March 29, 2024

Jasper County family lives farm life of yesteryear

BAXTER — Staked on the shoulder of Highway F17 near Baxter is a white, wooden sign which reads “Eggs 1/2 mile” in hand-painted black lettering with an arrow pointing passersby down a gravel road. It leads to the farmstead of Brad and Becky Ziesman.

Their kitchen table is long, standing in front of an old church pew lining the wall. The seating is for their family of 10 kids ranging from age 9 to 24 years old. It’s 8:30 a.m., and Brad and Becky are drinking coffee — regrouping after a 24 hours shift at the Des Moines Fire Department where they both have worked for decades. They’re preparing for their morning ritual in the corrals and fields.

The kitchen counter is filled with the fruits of their daily labor. Sealed glass mason jars contain tomatoes, salsas, pears and apples all coming from their personal garden and orchards. In a growing season, the Ziesman family will can or freeze 30 quarts of stewed tomatoes, 60 jars of jams, countless quarts of green beans, brussel sprouts, potatoes and more. Their produce aisle is the garden, and their meat department is the pasture.

“It’s about quality,” Becky Ziesman said. “I know what I’m feeding the kids. Whether it’s the garden, the eggs or the meat, I know where it came from, what it was fed and how it was processed.”

The size of their family both allows and mandates that they sustain themselves from the resources on their farm. In a day in age where big-Ag and expansive row-cropping has taken hold of the market, the Ziesmans have diversified, running a farm operation not just to make a living, but to enjoy a self-reliant lifestyle.

“The first thing we do here is get a little corn here for the cattle,” Brad said as he opened an old grain container and pours the corn into two five gallon buckets. Emptying the grain into wooden feeding troughs, he returned to the barn and takes the twine off a small bail of hay, carried it to a similar wooden trough outside the holding pen where the weening calves can reach it through the fence line.

Brad has farmed his entire life. Originally from Eldora, he still owns a second-generation farm in Hardin County. Although she grew up in Des Moines, Becky was born into agriculture — beginning her life on a family farm near Prairie City. They purchased their 180-acres near Baxter in 1990. The family has made a conscious effort in their operation to raise all-natural products. The Ziesman’s 40 head of cattle are not given routine anti-antibiotics and are fed a natural protein product with grain. Brad keeps their 40 acres of corn and soybean crops on a minimum tillage program to minimize environmental impact, and their chickens are free range — roaming all day with no enclosure.

Straddling the top of the corral fence, Brad explained that his family’s lifestyle not only allows control over their diet and personal food supply, but the farm operation to diversify — keeping their agricultural revenue from relying on a single commodity’s market trends.

“You get the advantages of an upward market on your different commodities,” he said. “Say one year the corn prices might be higher and the next the beef might be higher, so you take advantage of that. So that way your income doesn’t fluctuate as much.”

The key to the Ziesman’s farm diversification is a manageable size. Brad said no one area of the farm is big enough to monopolize their time. He points to the expansive time and cost involved in large Iowa row crop operations. Although the Ziesmans do plant roughly 40 acres of corn and soybeans, the modest size allows the farmers to raise cattle, chicken and hogs but still produce enough in row crops to sell bushels on the open market.

Summer vacations for the Ziesman’s 10 children has never meant Xbox or sleeping in. Brad and Becky don’t allow their kids to snooze past 8 a.m., and after morning chores the Ziesmans will work on their summer 4-H projects — raising beef heifers, horses, pigs and chicken. All of their children, who have or are currently attending Baxter Community Schools, are involved in FFA and 4-H, annually showing at the Jasper County Fair. For a hobby, the Ziesmans breed and raise coon hounds, showing the older animals in statewide contests.

After feeding the weening cattle, Brad drove his old Toyota pickup that he’s owned since graduating high school in 1985, through the hay pasture toward his cattle herd. During the summer, the Ziesman children will ride through the fields on horseback to count cattle and maintain pasture rotations. Brad rolled down the window yelling “Em Boys!” calling the herd.

“I’ve always enjoyed raising livestock. It’s what I love to do,” he said.

Becky Ziesman came home from a 24-hour shift with her Des Moines fire medic squad Sept. 26 and let the chickens out of their nightly roost. Based downtown, she works for the busiest medic unit in Iowa, but still finds the energy to do morning chores before resting. This is the time of year where she traditionally tears down the garden and preps to feed her family through the winter months, but with steady rains, this year’s garden keeps producing.

“We’ve started pulling stuff, but I just can’t get it to stop. It’s still going crazy.” she said.

Becky said although the do not have to purchase meat or vegetables, their family’s size produces a $300-per-month grocery bill. Becky said they drink 12 gallons of milk per week, and when family fishing doesn’t bring enough catch they will buy fish and seafood.

Brad and Becky were first responders at the Des Moines Younkers building fire earlier this year. Their time at the fire department does not come without reward, but Brad and Becky maintain their off-the-farm job to supplement their income and to continue their agricultural lifestyle. Picking grapes from the vine and herding cattle on horseback is cathartic for the first-responders who see people’s pain while doing their job.

“We see so many tragedies on the fire department,” Brad said. “It’s nice to come out to the farm and relax and get away from what’s happened in the city. It’s our way to forget about some of the things we’ve seen.”