Watching the videos as part of this project was so interesting. I loved the Dan Barber video. It was inspiring and made me want to open a restaurant which would be a terrible idea for the girl who is not a fan of cooking. I thought about preparing a local, organic meal for friends and family but see previous sentence. I also considered attempting a new soup with students (I do love making soup) but the students I work with were too busy at the particular time. I always had in the back of my mind, however my dear friends….

I consider myself very fortunate to include Tracy Danielson and Peter Harvey as two of my very close friends. When thinking about our deep learning food project, they immediately came to mind and I knew I wanted to sit down for coffee and a chat (a chat that lasted several hours). Though we have been friends for a really long time, it’s surprising that this project is what inspired me to dig deeper into what they do on a daily basis. Sometimes history and familiarity leave one to take things for granted. Peter and Tracy use what they grow and raise to live a healthy and sustainable lifestyle and encourage others to do the same. Simple and sensible.

The Harvey Danielson farm is located near Strathclair which is about an hour northwest of Brandon, Manitoba. Tracy grew up in the city and we have known one another since we were 5. She eventually became a nurse and moved away to Brandon where she met Peter. Tracy has always been a very kind and caring person and someone who cared deeply about the environment. Peter’s farm has been in the family for a very, very long time. He is a man with an incredible number of talents (he left the farming life to pursue a multitude of other projects but eventually came back) and he is one of the most passionate people I know. His thoughts on farming and leaving a legacy left me with much to digest.

Symbiosis is the first word that came to mind when we began our discussion and in fact if they hadn’t named the farm the Harvey Danielson farm, it would have been Symbiotic Farms. Peter began by speaking about his frustrations with the “business” of agriculture. He considers himself a bee keeper and a farmer rather than being part of the “bee keeping industry” but knows that today everyone is thinking about profit and industrial agriculture. He understands the desire to make money but does not put profit before positive practice. This has been difficult.

Peter and Tracy have three farming fundamentals

1.       Understanding the soil: Peter is doing everything he can to keep the soil healthy and to better understand it. He believes healthy soil will be his legacy. Their land was certified organic in the 1990s. Half of their land is pasture, bush and wetlands and 25 acres of their land is natural marsh. This marshland prevents flooding and helps to filter out some of the chemicals that might come from another farm that chooses to use fertilizers/pesticides or other chemicals. In addition, they use mulch on the soil and prefer to have some weeds and natural growth. This mulch, which might be straw that is two years old and can no longer be used, keeps the heat out, maintains the soil moisture and prevents soil erosion. They also rotate crops and choose what they plant with care to always  be returning nutrients to the soil so as to avoid the need for fertilizer . As an example, year 1 might be wheat with clover undersown until July, then August the soil is fallow with a fall plant of Rye which becomes a spring crop. To go back to the idea of symbiosis, Peter and Tracy grow sweet clover over half of their farmland. This clover is bee pasture for plough down and a nitrogen producer.  It has deep roots and in the heavy clay soil that they work with, it pulls up those minerals. By planting the clover they look after both the bees and the soil making it ready to rotate to the next crop and making the most delicious honey. Some pictures are included below.

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2.       Crop rotation: Monoculture is not a good thing. The Harvey Danielson farm believes in Polyculture. Peter remembers an old farm song about Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley. (I happened to look it up and there are multiple versions including one by Raffi.) He talked about having variety like cauliflower and broccoli in 1 row intermixed. As an example, he talked about cabbage butterflies that come from Canola which is grown near their farm. They can destroy everything but if they have a mixed crop, then the butterflies will not destroy the entire area’s vegetables. Crop rotation also ties back to protecting the soil as mentioned above

3.       And finally back to symbiosis one more time: Tracy and Peter know that the animals will taste like what they eat. Their Pork tastes like the outdoors and their pigs eat a mix of all of what they grow milled together. They also eat apples which give them a sweeter taste. The chickens eat the seed along with the home-grown mix, and all the animals roam together. The pigs and chickens eat the grass and the grain and the bees eat the clover and they try to keep a closed loop cycle where everything goes back to the land. Peter and Tracy care about what their food tastes like and they want the people who buy their honey or their meat to understand how it has been raised and how important their animals and the land they live on is to them. They even have a stone burr flour mill which is currently being used to produce fresh feed for the livestock as well as make fresh flour for artisan bread baking. Their goal is to mimic nature.

Peter said something interesting at one point. He talked about how tough it was being at the helm of the ship. He told me that the more he learns, the less he knows what he knows He feels like it has taken quite some time for the things that he has always believed in to become understood by the consumer and he knows that he still has a long way to go.  He and Tracy talked about how they don’t own the land so they have to be good environmental stewards. If they treat the land with respect just as you would people, then the land will continue to produce what they need to live and live healthy.

https://www.facebook.com/philosofarmer/posts/1672899619675537

 

When Tracy, Peter and I finished our discussion, we started talking about what good food tastes like. They encouraged me to do a taste test to see if I would sense the same interesting taste experiences that they have observed when they eat store bought, non-local and non-organic produce and meat in comparison with their own farm products. I decided to give it a try but I must admit that the organic versus non-organic test was not particularly well executed. I should also add that attempting to describe flavour is so difficult and very personal. Each member of my family described something different.

We have recently been eating Tracy and Peter’s pork. You can see an image of their sausage in the photo. My family and I tried a sample comparing it to some Superstore purchased sausage of a similar variety (again I reiterate that there were so many variables that there is no way that this “experiment” has much validity). The most noticeable difference between the two was the amount of salt. The Superstore sausage tasted only of salt and my kids noticed it as well. This is interesting as we have eaten the various Superstore varieties previously and had not really paid the salt content any attention. The Harvey Danielson sausage had a distinct flavour. I would use the words fresh and with another quality difficult to describe. It has a very natural flavour, not pungent but just tasty.

Our next test was with berries which Tracy and Peter always try to purchase organic if not home grown. This was interesting as both of my boys who love raspberries chose the organic version as their preferred choice but my husband actually chose the other citing the taste of dirt being a turn-off with the organic version. He was right as when I tasted both knowing which version was which, I did notice the distinct taste of dirt or soil in the taste of the organically grown version.

Our final test was with carrots. Tracy and Peter had mentioned that they find regular carrots taste like the smell and imagined taste of gasoline and I knew exactly what they were talking about. Again the organic won out but it was harder to decipher. We all agreed that any number of things could have also had a significant impact on the taste including how old the produce was, the definition of organic etc. One thing I can comment on is Tracy and Peter’s honey. Their creamed honey is just perfect. It’s creamy and doesn’t have that solid quality that many of the store bought brands do. It is sweetened perfectly and leaves a lovely aftertaste. I also love the mason jar that it comes in. It’s just perfect and I can’t go back to the big brand variety.

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My family and I recently returned from a trip to Canmore. My favourite restaurant in the area is the Rocky Mountain Flatbread company. I’ve included a photo from their menu which gives thanks to the local school and local farms. This restaurant has been around since 2004 and has now expanded its western locations. They pride themselves on using natural ingredients wherever possible and you can watch them preparing your pizza and throwing it into the woodfire oven right behind your table. The food just tastes better! It somehow has a more home made quality which could be attributed to the ingredients. They use sustainable practices and believe in farm to pizza/table.

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Back home in Winnipeg we are in the season of anticipation where the warmer weather excites us all and entices us outside knowing full well that the opening of the farmer’s markets and garden planting is still a long ways off. Until then, we can continue to do what we always do which is buy a mixture of local and non-local, organic and non-organic food, enjoy what Tracy and Peter can provide and wait for better. For Tracy and Peter, they wait and survive off of what they have stored, canned or kept until another planting season is ready. Peter is tremendously proud of the farm and they are very content with their life choices. I have visited their farm and love all of what they do and believe in and couldn’t be happier for them.

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