This land has a past. The Mormons encountered the Otoe Native Americans nearby, en route to the Great Salt Lake. The Siouxian name for the river means “deep enough to float a canoe”.   It was a major trading route between the Sioux and the Missourian.   It is not a major river, nor is it a creek.    In the 1870’s the land was settled and the McPherrin family began farming this tract.   Cattle, corn and a cornucopia of produce grew side by side and the land was passed from generation to generation, then sold in-family.   An Iowa corn crib barn stands prominently on the ridge.   The horse barn is gone, but the heavy draft horse tack and harness remain, as well as two old wagons with wooden axels.    The old house, built on the stumps of cottonwood trees, is gone and a modern home took its place. The old windmill tower remains and will be used in wind energy experiments.   

Potato, squash, salad greens and market vegetables grow in conditions with rich soil, generously amended with compost recycled from tree leaves, garden materials and composted grass, legumes and turned under green crops. Worms are grown to provide “vermipost”, the worm castings so prized by organic gardeners for the nutrient balance created.   There are apple, apricot, hazelnut and peach trees, a grape arbor, seedless table grape vines, cranberries, strawberries and blueberries now growing and developed.      Prolific rhubarb, asparagus beds and raspberry vines have grown in the same garden for decades.

The fields are rotated on a 4 year cycle to assure nutrient buildup, confusion of pests and sustainable cropping.   We practice co-cropping, nursecropping, buidynamic farming, companion cropping and avoid pairing incompatible crops and alelopathic effects from improper successions of crops in individual plots.     We use beetle berms, beneficial insect attractants and try to balance the struggle between pest and predator to avoid outbreaks of pest insects and nematodes that could endanger crops.    We practice seed-saving and harvest seed from covercrops for re-use.    All fields are given intentional vegetative covers during dormant periods and winters.     We kill and till in the covercrops or seed directly into them.     We are certified USDA Organic by the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.