HAMBURG — There aren’t many cows left now on Ken Graf’s farm: Forty-seven, to be exact. Last year, there were almost 200.
The Hamburg township farm, bought in 1892 for just $2,800 by Ken’s great-grandparents, George and Victoria Eckert, is transitioning to all-crop farming after 94 years of milking cows.
Ken’s mother, Helen Graf, took the news the hardest, he said. But his dad, Donald — the type of guy to reminisce about his family history for 30 minutes, seemed to take the news in stride.
“It’s time to move on,” Ken remembers his father telling him.
Ken started thinking about making the switch to all-crop farming three or four years ago after a lifetime of milking.
“[I] always had an idea of milking until I was 55,” Ken said.
He’ll be 55 this October. On Jan. 21, 2017, he milked his final cow: six months early.
A hard job
Milking cows means early mornings, no weekends and no sick days.
“If you’ve got the flu, you just fight through it,” Ken said. “And you know if it rains, 28 feet of snow, 28 inches, you get out and plug through the slop. You’ve got to get it done.”
Ken was simply tired of dairy farming. His son and full-time farming partner Phillip wasn’t too interested in milking cows, either. The practice has also become crippingly expensive.
It’s a “complicated issue,” Ken said, but the gist of it is that co-ops don’t pay dairy farmers as much for their product anymore.
Ken’s quest to transition out of dairy farming sped up after someone agreed to buy his cows from him.
“Everything just kind of fell into place, and I’m glad it did,” he said.
Ken will keep some cows to breed and eventually sell, maybe in June of next year. After that, he’s not so sure how things will shake out.
“Here’s the dilemma,” he said. “I’ve got the facilities: I’ve got the silos and I’ve got the equipment. If I don’t do it, I’m going to have to tear it all out because it won’t be doing me any good. So you’re going to have expenses either way you go.”
One thing is certain: Ken’s relieved to be done with dairy farming — even if he does miss it sometimes. But he’s already moved on to his next venture.
Food and the future
On a sunny Monday morning, Ken drives his golf cart up to one of several pumpkin patches on the 97-acre Graf farm.
His family has raised produce on the land since at least the 1920s, when Ken’s grandparents planted blackberries and strawberries there.
It wasn’t until 2012, however — several years after Don handed control of the farm to Ken — that crops became a significant focus at the farm.
Ten years ago, Ken estimates that he grew 10 acres of pumpkins and a half-acre of tomatoes and squash. Today, he’s growing over 30 acres of pumpkins and four acres of tomatoes and squash, as well as several acres of sweet corn, peppers, cucumbers and cantaloupe. Honey and eggs are also sold at his farm.
Ken picks his vegetables daily and grows his crops with as few chemicals as possible. It’s too expensive for him to go completely organic — farmers have to quit chemicals for three years to become certified. But the food Ken sells is the same food he eats.
With the help of his wife, Jamie, children and extended family, Ken sells his products just off Indiana 60, past Poindexter Lane.
As a child, Ken set up a table near the same spot to sell pumpkins. Now, there’s a building called the Pumpkin Shed.
Ken’s business booms in the fall. He sells his pumpkins, of course, but he also piles up hay bales for children to climb. This year, in place of an old cow pasture, he wants to build a corn maze.
Ken plans to expand his roadside business now that he’s done with cows. In the past, he’s been open from September until Halloween. That doesn’t include what he’s doing right now, which is leaving eggs outside his house in an ice box and expecting customers to use the honor system.
This year, Ken plans to start selling his food in August and stay open until Christmas. He doesn’t know what to expect.
“I’m hoping we can make it — we can get big enough, get enough people coming, enough interest. I”m hoping we can do okay with pumpkin and produce and Christmas,” he said.
The farm’s future in the family is just as uncertain.
Don, now 85, has had plenty of offers to sell his land through the years, but — “I didn’t want to sell it,” he said. “I wanted to keep it in the family.”
Ken feels the same way, but he’s pragmatic, too. Phillip isn’t as interested in running the farm as Ken once was.
“I plan on getting a job somewhere else besides this,” said Phillip, who still may help with the farm part time.
Ken’s daughter, Beth, has two children, though. His 5-year-old granddaughter planted her own pumpkin this season.
“I have no idea, you know,” Ken said about the farm’s future. “That’s a long way. I ain’t figured out what I’ll have for lunch yet today. It happens when it happens.”