Deer Park Area News and Events

Thursday, August 14, 2003
Farm-City Day is a rousing (and moo-ing) success
By Bob Zientara, Managing Editor
bzientara@rivertowns.net

Photo by Bob Zientara– St. Croix County’s annual Farm-City Day celebration drew visitors from near and far. Hundreds of people visited Ter-Rae Farms in the town of Erin Prairie to see new innovations in dairy farming and to talk about times past. Discussing the latter were three gentlemen with decades of farming experience, including, from left, Roy Johnson, Charlie Briggs and Pat Donahue.

TOWN OF ERIN PRAIRIE -- A warm August sun shown down on Ter-Rae Farms Saturday as St. Croix County Extension and the Mitchell family hosted the county’s 22nd annual Farm-City Day.

The well-planned, well-run event kept people moving, busy, involved and anything but bored, and literally hundreds of them turned out to see the family’s 110-cow dairy operation, see exhibits, and get some hands-on experience with a functioning farm.

Traffic was routed into and out of the Mitchell property by way of the adjacent St. Patrick’s Church property. Drivers went along the western edge of the church cemetery to reach an enormous (and recently mowed) hay field, where volunteers in orange vests waved traffic into neat rows.

A quick visit to an entry tent provided visitors with everything they needed to find their way around the property, where Betty, Terry and Bev, Steve and Carla, and Dennis and Jackie Mitchell and their families operate one of the county’s most successful farming operations.

As soon as they entered the grounds, guests could climb portable stairways and take a seat on hay wagons (covered with blue tarps to ward off the hot sun). Each wagon was pulled by a vintage tractor, and there was a guide available to give details about the Mitchell operation.

Nearby, in a farmyard flanked by a lush patch of huge, green pumpkins and other ripening vegetables, there was a display of antique farm machinery.

Marlyn Jennings, a River Falls antiques collector, stood near a puffing and chuffing John Deere corn grinder. He carefully poured handfuls of corn into the hopper, which quickly ground it into cornmeal, caught in a paper cup at the bottom of the machine.

The 1.5-horsepower JD grinder dates back to the early 1920s, said Jennings.

“But there are internal combustion engine-powered machines that are much older than this one,” he said. “As soon as they perfected the design of the gasoline engine, people started manufacturing labor-saving farm machinery like this -- all the way back to before the turn of the 20th century.”

Wherever a visitor looked, there were trained volunteers ready to help, give advice and offer insights into the operation of a modern farm.

Dairy tours organized in the shadow of three enormous metal storage bins. Small groups of people slurped ice cream cones as volunteers walked them around the Mitchell farmyard, pointed out such things as the calf hutches, dairy barn, milking parlor and other farm facilities.

One of the machinery garages had been carefully cleared and swept to house a portable kitchen, where more volunteers deep-fried succulent cheese curds and piled them onto plates along with ham and cheese sandwiches, chips and fresh, cold milk.

Behind the kitchen building and a nearby shed, a row of commercial exhibits (everything from farm implement dealers to beekeepers to the University of Wisconsin-River Falls) had set up displays.

All in all, Farm-City Day provided a chance for young and old to get a close-up look at how a modern farm operates. For the farming population, it was a chance to look at one of the county’s busiest and most successful operations. And for all the “city slickers,” it was an opportunity to learn and appreciate what goes on inside all those sheds, silos, outbuildings and farmhouses that dot the landscape of St. Croix County.

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