Rhubarb pie, the right tool for the job, and Environmental Verification – whoever said rural life was simple?

I’d like to think everyone in the Township turns to Torch Lake Views for the news of the day – but I know it’s not so. For the really important stuff, we watch the signs outside the farm markets up and down US-31.

The bulletins at Bargy’s last week announced that strawberries and rhubarb were on hand, along with Shetler’s milk and fresh eggs. Also that the farm was Environmentally Verified. Huh?

My investigations led straight to the counter where Sharon (“just Sharon”) presides, and to the pie. Bargy’s is known for its pie. Especially the cherry.  I bought rhubarb. You see how I am.

Sharon pulled the Best Cherry Pie award off the wall so I could get a picture of it, helped me choose a thank you card for my sister, showed another customer where to find a raspberry pie, and made it all look easy, which it’s not.

Then she sold me a strawberry huller – not the wimpy kind that you could use if you planned to hull a quart of strawberries, but a fine, sturdy gadget that took me through two flats in no time at all. I like to have the right tool for the job.

You’ve probably noticed that I came in for free information and Sharon sold me a pie, a card, and a strawberry huller.  She’s good.  Fortunately Lon Bargy arrived before she could sell me eggs, milk, and half a beef butchered to order, so I got the story I came in for.

The shiny new sign was conferred by the Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP), a partnership between farmers, conservation groups and the Michigan Department of Agriculture.  It verifies that a producer’s environmental practices meet or exceed all regulatory standards, that a comprehensive plan is in place to identify and prevent agricultural pollution risks, and that all this is verified by third party inspections.
 
Lon says it took almost two years to complete the the education program, the on-site risk assessments by groundwater technicians and soil conservation specialists, the planning, the implementation, the inspections and the paperwork, but he thinks it was worth it.  Because the Bargy operation includes a beef feedlot on Cairn Highway and Campbell as well as the orchards at Erickson and US-31, there are a lot of things to keep track of: cattle feed, manure management, soil composition, rates of fertilizer and pest control applications, fuel storage, well logs. 

The Bargys don’t feed their cattle antibiotics or hormones or synthetic chemicals.  They store the manure on a concrete pad, where it’s mixed with used cattle bedding, grass clippings and leaves and turned into compost.  They control runoff with sod waterways.  They use the least amount of fertilizer and pest control spray that will do the job.  Then they invite inspectors in to make sure they’re implementing their own plan, a plan that exceeds regulatory standards.

Ah, the simple life of the farmer.  And we haven’t even discussed Mama Nature.