(rock music) - Welcome to a "Shot of AG."

My name is Rob Sharkey.

I'm a fifth generation farmer from just outside of Bradford, Illinois.

But today, today is not about me.

Today is about Jill Craver.

How you doing, Jill?

- Doing great, thanks.

- It's a sneaky last name.

- It is sneaky.

- Because I wanna say Carver.

- Yes.

- But it's Craver.

- Not, yep, Craver.

(Jill laughing) - Maybe just for this interview we could- - You can.

- Okay.

(Jill laughing) - You're from Taylor Ridge, where is that?

- It's about 10 miles from Rock Island, Illinois.

So it's right off the Mississippi River.

- [Rob] Um-hmm.

So probably from Peoria, like, hour and a half.

- Yeah, is that where you're from originally?

- I am, I was born and raised in Taylor Ridge.

I went to Illinois State University, Spent a minute or two (bell rings) oh, (Jill laughing) you, did you go to Illinois State?

- No.

- Oh, (Jill laughing) 'cause it's Bradley?

Should I have said Bradley and lied?

- No, I went to Southern.

- So, yeah.

- Okay, shooo!

- So speak slower, please.

- Okay.

(Jill laughing) - Okay, Taylor Ridge, that's not a very big town, is it?

- No, oh no, I mean, there's not even a gas station.

- Is there a Dollar Store?

- No.

- Okay, or a Casey's, yes, neither one.

- Ooh, that has to hurt a little bit.

- It does.

- Yeah.

- But Reynolds, which is five miles, has one.

- That's not five miles, yeah, that's not bad at all.

- No.

- You grew up there, you grew up on a farm, correct?

- I did, but a grain farm.

- Yeah- - So my- - It's still a farm.

- It's still a farm, it's a big farm.

He did corn and beans, my dad also worked for John Deere, so he had another job, and then- - It's a great company.

- Yes.

(bell rings) Dang it.

(Jill laughing) - You're doing well.

(Rob laughing) What did he do at Deere?

- He always says he taught others how to play and work well with each other.

He was working on the line and then they asked- - Oh, he was a disciplinarian- - Kind of.

- He was a head-thumper.

- He, of course, this was many years ago, but when we were younger, he would take us on his travels and he would go to different companies to see how much the parts were there and how they manufactured and if they would like to bring him in.

- Oh, gotcha, okay.

So growing up, did you know that you wanted to be back in agriculture?

- No, actually in FFA I wasn't even a member of, which is now definitely one of my rules I have for my kiddos when they go to school, is I really want them to be a part of FFA.

I never did FFA- - You want them or you force them to be?

- I encourage them to do it for one year.

- Yeah.

- And then they may make their own decisions.

- How many kids do you have?

- I have six.

- You said six?

- Six.

- Okay, wow.

(Jill laughing) How are you sane?

- They don't come at once.

I always say they came one at a time.

I had 24 to seven, so- - You'd have your own reality show if you had 'em all at once?

- Probably.

- Jill plus, whatever.

(Jill and Rob laughing) - Well, I mean, a big family, a lot of fun- - A big family.

- You're, how long have you been married?

- We have been married, oh my gosh, I should know this, 20 years.

- 20 years, where'd you meet your husband?

- We met at Black Hawk College, then we both went to Illinois State together.

- Did you meet in a bar?

- No, we met at Hy-Vee.

- Same thing.

(Jill laughing) - I mean, literally, who hasn't gone to Hy-Vee and just started drinking?

(Jill laughing) - How do you meet at Hy-Vee?

- We both worked there.

- Oh, okay.

I thought it was just random pickup in the produce aisle or something like that at.

- No, at 16.

(Jill and Rob laughing) No.

- Well, that's great, 20 years.

Did he have any ag background?

- No.

He went to Rock Island High School.

He worked on a farm, so, and he always teasingly would say he wanted to be a farmer someday.

- [Rob] Um-hmm.

- But it was too hard.

- Was that just to pick you up?

He was like, "Oh, I want to be a farmer."

- No, he actually bailed hay and he liked it.

That's the one job that I, I don't like milking cows and I don't like baling hay.

- I, well, I hear you.

- Those are hard.

- You studied marketing?

- I did, I studied marketing at Illinois State and then after that I became a pharmaceutical rep and I ran the Chicago territory.

- Ooh, that sounds mobish.

- It was mobish, it was shocking for me, I think.

I think there's not a lot of grass.

It was a lot of stress, but I really did like it.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- So much so, but I missed home.

I asked my boss if I could come back to Taylor Ridge, Illinois and he said, "Yes, I will make you a position."

So that's how I got back home, is he created position for me to work there.

I was no longer like their area supervisor, area trainer.

I just was a regular rep then.

- Okay, so how did the whole farm start?

- So we- - Little Red Barn?

- Little Red Barn, so it is, I grew up in a barn, I always say.

But there was a little red barn on this property that we bought and we built our own house.

We were very fortunate.

We just bought three acres.

I thought I would stay a pharmaceutical rep. My husband worked for the city at the time.

Now he works for the county running our forest reserve district.

And I thought that that's probably what we were gonna do.

But I really kind of fell in love with it.

I was in Quincy, Illinois, I waited a whole year for this interview.

There was seven doctors there, hard to get in.

- [Rob] Um-hmm.

- So you have to wait, and I'd brought them lunch and right before I was- - Bribing them?

- Yes.

- Yeah.

- They're very into that.

So, I brought them lunch and right before I was delivering the presentation, my phone rang from the school my daughter was at, and they said, your daughter is very sick.

You need to come home.

Well, I'm an hour and a half away and she probably wanted her mom and I couldn't come for a while.

- Yeah.

- So it was kind of my aha moment.

I thought, is this what I wanna do or would I like to maybe be able to be closer to home?

So I went home that night and asked my husband if he would be opposed to maybe me figuring out something different.

And he said, "Sure, but we probably have "to have a food source."

So we went ahead and we just started like- - Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Let's not skip over that conversation, shall we?

So you basically told your husband that you were not gonna work anymore and forced him to say, "I'm okay with that."

- And he was fine with that, yes.

- He didn't even like, blink- - Again- I would've never, if I was in this reverse situation, I would've never have blinked, like, I would've been like, "No."

I carried our health insurance, I carried our daycare.

So it was- - So this was huge.

- It was major.

- Yeah.

- And we just built a brand new house.

- Well, you had to be terrified.

- I was terrified and I don't think I would've done it 'cause I was just expecting him to say, "Oh, you'll be fine tomorrow."

- Yeah.

- And he wasn't, he was like, "No, let's start a farm."

- Okay again, I don't wanna belabor this, but I mean, you had an emotional day with your daughter.

- For sure.

- I mean, is that, did you realize you were making an emotional decision?

- I think it was five years in the making.

I, every day, would take my kid to daycare and then I would call my husband bawling saying, "This is hard to leave them."

- [Rob] Yeah.

I had, at the time I had, it was her.

She was five or six at the time, but I also had a two-year-old who did not speak.

And so when I left him at daycare, he would go to the window, watch me leave, I'd get in my car and cry.

And when I'd come back, he would be at that same window because who could, I was the only one that knew what he was saying without speaking.

- Yeah?

- So I just imagined him, which I'm sure he didn't, he probably had a great time.

He probably was going down the water slides.

- You thought he was there the whole day.

- Yeah, I feel like, that's what I was picturing as a mother, which I'm sure was not true.

- It's like when you walk back in the house and the dog is at the door, it's like, "Were you there all day?"

- Yes, yes.

- Oh gosh!

- So I think he probably was tired of me calling crying every day saying I felt bad for Dylan.

- Okay.

So maybe this wasn't an emotional decision, but it was more like the straw that broke the back.

- Yes, exactly.

- Okay, okay, so now, you're not gonna be pedaling drugs anymore.

- Right.

- What are you gonna do?

- Right, and I was like, well, my mom always canned food and- - Okay.

- We're gonna start this garden.

So we opened the garden and we definitely had way more than what we could possibly freeze, can, so- - Oh yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, he was like, this is a lot.

He's like let's- - So the garden was just gonna be for your family?

- Oh yeah!

- Oh, okay.

- I was just gonna stay at home.

I don't know what I thought I was gonna do.

- I don't either.

- I don't either, I don't know if I thought money was gonna fall from the sky.

Apparently I did.

No, I just thought I wanted to take some time to regroup.

I always said when I went to pharmaceutical, every three months, you went away for your brainwashing, is kind of what I said.

And I was like, so I really don't know if I believed what I was doing was the right calling for me.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And I really missed the farm.

So once I built this farm, I kind of thought, "Okay, well let's add a couple sheep," 'cause I've always raised sheep.

And I was like, "Let's add a couple."

We had five and then I had one cow and it just kept growing from there, so- - Okay.

- It just kind of was- - But when did it become a business?

- I would say in 2008, and this is also really a, my support group maybe was too supportive of me.

So I had a three-year-old, a two-year-old and a nine-month old.

And I told my mom I was going to start working at the farmer's market and growing an acre of vegetables.

And my mom said, "What are you thinking?"

- They probably thought you were like, growing the funny grass.

- I don't know what they were thinking 'cause they said to me, "You can't do that."

And of course those are words that are like, "Well of course I can do this."

- Oh, you're one of those?

- Yeah, I'm one of those, which always gets me in trouble.

So yeah, we started growing and we made no money the first year.

We made enough to buy a little tractor and then the next year we bought the equipment that went with the tractor.

And I would say we would say, we did not really put anything in our pocket for at least three years.

- Oh, okay.

- It was a long time.

- Yeah.

- That a lot of- - That's quite a life change from when you were- - Yes.

- Yeah.

- It is, yes, but not as far-fetched as what you're thinking because I mean, I grew up with parents that were very conservative with their financials.

You know, we never, if you didn't have the money, you just didn't spend it, and that's- - [Rob] You didn't go out to the Red Lobster.

- Right, and that's how my husband and I are, as well, I would say.

- Okay, but you're doing well now.

- We're doing, I think, fantastic, yes.

- Ooh, I like that word.

- Yes, I mean, farming I always say is a challenge.

Mother nature, she's one of the hardest women to work with.

She doesn't always give you the rain when you need.

- [Rob] They're all about the same, actually.

(Jill laughing) - She doesn't always give you rain- Am I right, Will?

The weather doesn't always work out.

But that's why I do things like candles and soaps.

- Yeah, so let's talk about these.

What are these made out of?

- So they're a hundred percent soy.

There's no lead in our wicks, and the oils are usually pretty clean.

- So the soy candles, they don't smoke, as bad.

- They don't smoke.

My husband has severe asthma and allergies.

- Oh, that's good.

- And so when he smells like, perfume, his head gets hurt.

And a lot of times his chest tightens.

So in order for me to be able to have something in the house, I had to make my own.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- So I brought a couple to the market.

'Cause you can't just- - I can't put the lid on.

(Jill laughing) That's good, we should have lit this.

- We could have.

- Yeah.

Do you want to know something that really annoys the crew here?

- Uh-oh, laughing?

- Oh, that, that is true.

(candle rattles) (rattling continues) - Okay, we got candles, what else are you making?

- I also make goat milk soap.

- Yes.

- And that is because my cute little, now 19-year-old was three at the time and he loved to wash his hands.

So every time we come in from outside you wash your hands- - You what?

- Yes.

- A three-year-old?

- He did, but when you have liquid soap, you would go through one of those bottles constantly.

So I thought, okay, I can make my own.

Took me a little while.

This I've been making for 35 years, but this, I've only been making for 15.

- Okay, I don't generally, I do not like stuff, the fragrances, I just don't.

This one, what's this one?

- It's oatmeal.

So the nice thing about oatmeal, it's got a little roughness to it.

- It smells fantastic.

- So if messing with dirt, which I always am- - Yeah.

- It really helps to scrub it out.

- Oh it's got, you remember that Lava soap?

- Yes.

(Jill laughing) You ever have that?

Stuff that would take like, the first layer of skin off?

So what's this made out of?

- It's goat milk, and the reason why I use goat milk is it's moisturizing for your skin.

- Oh, well I'm all about that.

(Jill laughing) What's your your best selling flavor?

Flavor, scent?

- Scent?

- Yeah.

- I would say probably this mango-papaya.

- Really?

- Sorry, that was me.

That was not him, that was totally me.

- Yeah, that's ridiculous.

- Sorry about that.

- I would've thought, I would've thought it was, the oatmeal.

- The oatmeal?

- The oatmeal is incredible.

- It is, it's a strong second I would say.

- Okay, alright, well I don't wanna mess those up.

So you've got this, you've got, where's the produce at?

'Cause you do a bunch of that stuff too?

- I do, I always say I grow everything from asparagus to zucchini.

I really try to focus on fruit.

That is probably one of my favorite things.

We have a lot of trees, so we have apples, cherries.

- Yeah, put that bad boy down.

(Jill laughing) Alright, now get off my set.

(Jill and crew laughing) - Interns.

- Hey, you could have, you gotta take this.

Oh, the rocking thing out.

So what have we got here?

- So right now, this is kind of the beginning of the season.

So these are the first things that we come out with.

We have rhubarb- - [Rob] Um-hmm.

- We have about an acre of asparagus- - An acre of asparagus?

- We do have an acre of asparagus.

- Woo!

That's, an acre is a football field.

- I know, I know I walk it every day.

- We have a patch as big as this desk.

And we literally, we can't keep up with it.

- No, you- - All of a sudden it's just like a, we've got one that thick on there.

- It's so fast.

- Yeah, what are these?

- So those are spaghetti squash.

Back in the olden days, we obviously didn't have refrigerators, so that's been stored since last year.

- Really?

- Um-hmm.

- So in the fall, right?

- Yeah, we pick it in September, October and then we store it and sell it throughout the winter.

- I see that, but I never see it like, in a restaurant.

Is it any, any good?

- Yeah, oh, yeah.

- Are you just saying that 'cause you're trying to sell it, or- - I am, I have a whole bunch, a load of it, in my garage I need to get out.

No, it really is, it doesn't lose its quality.

And then we also do like a seven leaf lettuce and then we also have popcorn that was grown last year and then we just started getting strawberries.

- Oh, what am I messing with the damn lettuce for?

- Right, you missed it.

- Yeah.

- These are the day-neutral strawberries.

- Seven leaf lettuce.

(Jill laughing) - It's the strawberries that you want.

- Mmm.

- I know, I ate a whole bunch this morning, I'm not gonna lie.

I was picking and I was supposed to be focusing.

- We used to have blueberries and I could never pick those because- - Oh, yeah, we have blueberries.

- Yeah, really, you can grow those?

- We have 450 of 'em, yes we can.

- I had to, it hurt as a farmer, because I had to abuse my soil.

I had to make it more acidic- - Yes.

- In able to get the blueberries to grow.

- Pine needles are excellent.

- Oh, I used artificial stuff.

- And you can.

- Yeah.

- You can.

- Tell me the story about the popcorn.

- So the popcorn was back a long, long time ago, My dad always grew an acre of popcorn and one year, I hate to say this story 'cause it shows how old I am, one year I wanted a VCR to tape some shows.

(Jill laughing) - Was it a beta or whatever the other one was, VCR?

- VHS, thank you, thank you, Will, yes.

- So in order to get that, my dad said, "Okay, we'll do this acre of popcorn, you'll pick it."

- What do you mean do an acre of popcorn?

- Like he grew it and then we had to hand-pick it and then- - An acre?

- An acre, and then he shelled it.

And I always think about this it was the best Thanksgiving, but my grandma had just died, so we no longer had a place to go at noon.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- So we always would have a wiener roast at noon on Thanksgiving and like, all the family would come and pick.

It was pretty ingenious on his part.

- Okay, an acre, I- - An acre.

- I grow field corn, it's- - Takes you minutes.

- I'm guessing an acre of popcorn is around 30,000 plants.

- It takes forever.

- 30,000 plants.

- You don't do it in one day.

- No!

- No.

You do, usually like, well, there's a lot of kids.

So usually we each take a row- - [Rob] Um-hmm.

- And then we have gunny sacks that we get our potatoes from that we use to put 'em in.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And then we will, we'll race or whatever, but usually it takes us a couple weeks to pick it.

- This is probably the most underrated plant in the Midwest.

- I love rhubarb.

Do you like rhubarb?

- I love rhubarb.

- Me too.

- My wife, she will go and she'll pick strawberries at whatever- - Yes, the local berry- - Pick your own or whatever and she'll come with like, I don't know, baskets like this, right?

And then she'll go get the rhubarb and then she mixes all done in jam and there's like one jar made out of all that.

- I know.

- It's so, I'm like in the kitchen, I'm like looking at all this, I'm like, "Oh, I can't wait."

- "It's gonna last us all winter."

- "Look what we made!"

- You can have this one now, this one later.

- Yeah, what do you make outta the rhubarb?

- I like a crisp.

- Oh yeah?

- I love rhubarb crisp.

And I do make a sauce, which is similar to what your jam is.

I make a sauce and sometimes I'll just freeze it because then you can put it on ice cream.

You can put it on- - [Rob] Yeah.

- Anything you really want, toast if you really want to, but I like mine on ice cream.

- Yeah, I sure hope none of the viewers watching send us any rhubarb jam.

That would be- - That would be terrible for you.

- That would be horrible.

(Jill laughing) - And rhubarb is, is now, I mean, I picked- - Rhubarb is ever, you can't kill this thing.

- No.

- It's like asparagus.

- Yes, agreed.

And they sit right next to each other on my farm.

But yes, they are very, very happy.

They're easy.

- You can tell like where old farmhouses are in the country.

- Yes.

- Because they're still asparagus patches.

- And you'll just see it coming up.

- Yeah.

- And you can just mow it down and it's still happy.

- Yeah, you do a good job at picking it to right size.

- Thank you.

- And that's all, you do it all by hand?

- Oh yes, we just walk the rows.

Usually I walk the rows, usually do it every day, too, that's important.

- And then do you spray this?

- No, we don't.

- How do you weed it all?

- So we do a lot of burn.

- Oh, okay.

- So we burn so we can get rid of our weed seeds.

- Yeah.

- That's what we are mainly, I mean that's probably our best.

But we'll also like rototill, cultivate, and then we'll do hand weeding, and we do a lot of weed whipping.

Like, our strawberry fields, we weed whip.

- Weed whip?

- Yeah, so like you'll, to make your rows.

- Oh, like a cultivate type of- - Of kind of, but it's all by hand you weed it with a little weed whipper.

- Oh, the weed whacker.

- Um-hmm.

- Alright, I got you now.

So this is what you're doing, this is your business?

- Yeah, I mean everyone helps.

I mean, all, my entire family.

My husband has an eight-to-five job, but he comes home and always helps.

And my kids help.

- Does have a choice?

- No (Jill laughing) not at all.

- Tell me about the pollinator plant, plot.

- So we just started an acre.

We have bees, we have like five or six beehives.

And my husband really wanted to do the bees and I was very unsure of it.

- Um-hmm.

- And I can tell you that it had doubled my production, I would say, of all my fruit plants.

Like the amount of work those bees do on our farm and then still give us benefits is amazing.

We planted, we have 80 acre set aside.

We did an acre of the pollinator just to help with like the bees and the, just different variations for the animals.

Because again, we don't use a lot of chemicals on our farm.

We do, if I always say we're a common sense farm, where I'm not gonna sit there and watch Japanese beetles take out our entire crop.

- Yeah, but the people that are buying this probably don't want you to.

- No, and I, we'd never have to for asparagus.

- Yeah, it grows, it can grow through concrete.

(Rob and Jill laughing) - That is true.

- If, I mean, where can people find your stuff?

Where are you?

- So I'm at Freight House Farmer's Market Saturday from eight to one.

- It's in the Quad Cities?

- In the Quad Cities.

- Davenport?

- Davenport, Iowa.

- Okay.

- On the Mississippi River.

And then we also do Sundays 10 to two.

We have a cute little stand outside that's an honor system down the lane of our farm.

And then- - Have you ever been dinked by doing that?

- We have, but I would say in the 15 years we've been doing it, hardly at all.

- Yeah.

- Sometimes I think they give us way too much money.

I'm like, whoa, and I'll have a little text message.

Oh, this is all I had.

Can I get a credit for next time or something cute like that.

- An IOU?

- Yeah.

(Rob laughing) - I mean it's very, it's very nice.

And then we also have an online site that we do that we have pickups on Tuesdays in Teske's in Moline.

- [Rob] What's that address?

- It's Quad City Farm Market.

And you just go online and you order the produce and then you pick it up on a Tuesday.

- [Rob] Are you guys online?

- Um-hmm, and our candles and soap we sell online.

- What's the address?

- It is on- - She took the candles.

- She's on our candles.

- We need a candle back, yeah.

You don't know your website?

- I think it's CraversLittleRedBarn@square.com.

- I'm taking maybe you don't do the website that much.

- I don't, my daughter does, she's 17.

- Yeah, so what's it say?

- It's CraversLittleRedBarn.square.site.

It's what I said, but I- - But you like to have confirmation, don't ya?

- I like to have confirmation.

- Yeah, Craver again is C-R-A-V-E-R. - Yes.

- Yeah.

Spelled wrong but that's the way you want to, that's the way you want to do.

- Let's proceed.

- Yeah, I am, I'm upset that we didn't light this sucker up.

Are these edible?

- You know, no.

- You can eat anything, yeah.

(Jill laughing) - I am the beholder.

- I love the story.

I love how you guys weren't content with your life and wanted to put everything into the kids and the family and the farm was a way for you to do it.

- And I would not change it.

- Yeah.

- I was scared.

(Jill laughing) - I also- - I was terrified.

- I also know the amount of work that you go into.

- That's, it's incredible.

- It's rewarding though.

- Yeah.

- I mean it's work that you see.

- Yeah.

- That you actually see come.

- Okay, Jill Craver from Taylor Ridge, that's in Rock Island County.

Go check 'em out.

And yeah, if you're in the area, why wouldn't you stop and buy all this stuff?

And it's the honor system.

So don't be a jerk.

Nothing wrong with tipping, right?

- Oh yeah!

- Yeah.

(Jill laughing) - I never thought about that.

Let's promote that.

- Let's promote tipping, alright.

Jill, thank you very much, really, really enjoyed it.

Everybody else, we'll catch you next time.

(rock music)