Learning about weather and how it impacted local farmers was the focus of the series of stories told Thursday, July 8, at the First Street Community Center front lawn.
More than 60 people were in attendance to hear the stories from local storytellers including Allan Mallie, Suzen Erem, Kevin Woods, Laura Krouse and David Miller.
The event, one of several events she holds annually across the state, was organized by former Iowa poet laureate and Iowa State alum Mary Swander.
“This started with me trying to do a show for and about farmers, but what I discovered most over the past decade is that some of the best storytellers at these events are the local farmers themselves,” Swander said.
It’s not unusual for farmers to have the gift of gab, Mallie said.
The event was sponsored by the Mount Vernon Area Arts Council and coincided with the Mount Vernon Farmer’s Market in uptown Mount Vernon, with many purchasing or shopping at the local vendors’ stalls before the show kicked off at 6 p.m. The Morning Glory food truck was also on hand, providing a menu of seasonal foods. Musical entertainment was provided by the Mississippi Band on Thursday evening.
Topics of the stories recounted messages and lessons learned from farming over the years.
The theme of Mallie’s speech was the importance of optimism for a farmer.
Mallie recounted that aside from COVID-19, the year 2020 was pretty brutal to area farmers. He recounted the July 11 thunderstorm that produced hail and straight line winds that took a corn field that was more than six feet tall down to six inches tall in the span of an hour.
“As if the wind wasn’t enough, Mother Nature invited her friend Derecho to town in the middle of August,” Mallie recounted.
Mallie noted that his grain bins lost the top 15 feet of their roofs during the storm, the 130 mile per hour winds were able to blow around the frame of some of his west facing windows to cause a draft in his home, and the winds damaged the exterior of a few of his pig housings. The crops that hadn’t been impacted by the previous storm were flattened during the derecho’s sustained winds as well.
“Even with all that damage, I remained an optimist,” Mallie said. “I got to work and started the next day on fixing what I could, and working with insurance to cover the losses.”
Suzen Erem, an organizer with Sustainable Iowa Land Trust, spoke about how she got involved in community organization due to farmers.
Back in the 1980s, Erem worked as a journalist in Eastern Iowa. She recounted a time during the farm crisis in the 1980s being in a room with aides to Sens. Tom Harkin and Chuck Grassley meeting with area farmers, who had many questions for the staff members. Erem had one question from a story she had read earlier that morning about Harkin removing his name from a farm support bill. The Harkin aide didn’t provide an answer, and other farmers in the room stood up for Erem in wanting an answer to that very question.
“I think I fell in love with Iowa that day, because it showed how a small group of people could join forces to hold a politician accountable for his actions,” Erem said. “It’s also what started me to be an organizer in my profession.”
Erem went on to be a labor organizer before returning to Iowa in 2017 and starting SILT.
Laura Krouse demonstrated the impact weather can have on crops by recounting her growth pattern for onions at her Community Supported Agriculture operation this past spring.
Krouse noted that there are opportune times to start planting onions, with many of those plants going to seed in early February under warming lights in a hoop barn and then being transported to fields in April or May.
Temperatures in February, when she was supposed to plan seeds, were significantly lower than usual, but the seeds got planted. In late March, when she was looking to plant the onions in the ground, the ground was still frozen. It remained that way until middle April, when there was a run of dry and hot days.
Shortly after Earth Day, crops got 15 days of sustained rain. By the time in the middle of June and it was time to harvest onions, Krouse held up an onion that was very dainty, compared to the ones that could fit a hamburger bun.
“The weather we see three months earlier when we grow food seasonally is going to impact the crops we see come harvest time,” Krouse said.
Swander did a great job getting people prepared, Mallie said. He enjoyed hearing the other storytellers and the reaction of a crowd of about 100 people.
“Some were: Oh, wow, really? Others were ‘Yup, that’s right,’” Mallie said of people’s reactions to the stories. “It was an enjoyable experience.”
The start of the Farm to Fork stories event coincided with the Mount Vernon Farmer’s Market wrapping up for the day at the Mount Vernon First Street Community Center lawn. More than 100 people were in attendance for the Farm to Fork Tales event Thursday, July 8, in uptown Mount Vernon.