back to the basics of simple livingROOTS

This weekend, for the first time in a long time, my fiance and I had a chance to enjoy a drive...a nice, simple, journey through the beautiful Iowa countryside. As the fresh, spring air whisped through my hair in the passanger seat of an old, rusted Chevrolet pick-up truck, I felt a sense of wholeness, a joy which paralleled the beauty of the born-again season of spring.

The sights and sounds of water washing away down hills and brimming streams, breaking free from its winter dormancy left me inspired and anew. In awe and anticipation, I embraseed the hope that this change in season was (fingers-crossed) here to stay.

letter from the editor

I thought about my goals for this spring, this summer, this year, as if the drippin snow had washed clean my slate of a long winter. My mind and spirit were refreshed in the hopes of things to come and the excitement of change.

I hope this debut issue of Roots, which too as the seasons is a new be-ginning, inspires you toward self-fulfilling change. Remember who you are, where this world has drawn you astray, and return, drawing to the beauty of simplistic, whole living.

Best wishes,

Becca Siemens, Editor

THE SMALL HOUSE BOOKJay Shafer

• 210 full-color pages

• Step-by-step instructions for 23 homes

• How to fit you, your family, and your stuff in a small home with space to spare!

Jay Shafer

table of contents

1

...........................................................................................................Cover

....................................................................................................Columbia

.................................................................................Letter from the Editor

1..............................................................................The Small House Book2.....................................................................Top 10: Vertical Gardening4.................................................................................Cover Story Preview5...........................................................................................................Jeep6.....................................................Cover Story: Hoffman Produce Farm11.......................................................................................................Lowes12............................................................................Eagle’s Nest Outfitters14.................................................................Timeline: Mini to McMansion16.............................Spring Recpies & Grilling Advice with Bobby Flay18................................................The Changing of Seasons: Photoessay20................................Extreme Minimalism: The Story of Andrew Hyde22............................................................................................Ball Canning23....................................................................................Specialized Bikes

Don’t let the excuse of not having enough room to start a garden get you down. With vertical gardening, any space is enough space! Whether it’s a small backyard, the wall of a fense, or just a corner of your home, it’s possible to get a lot of greenery from a small area.

No more tedious work, kneeling on the ground during harvest! With vertical gardening, everything can be at the level easiest for you!

Plans need airflow to keep funguses and other bacteria away. Keeping plans off the ground lessens promotes airflow and decreases the likeliness of plant damage or disease.

Pure functionality isn’t the only benefit of starting a vertical garden! The beauty of your new greenspace is something your friends and neighbors are sure to comment on!

Gardening is a great way to get active! Work out without making it feel like a work out! Get healthy with family and friends in your own backyard!

Having your own garden is economical! The produce generated off your small plot of land is well worth the time, not to mention rewarding! Seeing that fresh, home-grown produce table is something you and your family can be comfortable eating...for less!

You don’t have to be a master-gardener to start your own project, you don’t even have to have a green thumb! Deciding to do it is the biggest step! Then go ahead at your own speed.

Virtualy all you need is a small, workable space, a bit of creativity, some dirt, and some seeds to get started! Depending on your project, it could take anywhere from just a few hours to a fun weekend of planning to get started!

Vertical gardening, often deemed “urban gardening” is a growing trend with lots of resources! Check out what others are doing on the web, or get yourself a new book for inspiration! Our suggestions include: Garden Up by Susan Morrison and Rebecca Sweet or No Garden? No Problem? by Michael Pilcher.

10.create something new

Starting a new project or hobby can be the perfect thing to refresh your mind. Make it your get-away, your new invest-ment. Just imagine how beautiful your new creation will be

as you watch it flourish!

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Where will it take you?

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When Greg Hoffman puts a head of lettuce on the table, he knows it is just that-- a crisp, fresh veg-etable he had just picked from his own back yard.

Like generations of farmers before him, Greg has learned to make a living off the land, but that wasn’t always the livelihood he had in mind. “Twenty years ago when I looked ahead twenty years into the future, I don’t think I could have imagined where I am now,” Greg Hoffman, a produce farmer in Northeast Iowa mentions.

Making aLIVINGoff the

LAND

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There’s alwayssomething going on, even in

the winter.

Hoffman Produce Farms, originally a 120 acre dairy farm, was first owned by Greg’s grandparents, then to a corpo-ration looking to develop the land, and now a portion of the land is again in the family and called home to Greg, his wife Denise, and their 11 and nine year old sons Justin and Eli. Today, the farm is near a fourth that size, just shy of 30 acres, containing not a dairy herd, but a huge selec-tion of fruits and vegetables.

Produce on the Hoffman family farm began with Greg’s mother Ruth. She always had a garden full of vegetables, specifically green beans. “It all started with her,” Greg ad-mits, mentioning how he and his mother started working in the garden together when he was in junior high, not long after the dairy farm stopped due to Greg’s father’s declining health. “We’d pick green beans for ourselves and sell some to the neighbors if we had any extras.”

After high school Greg went to Hawkeye Community College for auto mechanics. He was a mechanic for 15 years before he came back to the farm for good. During this time, Greg met his future wife, Denise. “I grew up around Waterloo,” Denise states, “but spent seven years in Kansas City working for the airline. I liked the traveling, but came back to Iowa.” In remembering the first summer she met Greg and worked with him on the farm, fifteen years ago, Denise mentions its challenges. “I had never spent much time outside,” she mentions. “I grew up in town and had bad allergies. I started taking allergy medi-cations when I met Greg. I figured if I was going to spend this much time outdoors, I had better try it. I don’t think he thought I’d last the summer.”

Now Denise spends a lot of her time doing bookwork. She does most of the accounting for Hoffman Produce Farms, not to mention working with the produce itself. From planting, weeding, picking, washing, and selling, Greg and Denise spend much of their time working together. “I usually decide what seeds we’ll get, what varieties we’re going to plant, that sort of thing on my own. Denise does the books,” Greg mentions.

“There’s always something going on, even in the winter,” Denise adds. “Yeah, not everything has to be done at a specific time, like in the summer, but there’s still always something to do,” Greg adds. “We buy all of our seed by the first of the year. There’s always something.”And that there is! After several seasons of produce, Greg decided to add a couple greenhouses to extend the grow-ing season. “We usually use the greenhouse for trans-plants, getting things going.”

Then there’s the weather. “Each year is different. I’ve learned you can’t predict the future,” Greg advises. “This year with the drought we had to drip irrigate seventy-five percent of our crops. That’s pretty unusual. Or this year too, we barely had any apples, due to the frost.”

Driving onto the yard at Hoffman Produce Farms, one of the first things you notice is a large collection of sticks, twigs, and branches piled together to form a little house, just to the left of the driveway. “That’s the boys’ Ioway house,” Denise mentions. “They’re always doing some-thing outside. Sometimes when I see them coming back to the house covered head to toe in mud I want to tell them to just stay out of my house,” she jokes with a smile. “They love it here where there’s space.”

Looking out the Hoffman’s front door, past the greenhous-es, is simple space over a now dormant field…a different scene than the rest of Waterloo just blocks away. “We lived in town for a while, all of us, before we moved out here. We felt a little constrained.” Yet, Greg still mentions the buffer of trees he planted between the road and his home. “With more development, the road keeps getting a little busier. I prefer to keep it there.”

“I never thought I’d like it as much as I do,” Denise ad-mitted about the farm and its work, and it’s easy to see. Greg and Denise are proud of their livelihood and their produce. “I like being my own boss,” Greg suggests. “It was scary, though, leaving my old job to start working full time on the farm, and when we both did.” But in a world where nine to five days seems the irrevocable norm and corporate business takes time from family, Greg and Denise spend much of their day together and dedicate time to being with their sons. In conversation, it’s easy to see how important family is, even when it gets busy…and it does.

“The summers are a definitely lot of work; getting up early, picking, washing, getting everything ready for market,” Denise mentions, explaining everything that has to be done at the perfect time, while produce is ripe and ready to be sold. “Fridays in the summer are spent getting ready for Saturday market,” she continues.

“

“

From Left to Right: Justin, Denise, Eli (front), and Greg Hoffman in their recently planted onion patch.

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Greg and Denise used to attend seven farmers markets a week during the summer and early fall when produce was most plentiful. Now, however, they sell at a few select markets during the week and directly off their farm. “I don’t like sitting, not that I ever literally sit at a market, but I want to talk to customers and tell them about the produce,” Greg states. “Quality is very important.”

Hoffman Produce Farms pays special attention to quality. According to Greg and Denise, it is a must. “People want to see produce that looks good. It’s different if you’re at a grocery store and nobody knows where it comes from,” Greg mentions about his fruits and vegetables. He goes on, explaining how some who help out at their farm are amazed by the produce they refuse to sell. “But there’s something about putting your name on it. Are people going to remember if it was cheap or if it was good?”

However, the Hoffmans are now astonished by some consumers’ perceptions of good produce. “I once had a customer ask me why my peppers were so hard,” he mentions. “They’re hard because that’s the way they’re supposed to be when they’re fresh.”

The produce bought at the supermarket is not fresh like it is at Hoffman Produce Farms. Peppers in a grocery store are soft and spongy from sitting on trucks and shelves before being purchased. Asparagus is old and stringy. However, as people are further removed from the pro-duction of the food they eat, this perception of “quality food” has sadly become the expectation of most American grocery shoppers.

“Or why does everything have to be shot with food col-orings?” Greg mentions about processed foods. “Nothing really needs to be colored, it’s all for marketing.” All too frequently consumers’ desires and what’s best for them don’t match up. “We’re getting rid of our chickens soon,” Greg mentions. “I don’t know how economical they are, but I’m going to miss the eggs. We’ll have to buy them from a neighbor. The ones from the store aren’t near as good. They’re only okay for cooking with.”

Denise agrees in saying she never ate many eggs until they had their own chickens. The quality of fresh gives whole new light to “old” foods.

Some of the best foods aren’t even sold in grocery stores.“ “In fact, there are lots of foods that the average American has never had or even heard of. “Some of the best foods aren’t even sold in grocery stores,” Greg suggests, ex-plaining that some produce simply cannot withstand the large-scale processing centers without being bruised or damaged. Only those that “fit” the system make it to the grocery store shelf. “We’ve got some great apples here, and you can’t find those in the store. Some people say they’re better than honey crisp. I don’t know if they are or not, but they definitely are good and most people have never seen them.”

Above: Eli viewing some plants in one of the greenhouses at Hoffman Produce FarmsOpposite Page: Justin demonstrating his knowledge of some of the equipment

-- reseal windows-- paint kitchen-- finish treehouse-- fix the sink

Look familiar?

You can do it,

Lowes can help!

10 11

However, the distance between consumers and their food isn’t due to grocery stores and food providers alone. Much of the separation comes from the consumers themselves. Through lack of knowledge on where their food comes from and a lack of energy towards selecting and under-standing their food choices, many Americans don’t weigh the importance of food. Many people actually don’t know how to cook. “They don’t know how to cook properly or don’t want to,” Greg mentions, explaining how quickly some produce should be prepared and eaten after picking. “And with the right recipes, anything can taste great!” he continues while praising some of Denise’s delicious meals.

And maybe that’s so. If people knew how to cook and spent more time preparing their food, this connection would propel them to buy wholesome foods, not an array of brightly packaged, coloring-infused processed prod-ucts. In fact, according to physician Mark Hyman, 50 percent of meals are now eaten away from the home, one in five American breakfasts are from McDonald’s, and most households have three or less sit-down family meals a week. These “meals,” however, often less than twenty minutes, commonly include each family member micro-waving an already prepared meal to simply eat at the table together.

It is evident life at Hoffman Produce Farm is different than that for the average American. From the hard labor and open space to being at home and at work all in the same place, it’s something you can tell Greg, Denise, and their boys enjoy. Living together, where family is present and nature faithfully provides beauty and livelihood sea-son after season. “I’ve learned you can’t predict the future,” Greg reflects, “and it is okay to take risks. Because what we have now is something we wouldn’t give up.”

Produce Availability ChartThe chart below shows the seasons of

availability for produce commonly grown in the United States. For more information on regional

availability, check out www.fieldtoplate.com.

Justin walking through the apple orchard at Hoffman Produce Farm

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Mini toThe evolution of the average American home

2013:Average Size: 2,480 sq. feetAverage Cost: $272,900Average Population Per Household: 2.58 people(according to the 2010 census)

1990:Average Size: 2,080 sq. feetMedian Cost: $101,100*Average Pop. Per Household: 2.63 peopleDefining Trait: Master bedrooms, first floor laundry rooms, and skylights popular

1980Average Size: 1,740 sq. feetMedian Cost: $93,400*Average Pop. Per Household: 2.76 peopleDefining Trait: attached garages and two-story homes now common

*All median home costs are acquired from the US Census Bureau and have been adjusted for inflation .

1970Average Size: 1,740 sq. feetMedian Cost: $65,300*Average Pop. Per Household: 3.14Defining Trait: the newest house-hold feature is an $800 color TV and bright yellows, oranges, and greens

1940Average Size: 1,000 sq. feetMedian Cost: $30,600*Average Pop. Per Household: 3.68Defining Trait: one level ranch-style homes common

1900Average Size: 700 sq. feetAverage Cost: $1,000Average Pop. Per Household: Defining Trait: one (or just as like-ly no) bathrooms

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1.In a large serving bowl, whisk together the red wine vinegar, grapeseed oil, cilantro, lime juice, sugar, salt and garlic.Set aside.

2.Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add the soy-beans and boil for 3 minutes. Add corn to the boiling waterand continue cooking for 1more minute. Drain very well,and pour into the bowl withthe dressing. Gently mix inthe cherry tomatoes, greenonions and black beans.Cover and refrigerate forat least 2 hours beforeserving to chill and blendthe flavors.

HELLO, Three great recipes to

welcome in the new season!

SPRING!3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

3 tablespoonsgrapeseed oil

1/3 cupchopped fresh cilantro

2 limes, juiced

1 teaspoonwhite sugar

3/4 teaspoonsalt

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 (1 pound) packagefrozen shelled edamame

(green soybeans)

3 cupsfrozen corn kernels

1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered

4 green onions, thinly sliced

1 (15 ounce) canblack beans, rinsed and drained SPRI

NG

SA

LADRule #1: Don’t start testing the food the minute you put it onthe heat! This includes picking it up to see if it’s done on thebottom, moving it around, and turning it over every tenseconds.Put the food down and give it a chance to cook.This will also give it a chance to sear on the bottom so thatit naturally pulls away from the grates and doesn’t stick. Ifyou try to move the food before it’s seared on the bottom,it will definitely stick.

Rule #2: Don’t cut into your food to see if it’s done. For one thing,it doesn’t really work, since you can’t get a good look at the inside. Foranother, it lets the juices come pouring out and the food dries out on the grill. The best way to test food is by poking it with your finger. As it cooks, it becomes firmer and firmer. A rare steak feels squishy; a medium steak feels more springy; a well-done steak feels as taut as a trampoline. The rule of “the longer it cooks, the firmer it gets” also holds true for fish and poultry. As you get more and more experienced, you’ll learn exactly what your favorite food should feel like when it’s done.

Rule #3: Meat and poultry should rest for at least a few minutes before slicing or serving. What does this mean? Well, without getting too technical about anatomy or chemistry, if you cut into the flesh right as it comes off the heat, the hot juices will run out all over your cutting board. If you wait a few minutes to let them thicken just a bit, they’ll stay in the meat. You may feel like the food is getting cold, but actually it’s still cooking. Cover it up with foil and let it rest for at least 5 min-utes. Fish does not need to rest and should be served immediately, as it loses heat very quickly.

Rule #4: When in doubt, it’s better to undercook than overcook. You can always put food back on the fire if you need to.

Grilling Tips from Bobby Flay

Looking for grilling recipes?

Check out Bobby Flay’s collectionof proved delicious meals fromthe grill at bobbyflay.com/recipes

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A Changing ofLedges State Park, located just south of Boone, IA has seen very vew visitors as the snow melts away to spring. Parking lots remian empty as park-seekers wait for warmer weath-er. However, although seemingly abandoned, the park is alive and bustling as nature awakes from itswintery slumber. SEASONS

The first sign of spring: green grass.

Winter storage.

A welcoming smile!

A great place for a snack!

A look from below.

A leaf ’s journey.

Water’s long expected escape from packed snow!

The perfect stone for skipping.

Nap, anyone?Journey ahead!

A trace of winter activity.

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The man who owns only15 thingsEXTREME MINIMALISM

Who is this guy?Meet:ANDREW HYDE

There are a lot of people who make the news for their extravagant lifestyles, lavish homes, large collections of cars or shoes, and other such things. But An-drew Hyde is someone who’s become popular for just the opposite – owning very few things. 15, to be precise (not counting socks and underwear). No, he’s not homeless, he’s not poor, and he’s definitely not unemployed. In fact, Hyde is a technology mogul. He works as a consultant and mentor for young companies, he’s the founder of Startup Weekend, and an organizer of TEDxBoulder conference. Constantly shuttling between New York and Silicon Valley for work, Hyde doesn’t live in a house or an apartment. When he’s not working, he’s traveling extensively, tak-ing his worldly possessions of 15 things everywhere he goes. Andrew Hyde says that he has always been interest-ed in the concept of minimalism, start-ing out by seeing if he could make do

with just 100 items. But in August 2010 he took the concept even further, selling all of his belongings but for 15 things. -Story from OddityCentral.com

Age:29From:Boulder, Colorado

Defined:Vagabond & Minimalist

Profession:Entrepreneur

Hobbies:MarathoningPassion:Travel

DesignerFreelancer

1.Arc’teryx Miura 30 backpack

2.NAU shirt

3.Mammut rain jacket

4.Arc’teryx tshirt

5.Patagonia running shorts

6.Quick Dry towel

7.NAU wool jacket

8.Toiletry kit

9.Smith sunglasses

10.Wallet

11.MacBook Air

12.iPhone 3GS

13.NAU dress shirt

14.Patagonia jeans

15. Running shoes

The items that made the cut:

2 years on the road. 1 backpack. 15 countries. Banned from one. Stories about Nepal, Colombia, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Australia, Kenya, Qatar, UAE, Panama and more. This book is about the days, people, stories, ethics and philosophy that bridged the trip. What is modern travel? Why are you not on the road?

Follow Andrew’s journey in his new book:A Book About Travel.

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eno hammocks

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