It's a little ear-ly for harvest, but the corn and people are already sweet

We have made it to the Midwest and we are happy to say that people have been really kind and welcoming. We started off this leg of the trip in Galesburg, IL where we are staying with Susan and Tye Thompson, who work a small family farm.


We were surprised to learn that every corn kernel has a silk attached and if it does not get pollinated from the tassels above, then the kernel will not form. Above are the golden locks of an ear.


All harvesting is done in the fall with combines, which are huge and roll through the fields sucking up the cobs and spitting out only kernels. Unfortunately we have not been able to see one in action, as they are only used later on during harvest. This one is six rows and is considered a moderate size.



Charlie Malley, a corn farmer and good storyteller.


Kevin Malley, who, along with his father, gave us his family history and explained everything you would ever need to know about tile and corn farming with lasers (which is apparently how everything is done these days).


Horseshoe nails pounded into wedding rings from Kevin's grandparents' farm.


A view of the grain bins, the skyscrapers of rural Illinois. Some of them hold upwards of 100,000 bushels of corn.


Keith Morling, his plots are spread over several counties, which makes it harder to farm in some respects, but also helps diffuse weather risks.


A view from the top of a grain bin.


Keith with one of his semi-trucks.


Doug Inness with his son's 4-H-bound calfs. Farmers these days rarely spend time out in the field, so raising calfs is one way to stay connected to the old family farming days. He blows fans on them three times a day to keep the flies off and brushes them by hand.


Doug bought this poster after seeing it in Sky Mall. He felt it epitomized his views on putting his family before farming.


This is Chris Bertelson, a seed seller for Crows, which is a division of Monsanto. We spent 9 hours with his putting up signs and checking out fields. It was interesting seeing the other side of the business (although Nora is still not a fan of the company, despite the fact they treated us to peanut butter m&ms and coffee).


Karl reviewing his field's stats.


Surveying growth.


One of Chris' customers.


Jim Purlee, a farmer who hit it big with ethanol farming 8,000 acres and now rarely steps out into the field because he can afford hired men.


Sunrise on the Thompson farm.


Susan and Tye.



Tye is a grilling machine. The outdoor kitchen has probably never seen that many vegetables, but since us veggies are in town, Tye conceded to upping the veggie count.


Everyone here is tye-dye crazy!


Kate helping the man by putting up a sign.


The tractors and combines here are so big the tires are taller than we are!


Out here in the Midwest we ride in style. We are headed off to the taste of Galesburg with Susan and Tye's son Sam and their exchange student Taps.

Kernels of truth from Mexico

So as our trip winds down, we are sad to be leaving this beauitful country, but excited to begin the Midwest leg and happy to have come full cirlce. This last week we spent in Xalatlaco, where we experienced a Temezcal purification ceremony, lived with a Shaman, and interviewed a few more farmers. All in all it was an interesting and probably the most intense experience of the trip.



We spent the first day with the ^vegetarian^ shaman, who bought us figs and then took us to eat beef tacos.



Here is the shaman with his son, preparing the water for the temezcal.


This is the fire burning at the start of the temezcal. We were basically trapped inside a little room with 20 other half naked Mexicans, inhaling herb-infused scalding air, while chanting to the earth gods, for 2 hours. ^Our bodies are earth, our blood is water.^ We wanted it to be cleansing, but it was kind of hell and impossible to relax. We spent the two hours pretty much plastered to the cool stone floor.


The Shaman and his son, Huespali. During our time at their house Huespali killed a frog, left chicharron pig fat in our bedsheets, taught Nora the saying ^Que de Queso^ and would not let us enjoy the Michael Jackson special in peace. He was trying to convince us that MJ had been to his fathers temezcal. RIP MJ, we will see a butter sculpture of you soon.



The shaman is not really a shaman, but a Nahuatl tlatuani. He says he is not a leader, but someone with higher power and knowledge. He learned his wisdom from his mother and is also a corn farmer. Que Suerte!


The sunset from our stay with the Shaman. He said in his interview that before he plants corn he always raises his arms to the sun and asks for a good harvest.



The most beautiful sky in all of Mexico.



Eating chicharron (fried pig fat) during an intense lightning storm where we lost power.

Don Meterio is a farmer we spent a morning with. He is one of the few people we have encountered who still plant blue corn.

We had breakfast with the family around a fifteen person dinner table and drank the best tea of the trip.

We helped him and the boys weed that day.

Eating Capulines. Nora was very excited to come to the realization, after eating the fruit the entire trip, that capulines are like Mexican cherries!!! She also managed to squirt them all over her shirt.....

That afternoon we had the pleasure of joining Don Pablo and his wife Rufina on one of their twice-daily trips to extract pulque from the giant Maguey (agave) plants. It has been said that pulque is extremely nutritious, one degree away from our very own blood. It is the water of the plant, extracted by sucking on a tube, and then fermenting it for 12 hours.

We also spent a day with Don Andres. He fell off a horse four years ago and that sufficed as an explanation for his spaciness, as far as we were concerned.

He also told us many versions of a story in which he was bitten by a snake, tried to suck out the venom himself (we got a demonstration of him licking his hand), and could not hold a taco for two hours!!!! Crisis!!!

His wife. Feeding goats.

We are getting a little husky from all this elote...

After a mini vacation in Mexico City, visiting museums, pounding the pavement of old cobblestone neighborhoods, and eating lots of street food and chocolate, we made our way back to the corn fields in Atlacomulco. We spent our time there with an amazing family, headed by Melecio and Alicia. Melecio is an expert storyteller and Alicia is stonefaced until you gain her confidence and then she becomes super warm and smiley and winky.



Alicia feeding the crazy turkeys.




We met these awesome women weeding the corn and tomatoe fields, barefoot in the mud. BADASS!




Much of the corn that is produced on Melecios 5 hectares is fed to their crop of cows, which they milk daily and turn into cheese. We got to eat a lot of it, and surprisingly, we had never had this kind of cheese before. SO GOOD in a quesadilla! And they gave us a giant block to take home, which we made into pan de elote last night!



Simon milking the herd. Simon became a part of their family when he became an orphan at the age of 2. They say he is the hardest worker and we witnessed him being the heftiest eater, as well.



Alicia making cheese. mmmmmmm



While we were there, we became intimately aquainted with the riveting corn publication, Nuestro Maiz. Kate was very into it at midnight.



We spent a dusty morning mixing fertilizer.



Then we trekked out to the field for a few hours to spread it by hand. Sadly, we were not of much use, as they would not allow us to help, thinking we were weaklings.

We finally got a ride in the tractor!

That night we drove to the top of the highest mountain in Mexico. Allegedly an hour each way, but really more like 3.5 hours in total, and we got back about two hours late for our bus.

Right now it is elote season around here, which pretty much means one type of fresh corn. Each elote costs 1 peso. That means 13 ears of corn for $1. So cheap and so tasty! It is the tradtion here to eat the corn boiled, then rubbed with lime and covered in mayo, cheese, and chile. Below are pictures of us indulging in two elotes each. Such a delicious lunch.

We also got to pull our elotes right off the stalk. The field next to this was completely destroyed by hail and the next day when we drove by they had cut all of the corn stalks down.