29:30
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
fruit, eat, people, grow, woods, trees, popeyes, foraging, leather, ramps, buy, papa, plant, black currant, pop, syrup, farm, black, tropical, shop
Grounded by the Farm 00:03
Food is more than just what’s on our plate. It’s the places where it’s grown. It’s the people who grow it and so much more. Join me, Janice person, your host on grounded by the farm every other week as we talk about the foods we love driving on route 66 from St. Louis to Chicago or vice versa, you will come across funks maple syrup. And they have a nice shop there. The Funk family has been in this business for a while and I had the chance to visit with Jeff hake, who is a new member of the family married in and he and his wife and his brother in law are into foraging. They’re growing some fruit that they’re making fruit leather with. And I had a chance to just sit down and chat with Jeff one day about one of the very few native fruits in the United States, and how they’re lucky enough to have a lot of that in their growth and what we can learn from that and some of the other foraging they do so. Sit back. I hope you enjoy this episode.
Jeff Hake 01:17
Yeah, so it’s, it’s my wife and her brother and they are the sixth generation of the funk family, or at least the syrup Katie and Jonathan. Yep, this is the funk stroke. pure maple syrup is the official name of the business, which is part of Sweetwater farm, and Sweetwater farms oversees both a syrup operation and also a lot of conventional grain production. Okay. In 2000, I think it was 15. Katie and Jonathan started talking about wanting to start their own farm. They had an interest in just trying to grow things more sustainably, doing more food grade things. And they had the opportunity because their parents had bought a nine acre property in Forest Grove. They plan to have an organic winery, and it just didn’t. It just didn’t take off. Yeah. So it took all the vines back out in the ground, just kind of empty for a while. So that was the opportunity. And that’s how Katie and I met. And we started actually selling products from the farm in 2018. And so we have a line of baking mixes of pancake mix and muffin mix Johnny cake mix and make fruit leathers from the fruit that we raise have our own seasoning made from the ramps that grow in the woods, combined with maple sugar from the syrup operation. Katie makes us absolutely incredible maple black raspberry sauce, from black raspberries that we forged from all over the grove. And I know that you’re interested in talking about pop OS, we don’t
Grounded by the Farm 02:38
he is he is hiding the secret. He knows when he says it out loud.
Jeff Hake 02:43
It’s a secret. We’re gonna talk. So yeah, punks drove, among many other things is an absolutely amazing old growth, hardwood forest. And among all the species that it has our Papa’s,
Grounded by the Farm 02:57
and it’s between St. Louis and Chicago and folks aren’t really familiar Illinois, a big state. So big, long state, big long state, but it’s not far from the interstate. I mean, the Interstate is really close. So it’s easy to get here and have old growth woods like this is kind of unique, I’d say.
Jeff Hake 03:16
Actually, just a quick note, I find it fascinating that they built the interstate, I think in the 50s or the 60s. And if you look on a map, you can see that it bends around the grove. And that’s because the font families basically like please don’t go through the woods to build the interstate. And so they actually made it go around.
Grounded by the Farm 03:31
And from a place where we sued over you’re not gonna mess up my Zoo.
Jeff Hake 03:35
Yeah, I mean, it’s, you know, it’s like, oh, let’s just bulldoze right through. It’s like, no, no, no, no, this is happening. There’s like 314 year old trees in these woods. You can’t just build a highway through it. So for all the other problems at the interstate, caused by being built, at least they didn’t go through this place. So yeah, there’s there’s pop cars all over this place. Papasan ramps, and are you familiar with ramps?
Grounded by the Farm 03:58
No, tell me what, what is this other piece?
Jeff Hake 04:01
Ramps are a species of onion that is native to here. Okay. It’s actually as far as I understand, it’s actually what Chicago is named after Chicago roughly translates in the indigenous language of the people who are from there to stinking onion. Okay. And it’s that’s there’s a debate about whether it’s that or different on the species that they were actually talking about that word. So So that’s actually the name Chicago comes from is this ramp and funks Grove has a lot of ramps so we there’s a lot of conversation about sustainably harvesting them. I only take the leaf tops I don’t dig them right and then dehydrate them power to them and we make a seasoning out of it. It’s super pungent, because it’s it’s very cool dehydrated wraps, and then maple sugar and black pepper and salt and it’s a perfect like all in one seasoning.
Grounded by the Farm 04:49
I’ll have to get some before I
Jeff Hake 04:50
leave. Yeah.
Grounded by the Farm 04:53
So part of it to me is you guys are all doing this. You’re all probably in your 30 is yesterday’s? Yeah. And so you guys are doing this kind of what like every, every person in your age group, you’re foraging for a lot of these things, right? And in a section of woods and things that you know, well, family property for the most of it, right? So you get to know exactly where you have one thing or another in abundance. Yes,
Jeff Hake 05:24
yep. I’ve gotten to know I mean, I am, as I was saying before, I’m a person who’s just like, drawn to the woods, like, I just want to be in there and just problems sometimes because it’s like, things have to get done. I wander off into the woods, looking for things I’ve gotten to know really, I mean, I know a spot where I can go find my oyster mushrooms this time of year, every year reliably. I know where the Shawn trails are. I know, the paparazzi don’t look for it, because they’re everywhere. And then the ramps and all that kind of stuff. So but yeah, I mean, um, you know, it’s not like it’s just me. I mean, the whole family, the whole family knows a lot of people. Yeah, there’s a lot of people who love to forage, and I’m not a hunter. But there’s a lot of folks who hunts and it’s private lands. So we get to say, what goes and what doesn’t, yeah, on it, which I have mixed feelings about the idea of like, this such a beautiful place being private, but I’m glad it is. Because then you get to say
Grounded by the Farm 06:15
Stuart in in a different way. Exactly. Yes. And I’m very happy. So we’re gonna focus more of our conversation now on pop. Are you ready? I hope I hope. I’m not sure
Jeff Hake 06:28
you. Someone who’s an expert is gonna come on and be like, that’s not right.
Grounded by the Farm 06:31
No, no, no, no. I mean, the thing is, is I think very few people have had much connection at all with them. Some people have only heard about them, because they were written about like in The New York Times a few years ago, and suddenly it became the most trendy thing to have pop OS or one of few American fruits. Right. So berries are uniquely American Paw Paws are uniquely American. Yes,
Jeff Hake 06:56
yep. And they’ve been here for many, many, many, many, many 1000s of years, predating human activity, as far as I was saying that they were originally adapted to coexist with much larger mammals and much, much larger herbivorous mammals than we even have now. Okay, and so other animals have adapted to eating them, but it’s a little rougher in their digestive tracts, because the idea is that the the, the whole fruit gets eaten, and then they swallow the seeds. And then the seed comes out in case in their faces, and then it’s like, it
Grounded by the Farm 07:31
populates itself again, right? So so Popeyes in size, is it similar to like an apple or pear? Or if it’s gonna get eaten by itself, I’m trying to figure out these big huge mammals that were eating it all in one thing,
Jeff Hake 07:45
the whole day. They, they obviously they range. I mean, there’s some that are small is like a plum. But a good average sized one is a nice comfortable fit in your hand, like a like a decent, you know, or a pair. A big pair. I mean, there are cultivated ones that are big monsters. Yeah. And they’re cultivated for size or cultivated for reduced seed count, or do seat size. We get there’s a ton of variety in the woods here of all different kinds. And like, again, like I
Grounded by the Farm 08:14
know, my spots, ones are you like, yeah, ones that like,
Jeff Hake 08:18
so two years ago, I was like, Okay, this is the year I’m going to pick a lot of Papa’s like, I’m going to actually, like, have a plan. And my metric was, I was just telling you that the roadside back where we drove through on the way here, the closed road, the close road, I know my spot out there, and I was like, Okay, I’ll just, it’s super easy. I can just drive by those and just checking every user ready, then I’ll go check all the others. And I learned that year that that is the latest patch in the entire growth. So I missed everything else. All I got were those. So now I know now you know, and they’re decent quality. But I also have found some, you know, there’s some that you find that are so soft, and they’re like the almost a color of banana. Yeah, those are the ones that you eat them and it tastes like like lemon sherbert or like, like citrus.
Grounded by the Farm 09:02
I was gonna ask you what you think it tastes
Jeff Hake 09:03
like? I mean, it varies so widely, and there’s some that suck. There’s some that tastes so bad. Occasionally stinked
Grounded by the Farm 09:10
flavor sometimes and sometimes it’s a little more like a tropical.
Jeff Hake 09:15
Yeah, it broadly it’s like it’s tropical flavors, which just by itself is not something you get from fruit storing around here, whether it’s native
Grounded by the Farm 09:24
in Ohio and Illinois. That’s what you expect tropical,
Jeff Hake 09:28
right. Yeah, it’s like it’s like a try. It’s like a citrus. mango custard all in one fruit because the texture is like a like a thick pudding. Yeah. And and that’s what turns people off from it sometimes to
Grounded by the Farm 09:41
have textural issues. It’s not the thing for you.
Jeff Hake 09:46
Which is fine. I understand because sometimes I eat it and even I’m like, Ooh, yeah.
Grounded by the Farm 09:50
So I serious. I think seriously, it’s called it a sunny, eclectic and downright tropical. It’s like a Riot have mango banana citrus that’s incongruent with its temperate forest origin. Actually, it’s like that’s really heady stuff. But basically, it doesn’t belong here, right in your mind, because we’ve come to think of tropical fruits as places that are beach front, right all year and not getting a lot of snow which this part of Illinois is cold in the winter.
Jeff Hake 10:25
Yeah, it gets gets bitter cold, but those trees survive like it’s no problem at all. I had, I think this is a this will terrify Well, I had a customer who I was telling them through the shop, just hold last fall. And he drove down from Peoria, which is almost an hour just to buy some pop OS from us. And then I He texted me later, like, we got talking. And I was like, you gotta let me know what you thought. He’s like, first one. It’s like my childhood. Some like summers, I haven’t had it. It was nostalgia, pure, fruity, tropical goodness. Second one tasted like wet sand. Like, oh, sorry.
Grounded by the Farm 11:02
Like, it’s just can’t taste them all before yourself.
Jeff Hake 11:06
eventually get to know all my spots. Well, without that I’m like, I’m not taking those. But I don’t know, I don’t know that well enough for them. That’ll be a lifetime.
Grounded by the Farm 11:13
These are all wild. They crossed however they want to there’s no breeders that are coming up with new cultivars on your land. But there are cultivars and other places. Now, I want to talk to you about growing Popeyes because my brother, who was just on the podcast a few weeks ago, thinks that they’re just like the worst thing in the world to try and grow. He says, It just teaches you humility, because he’s tried and tried and tried. And there’s a weird combination of things he seems to think.
Jeff Hake 11:44
I mean, the the environments that they grow best in here for both the health of the plant and actually fruiting because they’ll grow all over the place in the shade in the woods here, but doesn’t mean they’ll produce a fruit. Yeah. Somewhere between like a rich woodland soil and like, bank, Creek, creek bank, sand. So the best spot actually is on a creek down here where they’re basically growing in a floodplain. Okay, and a we had terrible floods last year, and we lost a lot of them because they they gambled and lost enough.
Grounded by the Farm 12:13
Yeah, but they liked a little bit of open so they can get some sun, right? So trees are not real tall,
Jeff Hake 12:19
right? The biggest ones we have right here, I think are 40 or 50 feet. And those are pretty unusual. They like the edges of things. Yeah. So those ones in the roadside are perfect. If they’re growing. If basically, if I see pop, I was growing in an open spot in the woods, and it’s worth checking if they’re growing under a bunch of other stuff that I just don’t buy for, because it’s not going to be there. That’s really easy to determine what is going to actually cause breeding to happen. Now my understanding is with all those cultivars is that those are being bred for all those things I was just talking about, but also being able to withstand more sunny conditions, so you can grow them in a normal orchard setting. Yeah, because it’s hard to create. I mean, we do this, but like, most farms are set up to just be sunny, like you give things a lot of space. And so if you want to plant Papasan have them grow, then you need a variety that can stand it. Yeah. But ideally, you’d have them on the edge of a place. Wet is good. They like it. Like on the wet side. Those are really the main things. There’s, there’s more circumspect things to talk about. So they say that the flowers are like a blood red color. Yeah. And they’re supposed to be pollinated by carry on flies. And they kind of hang down like a bell look like a bell. They’re gorgeous. They’re really cool. And they turn from green to like a deep red. And so they say they’re pollinated by carry on flies are attracted to the color in the they say this, the flowers smell weird. I’ve never smelled them, but I like smelling something nice. They smell different. Exactly. And so they say, and I think this is ridiculous. And I would never do this because who has the time or the amount of dead animals is require? Because they say if you just have a patch of Papa’s put a dead animal under there when the flowers are, okay. Nothing I would ever do. Because like, I’m going to assume that the Popeyes can handle it just fine themselves. I’m not. I’m not that desperate for it.
Grounded by the Farm 14:09
Yeah. Yeah, but I do think I do think people who are interested in having pawpaws it can be frustrating. My My brother says all the permaculture people want to do it right. Like it’s that idea of returning back to traditional American native plants. All those kinds of things are all things that we think are great. And so there’s a real interest in having pawpaws but my brother’s taking classes with evil, he’s gone to all these things. He grows a lot of stuff very well then Popeyes, he’s tried many times and he’s decided he will get them from friends that have deep woods.
Jeff Hake 14:47
I mean, it’s to be fair, we’ve I’ve never cultivated I’ve only been here a few years now, but I’ve never cultivated them because I know where to get them. Like, exactly. Planting a bunch of cultivars. Just seems kind of weird. Random, I can already get that many. But
Grounded by the Farm 15:01
now that it’s trendy, I want people to understand why they may not be finding a lot of them, right? Like you can’t go to Lowe’s and buy a paw paw tree probably. And the other thing somebody will be working on those cultivars enough. One of the other things is is though, they typically hard to ship, like, they’re soft, like, you eat them when they when they’re ripe off of the tree,
Jeff Hake 15:26
right? Well, so actually, the best, like the most surefire way of telling that they’re right, because if you eat them under ripe, you’d really upset your stomach. There. It’s a pretty short window. Well, well, the first thing I’ll say is that, as far as I understand, almost every part of the plant has some pretty reasonable degree of toxicity. So the you really shouldn’t need the skin of the fruit itself. Don’t eat the leaves, don’t eat the bark, don’t eat the seeds, none of that stuff. Okay? But even the under ripe fruit has a certain amount of toxicity to it. Okay? And they even say that the fully ripe fruit if you eat too many of them, yeah. And like too many can be like,
Grounded by the Farm 16:07
it’s the same thing with dragon fruit or something else like, because you internal issues.
Jeff Hake 16:12
Well, but they say that if you again, someone who’s listening to podcasts if they know about Popeyes or you’re like I think it’s reasonable to say that there’s there’s there’s a reasonable evidence that you can develop certain chronic issues from eating too many Popeyes and they even say it can be like nervous system issues. A certain acumen, the name of the toxin, but it can build up in your system over time. And they even say there’s like a Parkinson’s like, symptom that you can get in for really eating.
Grounded by the Farm 16:40
Eating too many Pol Pots,
Jeff Hake 16:41
right? Yeah. So like, I have a friend who’s like, she’s one of the most brilliant names allies agreement. I, I call her a friend. I’ve met her once. But she’s brilliant. And she knows you know, she knows her tree fruits super well. And she only eat like one or two a year. Yeah, yeah. When she gets them. And that’s that’s it? Because she just, she’s just not sure, some reasonable amount of caution. And then then it’s a treat for you to you know, you eat your one or two. And then you’re done. Yeah. So there’s, there’s reasons to be cautious about these kinds of things. This is the thing I wanted to say. I was honest, as before, I was saying how I made I only sell a whole pot pots, because I haven’t figured out another product to market them yet. I tried to make pop off fruit leather. And I’m so glad that my wife was very rarely was away on a trip when I made it. Because I made it one night, and I ate three strips of it. And it was delicious. It was totally great. I didn’t put anything else in it. I didn’t use sweeteners. Just Papa. And I was like, that was great. And I lay down go asleep and Olson was like Oh, no. And it just grew up. I had stomach cramps for three days. Oh my gosh. And then I found out and you know, it’s like a stupid social media thing I posted like, just for leather. It’s so good. And then I went to bed. And then Halley’s problems. They woke up the morning and multiple friends were like, don’t do it. It was way too late. And it turns out that’s a thing. Like, there’s something about dehydrating and concentrating it that basically those toxins that go with the water, they stay with the fruit and a friend of mine said that he also made some for a cooking contest for that Pop Festival and he got a bunch of people there. Yeah. So gosh, that’s so don’t make Papa for leather, whoever’s listening to this.
Grounded by the Farm 18:24
I love it. So let’s talk about fruit leather while we’re at it. Right. So I think that phrase may be something that a lot of people are familiar with. Right? Because I think other people like I don’t know, fruit roll ups
Jeff Hake 18:39
by the foot for roll up. For jerky sometimes comes up. But yeah, it’s that. I mean, it’s it’s the thing that you had as a kid, maybe it’s a treat or you’ve given to your kids or something. We’re making something pretty similar to that. Except that it’s real whole fruit. Yeah, we process that we grow and process ourselves. Right. And we add maple sugar to. And for a few of the players. We also add a little cinnamon salt. So our apple pie flavor, a little cinnamon salt, pear cobbler, a little bit of cinnamon salt, but it’s like, it’s just whole ingredients.
Grounded by the Farm 19:06
I recently saw a video of you making one of those,
Jeff Hake 19:09
right? Yes. So in that video, I was making black currant for leather. That’s another thing that is a fruit that’s popular in other places, but not here for
Grounded by the Farm 19:18
the Brits. Absolutely. Exactly. Yeah. black currant. Yep.
Jeff Hake 19:23
British French polish. Yeah. I mean, you can find black currents in all kinds of
Grounded by the Farm 19:30
my grandmother used to put them in something when we were kids and she’d put them in cinnamon rolls. That sounds good. And I’m not a fan. So like
Jeff Hake 19:38
it’s not for everyone. I’m surprised that it can be that popular in other places. I saw there was a black currant tic tac flavor.
Grounded by the Farm 19:44
Everything in the UK.
Jeff Hake 19:47
I mean, I guess I don’t know if you sweeten it up
Grounded by the Farm 19:49
currents in the US or not what black currents are. There are some things here they’re basically raisins. Right but are different fruit entirely. Not the same. Same thing and the British make sure you understand that. They will tell you, they will tell you. My grandmother did put it. They were good to other people not to me.
Jeff Hake 20:11
We have we actually sell a black currant preserves made nearby here in the shop. Okay, it’s really tasty. Okay.
Grounded by the Farm 20:18
I may even be willing to try it. I don’t know,
Jeff Hake 20:20
blacker ins are pretty intense. And that black chrome free leather that we make is not for everyone either. Because it’s just it’s not it’s actually the product is called fruit Wowzers. Because that was our first flavor it eat it and you’re like, Wowzers because it’s just it’s it’s so intense. Despite it’s like, Huh. And if you don’t like tart things, you you won’t like it.
Grounded by the Farm 20:38
So that’s interesting. So, so in this world of foraging for different things, right, because those currents just grow also. Well, we have those cultivated, okay, yeah. Okay. So you have some things that you’re growing in a cultivated space, right. Besides currents, what else?
Jeff Hake 20:55
So we have black currents and red currents. We have apples, peaches, pears. We’re trying persimmons, which is a native fruit. But we’re
Grounded by the Farm 21:04
we haven’t planted Asian version, which is really big.
Jeff Hake 21:07
No, no, we just have some native native ones that we got. We are growing Asian pears. What else do we have out there? Well, as far as fruit cultivating goes, that’s what we have out there. And then we also forage black raspberries. We’ve tried some blackberries, mulberries, black, gooseberries, black gooseberries. Yeah, that was a new one to me. Because I saw them. I saw them growing. I was like that those are groups gooseberries. And as they ripened, I was like, dark. And it’s, it’s just a species of gooseberry that is black. And then it’s just so clear and current by the time it’s done, but there’s something just grown out in the woods over there. So sure.
Grounded by the Farm 21:45
Interesting. And you sell different combinations of all those things here in the maple syrup shop.
Jeff Hake 21:52
Right and we keep adding more things. Oh, here’s another controversial that might not bring it up. Oh, well, this grapes. I forgot about the grapes, which are almost ready at the farm. But are you familiar with autumn olive? Do you heard of autumn olive oil is a plant that was I think it’s Asian Russian in origin. I don’t remember exactly. Oh, God. I shouldn’t know that. Anyway. It was imported back again in the 50s or 60s as a shrub for erosion control for it’s
Grounded by the Farm 22:27
the same time they bought kudzu I’m sure.
Jeff Hake 22:29
Yeah. Yeah. There were a lot of mistakes made. It’s I think it’s leguminous. Okay, it’s in your grows really fast. It has a lot of habitat and feeding birds good for birds and stuff. Yeah. Wildlife benefits, right. It is also crazy invasive. It just, it’s now there’s eradication programs for it. Yeah, put it in, take it back. Yeah. And I know people who are part of planting programs, and they were kids, and now it’s like, oh, God, get it out, get it out. But it produces a fruit. There’s actually a company over in Champaign, I’m not sure if it’s active or not. But autumn berry inspired and they make jam products from that they just wild forage it because it’s in disturbed areas, it just takes over, it’s just a thicket. And the weight, the best way to harvest is just cut the whole Bush down and just take the fruit off of that, because it’ll come back. Oh, wow. Some people would say take the fruit if you want, but then also burn it. We have a modest amount here, we don’t have to too much of it. Because I’m looking at where they are the direction from here. So I do harvest, I do cut whole branches. And then you know, throw away the branches. But I mean, it produces a ton of fruit on its own. It’s a fairly small red fruit is about the size of the red currant or so really beautiful, sparkly fruit actually makes an amazing fruit leather. So we make an autumn berry
Grounded by the Farm 23:49
size of blueberries for people that can’t see the about the size, right, sorry.
Jeff Hake 23:54
Yeah, maybe even a little smaller than maybe like it’s my size like a wild blueberry. Meanwhile, blueberry, and but it produces 1000s of them for Bush. Oh, wow. So, you know, I mean, the corollary benefit is that we’re taking that many seeds out of the environment, and we’re helping reduce spread. Some will say, truly, that doesn’t matter because we’re leaving so much more out there. And it’d be really bad. It would be really good of us as psychologists to completely eradicate them. I have other things I need to do with my time aside from remove these things. So I’ll do my middling approach of just taking some of the environment and get a product out of it. Yeah, great. fruit leather.
Grounded by the Farm 24:32
I love it. Well, we’re gonna put the video of you making fruit leather. We’ll make sure we’ll put that show notes. Awesome if folks are interested. I mean, cuz it’s like an hour long video, I think yes. Yeah. Did a whole tutorial. It’s like a whole process, which so often people cut it down into where it’s like five minutes and you’re like, I don’t know how many things I just missed, but I feel like I missed a lot because my stuff didn’t come out. Right,
Jeff Hake 24:56
right. Right, right. Yeah. And that’s the thing. It’s like I would hate to know mislead people, whatever. And in my head part of the justification for doing that video was like, if I show people how to do this, and they see how many steps it is, yeah, and if they still want for leather, maybe they’ll just buy it from us. Because it takes so much work.
Grounded by the Farm 25:13
Well, it’s it’s like I told you, I don’t farm but I love that other people do. It’s the whole thing comes around about, we’re gonna go out and take a look, the storm seems to pass and we’ll go out and look around. I’m gonna have to check out this shop now. Yes, God knows I have to buy things everywhere I go. Is there anything I forgot to ask you about?
Jeff Hake 25:39
Gosh, I mean, I could talk forever. Because you were particularly curious about pa pas. You know, they say that just as far as like cultivation goes, you know, they’ll spread by clonal roots. And but they won’t pollinate within the same Cloneable family. And so you’re actually supposed to have two different genetic, like sets of genes. So you plant a seed from one fruit over here and one seed for another fruit over there. And then those have to cross pollinate. So you can’t start with just one fruit. Even if it produces multiple trees, they won’t
Grounded by the Farm 26:09
pony, it still won’t pollinate. And so you won’t have them. I think there’s other trees like that, that have some of those problems came or what they are. And so I’m just blown away by what how many people suddenly knew what they were. Right. Like, it just was in
Jeff Hake 26:24
the Vogue of permaculture and restorative agriculture. And agroforestry has really helped push a lot that forward. And you’re
Grounded by the Farm 26:33
from the northeast, originally, which is definitely big in that that whole idea of permaculture?
Jeff Hake 26:39
Yes, it’s was really exciting to me is that the idea of agroforestry is starting to show up on the landscape out here a lot more. And starting to weave its way into conventional cropping systems and things in the savanna Institute. And organizations like that are doing a really great job of getting them out there making it practical and economical and all that stuff. Yeah, get some trees out there. Get some trees and landscape.
Grounded by the Farm 27:01
Always for more trees. I’m from I’m from Memphis, when I get in a place. It’s too open. I feel vulnerable. A reasonable number of trees around me. Yeah,
Jeff Hake 27:10
I grew up in the woods. And I’m so glad I get to be in Forest Grove. Now. There’s plenty of trees because I get the same
Grounded by the Farm 27:17
feeling sunsets last longer and those other places, but you know, okay. Well, thanks so much, Jeff. I really appreciate your comment on the show. People can connect with you guys on Facebook. I certainly did. That’s right. It’s kind of how we got in touch. You have your own website. And the shop has a website as well. Yep. Some of these things don’t ship so right. You need to come here.
Jeff Hake 27:40
Yes. Yeah, we can ship certain things you want things in glass bottles will probably discourage you from trying to have a ship that because it’s super expensive. We don’t ship the pop has yet because they won’t make it. Yeah, you can call the shop. We I can leave the number on your, your website or what have you. In order stuff to ship. We’ll be running out of syrup and everything pie by the end of this month.
Grounded by the Farm 28:02
I want to come back. I’ve gotten to help tap trees. And I had somebody show me how the whole process works. But it wasn’t actually happening. And that’s very different.
Jeff Hake 28:13
Yeah. Yeah, it’s it’s, it’s a whole huge process. I can show you know, out there. But yeah, we made walnut syrup for the first time this year tapping black walnut trees, which was delicious and a lot of work. Yeah, I mean, this place is incredibly worth a visit.
Grounded by the Farm 28:29
So there you go. As you can tell, Jeff and I probably could have talked all day long. We do have a video where I went out and get to see a pop on tree, we found one single pop on that tree, which is a little bit crazy. But it had been raining a lot. So we didn’t want to go deep into the woods. So we’ll just take it at that. We also saw some of the other things that they’re trying some of the fruit trees, they’ve been planting some neat onions they have going on all kinds of stuff. So hope you’ll check that out. It’s on grounded by the farm.com. And please SHARE this if you know somebody else who would find interest in foraging and some of our native foods in the United States. I hope you share this episode with him. We’ll be back in two weeks.
