Greeting fellow bakers, Barry from The Brewed Palate here. I’d like to welcome you to my latest Meet the Baker Behind the Loaves series podcast interview. Though I have interviewed a number of mill founders/owners, I recently realized that I had yet to interview inspirational individuals at the very beginning of the grain train (or grain chain). My choice of who to interview came as a matter of rather fortunate consequence. During a recent online search for sources Turkey Red wheat berries I came upon the Grains From the Plains website, the online store for Sunflower Acres, a Colorado Farm run by fourth generation farmer Kevin Poss and his wife Laura. After reading its about page I reached out to Kevin via Instagram and we began planning a date and time for a podcast interview. Though it took a few weeks to finalize the details, I had received my order of their grains the Friday prior and was therefore extra excited to get to know more about Sunflower Acres, Grains from the Plains, and Kevin and Laura themselves. 

So without further ado, please join me in getting to know the bakers behind the loaves or should I say farmers behind the grains, Kevin and Laura Poss. 

The following topics were discussed during the course of this interview (podcast episode):

0:00-1:28 – Inspiring quote / Episode Intro

1:29-3:09 – How Kevin and Laura met and the history of Sunflower Acres.

3:10-3:53 – Kevin’s day to day farming activities.

3:54-5:57 – Challenge of growing grains in the plains of Colorado and what planting and harvesting seasons looking like on the fields of Sunflower Acres.

5:58-9:03 -Presently growing and soon to be planted wheat varieties and How Kevin and Laura came upon them.

9:04-12:20 – Kevin and Laura’s motivation behind selling a portion of their grains directly to consumers via the Grains from the Plains website rather than what Kevin and his family had done in the past i.e. selling all of their grain to the local grain elevator (co-op).

12:21-14:06 – Notable relationships that they’ve made with local professional bread bakers who have used their grains.

14:07-16:30 – Ups and downs of trying to be approved as an organic farm and the challenges of growing heirloom (non-GMO) corn in their area.

16:31-17:52 Kevin and Laura’s goal to eventually mill their own grains on-site and Their ability to trace their grains once they leave the farm.

17:53-20:40 – Laura’s homebaking with her children and How milling grains at home helps open up avenues of experimentation.

20:41-22:19 – Taking pride in being able to raise their kids on 100% local meat, produce (such as Ahava farms), and grains.

22:20-24:31 – Laura’s day to day activites on the farm: supervising farm chores, packing online orders, managing finances, and homeschooling.

24:31-26:16 – What do the terms “living bread” and “living food” mean to Kevin and Laura? – Question inspired by Daniel Leader’s book Living Bread.

26:17-30:22 – A) How to follow Grains from the Plains and Sunflower Acres on social media…How simple it is to make connections within the “grain chain” B) Dedication to bringing back farming milling practices of the past (e.g. those at Castle Valley Mill) C) Kevin and Laura’s putting things in place for their kids to eventually take over the farm.

30:23-end – Once again thanking them for their time and Episode Outro.

To follow Kevin and Laura’s farming activities and purchase their grains visit grainsfromtheplains.com and follow their social media pages which are @grainsfromtheplans on Instagram  and @sunfloweracres on Facebook. To contact them directly send an email to grainsfromtheplains@gmail …For my interviews like this click the series link in the right sidebar.

Once again I’ll wish you Happy Baking!