Our Farm Mission

We’re on a mission at Deep Roots Farm to build a healthy landscape and provide quality food using practices that are good for the land, animals, and people.

I believe we can create a diverse, productive and stable ecosystem that provides benefits for wildlife, and water quality while at the same time producing nutrient dense food. On our farm, we are striving toward this goal by using a grass-based system with grazing animals.

Our farm mimics the prairie ecosystem that existed here before European settlement by maintaining a diversity of perennial and annual grasses and forbs. Cattle are used to prune the vegetation (as bison and elk did), and the nutrients from their manure and urine are cycled back through the soil to the plants in a continuous loop. The cattle are moved frequently to allow plants to recover before being grazed again.

This style of grazing creates varying heights of vegetation that are favored by different grassland bird species. For example, kill deer prefer grass that is less than four inches tall. Meadowlarks and bobolinks prefer areas with four- to six-inch-tall grass. Dickcissels, red-winged black birds, and pheasants prefer grass that is greater than six inches tall.

Over the past six years, we have been converting cropland to grassland. In that time, we have observed numerous bird species, that were previously absent on the farm, using the grassland area. In addition to the birds, we’ve seen an increase in butterflies, spiders, and soil life. We interpret this as a sure sign that the ecosystem is responding positively to the changes we’ve made.

Another beautiful part about this grass-based farming is that while the cattle are filling an important role in the ecosystem, they are also producing nutrient dense food for us. Cattle harvest sunlight that is captured by the plants through photosynthesis and turn that energy into beef. When livestock are able to graze a diversity of plant species, their health improves, and the quality of their meat improves. The diverse plant diet imparts phytochemicals (plant nutrients) into the meat of the animal. Those phytochemicals benefit us who consume the meat by protecting against inflammation that is linked to heart disease and cancer.

In this way, by focusing on the health of the ecosystem, our own health is improved because we are all members of the biotic community. When it is healthy, we are healthy. When it suffers, we suffer.

Aldo Leopold wrote “When we see the land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect”  

We are expressing our love and respect by using the knowledge and tools that we have to mimic the prairie that developed here over thousands of years. We may not be able to bring back the prairie as it existed before European settlement, but we can certainly bring back some of the ecosystem services that it provided including health for the land, animals, and people.  

Thank you so much for being here to join us on this mission!

Herman

Sharing a piece of our past - Great Grandpa’s Farm

My family has developed a deep love and connection to the land we have lived on and cared for over many generations.

Now that the holidays are past and we’re settled into winter I want to take a little time to share some of the memories and stories of this farm from the early 1900s. I hope this will help you gain a sense of connection to our farm and the land, and remind you of your own family’s history.

My great great-grandfather, Gottlieb, immigrated to America from Germany and settled with his family in Rapidan Township in 1884. In 1910, my great-grandpa, Herman, purchased the land where we currently live. He and his wife, Anna, raised their family of six children here.

At that time, the drier parts of the land had already been converted from prairie to cropland. There were still sloughs and wet meadows. My grandpa (Melvin) remembers his mother telling him that there were a lot of “lakes” on this farm when they first moved here. (For drainage,) clay tile was installed to help make the land more suitable for farming. The tile was just one line that ran through the wettest part of the farm. The local tile contractor was a Russian immigrant, and he and his crew worked day after day digging by hand, in the sticky ground, to lay tile on farms around the area.

Like most farms back then, the farm was diverse with a few dairy cows, a flock of laying hens, and hogs, with oats, barley, and wheat in the fields. Some areas were kept in grass for pasture, and the wettest land was used for hay. The family also kept a team of work horses.

Cream was separated from the milk on the farm. Once a week, they would take the three-mile trip to the Rapidan Creamery where the cream was sold to be churned for butter. This once-a-week trip was also an opportunity to pick up any other supplies that were needed at home. The kids considered it a treat if they got to ride along to Rapidan.

As a child growing up here, my grandpa has many memories of life on the farm. He remembers riding on the bobsled down into the river bottom to harvest firewood in the winter time, sledding on the nearby hills, and watching meadowlarks in the fields.

Great grandpa Herman and his team of horses with a load of firewood on the bobsled.

One of the favorite stories of the farm is about the barn.

The barn was built in 1928, 18 years after great grandpa purchased the farm. In 1929, one year after it was built, a tornado came through the yard and knocked the barn off of its foundation! The barn was not torn apart completely, but it had to somehow be moved back onto the foundation. A neighbor from down the road was the local carpenter and he came to help rebuild the barn.  It has been standing ever since.

Tornado Damage 1929

The barn as it stands today (2023)

Out in the pasture, as an eight-year-old, Grandpa remembers trapping gophers nearly every day in the summer. He had to learn to set the traps without getting his fingers pinched. Gophers were abundant back then, and the township paid a bounty for each pair of pocket gopher feet that were presented to the town supervisor. Grandpa would save up the feet in a quart jar with a little sprinkle of salt to help preserve them.

One time he turned in a quart jar full of gopher feet that he had been saving for quite some time. The feet were beginning to rot, and the jar smelled to high heaven.

He handed the jar over and said “You can count them if you want”.

“I’ll take your word for it,” said the supervisor, as he turned up his nose.

Grandpa Melvin and Aunt Anita with a successful trap

On weekends, the kids would hike down to the Maple River. Grandpa remembers going with his older brother (Leonard) and cousin (Edwin), and stopping to fish as the older boys went farther on. One time the older boys came back with a great big watermelon. There were a lot of watermelons grown on the land in the river bottom, at that time, and the boys must have snuck up into a field and snatched a watermelon for a treat!

It's fun to think back and imagine what life was like on the farm back then. I’m lucky to have a Grandpa around who can share his firsthand experiences.

Even as I focus on where we are and where we’re going, it’s always good to look back and remember where we came from.

I hope this gives you just a little sense of my family’s history here, and inspires you to think about your own family’s history and connection to the land. Reach out to your elders and pry on their memory a little. You never know what stories they might have to share.

6 easy, healthy meals your kids will love

I know you put real food first, because you want to put a healthy meal on the table for your family. The trouble is, we all get busy, and coming up with supper every night can be challenging. It doesn’t have to be. 

At supper time one night I asked our young boys what their favorite beef meals are, and they quickly rattled off several meals. Most of them include ground beef, are easy to prepare, and can be dressed up to satisfy the taste buds of moms and dads. No big surprises here, but if you’ve got a quarter of beef in the freezer and want to make a healthy meal that your kids will eat, try taking Nolan and Lincoln’s advice. Here are their top six beef meals.

1. Spaghetti - Ground beef, spaghetti sauce and noodles. This is a great one for sneaking vegetables onto the plate. Whether you're making your own sauce, or starting with a store bought sauce, dice up some fresh vegetables, no big chunks, and saute them with the sauce until they’re soft. 

2. Taco Cups - Ground beef with taco seasoning on top of a scoop style taco chip with shredded cheese melted on top. If you’re used to using a store bought taco seasoning, try making your own with cumin, chili powder, garlic, salt, and pepper. Guacamole goes great with any Mexican meal. Taco salads for mom and dad?!

3. Burritos - Ground beef mixed with re-fried beans or mashed up pinto or black beans, rolled up with cheese in a tortilla. Heat your tortillas on a griddle instead of the microwave, and be sure to make extras. These make great leftovers, and you can grab one for a quick bite on the go.   

4. Grilled Steak - Nail this one and it will be the first thing to disappear from their plate. Here are some tips for an amazing grass-fed steak. 

5. Beef and Rice - Ground beef mixed with rice. Be sure to season the rice. We like to add chicken broth seasoning to the rice water as it cooks, and you can also try sneaking in some diced up veggies of your choice. 

6. Hot Dogs - Dick’s Locker makes an awesome all beef hot dog with our grass fed beef! Of course these are best enjoyed outside after roasting over a campfire, and they’re great to have on hand when you’re in a meal-time pinch. 

There you have it, Nolan and Lincon’s top 6 beef meals. No stress or recipes required.

Herman