Stephen Williams

About Stephen Williams

In 1981 Bonnie and I moved to a small farm near Austin, MN. At first we produced  and marketed fruits, vegetables and honey in addition to corn and soybeans. We also produced four children James, Heather, Katherine, and Jessica. Our operation is quite labor intensive and once the children were old enough they all had to help with the farm work. Over the years our business evolved to the point where now our sole crop is fresh market sweet corn. During the harvest season we pick sweet corn every day except Sunday.

All the picking is done by hand, and on days when it has rained, picking is a real challenge. This is Katie, Jessie and me after a day of picking in the mud. We package the corn in recycled banana boxes, load it onto the truck and deliver it to stores that are less than 10 miles from the farm.

About 15 years ago I started working to improve the wildlife habitat on the farm. I did this by planting trees and native prairie plants on some of the land.  This resulted a dramatic increase in wildlife on the farm and at the same time decreased the amount of agricultural runoff getting into the creek.

This picture of a fawn hiding in the grass was taken by Jessie.

Prairie wildflowers abound around our farm. This is a Bottle Gentian.