the past 28 years. My wife and I owned
and operated the Sandhill Inn (a restaurant) throughout the 90's and
interestingly our mission statement if we had one would have stated,
"featuring Wisconsin Products." Which is exactly what we did, in fact
we were one of only two restaurants in the state that did this at that time. As previously stated, it seemed foretelling
that we would one day become owners of a farm, well we always thought we would,
Sara had been told she would inherit the farm but as stated above that part did
not work out. Our journey now has us in
place to become the purveyor of our own foods to those who may have an interest
in local farm foods.
Sara is a true Wisconsin Farm girl, growing up she had
horses, cats, dogs and even rabbits! We
often talk about the day her dad decided she needed to butcher the 90 or so rabbits;
she doesn’t remember much about the process but we both must chuckle as we are
now raising meat rabbits! Her father was
a pilot, and he built a hangar and runway on the property. His passion for
flying took him and his wife with another group of pilots flying Bonanzas westward
around the world. Sara's love for
horses started on the farm, with ponies and other horses and today she is an
active member of USHJA and continues to compete! USHJA stands for United States
Hunter Jumper Association, Sara is a jumper; she is like her father in the
sense she enjoys flying in the air with her horse being her plane! Her current mare, Florence and the Machine or
Flo for short is an amazing thoroughbred and have been competing together for several
years now. We also keep two farm horses for our activities on the farm,
skijoring, and trail riding, both horses are a couple of sweethearts, Babu and
our newest member Scout. Babu is a
quarter horse, and we are not sure what Scout is, but he looks just like a
quarter horse to me.
This is one of our favorite things to do in the winter time, skijoring with twist, Sara pulls me, I get to a target, shoot, Sara picks me again and on to the next target!
This was a race we competed in Columbus Wisconsin back in 2017!
The farm sits on 122 acres with a runway, we have about 9 acres in woods, and a couple of different prairies, we have burr oaks in some of our pastures, along with black cherry trees, black locust (the scourge of trees) and pines. We also have a number of box elders and have learned how to tap them for the sap in the spring time. Our soil is sandy and requires a lot of nutrients, along with a healthy dose of water. We have learned that beets, carrots and other root vegetables tend to thrive quite well in our soil. The life on the farm is an ongoing adventure, even in the dead of winter life is thriving, in the air we will see eagles, hawks and other birds, on the ground, the coyotes are moving about along with wild rabbits and other creatures. The summer time on the farm is an incredible journey as we watch and listen to Sandhill Cranes all summer, Geese are always flying over us and the deer are cautiously eyeing us as they graze our fields. Summer is also the time we are growing, weeding (a lot of weeding!) and harvesting from our gardens. The fun part is when mushrooms start popping up, starting usually with morels and on to a wide variety of mushrooms; last year we started harvesting Boletes from our lawn! We love the opportunity to harvest the mushrooms and the flavors that expand in your mouth as you eat them.
Why the name, Rabbit, Red wine and Mushrooms? Rabbits are interesting in that they have what is known as the 10 year cycle, the population grows up to a peek period, ten years before it starts to drop again. Rabbits can foretell much about what is going on with the climate, growth periods due to an abundance of food sources and water sources. Keep in mind, the water impact can be from drought or the complete opposite, flooding. They are also a source of food for predators and have a direct impact on the life cycle of many other animals. Red wine, is really about grapes and the soil, or in the wine world the terraria, referring to the soil. Wine represents the final outcome of good soil, it reflects the mineral content, it reflects the growing conditions, in fact it is why depending on the year, it could be a great wine or it could be an okay wine. Mushrooms in particular indicate a healthy soil and are not necessarily a bad sign but instead a great sign of healthy soil. Finding a variety of mushrooms on your land can be a great sign, but often there may only be a distinct variety found, this too is still a sign of good soil health. The key is mycelium as it can work to retain water, and it offers a symbiotic relationship to some plants, this relationship can protect plants from some pests and other disease related issues. Bees for example might find extra immunity from mycelium while drinking water from a source containing mycelium. This immunity can protect a hive from other disease.
Speaking of bees, they too should be part of the title of this blog; bees represents so much more than producing honey! Honey is the by product of having bees but they are the entire reason we have food! The importance of cross pollinating cannot be exaggerated, it is one of the major reasons we are surviving on this rock! Did you know that raw honey contains antibacterial that is capable of healing wounds, managing good gut health? Wait! Wounds! Yup, wounds! We have used it on our horses with wounds and it kept the wounds from becoming infected. When it comes to gut health, honey is a prebiotic and can be food for a probiotic! Hmm...maybe I should rethink the title of this blog!
As a chef I have produced a lot of cooking videos and now I am producing videos for the work we are doing on the farm. This video is from a three part series I did on processing rabbits. You can watch the series and learn how to process rabbits if you are inclined.
The other purpose of the name of this blog is the marriage of three great ingredients that have withstood the test of time in their purpose of sustaining life on this rock in space. Each has played a role in the survival of humans, some good some bad but all involved life of some sort. Our blog will be about new beginnings and the start of Grey Woods farm. We want to share our work, our life and what we will have to offer for food. We planted 20 lbs. of garlic this fall and should have garlic for sale by August if all goes well. We are ordering seeds, baby chicks, baby guinea hens and planning on bringing some calves to the farm in May. So...if you enjoy reading, learning, and want to get to know us, book mark this blog and get ready for a journey into our adventure on Grey Woods farm. You can also find our YouTube page Grey Woods farm for more adventure and videos.
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