Schierman Agricultural history

1913-present

Agriculture has been the heartbeat of the Schierman family since before it became a business, when farming meant providing food for immediate family and to barter with and gift neighbors. It is a legacy that goes beyond the job, because even our last name translates to ‘wheat farmer’. Throughout generations fathers and grandfathers have taught about the lay of the land, the struggles of farming, livestock, and the mechanics of the machines. But the most wonderful setting to bond with family and friends has always been in a newly planted field, after a long day of working in the dirt.

Schierman

The massive Schierman family movement happened several times after first homesteading in a valley along the Palouse River, not far from where Oasis Productions Organics and The Fresh Idea Farm reside today. Many distant relatives still live in the Palouse area, after taking root throughout generations of agricultural life on the rolling hills and the communities they cradle. The first Schierman homestead contained several houses and farms to provide food and comfort to extended family making the trip from Russia. Often, after a few years, a couple ambitious families would move out in search of land of their own to purchase or claim, leaving behind a welcoming and furnished home and a thriving farm for other Schierman family members to begin a new and free life. Even in America, life has its bumps in the road, and many knew the struggles it would entail to create a sustainable space to call their own. From the ripping of the first sections of sod, removing trees and shrubbery, and “picking” rocks; to horse-drawn farming teams, stitching and hoisting grain sacks, dust storms, horse-powered combines, the great depression, cook wagons, floods, world wars, tractors, and finally self-propelled combines. The agricultural world has evolved beyond imagination from the day when a farmer could spend all day plowing his field with a horse-drawn implement, only to spit across his entire days work. Luckily, the mechanical age had its minds on the matter, and invented some of the most intricate contraptions of modern agriculture still evolving today.

With farming, comes hands-on training in welding, woodworking, construction, mechanics, sustainability, food preservation, weather watching, and self-sufficiency. A trait and behavior that can make a man proud to work hard to provide without end, and a metaphorical and physical place to hang his hat or cool trapped feet in a stream. Even more proud he is to be greeted with homemade cooking, organics, and a healthy selection of meats, preserves and fermentations.

We may think life in that time was full of impossibilities and hardships; which, indeed it was. However, we are the ones, now burdened with global climate change, light pollution, urban sprawl, and natural desecration, who must work our way through unforeseen futures in hope of healthier and more enjoyable living. We as a global race must remember and practice the simple ways of our ancestors and their relationship with the earth, and encourage nature’s irreplaceable gifts to flourish in our modern industrial society in hopes of realistic environmental balance.