January 2020

Dear Friends of JFF,

The Central Plains are known for weather extremes, but last year’s record-breaking pattern may well be due to climate change. Average global temperature in the decade just ended was the hottest in recorded human history. Here at Janzen Family Farms (JFF) it took the following form: In late fall of 2018, as our previous newsletter reported, winter and spring 2019, it continued to be exceedingly wet, with several 6-10-inch downpours upstream, causing our local Henry Creek to rise to alarming heights. Rushing water created new gullies in fields, washed gravel off roads and swept away electric fences. It also carried corn stalks, old tree trunks and branches downstream, or piled them up around fence posts, trees, and in drift-like heaps at the high-water mark. We were unable to plant most winter wheat and cover crop pasture. As summer progressed, the rains stopped. Fall became very dry, although abundant underground moisture fed springs that continue flowing to the present. After one of the big rains, our yearling herd found their north fence gone, and were headed toward the nearest winter wheat field when a vigilant neighbor rounded them up and alerted me the next morning to come and fetch them.

Following their escapade, this herd was joined by newly weaned calves (see photo of 20 head ranging from two-year-olds to yearlings), settled down to summer brome and native grass, fall triticale/winter barley, and again dry prairie with regular supplement of organic alfalfa. Grandkids Max, Hannah, Emeline, and Calvin are posing on the pickup after a delivery of alfalfa during Christmas break. Meanwhile, our 14 pregnant cows were enjoying a fall and winter on sorghum stubble and winter brome (see photo below), while the bull was doing double duty with Ben Duerksen’s cow herd. 

BULK BEEF ORDERS & FARMERS MARKET PLANS

We will again be offering bulk beef purchases—eighth, quarter, half, and whole—with advance reservations for slaughter beginning in March and continuing monthly. We will attend most Saturday sessions of the Kansas Grown Farmers Market at 21st and Ridge Road in Wichita on Saturdays.

This year, we plan to post current inventory on our website at least once monthly so you can see what we have in stock, and order accordingly. We will also post slaughter dates and when bulk purchases will be available.

ORGANIC SOYBEANS, SORGHUM & WHEAT

Klingenberg Family Farms, which contracts to do our cropping put in three intensive days with combine and seed drill in late October. As a result, 3,200 bushels of organic soybeans, and 2,800 bushels of organic sorghum are now being marketed. 

Nearly 200 acres of winter wheat were planted into the soybean stubble, a detail of which is shown (above) sprouting in November. We’d like to say a big thanks to the Klingenbergs (Vernon, Derek, Grant) and Ben Duerksen of Klingenberg Family Farms!

If you visited Janzen Family Farms occasionally during fall and early winter, you would have noticed a dramatic change in the farm’s skyline, namely the disappearance of three sixty-feet-tall structures, the two silos and the old windmill. Both structures were succeeded by newer technology about 40 years ago. Since it is the nature of the Kansas elements—rain, sunshine, changing temperatures, and the occasional 50-80 mph winds—to wreak havoc on such aging structures, it became ever more urgent to take them down before they blew over or fell on someone. Experts with the right machines are fortunately a telephone call away. The silos were buried in a deep hole west of the hay shed. The windmill was taken down by Flint Hills Windmill, which took the tower alone in case someone else wants to erect a mill with a new head and wheel over a well. The two wells at JFF are now powered by submersible pumps that run to a control center in the farm shop, from where the water lines run underground to various lots and pastures. We took advantage of the crane and bucket lift to also replace a worn-out auger that moves grain from the elevator to the Butler grain bin.

Finally, we were most flattered that granddaughter Clara decided to begin her post-college gap year of self-discovery and travel by coming to Kansas “for forty days,” to absorb the prairie and blue sky, read the books on our shelves, write, draw, take photographs and videos for her art projects, and have long conversations on just about any topic— ritual, philosophy, art history and criticism, soil fertility, style, food, family history, and more. The weeks she took Janzen grass-fed beef to the Kansas Grown Farmers Market in Wichita were our best sales all summer.

Since it is still January, let me wish all of you a great and joyous 2020.

Sincerely, John, on behalf of the family at Janzen Family Farms

Published January, 2020.

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