From Dana Whitcomb of Mountain Oven Bakery:
A couple days ago Anne and Steve Ziemer of Immunity Farms delivered their first ever crop of Rouge de Bordeaux wheat to the bakery.
Problem solving that goes into the behind the scenes of local grain is a significant part of the work. These folks know how to grow food… we know how to bake bread… but connecting one thing to the other requires determination and most commonly, the remedy is in a helping hand from a neighbor.
When everything is small scale but requiring big machinery, when something weighs thousands of pounds and comes in a million tiny pieces, how do you start to put it all together when there’s no instruction manual? The logistics are immense but guess what, it’s coming together. Piece by piece as they say
We want to share a bit of what it looks like – it looks like a fleet of big white farm trucks parading barrels of grain in their flat bed from Lazear to the bay door of the kitchen. Each truck with a good neighbor behind the wheel and a good dog by their side, and a thousand pounds of grain in the bed.
Our farmers planned on using a trailer for these 10 55 gallon barrels of wheat. Alas! The grain weighed too much, caused the trailer to belly out upon loading and so they called on their neighbors. Upon arrival to the community kitchen our dear warehouse neighbor, friend, and perhaps #1 croissant fan Frederick Zimmer came by with a skid steer and palette jack to help unload the grain and get it into position.
The images here represent the village it takes to “make it happen.” No magic wand to wave, just a community of people lifting each other up.