Illinois Country Harvest is one of 19 grant recipients in Illinois!

I am excited to announce that Illinois Country Harvest was one of 19 local food projects selected to receive grant funding from the 2024 Local Food Infrastructure Grant program which was administered by the Illinois Stewardship Alliance.

The new Local Food Infrastructure Grant Program will invest in critical infrastructure to scale up the processing, aggregation, and distribution of local food to meet the needs of Illinois communities. 

 Illinois Country Harvest and small-scale grain growers across the state lack access to the necessary infrastructure and equipment to mill and process grains. With $26,900 in funds, they will be able to purchase a commercial grain cleaner, commercial grain mill and dust hood and a moisture tester to complete the entire process of a small-scale seed to artisan flour operation. They will also be able to provide moisture testing, cleaning and milling processes and educational resources for other small farmers. 

The 19 recipients cover all parts of Illinois and a wide array of creative and essential projects that help local farmers and growers get more products to more markets, more easily and cost effectively. 

In total, 247 applicants requested over $23 million in funding from across Illinois.

A committee of 10 Illinois-based agriculture and food system experts reviewed the applications and identified 19 impactful local food projects with whom to provide grant awards up to $150,000 to implement their proposed projects. 

We celebrate today the tremendous work that we will be able to do because we now have the funding to support the local system, and get to work on advocating for more LFIG funding to meet even more of the many needs across Illinois.

This grant is made possible with funding through the Illinois Department of Agriculture. 

To learn more about the other local food projects visit:  www.ilstewards.org

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Photos of Yesterday

This is my favorite photo from this past year, I now have it, and many others in print…

Why? Because I’m worried that I won’t have any photos to show my future grandchildren and great children.  In our world of ever-changing technology, I have noticed that over the years, I have less and less pictures in print and it scares me. I love looking through old nostalgist photographs of my family over the years. I love the beautiful old black and whites of my great grandparents to the colorful pictures of my childhood. I have boxes of photo albums from my son as a baby until about the age he turned 15. That is about time I got my first I-phone and then…. nothing. All the photos are on my phone. I know that there are ways to save the digital photos such as back up drive, I clouds etc., but when it comes down to it, I can envision my future self-grabbing a photo album from a shelf to share, much more than I can see myself firing up my computer to show future loved one’s pictures when they ask to see them. This all really made me step back and think, so I went online and created a few photo albums through Shutterfly. It was actually very easy, and it allowed me to upload photos from both my phone and my computer. I created two albums, one for 2020 and one for 2021. Those two years were the only ones on my newest phone and newer laptop (hence the fear of not having photos) I am going to have to dig a little deeper and go back a few more years, but I am bound and determined to do just that. I also made a promise to myself to preserve the past in print. Every January I will sit down and create an album from the previous year so I will always have my memories to share.

photo by Ericha Johanning

The Road to Rosie

Rosie

Rosie comes to us from the beautiful rolling hills of Southern Wisconsin. Although our trip was short, we had a great time taking in the scenery through the countryside along the way. In this area of the state there are many large farms with grand barns with raised foundations. Next to the barns are large stately farmhouse nested down in the valleys of the land out of the cold winds. We found the difference in home placement unique to ours here in Southern Illinois as we tend to place our homes on the highest rises of the land.

Rosie comes from a beautiful farm named Dorothy’s Range which is owned by April Prussia. The farm used to be a dairy farm and has a beautiful grand barn and a gorgeous setting next to a winding creek and backed by a beautiful hillside. April and her husband have planted much of the area in a native prairie. They also have an Air B&B on the farm. April has been raising Gloucestershire Old Spots for many years and is a strong advocate in preserving the breed. She has been a wealth of knowledge and advice for us as we navigate our pig raising journey and we appreciate her guidance.

The reason for us bringing Rosie home to the farm is to hopefully solve our low litter problem. For those that have been following along in our pig journey you have heard us talk about our pigs producing low litter numbers. This problem is certainly not ideal, but its hard to know where the problem lays. Our goal is to breed Rosie with Rocky in hopes that together they produce a good size litter. If that happens, we know that the problem is with our current sows and not with Rocky. If Rosie does not become pregnant by Rocky, or has a small litter,  we then know the problem is with Rocky. Rosie is hoped to be currently pregnant from a boar from Dorothy’s Range. If all goes well with her current pregnancy it will do several things for us. One, we will know that she can produce a quality litter, two, it will provide us with more sows to breed with Rocky down the road (assuming he is not the problem). Finally, if Rocky turns out to be the problem, we can then bring in another boar and have several different sows to try the new boar with. It’s a lot, isn’t it?

Needless to say, no one ever said that farming was easy, especially when dealing with things that are out of your control. However, one of these days we are going to work out all the kinks and have little piglets running everywhere!! Wish us luck!!

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