Community and Connections Season 2 Episode 4 with Ebberts Farm

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome back to Community and Connections. I'm your host, Drake Watson,
joined this time by Sam and we have two great
guests with us this morning, Jerry and LoVa Ebert. We
thank you guys immensely for being here and can't wait
to talk to you guys a lot about Everts Farm
and the things that you guys have going on over
in Belmont County. How are you guys doing?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Oh, very good, Thank you.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
So the first thing I guess I'll get into is
there's a historical marker on National Road on forty right
down from the farm that celebrates one hundred years of
Everts Farm. Now, you talked to us a little bit
about that and how special that is.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Well, my grandparents and great uncle and aunt moved out
into the Saint Clairsho area in nineteen nineteen and established
a farm and each family lived in the same farmhouse
right there that's still part of the operation, and each
raised nine children and we're the third generation. My father

(01:02):
and mother took it over in the sixties and we've
kept it going for over one hundred years.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Wow, that's impressed. Any challenges as far as you know,
keeping things moving, and I guess continuing the legacy, so
to speak.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Well, a lot has changed in our area as far
as the farm land and everything, but the market still
stays on the original property. The roads have been a
real blessing as far as the interstate highways coming through
and putting us in a little better position with our market,
But obviously it took a lot of farmland, and progress

(01:39):
and development has changed the area.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
And you guys, I think are in a fortunate position
where the highway as opposed to solely bypassing you guys,
as opposed to a traveler taking forty when they go
by on the Interstate, they still see your big sign
and it's visible from the highway, So a lot of
the those places might not be visible and might get
lost kind of whenever somebody's trying to bypass the town area.

(02:06):
You guys have the opportunity to kind of have that
big sign and every time I drive by, and you know,
seventy and four to seventy kind of combined right there,
you could see Eberts Farm from a good distance.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Oh yes, we're right between two interchanges. So it's great.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Well, and I want to get into a little bit
as well of how you guys started out in this
and kind of taken it back. You guys are both
graduating from OUI correct, Yes, that is correct. What was both?
What was your guys's majors?

Speaker 2 (02:35):
We went on to Ohio State to major in agriculture.
Agricultural production and agricultural economics was what I did.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Right we started out, OHU, We loved it. We still do.
We got such support out there. We wish they would
have had an AG program and we would always have
been there. But yeah, we both loved the ground, we
loved agriculture, loved working with our hands, and so it's
just a natural for us to be involved in agriculture.

(03:06):
We also had connections back here and we wanted to
come back. There was never a second guess about when
you finally graduate and you do something where you're going
to live. And we came back, and we're thankful, very thankful.
We love these connections back here. We love the people

(03:29):
and being in the market. I hear so many wonderful stories,
incredible stories of people, and a lot of people that
have moved out of the area they're coming back to
raise their families back here.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
We talked to a lot of people and a lot
of them share your view on staying in the area,
and it was never a question for them, and if
they did leave, then they came back because of a
lot of different things that made really the entire o
Higow Valley great. If you could speak to some of
those things you guys mentioned, it wasn't ever any consideration

(04:03):
for you guys to leave long time. But what are
some of the things aside from the farm, which is
which is a great attraction in itself, what are some
of the other things that you guys deem to be
attractive about the area that can really do a good
job of keeping people here and maybe bringing people back
as well.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Well. The scenery itself. I love the hills. I just
love the beauty, the trees, and the people themselves. They
are very basic people, hardworking people. Most people here are
not arrogant and just meeting people in the market. And
we have found that the people, and maybe because Cherry

(04:45):
and I when we grew up, we had enough, but
there was not an abundance. You were not poor, but
you weren't wealthy either, and we appreciate and we find with.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
The most radio eleven WWVA, I'm sorry, keep.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
Going, okay, we find that the people that have the
least are the most appreciative. And again, we love the
area for the people. And again it's nice when you
see people saying, I'm moving back. I don't like the traffic,
i don't like the culture, I don't like the crime,
and they're coming back and we like that a lot.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Oh, And that's what really got us together, was that
was the one thing that we shared was that we
ultimately wanted to come back and live in this area.
Even though we went on to school in Columbus and
we had jobs in northern Ohio and Minnesota, every move
we made was getting us closer to home, and within

(05:49):
about ten years off out of graduating from college, we
were back home raising our family.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
That's good to hear. We've obviously spoken to a lot
of people and we try to ask them about the
area and things like that. What we just spoke about,
and you guys included, nobody has failed to mention the
people in the area as a reason as to why
they come back and continue to stay here. Right, talk
to me a little bit about the event center at

(06:17):
the farm.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
Okay, that's kind of a new venture. Cherry and I
had actually thought about ten years ago. We're getting older
and we need to slow down. And another couple came
to us and said, what are you going to do
when you retire? And they suggested, you know, this would
be a great place to have an event center. And
we just view it as a happy place. People get married,

(06:40):
they can have graduation parties, retirement parties, and again it's
working with the people. We enjoy that very very much.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
My high school prom just two three years ago was
out there, and I couldn't have thought of a better
place to have it than right there at the event center.
So you guys say you do everything from graduation to
weddings and things like that. What kind of task is it?
Where do you guys kind of leave it out of

(07:09):
your hands. What's that look like in terms of managing
all of that.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
Well, we don't get into managing that ourselves.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
We defer to somebody else.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Have a good partner that does all that, and it's
kind of it's kind of our entertainment. We're where the
landskeepers and the janitors and the parking lot attendance and
the couple that we work with do just a beautiful
job of everything from decorating to djaying to getting everything coordinated.

(07:40):
So we've kind of got the easy part. But as
LoVa says, it's such a nice community outreach and we
get to see so many people, meet new people. People
maybe we haven't seen for fifty years that are in
here for a wedding. Lova's class reunion was there last year.
Fifty year that's hard to believe. But again, just good times.

(08:05):
It's a nice, nice social gathering place.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
And our son's having his twenty th year class reunion
next month. Again it's just the people and seeing people. Yeah,
and we just like it's a happy time for people
and that's exciting for us.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah. It kind of the way you talk kind of
makes us sound. Here's this building and you guys just
kind of get to sit back and watch what somebody
does with it. And it's all good things from what
I hear out at the event center. So talk to
us a little bit about you know, maybe if somebody
hasn't been to the farm or the event center or

(08:42):
even down that way, they drive up and they get
out of their cars, what's it like for them? Where
do they go? First? On let's say an average Tuesday,
maybe two o'clock in the afternoon, what are they going
to see where are they going to go first? Where
are you trying to get them to go first? You know,
where maybe should they spend their money? What's the what's
that look like?

Speaker 2 (09:01):
It seems like our main draw is sweetcorn. We we're
basic on our own sweet corn. We've developed a good
line of varieties. We pick it fresh every day. We
just try to do the best we can on the
sweet corn. Intomatoes. Also, we pride ourselves on having a

(09:22):
good assortment of good fresh local produce. We don't grow
fruit anymore. We have some orchards that we depend upon
in Ohio that provide that for us. But that's the
main draw. And yeah, it's the sweetcorn table. I mean,
when people come in, they go to the pile of
sweet corn and the sweet corn table, and most everybody

(09:44):
leaves with sweetcorn. But LoVa does a good job with
a lot of other locally produced jams and jellies and
products like that that they keep people coming back and
we have a good line of customers. I mean, it's
just always amazing to me every year that we don't

(10:04):
make a lot of hullabaloo with opening up and we
put a date out there and it's like everybody's there
waiting in line. I am just always so impressed with that.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
I guess that's what one hundred plus years will do,
is you know, everybody just kind of knows that they
can go to evarts at that time. Are you guys
kind of excuse me in the weeds a little bit
to maybe talk to a customer And have you noticed
anybody that has come in and they're not from around here,

(10:37):
but they're passing through and they make a stop. Has
that ever come up?

Speaker 3 (10:43):
Oh, we have a lot of people that see this
sign from interstate and they stop. It's always interested in
talking to them. They may ask for something that's not
grown in this area, and with what we do, I'm
usually at the counter. I viewed a lot as educating people.
People hear things on the news and they'll ask about
it and I'll be able to say, well, this is

(11:05):
not practical, or someone will say, well how do you
handle tomatoes? How you can this? And again, to me,
it's a lot of education and in return I get
I learn a lot of things too. It's like I
learned things I've never heard of, and people are incredible
with their stories and things, so it's very practical.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
And pumpkin season. I'm always amazed how many people are
coming through the interstate, maybe going east, and they'll just
load their car up with pumpkins and say, you've got
a nice selection. They're a third to cost of what
they are in New Jersey. Sure, and people that are
that are traveling through I always kind of get a
kick out of that.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
I know, if I'm gonna if I'm going to travel
to go to a farm market anytime in October, that's
what I'm getting is pumpkins, and and I've stopped that
efforts of time or two to get them as well.
How much extra I guess commerce does that bring during
the fall season. You guys selling pumpkins.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
A lot of different things that we do sell that
time of year. It seems like we have everything because
we still have sweet corn and tomatoes and fruit, and
then we get into pumpkins. We probably have more of
a selection that time of year than any other time
of year, but pumpkins kind of take the place of
sweetcorn as far as the major draw. Of course, you've
got a generational thing. I mean, the older generation which

(12:29):
we are now may not be as much into the pumpkins,
and they're into the produce. But get a lot of
young families and that's always fun because they come out
with the kids. And we have seen what we're praying
on our third generation of people that grandparents came out
as kids and they brought their kids out. Now they're

(12:51):
bringing their grandkids out. We've got how tall this fall
background that you can measure every these growth and we've
seen so many pictures of people over the years that yeah,
I've got my picture in front of that, and here's
what I look like when I was fifteen or twelve

(13:11):
or whenever.

Speaker 3 (13:12):
A lot of good memories and a lot of students
in college, you know around this area actually moved away
come back and they'll get their classmates and they'll line
up and get pictures. It's just a good memory they're
trying to duplicate and it's fun fun watching them and
hearing their stories.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
That's good to hear it. It's good to hear that
the generational impact that that that's had. And I think
that also speaks to one hundred years of the farm
one hundred and six or whatever it is. Now, I'm
going to speak from ignorance a little bit. Now, Okay,
have you guys noticed, because I'm no expert on anything

(13:53):
that you guys would be experts on. But have you
guys noticed particularly we'll talk about the fall season. Is
it warmer on most when you guys are putting pumpkins out?
Do you notice it to be warmer than it has been, say,
twenty years ago.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Oh, I don't know. I guess we haven't paid a
whole lot of attention to that. It doesn't seem like
there's been a lot of change. I remember when we
used to make cider years ago, some of the preschool
classes would try to line up their field trip really
early in the season, late September because it would still

(14:30):
be warmer and us having some of the coldest days
in late September, and by the end of October it
was nicer weather. It's every season is different. Of course,
we live by the weather. I mean everything we do
from here to the end of the season is weather related,
and there's a lot of ups and downs. But yeah,

(14:52):
I really can't say we've had some really nice weekends
in the fall. We like nice weekends because if it's
a cold, rainy weekend, you just don't get people out.
When it's a nice, sunny weekend, you know, that's that's
decorating time, Drake.

Speaker 4 (15:07):
I just want to ask a quick question to them.
You know, we we have seen the world change throughout
the generations, and one thing that we do with this
podcast is we bring in a lot of entrepreneurs and
business folks that work the traditional nine to five. We'll
say the lifestyle is a of a of a farmer.

(15:31):
I would venture to say, is beginning to become a
lost art. Unfortunately, we see family farms becoming less and
less the profit margins and there's a whole discussion that
we go into about that. But that lost art of
working with your hands canning, like she mentioned, are you

(15:52):
seeing that on on your side of things also.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
Well, it seems like it's more of a I don't know.
It was a lifestyle for us. I mean our parents.
I mean my mom had hundreds and hundreds of Mason
jars and she filled with everything and that was a
big part of our life. Now it's almost more like
a hobby thing people at least where we're at, a

(16:19):
lot of people that have their own gardens. There's a
lot of people that do a lot of canning. We
still sell a lot of tomatoes for canning. People like
to make their own salsa, spaghetti, sauce and different things
like that. But it certainly isn't like it used to be.
I mean, we used to sell so many volumes of

(16:42):
like bushels of apples that people did up and now
everything is smaller containers. So much of what we sell
in the summertime, it seems like our maybe convenience foods,
I mean sweet worn. You know you can make a
meal in a few minutes and you know you're fresh product.
It's and that is different than today's generation doesn't preserve

(17:09):
as much as they used to.

Speaker 4 (17:10):
When you mentioned the lifestyle for a lot of folks,
they don't understand the lifestyle of being a farmer, whether
we're talking livestock or we're talking fridgs and vegetables all that,
you know that side of excuse me a farming explain
that lifestyle for folks. How you are? You know there's

(17:32):
never a day off?

Speaker 1 (17:33):
Is it sun up to sundown? West?

Speaker 2 (17:35):
We were up this morning at six thirty checking cattle
because we also have cattle on our farm pasture of
ground that we can't use for anything else. And I'll
probably work till nine thirty tonight and go to bed
and sleep real well and get up tomorrow morning and
do the same thing I always think about in the summertime.
We pick our sweet corn, whether it's rain or shine,

(17:56):
whether it's pourn down rain or it's hot like is outside.
And I always got a kick out of coming in
and maybe I hadn't changed my clothes yet, and I'm
in the market and people were asking, did you pick
this corn this morning? And I'm soaking wet, I've still
got mud on my jeans, and it's like, no, I
just went out and rolled around in the mud to

(18:18):
look like this. Yes, we did pick it. We are
on a schedule. We have good, dedicated helpers that don't
mind going out in doing that. But the work is
there to do no matter what the conditions are, like
you can't put it off till tomorrow when you're milking cows.
It's like I don't feel like it today. I just

(18:40):
won't milk the cows. No, it's not that I mean
and produce. It's grown every day. I couldn't believe how
the corn has developed from last night when we saw
it to this morning. Because our first corn is showing tassel,
and last night, you couldn't hardly see any tassel. And
that's just overnight. So you're working with a growl product

(19:01):
that you've got to keep maintained and healthy and picked
on time and brought in and you you work on
its schedule. I mean, you don't make your own schedule.
I mean it's you're on you're on the farm schedule.

Speaker 4 (19:16):
Well, I'm gonna go I'm gonna go back in the
archives a little bit here. Milking cows every eight hours?

Speaker 1 (19:21):
Is that correct?

Speaker 4 (19:22):
They have to be milked eight to ten hours.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
Now, twice a day, twice a day. Now some people
now are milking three times a day if they are
really trying to, you know, get their production up. Of course,
today now we've got robotic farms. Even in our county,
we have you know, cows that are milked, you know, robotically,
and sometimes they're milks. Maybe maybe they go up whenever

(19:46):
they feel like they want to be milked, and they
may be milk six times a day.

Speaker 4 (19:51):
They've gotten smarter then, yes, but.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
It's still it needs done. I mean, it's it's not
an anything you put off. You don't take off Sundays,
you don't Christmas morning.

Speaker 4 (20:03):
It doesn't matter Christmas Eve, it doesn't matter Thanksgiving. The work,
the work just there there.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yeah, and the work's always done first. I mean, you
know your your free time is after all the work's done.

Speaker 4 (20:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
Kind of on the note that that Sam was talking
about kind of the lost art. Uh, that brings me
to a question I had in mind. If you guys
had to convince somebody to get their produce from you
guys as opposed to one of the big box three
really big stores down the hill at the plaza, big
box stores, what's your pitch to kind of convincing somebody

(20:39):
to not only shop local, but shop fresh produce from
from a local farm.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
Well, we can tell you the day we planted to
see that, the type of seed it was, when it
came up, when it got knee high, when we harvested,
and we harvest it every day that we're open and
go to your grocery, to your box stores and say
when was this corn planted, what kind of corn is it?

(21:05):
When was it pitched?

Speaker 1 (21:06):
How long was it on the truck?

Speaker 3 (21:07):
That's exactly right now.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
You could say we have a personal, a personal relationship
with our produce. Right, We've been there, we've been with
it from the beginning. I mean, it's kind of kind
of like from you know, the birthing process, if you
want to say it that way, to when it was
harvested and put on the table to sell until it's yours.
It's been ours and we've been with it from the beginning.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
And I tell people, we know what we put in
the ground, what we put on it, and I wouldn't
feed if I won't feed it. What I want to say,
what we raised, we would feed to our children. Yeah,
that's how camped we on when we talk to people
about our produce.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
When you guys, this is a question just out of
sheer curiosity if you could touch on the almanac just
a little bit as somebody who has always been fascinated
by that and kind of how you know, what I
typically do. The only time I think about the almanac
is when I'm like, Okay, when are we going to
get the first snow this year? Or when is it
supposed to come? What kind of role if any, does

(22:11):
that play in the planning that you guys do, as
far as when you're when you're starting to plant things
and when you're harvesting and everything else with the seasonal patterns.
I guess.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
I guess we don't really pay much attention to the almanac.
We we find it entertaining and sometimes it's right on,
but basically with us, it's the calendar. I mean, we
go by the calendar a lot of soil temperature, soil conditions.
This time of year, whenever you get a nice day,

(22:42):
you're out there doing everything you can. And the almanac's good.
My grandma used to watch the tides and you know,
the moon, and I know a lot of people they
they plant their gardens and they do a lot of
things based on you know, the moon and the almanac,
different things. I guess we don't have that luxury. And

(23:02):
like with our sweet corn and things. I mean we're
planting every five to seven days once it starts coming up,
because we will have corn for two and a half
three months. But it's we have a planting every week.
I mean right now we're still planting corn. I mean
whenever that last planning comes out of the ground, we're
putting the next planning in. So it's more it's more

(23:25):
a timing thing than anything for us.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
And you guys have your kind of your own system
down that you know what to do and when to
do it.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
We do, and we have a certain rotation we follow
on our fields for disease control purposes and insect control purposes.
I mean, we have a rotation. We keep records so
that we know we can look back and see what
was in specific fields and we have over one hundred
fields twenty years ago. And like with pumpkins and things

(23:54):
that are disease sensitive, we try to keep out of
the same soil for four to six years before we
go back into it with certain crops. So there's a
lot of management that way.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Well, I guess one of the last things we'll want
to touch on is and we try to talk about
this with everybody that comes on, is community impact and
the impact that you guys feel that you play in
the community, the things that you've heard and certain feedback
that you've gotten, and what you hope to do with
the farm and how you hope to impact the community.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
We're just thankful to be a part of the community.
We're thankful for our customers. I'm amazed at what we
learn and we hear, and we just want to make
this community, Belmont County, this whole area the best area
it can possibly be and we're just thankful to be
a part of what we do. And when our boys

(24:51):
are growing up, I always said, now, don't say anything
negative about anybody, because chances are there either related or
they know who they are. And that's a good policy
for all of us. Just be positive and be grateful.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
I think anybody who's grown up in this area has
heard that in some.

Speaker 3 (25:09):
And that's the truth.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
And we're and we're very much homebodies. I mean when
we when we graduated from high school and went on
to start college, I mean, it just made such perfect
sense to go to high university. It was the branch
back then, because we just liked our community. We felt
very stable in our environment. We had good family support,

(25:32):
and it was so much community.

Speaker 3 (25:35):
And the professors you know that were out there, they
wanted you to succeed. You were not a number, you know,
you were an individual and a high University of the
Eastern has done so much for this area and we're
so appreciative.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
Yeah that I think you guys said it excellently. Sam,
you have anything else.

Speaker 4 (25:57):
To add, well, I was just going to say when
I go up there in the fall, especially because I
live not far from you guys, so I pass all
the time, but I've always thought in the fall, it's
the perfect setting for a scene for a Hallmark Fall
Festival movie. Please tell me somebody else is watched the

(26:18):
Hallmark movie, yes, because I think it would just be
perfect between the scarecrow cutouts for the kids and you know,
all the different things. It's gone from what you what
you guys have created has gone from your traditional family
farm to an entrepreneurialship where it has become a family
tradition for people people here in the Ohio Valley. And

(26:41):
you know that's not easy to start, let alone maintain
as long as you have, So I think it needs
to be highlighted in a Hallmark Harvest movie.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
That's my thank you.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
Time.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
That sounds like a wonderful.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
And we have a wedding reception going on, and they're
taking photos and they go up into the pumpkin patch
and take pictures, and kids all get there early so
the kids can run around and get things, and it's
kind of like you're providing some entertainment for kids that
are dressed up that really you know, maybe they're not

(27:20):
big into wedding receptions anyway.

Speaker 4 (27:23):
Well, there's also a lot of kids that will never
have any other way of having that type of experience
to go out and pick their own pumpkin and to
get their hands dirty, and to experience and see, you know,
the work that goes into being a farmer. They don't
have those opportunities in their day to day life. So

(27:44):
even to spend an hour or two playing around in
a pumpkin patch, you know, those memories will stick with
them and hopefully build some appreciation for the farmers of
our country.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
Well, we are always humbled when people say thank you
for what you do, because I guess when you've always
done it, you don't think a whole lot about it.
But they thank us for doing it because I know
what we are doing as a lost art. We're about
the last around to be actually taking it from you know,
planting the harvest, retail and everything. And and we enjoy

(28:20):
doing it, like Lovas says, we enjoy the people. We
have a fantastic customer base. They're they're like family and
h and I think that's what keeps us going is
just feeling that we were bringing something to the community.

Speaker 3 (28:34):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yeah. I think you guys have brought in lots of
the brought lots of the community and done very well
with the farm and the farm market and the events
center and everything else. And we certainly wish you guys
the best of luck and hope, hope, the uh you know,
the the coming days are as prosperous as the last

(28:59):
one hundred some years. And we thank you guys for
your for your for your work that you do obviously,
and also for your for your time this morning. You've
been very generous with your time and we appreciate you
guys coming on again. This is Jerry and LoVa Ebert
Eberts Farm Market and the Market Events Center for Sam.
I'm Drake Watson. This has been community and connections. Thank
you for listening.