A desire to live in the country and be closer to the land, that's what brought Steven and Molly Suss from the Twin Cities to rural Lucan.
Steven and Molly, along with their two children, moved to an uncle's farm site one year ago this month, which is located just a mile east of Lucan. The first eight months or so were spent remodeling the inside of the house, bringing wiring and plumbing up to code and making the place generally livable.
The couple, however, didn't moving to country completely wet behind the ears. They were both raised in rural communities, and both spent a number of years working in farmers co-ops in Seward, Minn., and surrounding areas.
Now the Suss's are moving their plan of country living along and have started their own Community Supported Agriculture program, or CSA.
"I worked at a number of co-ops in the cities, and that's how I came to learn about CSAs," Steven Suss said. "Molly and I always had this dream of moving to the country. One of the plans we had was to have our own CSA."
A CSA is where local people contract with a local producer to buy everything from eggs and chickens to fruits and vegetables. The consumer usually pays a fee, upfront, before the crop is even harvested. This allows the farmer to have guaranteed income, and the consumer a nice selection of products straight off the farm.
CSAs are wildly popular in and around metropolitan areas and starting to be found more and more in rural areas like Redwood County.
"The Seward Co-op has a huge CSA fair every year," Molly said. "The produce department there is about having all local product as soon as they can get it in. So it actually makes you feel like you can make it happen when you work at a place like that."
At the Seward Co-op, Suss was the produce buyer and worked with more than 30 local farmer to bring his customers the best possible quality local vegetables and fruits.
This exposure motivated Steven and Molly to transfer from selling other people's produce to raising and selling there own.
"We both shared the dream of moving to the country and having a little farm," Suss said. "We wanted to 'do it the old fashion way' and make what you can off of the land. I don't know if it was something we would actually ever get around to doing."
The pair started off looking at farm sites in Wisconsin, around the Menomonie area. They quickly found out that buying a ready-to-go farm site near a relatively large population center was a bit out of their price range.
"It cost a lot more than what we were willing to pay," Molly said. "Then Ted, Steven's father, approached us with buying this place. At first I was against it. I came and looked at it and thought no way.
"Luckily a friend told me that she didn't understand why I wouldn't move to the Lucan farm. The place was way cheaper, and we have family out here. I thought about it and didn't know why I wouldn't. So I came home and told Steve, 'let's move.'"
Suss borrowed a moldboard plow from a friend, a tractor from his father and turned over sod at their new home this spring to get their CSA up and going. They bought about 50 chickens, some of which will be butchered and some will be saved as laying hens. The place is starting to look like their own little Green Acres.
"We have five, maybe four customers this first year," Molly said. "I'm pretty conservative when it comes to this kind of thing. All the people who bought in are our friends. We are selling our shares cheap this first year - for $200 a piece.
"We just want to get all of the bugs worked out of the system the first year. Let's do it small the first year, make sure we know what we are doing and then we expand."
The Suss's even have a name for there operation: Kicking Mule Farm.
It seems that shortly after the family relocated to rural Lucan their daughter got kicked square in the face by their black mule and was airlifted to the hospital. Her grandpa Ted jokingly said they should call the place Kicking Mule Farm and it stuck.
Even the kids are getting in on the fun of farm life at the Kicking Mule. Steven and Molly's son, Miles, who is eight-years old, is raising antibiotic free, free-range pork with his grandfather.
Miles, but the little entrepreneur he is (just like mom and dad) has his own Web site, milesofpork.com.
Mom and dad have their own Web site, too, www.kickingmulefarm.blogspot.com, highlighting their transition from city to country.
"It's a lot of work, but we love it," Suss. said.
Lucan, Minn. —
