(upbeat rock music) (upbeat rock music fades) - Welcome to "A Shot of Ag."

I'm your host, Rob Sharkey.

I am a farmer.

A lot of people think farming is just raising corn, soybeans, pigs, hogs, but today's farmers have to get real inventive.

They have to be creative.

And today's guests have done exactly that.

Today we're talking with Erick and Christine Kane.

Now you guys are from Ottawa.

- Yeah.

- That's a ways.

Where's Ottawa at?

- Right on Interstate 80 just kind of between LaSalle, Peru, and Morris.

- How long did it take you to get to Peoria here?

- Just about an hour, hour and a half.

- Should have been longer.

- You guys a little heavy-footed?

- A little bit, so.

- Who drove?

- I did.

We wanted to get here early.

- That's no shocker, huh?

(Christine laughs) - No cops?

You didn't see any of those?

- It's Tuesday.

There's a lot of 'em out today, so.

- Okay.

- Seems like you see a lot more on Tuesdays.

- Tuesday is police day?

- I think so, especially if you're taking Interstate 80.

- Okay.

(laughs) Now you live in Ottawa now or outside of it?

- We live in Ottawa still.

- Okay.

- We hope to move out to the farm in the next few years, so.

- [Rob] So your farm is where?

- We're right on the east edge of Ottawa, kind of between the Morris Blacktop and Interstate 80.

- Okay.

Now where are you from originally?

- I'm originally from Western Illinois, a little town called Roseville, and we moved to Ottawa 14 years ago, so.

- [Rob] Now did you grow up on a farm?

- I did, I grew up on a cattle, hog, corn, soybean farm.

A lot of hay also, so.

- Now, Christine, you did not?

- No, I grew up in Cary, a northwest suburb.

I probably had never stepped foot on a farm probably until I met this guy.

(laughs) - [Rob] So where'd you guys meet?

- In Western Illinois University.

I went to Illinois State, but then after I graduated, we went back over there helping on the farm.

- You went to a party?

- I did.

- That what it was?

- I went with some high school friends down to Macomb to go out and met her there, so.

- [Rob] Was it love at first sight?

- [Christine] I think so.

- I think so.

- Yeah, we were pretty inseparable from that day forward.

- [Rob] And how long you been married?

- 14 years, just a hair over 14.

- 14, well, congratulations.

So, Christine, you did not grow up on a farm, and then you meet this farm boy, and you're falling in love.

But when you guys were getting serious and thinking, "Hey, we could have a life together," was farming part of the discussion?

- No, I never in a million years thought I would be sitting here in this seat talking to you about my life on a farm, never in a million years.

- I mean, did that thought, was it- - No, I didn't think that I would be part of any farming adventures or anything like that.

- Okay, well how did it come about?

- Well, I've always been interested, I mean, I've always wanted to do farming.

You know, being born and raised on a farm, most people, that's what they wanna do.

But I've done construction ever since I got out of college, and, I just, I kept watching this piece of property that was for sale and think I'd been watching it for over seven years, and price finally just kept coming down, and it was time to either do it or forget about it.

And so we got a hold of the people that owned it, and they worked with me on it.

- Did you do it without asking Christine?

- No, no.

(Christine laughs) - Aw.

- That wouldn't be the first time he purchased properties without talking to me, though, so.

- I have bought a few rental houses without asking first.

- You what?

- Oh yeah - A funeral house?

- A few rental houses, a few of 'em.

- Oh my gosh, I thought... That would be a dinner discussion, wouldn't it?

- That would be something.

- Yeah.

- No, we definitely talked about it for a long time before we made an offer on it.

- Yeah.

- And you planned on making this... You call it a farm, right?

- Yeah, I farm, or I hoped to eventually call it agritourism complex is what- - Compound.

- Oh, okay, that will work.

(Christine and Rob laugh) I mean, the property was originally gonna be a subdivision, and they only built one house there.

And then in '08, everything went down, so it just sat after that.

And so it's got roads throughout the property and ponds and electricity and natural gas.

So for what I wanna do, it's pretty well set up for it.

- So tell me about it now.

What does it all entail?

- So currently we're only raising about five acres of pumpkins.

- Only?

I mean, pumpkins, that's a ton of pumpkins.

- It's a lot of pumpkins.

I did six last year.

This year we're only gonna do five.

I hope that we have enough.

But last year we had some left over, but we also had perfect conditions last year for weather.

- A lot of cool varieties of pumpkins.

They're not just the same basic orange pumpkins, but you we're talking, we had- - Little over 50 varieties.

- 50 Different varieties.

- And these are not like canning pumpkins?

These are- - No, decorative ones.

- Jack-o'-lanterns, yeah.

- Yep, gourds and different colored pumpkins.

We got, you know, the greens, blues.

We got some pink ones, some white ones.

- Pink pumpkins?

- Coral or pink.

I don't know exactly what color they call 'em, but they- - Just paint 'em.

- The customers call 'em pink.

- We did do that.

- Yeah, we did paint some, but we did some this year several different varieties of Indian corn and decorative corns.

So we had a five, five and a half-acre corn maze last year, and this year it's gonna be pretty comparable size, and use that a lot for...

I mean, the people spend a lot of time out there, and last year we had a lot of school, or a few school fundraisers.

This year we're hoping to have one every weekend, so.

- Okay, before we get into that, you grew up corn, soybeans, cattle, right?

- Right.

- You grew up in the suburbs.

- Yeah.

- How do you learn how to grow five acres of pumpkins?

- Trial and error.

I joined the Illinois Specialty Growers Association.

I learned a lot from that.

I've been trying to read up as much as I can and- - [Rob] YouTube?

- Some YouTube.

I've been very fortunate with other growers that are very open about how they do things and have showed me a lot of things.

So we've had several, like I said, several other businesses that have been great on providing information, so.

- Now, do you both have off-farm jobs?

- We do.

The farm is a night and weekend and days-off project.

- [Rob] That's supposed to be your downtime.

- What's that?

(laughs) - So what do you do for a side gig or for your main gig?

- So my main thing, we do spray foam insulation.

It's Prairie State Insulation.

- This stuff, huh?

- Yep, we spray a lot of new houses, farm buildings, commercial buildings.

- Yeah, that's stout.

- It adds a lot of strength to the buildings.

- Can you break that off?

- [Erick] Potentially.

I mean, if you really try it, I'm sure you could.

- Does it make you nervous when I'm trying to?

I'm putting a lot of pressure on.

I mean, I know how to...

I put pepper on my steak, you know what I'm saying?

I don't think I can rip that apart.

- Yeah, it's pretty tough stuff.

So we use it a lot in seed warehouses even just because it helps seal up for bugs and mice from getting into the seed.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- But we do that and then a lot of commercial roofing and roof coatings that we spray on buildings.

So like if you got an old machine shed, we can spray the roof on it and seal it up with a silicone or acrylic products.

- That's work doing that.

- Yeah.

Usually get a lot of sun throughout the summer, so.

- Christine, what do you do?

- I'm a school psychologist at our local school district in town.

So I'm supposed to have summers off, one of the perks of the job, but I spend all my free time working for the farm.

- I didn't know you were a psychologist.

Now I feel like you're analyzing me.

- (laughs) I might be.

We'll talk about it off air.

- I'm sure, I'm sure we will.

(laughs) You speak other languages?

- I do speak a little bit of French, yes, oui.

- You were doing the count to 10 for us.

That was cool.

(Christine speaks in French) - [Rob] Quatre is three?

- Four.

- Quatre is four.

Quatre is four in French.

How do you know French?

- I studied abroad.

Well, I studied abroad in college.

- Yeah, we all did, huh?

- Yeah.

- Am I saying...

Sorry.

Okay, so you're at a school site.

Like kids, high school, grade-school kids?

- Yeah, our school district, Ottawa Elementary, is preschool through eighth grade.

- Okay.

And that has sure changed over the years because we never had a psychologist when we were in school, but now I guess we understand stuff more?

- Yeah, I think there's a lot more awareness, a lot more talking about mental health and things like that too, so, I enjoy my job there a lot.

- Is that a job you can not take home with you?

- It's tough because there's a lot of interesting stories and things like that.

There's a lot of paperwork.

The paperwork you can bring home or the paperwork can wait for you.

- No, I'm not talking about the paperwork, yeah.

- But it's the stories.

The emotional trauma and the things like that, it's hard to detach from.

- Yeah, because what you do is incredibly important.

I just always worry like for people that do your job.

I mean, I would have a hard time hearing those stories and not thinking about those kids because I mean, you gotta have a life too.

- Yeah, but, you know, I love working with children, and I wanna try to help them as best as I can.

So sometimes those stories are traumatic and those experiences, but it's also very rewarding at the same time.

- Yeah, well, God bless you because, I mean, that's... Yeah, that would be very hard at times, and it takes a very special person to do that, so.

- Thank you.

- All right, back to the farm.

You started with pumpkins.

Is that like the first thing?

- That was the first thing.

We did the pumpkins and the corn maze, and then we planted some sunflowers just for people to get their pictures in front of and- - [Rob] For the Gram, Instagram.

- Yeah, we had a lot of people get their pictures with them, and we borrowed some of my dad's antique tractors and got those out there in front so people could get their pictures with those.

- Your dad's antique.

(laughs) What did your families think about what you were doing?

- My family I think has figured out, I mean, has an ideas, and they've been good about giving us other ideas that they see at places and been very good with helping on things.

But her family has been coming down a lot, and you know, we- - The non-farm family?

- Yeah, the non-farm family.

- I think initially both of our families were just shocked and like, "I can't believe you're gonna take on this huge endeavor."

But they've really, really come to love it, and, you know, they each live a couple hours away from where we are, and they drive down every single weekend to help out on the farm.

And it's been really cool just kind of watching how interested they've become.

You know, our families have really, really thought we were crazy, and they still do, I think, 'cause we keep adding more and trying to expand.

But they're really excited for us.

- Is this hopefully at some point gonna be a full-time job for either one or both of you?

- That's the hope.

I hope in a few years that we can justify being on it full-time.

It's just it costs a lot to do what we're putting up, and so we gotta work at other places to afford it, so.

- Okay, so pumpkins, sunflowers.

Now what are we venturing into?

Tell me about the corn maze.

- So we have a corn maze, and this year we actually added a haunted trail, which will be every Saturday that we're open, end of September and first part or all through October.

And we usually partner with a school organization like some of the FFA organizations or the cross-country team, and they will actually be the ones in the corn scaring people as they come through.

- [Rob] What's wrong with you?

- (laughs) People love it, and it was a fundraiser.

So, great opportunities.

- Well, actually- - It's like you make a walk down a gauntlet, and like people are coming out of the corn with like machetes and stuff?

- The track coach in our area actually came up with the idea, and I was like, "You know, I'm all for exploring ideas."

- It was the high school students.

We had, you know, the cross-country team and the cheerleading team.

They came out.

They dressed up.

They brought music.

They were the ones, so we didn't really give them a lot of rules.

They just made it how they wanted to do it.

You know, it was a fundraiser for them, so they got a portion of the profits, and you know, we just love being able to do those kinds of things in the community.

Good clean fun.

- Yeah.

- The corn mazes technology, has that helped with that?

Because it used to be a guy went out there, planted corn, and then he took his mower out there, and he mowed down paths.

- We use a company out of Pennsylvania that comes out, and they have a tractor with a tiller, and the guy looks at his iPad the whole time, just follows the GPS through.

And it's unbelievable how accurate from the picture that they give us beforehand to what the drone pictures look like.

I mean, they're very accurate with that.

- We talked to another person that was doing a corn maze on the XM show, and it's designed on a planter now.

So they don't even plant where it's...

They don't even have to till all that stuff.

You could get to that phase, man.

You could do any sort of picture you'd want to.

- Yeah.

Right now our planter doesn't have that technology on it, so- - Believe me- - We're low budget.

- This was an expensive, expensive planter.

But I think it's very cool that you guys want to do something where people can be part...

It's part of their memories, right?

You take your family out for a fun day of, you know, the pumpkins and a maze like that.

That's something that they're always gonna remember, and it's something that you guys created.

Does that feel good?

- It's very nice.

I mean, last year we did, was it 27 or 28 school field trips?

And we're hoping to grow that number again this year.

But seeing the kids come out there that have never really spent any time on a farm, teaching 'em about the different animals, the plants, and letting 'em spend some time out there walking around in the fields and... - You know, there's not really any pumpkin patches in the area, so our school- - Isn't there?

- Not really within about 45 minutes or so.

- [Rob] Huh.

- So a lot of the schools don't get to go to pumpkin patches and things like that, so some of these kids have never have.

Plus we were coming out of the COVID era, and so schools really weren't going on any field trips.

So seeing all these schools come to us and just seeing their faces light up...

I mean, there were kids who had never touched a pumpkin before.

You know, things that you take for granted.

- You're kidding me.

- Oh yeah.

It's unbelievable how many kids we heard say that, that they've never held a pumpkin or had one.

- And they all got to go home with one.

- Yeah, with our field trips, they take a pumpkin home with them.

- How many of 'em made it home un-smashed?

- They're smaller pumpkins.

- They're little ones, and they got to paint 'em on the farm too.

- Okay, so they probably, yeah.

- But I mean, even it amazed me.

I mean, from growing up on a farm, we take a lot of this for granted, but how many adults were asking questions that to you and me, we would just think is like dumb questions.

But then you realize that they didn't grow up around this.

I mean, the one that surprised me the most is people coming out of the corn maze and asking why that corn is all hard, thinking it should be like sweet corn.

- Oh yeah.

- Then it's like, well, then you get to explain the difference between- - Field corn.

- Sweet corn and field corn.

Adults that didn't know what that plant in the field over there was.

I'm like, "The soybean plants over there?"

I mean, not everybody grew up with knowing that side of life that we know.

- Yeah, I do got kind of a bone to pick with you.

(Christine laughs) Your maze, right?

Your corn maze.

You allow people to have a cheat code with their cellphone?

(Christine laughs) - Yeah, it's- - So, there's different activities you could play in the maze.

One of 'em is a maze tracker, and you can pick your little character, you know, put your email address in, pick a character, and track your way through the maze.

When we had our... We had the cross country team run through the maze, and some of them were using their phones to get through the maze fastest- - Cheating.

- To time theirselves.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- So not everybody chooses to use the cellphone tracker, but it is one of the safety nets.

People are worried about getting lost in the maze.

- [Rob] Tough.

- [Erick] That's kind of the whole point.

- It's supposed to be scary, right?

- Yeah.

- You know, some people aren't supposed to make it out.

Survival of the fittest, but here you guys give 'em an app, and they're- - Yeah, tools to cheat.

- Yeah.

- I mean, my guys were out weeding the pumpkins yesterday where the corn maze was at last year.

Found a cell phone that we... We knew somebody lost a cell phone out there.

We could never find it last fall.

And of course I think I hit it either with the disc or with a planter.

(Rob scoffs) It's destroyed now, but we did find the phone yesterday, so.

- So you've had a season.

Like where were you getting guests from?

- All over the place.

I mean, a lot of local people, but we also had...

I mean, we know we've had one person from Texas, one person from Hawaii.

We had a few families that we talked to that were from Australia that were over visiting.

- Really?

- And we did get quite a few out of the Chicago suburbs that- - Heard about our corn maze and wanted to try it out.

- [Rob] 'Cause they knew they weren't gonna get lost in it, yeah.

(Christine laughs) - And we're so close to Starved Rock State Park that a lot of families come down, and they'll go to the Starved Rock for the weekend and then come over to us and spend some time with us.

- Did the locals support you, though?

- A lot, yeah.

- Oh yeah, we've had great, great feedback from the locals.

- Ottawanians?

What do you call those?

- Ottawans, I don't know.

- Ottawans?

- Yeah, Ottawans.

- Ottawanians sounds better.

(Christine laughs) Okay.

Like, what are some future plans?

What are you wanting to do with this thing?

- This year we planted 1,200 Christmas trees, and we're hoping to keep planting more Christmas trees every year and grow that aspect.

I mean, we went ahead and put an irrigation system in the spring to be able to...

If we size it big enough, then we should be able to add to it every year, so.

- [Rob] You're gonna have to get reindeer.

- I've heard that.

- Tell me I'm wrong.

- I've heard that a few times, but it's not in the budget for the time being, but- - Just go out and get one.

A bunch of 'em up north.

(Christine laughs) Grab a trailer.

- We'll have to look into that.

- Might be a little illegal.

(laughs) - I'd love to put an apple orchard in here in the near future.

And I mean, we hope someday, I mean, it's down the road aways, but we'd like to put a reception hall out there and potentially a vineyard in one area of the farm, so.

- [Christine] Have a little winery.

- It's gonna be a while, but we've got big plans- - Did you see how big she smiled when she said that?

- Oh, that'll be her project.

- All my friends have supported that idea.

- Yeah, so.

- Well, I'd be remiss if we didn't talk about because these, if like an orchard or a whatever, these are kind of the end-all, be-all.

What do we got here?

- We got the apple cider donuts that, you know, every pumpkin patch and orchard has to have those for the fall, so.

- Is this for everybody, the PBS and all that?

- Yeah, we brought plenty for everybody.

- This is for everybody.

(Erick and Christine laugh) What are we gonna do now?

Oh, that's delicious.

- He hasn't spit it out yet, so.

- Mm.

That's the best donut I've ever had.

I wish I could share 'em with you guys.

(Christine laughs) I can't explain to you.

It's not even... That's anger we're looking at right there, isn't it?

Okay.

Now, are you buying these and selling 'em, or are you actually making these?

- We're actually making these now, so.

- [Rob] Really?

They're good.

- [Erick] We got everything set up here the past few weeks.

- We have a cool food truck.

It does wood-fire pizza too, so we have with the wood-fire pizza and donuts.

- Do I got it in my beard now?

- Nope, not saving any for later there, so.

- Okay, so the food trucks, now are those yours or someone you're having brought in?

- It's actually ours.

We looked at putting up a building last year and realized it would be cheaper for us to bring a food truck in and quicker.

So we've actually been taking it to a few different events this year, and we just got done doing our county fair and had it out there for four days, so.

- But ideally putting in a full kitchen and a shop is definitely in the future mix, so expanding beyond our food trucks.

That's something that we're working towards.

- So we've all seen these, like I said, orchards or ag tourism places that have been real successful.

I mean, not saying you're trying to copy that, but are you trying to build something similar to that?

- Yeah, there's, I mean... We don't wanna really reinvent the wheel.

I mean, we've toured a lot of 'em, and like I said, several of 'em have reached out to us and offered ideas, and I mean, it's... We just finished building a Skee-Ball trailer that...

I took an old livestock trailer that I found on Facebook Marketplace, and we put four lanes of Skee-Ball into it.

- You're just a grown child at this point, aren't you?

- It's been a lot of fun.

- It's fun being able to kind of use a little creativity, and I used to when I was younger be able to, a lot of woodworking and metal work.

And every once in a while, I'll get some free time, and I can do that now.

- [Rob] Gotta get goats.

- We've been very fortunate with a neighbor- - Emus.

- That has some goats that bring up.

- You have to build a ship for some reason 'cause that's what they all like, a pirate ship.

- I have seen a few of those, but- - Yeah, you remember the show with the...

It was like "Little People, Big World," and that that guy, he would build something every year, and it drove his family insane.

That's your future.

- Well, you know what?

Actually I'm pushing him to add more every year.

I want more and more attractions and things, so I'm all in.

- Okay.

- I'm all in.

- I think it's fun.

And Honestly, where you guys are located, I am shocked that you don't have more local competition because that is like a prime area.

You guys, you're just enough out of Chicago.

You're living in more of an affluent area there, so I mean I think where you're at is absolutely perfect.

- According to our county farm bureau, they think we're the only one in the county, which for LaSalle County is a large county, but as far as the kids activities and everything we're offering.

When they told us that, I was kind of surprised.

I really figured for as big as our county is we probably would have a few, but.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- Yeah, I actually just heard that last week, so.

- Tell people where they can find you on the old internet.

- So we have our website, kanefamilyfarms.com, and then we're also on lots of social media channels.

So we have a Facebook, Kane Family Farms, same thing for Instagram and Twitter.

And then we're also trying to start our YouTube channel.

Our 12-year-old daughter's supposed to be the YouTube star and working on that, but she is far too busy to help out.

- [Rob] You forgot TikTok.

- We aren't currently on TikTok.

That's a little out of my league.

I need to be a little bit more in touch with that.

- Do you know what's big in TikTok?

Is counting in French.

- Ooh, well, you just sold me.

I might have to check it out then.

- I think you are gonna have- I don't you have choice at this point.

- The car ride home, I'm gonna be signing up for TikTok now.

- Erick and Christine Kane, Kane Family Farms.

Guys, congratulations on the success you're having.

I think you guys are gonna be hugely successful, and it's fun to see hard work and a couple that loves each other and enjoying it.

It's just, it's a lot of fun to see.

So, Erick and Christine, thank you.

Everybody else, we hope you catch us next time.

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