Organic Grain: Tasteful As Can Be

Our continual search for tasteful, healthy food is not limited to our visits to local cafes and restaurants.  We also look for products we can use at Marianne's Kitchen, sell in our pantry section and yes, we do eat at home once in a while.

Lonesome Stone Milling of Lone Rock, WI has been a great find.  Gilbert William's focus on organic, local production of the finest grains possible has been an inspiration and we are very happy to carry his products.

It's easy to just open a box or bag of cereal or pancake mix, do the normal preparation and start eating.  That's what we do, too, but it seems appropriate to do a quick primer on what goes into that process.

Organic farmer's are committed to growing with no chemicals, natural fertilizers, crop rotation and minimal soil disturbance.  We all grew up watching tractors turning the soil with deep-bottom plows followed by discing and planting.  That plowing technique is pretty much unchanged since the prairies were turned by the first settlers.  Unfortunately wind and water erosion take their toll and working the fields repeatedly is high in equipment and fuel costs.  Progressive and environmentally conscious farming now uses a 'no-till' approach, avoiding aggressive plowing and soil disruption.

Heirloom grains tend to be more easily tolerated by people with wheat sensitivities and tend to be higher in protein than modern hybrid grains.  Being an heirloom grain does not inherently mean it's organic.  Hybrid grains are not inherently bad and we'd encourage learning about the work of Iowa native, Norman Borlaug.

One of our favorite Lonesome Stone products is the Blue Corn & Rye Pancake Mix, perhaps the greatest end product pancake mix we know of.  It's not simple to get to that delicious pancake.

Rye Seed

The process starts with an organic rye seed planted with a grain drill, which as the name implies, drills the seed into the ground. 

Grain Drill

Rye and certain other crops can be planted in the fall and harvested the next summer.  Harvesting of the rye is done with a combine.  The word 'combine' is short for 'combination' of three unique components of harvesting.  Modern combines reap (cutting the grain crop), thresh (remove the grain chaff from the straw) and winnow (separate grain from the chaff). 

Mature Rye

Modern Combine

1947 Grain Cleaner

Lonesome Stone Milling purchased this 1947 seed cleaner at a farm auction in 2009, beginning a small business of clean seeds for local farmers.  Historically farmers would save seed from each crop for the next planting.  The grain cleaner does the final cleaning and preparation of that seed for planing.

In the far past grain was ground at mills typically located where there was running water.  The moving water would turn a water wheel which through a series of gears, shafts and pulleys would turn the mill stones.  Seeds were feed between the stones and finely ground seeds, now 'flour' was produced. As in many industries, water power was replaced by electrical power. Lonestone Stone Milling purchased their own electric mill in 2010 to meet the demand of using locally produced grains for flour, cereal and mix production.  The producing farmer's name is printed on each bag.  How cool is that?

Bottom Millstone

Grain Mill

 Small business has always been a defining character and value of the U.S. economy. The challenge is always scale.  Small businesses compete with very large corporate organizations.  Large companies push prices down, competing with each other.  The small business faces the challenge of producing products more unique than those of mass production or simply producing much better products.  In our searches we look for real people starting and running small businesses, people with character and a commitment to what's good for not just them but their customers.

This Sunday we're looking forward to  Lonesome Stone Milling Blue Corn & Rye pancakes for breakfast...and perhaps lunch and dinner.