Kewaunee Co. Breakfast on the Farm hosts eager to gather safely for the 'biggest omelet'

CARLTON - This year, Breakfast on the Farm is about more than the huge dairy-based breakfast — featuring "the biggest omelet you have ever seen."

It's also about more than the chance for children to learn about farm animals  — or a chance for adults to learn about environmentally friendly practices on a local mega-dairy farm.

The breakfast, set for Father's Day at Augustian Farms in the town of Carlton, is also one of the first chances for community members to get together since the COVID-19 pandemic swept into Wisconsin more than 14 months ago.

The annual event, which features farm tours and other activities, is normally held at a different family farm each year as part of the national celebration of June Dairy Month, but the 2020 event was canceled because of public health concerns over the prospect of COVID-19 spreading among the expected 5,000 or so guests.

But now, with hopes that the spread of the virus is on a downward slide, the farm breakfast and activities are back — with a few health precautions in place — and Augustian Farms co-owner Aaron Augustian is excited to host the event after the unplanned year off.

"We're looking forward to getting people back out in the community," Augustian said. "We're seeing large numbers of people at other community events in the area. We just think people are ready to come out."

And, with the fifth-generation family farm hosting the breakfast for the first time, he's excited to show how it works and what it does to protect the land and water.

"I think it's a great opportunity for our family to showcase the things we do on the farm," Augustian said. "Our cow comfort, our cow care, the things we do on the farm for conservation. It's also an opportunity to get the word out on the nutrition of the products we produce."

It's also an opportunity for the Kewaunee County Dairy Promotion, the local nonprofit organization that sponsors the annual breakfast. With attendance generally between 4,500 and 5,500 people, the event is a major fundraiser for the organization, and president John Blazei said besides the lost potential for revenue last year, the promotion also ended up donating items slated for use on the breakfast that would have gone to waste. Milk went to area schools and more than 7,000 ice cream cups went to stores and various youth activities.

"It's very important that we're able to come back (with the breakfast)," Blazei said. "We gave away a lot of milk, a lot of ice cream." 

With the expected crowd of more than 5,000, several health precautions will be in place for this year's event. Blazei said two tents for diners (instead of the usual one) will be set up to allow spacing of 10 to 12 feet between tables, which will be cleaned and sanitized after each group finishes their breakfasts. Also, servers will handle all the food; in past years guests could pick their own cheese samples out of bowls, for example.

Also, barn tours will be given by tram rides to keep groups of people separate as much as possible.

"We're trying to be as safe as we can (while) being what we're good at what we do," Blazei said.

A major focus of the farm tours and educational displays will be the efforts made by Aaron and Todd Augustian, Aaron's brother and co-owner of the farm, to implement environmentally friendly practices while running a concentrated animal feeding operation, or CAFO. Augustian Farms has about 1,000 milking cows and 1,150 total, and with 16 CAFOs in Kewaunee County, dairy farms of that size and much larger have been a source of controversy in the county because of longstanding and continuing problems with well and river water quality that has been blamed on soil, fertilizer and manure runoff.

Because of that, Aaron Augustian is eager to show off his farm's conservation practices at the breakfast.

He said one of the education tents will feature a surface water monitoring system the farm is using with University of Wisconsin Discovery Farms. The system automatically takes samples of the farm's groundwater to measure nutrients from fertilizers that might run off the land and potentially cause contamination.

Another tent will have a rainfall simulator from the National Resource Conservation Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, that will show how water runoff is affected by having cover crops versus no cover crops on farmland.

The cover crops are important to Augustian, who said visitors who tour the farm will learn they do a lot of "planting green," which means they plant cover crops while the current crops are still alive and working so there's no down time or bare ground between crops to prevent excessive erosion and runoff. The farm is one of four in the Door Kewaunee Demonstration Farm Network, which works to demonstrate best practices to improve soil health and water quality.

"(Educators on the tours) are going to talk about cover crops, saving the soil," Blazei said. "(The Augustians) are doing a great job with soil conditions."

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Children will be able to have fun during the event, too, with a petting zoo and scavenger hunt with prizes for ages 4 to 10.

The breakfast also is a chance for guests to learn about the family farm, which was established in the late 1800s, Augustian said. Todd Augustian took over the farm from his and Aaron's parents, Ed and Claire in 2000. At the time, it housed about 60 cows.

A barn fire wiped out the herd in 2005, which led Todd and Aaron, who was working in a different job, to decide what they wanted to do with the lives.

"We had to make a decision — were we going to exit or jump in with both feet?" Aaron said. "We decided the farm was our passion."

The Augustians rented space at a neighboring farm, worked to re-establish a herd, and built a new dairy next to the former one in 2009. Over the years, they expanded the herd to its current size and modernized the farm and its amenities. The farm currently has 18 employees, with Ed and Claire continuing to help and Todd's wife, Ginane, and son also working there.

FYI

The Kewaunee County Breakfast on the Farm takes place Sunday, June 20 at Augustian Farms LLC, E4301 County G, Kewaunee (town of Carlton). Breakfast will be served from 8 a.m. to noon and a church service will be held at 7 a.m. The location is about a mile west of State 42, which is expected to be closed for repair work, but signs will be posted to direct visitors to the farm.

The menu includes the traditional "biggest omelet you have ever seen," fresh rolls and butter, a variety of cheeses, milk, strawberry sundaes, pizza, deep-fried cheese curds and mozzarella sticks, and yogurt samples. Children can visit a petting zoo and take part in a scavenger hunt, and guests can see educational displays and take tram tours of the farm.

Admission is $8 for ages 13 and older, $4 ages 4 to 12. Tickets are available at the door or in advance through the Kewaunee County Dairy Promotion website or Bank of Luxemburg locations in Kewaunee and Door counties, Dairyland Veterinary Service in Casco, Ebert Enterprises in Algoma, Pagel’s Ponderosa Dairy LLC in Kewaunee or Rio Creek Feed Mill in Rio Creek and Luxemburg.

Kewaunee County Breakfast on the Farm is sponsored by the Kewaunee County Dairy Promotion, a nonprofit organization of local agriculture professionals and dairy farm families working with Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin to promote the dairy industry and products. For more information, visit dairypromo.com.

Contact Christopher Clough at 920-741-7952, 920-562-8900 or cclough@doorcountyadvocate.com.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Kewaunee Co. Breakfast on the Farm hosts eager to gather safely for the 'biggest omelet'