98 Concerts That Make Us Love Summer in the Midwest

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The bands are coming, the bands are coming! From left: Waxahatchee, Fitz and the Tantrums, Lollapalooza, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and Julie Ruin. Photos by Matt Lief Anderson (Waxahatchee), Will Rice (Lolla), Matt Lief Anderson (Tweedy) and Kristina Pedersen (Julie Ruin).

by Cassie Walker Burke and Bree McKenna

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The Midwest is the best place in America to see music in the summer. Period. We're home to two of the world's biggest festivals—Summerfest and Lollapalooza—that lure bands of all stripes. Our ticket prices aren't sky high, our throngs of partygoers tend toward the mellow and, disparage our cruel winters all you want, the breezy summer weather makes for an abundance of festivals and concerts under the stars. Granted, not every event on the list happens al fresco; some are special, one-of-kind happenings worth a road trip, others are Midwestern acts (Whitney, Har Mar Superstar) who deserve your serious consideration. 

The list below starts with Illinois and runs by state, with concerts listed chronologically. Like our list? Share it. Think we overlooked someone? Tell us on Facebook. And hey, if you end up in the crowd somewhere, tell 'em this cool new mag called Middleouest sent you. 

Illinois

1 / Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson
June 25
RiverEdge Park, Aurora
Two American songwriters, each without parallel, in one night.

2 / Blitzen Trapper at Logan Square Arts Festival
June 26
Logan Square, Chicago

3 / Lower Dens
June 30
Millennium Park, Chicago

4 / Wild Belle at Mamby on the Beach
July 2­-3
Oakwood Beach, Chicago
The local pop-reggae band shares a bill with Animal Collective, Lupe Fiasco and Kaytranada.

5 / Chris Cornell
July 3
Ravinia, Highland Park
 

6 / The Roots and Donnie Trumpet at Taste of Chicago
July 6
Petrillo Music Shell, Chicago

7 / Sheila E. at Taste of Chicago
July 10
Petrillo Music Shell, Chicago
The percussionist’s new album is inspired by Prince, naturally.

8 / Femi Kuti
July 11
Millennium Park, Chicago

9 / Rachel Barton Pine plays Bruch at the Grant Park Music Festival
July 13
Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Chicago
One of the Midwest’s best-known classical music stars.

10 / Brian Wilson performing Pet Sounds at Pitchfork Music Festival
July 15-­17
Union Park, Chicago
Pet Sounds under the stars at one of the best of the big summer fests.

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Pitchfork Music Festival is in Chicago's Union Park on July 15-17. Photo by Erez Avissar.

11 / Whitney
July 15
Empty Bottle, Chicago
Chicago band on the rise.

12 / Erykah Badu
July 15
FirstMerit Pavilion at Northerly Island, Chicago

13 / Emmylou Harris
July 18
Ravinia, Highland Park

14 / Philip Glass tribute at
Grant Park Music Festival
July 20
Jay Pritkzer Pavilion, Chicago
A multimedia tribute concert to the great composer, complete with projected images by National Geographic photographer Frans Lanting.

15 / Hall & Oates
July 22
Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Tinley Park

16 / Kenny Rogers
July 24
Ravinia, Highland Park

17 / On an On
July 28
Empty Bottle, Chicago
The Minneapolis band spins its magic in a favorite Chicago setting.

18 / Oh Pep!
July 11
Schubas, Chicago

19 / Swans
July 15
Lincoln Hall, Chicago

20 / The 15-piece Amy Winehouse Orchestra plays Back to Black
July 19
Lincoln Hall, Chicago

Swans play Chicago's Lincoln Hall on July 15.

21 / Wolf Alice (Lollapalooza aftershow)
July 29
Lincoln Hall, Chicago

22 / Jose Gonzalez and Tall Heights
Aug. 1
Millennium Park, Chicago

23 / Esme Patterson  
Aug. 3
Empty Bottle, Chicago
The Colorado-raised singer-songwriter knows how to turn a phrase.

24 / Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds
Aug. 4
Schubas, Chicago

25 / Dolly Parton
Aug. 7
Ravinia, Highland Park

26 / Mbongwana Star + Dos Santos Antibeat Orchestra
Aug. 11
Millennium Park, Chicago

27 / Yo-Yo Ma
Aug. 18
Ravinia, Highland Park

28 / The Go-Go’s with Best Coast 
Aug. 19
Ravinia, Highland Park

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The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra pays tribute to David Bowie on June 24-25. Photo: Creative Commons 

Indiana

29 / Tribute to David Bowie at Marsh Symphony on the Prairie featuring the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra
June 24-25
Conner Prairie Amphitheatre, Noblesville

30 / Tribute to Cream featuring Kofi Baker
Aug. 5
Slippery Noodle Inn, Indianapolis
Ginger Baker's son in dad's band in Indiana's oldest bar

31 / Melvins
Aug. 19
The Vogue, Indianapolis

32 / Chris Stapleton
Aug. 26
Klipsch Music Center, Nobleville

33 / Tri-State Bluegrass Festival
Sept. 1-4
Noble County 4-H Fairgrounds, Kendallville
This may be the best deal of the summer: $30 for a 4-day camping festival that features dozens of touring bluegrass acts. If you like bluegrass, that is.

34 / The Flaming Lips at Middle Waves Festival
Sept. 16-17
Headwaters Park, Fort Wayne
The progressive two-day festival also features Best Coast and locals Metavari.

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Tallest Man on Earth plays Codfish Hollow in Maquoketa on July 17. Photo by Cameron Wittig.

Iowa

35 / Peter Bjorn and John
June 22
Englert Theatre, Iowa City

36 / Loretta Lynn
June 25
Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center, University of Northern Iowa

37 / Tallest Man on Earth 
July 17
Codfish Hollow, Maquoketa

38 / Bear Hands and Atlas Genius
July 20
Wooly's, Des Moines

39 / Shakey Graves
July 22
Wooly's, Des Moines

40 / Carrie Underwood at the Great Jones County Fair
Jul 22
County Fairgrounds, Dubuque

41 / Wavves
July 30
Wooly's, Des Moines

Clear Soul Forces play Majestic Cafe in Detroit on June 21. 

Michigan

42 / Clear Soul Forces
June 21
Majestic Café, Detroit

43 / Violent Femmes
July 10
Saint Andrew’s, Detroit

44 / Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, Ryan Adams
July 12
Meadow Brook Amphitheater, Rochester Hills

45 / The Decemberists
July 12
Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor

46 / Hurray for the Riff Raff
July 12
The Ark, Ann Arbor
New Orleans eclecticism at its finest.

47 / Brandi Carlile and Old Crow Medicine Show
July 15
Interlochen Arts Festival/Kresge Auditorium, Interlochen
Because The Firewatcher’s Daughter is one of our favorite albums of 2015.

48 / Garbage
July 16
The Fillmore, Detroit

49 / Daughter with Julien Baker
July 26
Majestic Theatre, Detroit

50 / Lucius
July 28
Saint Andrew’s Hall, Detroit

51 / Ghostface Killah & Raekwon RAGU Tour
July 31
Saint Andrew’s Hall, Detroit

Har Mar Superstar plays the Minneapolis Zoo on Aug. 20.

Minnesota

52 / Ellis Marsalis at the Twin Cities Jazz Fest
June 24
Mears Park, Minneapolis

53 / Violinist Joshua Bell at Minnesota Beethoven Festival
July 5
Harriet Johnson Auditorium, Somsen Hall Winona State University, Winona
He’s been a classical music star since he was 18 and has 40 albums to his name.

54 / Death Cab for Cutie and Gary Clark Jr. at Basilica Block Party
July 8
Basilica of St. Mary, Minneapolis

55 / Case/lang/veirs
Aug. 10
Minneapolis Zoo
Neko Case, KD Lang and Laura Veirs—three independent female musicians team up for a tour.

56 / Har Mar Superstar
Aug. 20
Minneapolis Zoo
The soulful Minnesotan plays a hometown show—at the zoo.

57 / Kurt Vile + the Violators 
Aug. 20
Historic Hall's Island, Minneapolis. Wilco headlines.

58 / Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins
Sept. 6
State Theatre, Minneapolis

59 / Sigur Ros
Sep 29
Orpheum Theatre, Minneapolis
 

Flight of the Conchords land in Kansas City on July 7.

Missouri

60 / Live and Let Die: A Symphonic Tribute to Paul McCartney by the St. Louis Symphony
June 24
Powell Hall, St. Louis

61 / Flight of the Conchords Tour
July 7
Starlight Theatre, Kansas City

62 / Alunageorge
July 19
Ready Room, St. Louis
This British act is inspired by PJ Harvey.

63 / Dolly Parton
July 30
Scottrade Center, St. Louis

64 / Joan Jett, Heart and Cheap Trick
Aug. 15
Starlight Theatre, Kansas City
Because Heart.

65 / Lucinda Williams
Aug. 21
Crossroads KC at Grinders, Kansas City
There’s that voice, then there’s her touring guitarist, Stuart Mathis, a talent in his own right.

Grimes appears at Maha Music Festival in Omaha on August 20. 

Nebraska

66 / Bernanza Music Festival
June 30-July 2
Sokol Park, Omaha
These festival organizers are clearly still feeling the "Bern," with a lineup heavy on local bans and bonfires every night.

67 / Black Lips
July 11
The Waiting Room Lounge, Omaha

68 / Woods
July 18
Slowdown, Omaha

69 / King Yellowman at the Omaha Solstice Reggae and World Music Festival
July 23
Lewis & Clark Landing, Omaha

70 / Grimes at the Maha Music Festival
Aug. 20
Stinson Park, Omaha

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Waxahatchee at Pitchfork Music Festival in 2015. She plays Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland on June 21. Photo by Matt Lief Anderson.

Ohio

71 / Waxahatchee
Jun 21
Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland

72 / Guided by Voices
June 23
Oddbody's, Dayton

73 / Passion Pit
June 24
Bogarts, Cincinnati

74 / We Were Promised Jetpacks
June 25
Grog Shop, Cleveland

75 / Bob Dylan
June 28
Fraze Pavilion, Kettering

76 / Ray LaMontagne
June 30
Jacobs Pavilion, Cleveland

77 / Guns N' Roses
July 6
Paul Brown Stadium, Cincinnati

78 / The Avett Brothers
July 9
Toledo Zoo Amphitheater

79 / Paul McCartney
July 10
U.S. Bank Arena, Cincinnati

80 / Maxwell
July 11
Palace Theatre, Columbus

The Avett Brothers are playing July 9 at the Toledo Zoo Amphitheater.

81 / The Julie Ruin with Speedy Ortiz
July 16
Mahall's, Lakewood

82 / Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue with Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings
July 23
The Rose Music Center at The Heights, Dayton

83 / Jane's Addiction with Living Colour
July 23
Jacobs Pavilion, Cleveland

84 / Miranda Lambert with Kip Moore
July 28
Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls

85 / Justin Townes Earle
July 29
Musica, Akron

86 / Diana Ross
July 31
Hard Rock Rocksino Northfield Park, Northfield

87 / Snoop Dogg with Wiz Khalifa and Kevin Gates
Aug. 14
Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls

88 / Explosions In The Sky
Sept. 13
Newport Music Hall, Columbus

89 / Nada Surf
Sept. 22
A&R Music Bar, Columbus

Car Seat Headrest play Turner Hall Ballroom in Milwaukee on July 17.

Wisconsin

90 / Fitz and the Tantrums at Summerfest
June 26  
Harley Davidson Roadhouse, Milwaukee
Everyone from Willie Nelson to Pitbull show up at Summerfest, which runs through July 10.

91 / Bully
July 7
Meyer Theatre, Green Bay

92 / Chris Thile and Bela Fleck
July 13
Door County Auditorium, Fish Creek

93 / The Madison Early Music Festival
Finale performance July 16
University of Wisconsin-Madison
The multi-day fest gets into the spirit of the international Shakespeare 400 celebration.

94 / Car Seat Headrest
July 17
Turner Hall Ballroom, Milwaukee

95 / Wye Oak 
Aug. 2
Turner Hall Ballroom, Milwaukee

96 / Grace Potter 
Aug. 5
The Pabst Theater, Milwaukee

97 / Sturgill Simpson
Aug. 9
Meyer Theatre, Green Bay

98 / Summerset Festival with Grimes and Chance the Rapper
Aug. 12-14
Somerset, WI
Camping!

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Fitz and the Tantrums perform at Summerfest in Milwaukee on June 26.

It's not summer without a playlist. Hope you enjoy our first such endeavor. Tell us how you like it on our Facebook page. 

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21 Signs of Life in Detroit

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By Jeff Myers
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“Detroiters are prideful people,” says Jeff Myers, who should know. Born in Detroit in 1974, Myers has lived in and around the downtown for the past 16 years. His day job as a facilities manager at a digital agency doesn’t interfere with his near-daily hobby: chronicling his troubled native city’s slow rebirth.

On his walks to and from work, he captures on his iPhone snapshots of architecture old and new, signs, intersections, even spring tulips—a mix that could be summed up as the hopeful and the historic. “I see a beautiful city. In all its grime, as well as all its glitz,” he says. “It’s complex. It's like no other city in the U.S.”

Asked by Middleouest to show us his Detroit, Myers delivered these 21 images. “I feel like I'm letting people in on a secret I've known for a long time. I want other people to see the beauty I see.”

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1 | “This ‘Nothing Stops Detroit’ neon sign is on Woodward in the heart of downtown. It’s kind of the ‘new’ Detroit mantra towards moving the city forward. When I first moved downtown, in 2000, living around here was way against the norm. But there was real hope at the time—the Tigers had built a new stadium, the Lions had a new stadium. Then the housing market crashed and everything . . . stopped. There was a long, uncertain time, but in the past 24 months everything has snowballed. Downtown is now full of people in their 20s. Folks, like me, who've been living here a while—we call ourselves Detroit 1.0. We've made a joke of it for those who talk about Detroit 2.0. ” 

2 | “The lobby of the David Whitney Building, which was built in 1915. It’s now the Aloft Detroit, a hotel. So there's beautiful original architecture paired with stylish modern rooms. This building had been vacant for decades and reopened just over a year ago.”

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3 | “Standing in Grand Circus Park, the view of the David Broderick Tower (left) and the David Whitney Building (right). These buildings are now restored and occupied after decades of decay.”

4 | “The historic Fox Theater marquee, recently restored and updated.”

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5 | “Construction of the new Red Wings Stadium, which they’re going to call Little Caesars Arena. People here are not very happy about that name. It sits just a block north of downtown in what is to be called 'The District,' connecting downtown to the trendy Midtown, which people used to refer to as the Cass Corridor.”

6 | “The beginning of the new M-1 Rail (recently named the QLINE), a line that will stretch 3.3 miles north from the core of downtown through Midtown and up to New Center. At one time, Cass Corridor was the skid row of Detroit—a really rough area. Now they’ve re-branded it, and it’s this hip area where Shinola is headquartered.”

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7 | “Lower Woodward, just off of Campus Martius. Campus Martius is now the central gathering point in the city. There are food trucks, and people play live music in the summer, and there's ice skating in the winter.”

8 | “Griswold Street facing south towards the Detroit River and Windsor, Ontario. It's unique to have another country right across the river."

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9 | “The John Varvatos retail store in the historic Wright-Kay Building (also called the Schwankovsky Temple of Music) now also houses the popular Wright & Co. gastropub on the second floor.”

10 | "This crane game sits at the entrance to Green Dot Stables, one of the most popular new restaurants in the city. It’s a major success story considering its location.”

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11 | “Looking into the Guardian Building in the early morning. This Art Deco masterpiece sits within the rapidly growing Central Business District. The dim light of the coming day accents the beautiful warm interior of the lobby, which is magnificent."

12 | “Also in the business district sits the historic First National Building, which is now full of tenants like Roasting Plant coffee and Central Kitchen, a restaurant.”

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13 | “In the Central Business District, office space is suddenly at a premium for the first time in decades.”

14 | “The inside of the recently renovated Cobo Center, where the North American Auto Show takes place. The Penobscot Building is at the top right.”

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15 | “Many of these hand painted murals and signs are disappearing from the downtown landscape, and I'm trying to document them before they're gone. The salsa photo is just one of the old painted wooded signs that's still there, on the outside of the old Loco Bar in Bricktown. I just like the folk art aspect of it.”

16 | "The '8 Mile' photo was from the drivers side door of a tow truck. I thought it looked cool, and 8 Mile has always been known as the great divide between the city and suburbs. That line is finally starting to fade a little."

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17 | “The bobble head chess game was set up outside of Comerica Park for the Tigers Opening Day festivities. Opening Day is still an unofficial holiday here in Detroit. It signals the beginning of spring after the long Michigan winter."

18 | The Stroh’s photo is from the Garden Bowl, one of the oldest bowling alleys in the U.S. Stroh’s was brewed in the area for 135 years before the company left Detroit in 1985.”

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19 | “This view from the restored Campus Martius really hits the Detroit 2.0 vibe. It’s what you see looking up at the Soldiers & Sailors statue.”

20 | “A stadium construction sign on Woodward just north of downtown. You can see the Fox Theater in the distance. Downtown Detroit hasn’t experienced this amount of restoration, new construction and upgraded infrastructure in 30-plus years."

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21 | “A sign on the window of one of the many new businesses in downtown. Detroit was always here, waiting. Now it’s being discovered and shaped by a new generation—a generation that has cast aside the stereotypes and stigmas of the past."

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Jeff Myers is a Detroit native.

The Renegade Farm

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By Cassie Walker Burke  /  Photos by Bree McKenna
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A hunter is walking up the drive, and that spells trouble. So begins the slow dance of damage control: The farmer scoops the last pancake from the griddle onto his wife’s plate, slides in socked feet to the door and yanks on rubber boots. He charges into the yard, and the farmhouse door slams shut behind him. Breakfast is now an afterthought.

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Hunters and farmers share the land here in stark northeastern Michigan, but their interests often collide. The point of conflict this morning is a dog—actually, two—owned by the farmers, 32-year-old Lindsay Steele and his wife, Katie Cooper. Sometime in the early morning hours, Apollo, a fluffy white Great Pyrenees, and his sidekick Maia, a Border Collie mix, stealthily escaped the welded-wire fence that encloses the couple’s five-acre farm and hightailed it to a duck-filled marshland nearby. The hunters, who pay for the privilege of hunting that land, don’t react kindly to such disruption—particularly when they’re trying to stock their freezers on one of the last decent weekends of fall.

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Most of the morning will be lost while Steele and Cooper search for their dogs, anxious to find them before one or both meets a bullet. “We patch one hole and then they make another and get out again,” Cooper says. “All we do is make constant mistakes,” she adds, laughing, “and try to live with them.”

Five years ago, Lindsay Steele was a graphic designer at a Chicago branding agency, and Katie played in a rock band. Their only brush with agriculture was a produce-stuffed CSA box they got every week or so from a Wisconsin farm through a city drop-off program. How they ended up taking the plunge and exchanging their urban lives for five acres in eastern Michigan is a story powered by equal parts stubbornness and serendipity. That—and a lot of farming videos on YouTube.

Then, just as the couple started making the final rounds of markets last fall, Katie discovered she was pregnant, and a whole new set of priorities slid into view. Babies have a way of forcing their parents to shuttle serendipity, especially in light of a particularly tough-to-swallow fact: It's still tough to earn a living off the land, even in the era of farm-to-table everything.

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THE FARMHOUSE ISN'T JUST ANY FARMHOUSE. It’s a century-old, worn in many parts and currently missing most of the wall between the linoleum-covered kitchen and the modest living room with a warm wood-burning stove Steele installed himself.  
 
The work on the house—well, that has to happen in the cold months. Since the couple moved here in 2012, the farm has been a whirlwind of sunup to sundown workdays from first thaw until winter. “Farming is a challenging choice. It just is,” Cooper says. “There is a really daunting place, where you start with whatever you have, which is usually next to nothing and really small—

Steele jumps in. “—you have to be crazy. If you look at it on paper, it is so complex. There are so many variables—how am I going to find land? how am I going to find equipment?—that are so expensive. There is an insane amount of questions, and you can’t always answer all of them. You have to just do it, and be OK that you don’t have all the answers.”

They are sitting on a hillside on a beautiful fall day, describing what may be the world’s hardest job in a practically perfect Midwestern setting. Crop beds line up in perfect geometric formations every direction we look. Chickens cluck an acre or so over, and a light breeze delicately blows their warbling your way. The air is crisp enough to sting our nostrils.

The setting wasn’t always so bucolic. When the couple moved here in 2012, the land hadn’t been used for farming in more than a generation. All possibility was buried under quackgrass, an invasive weed with a persistent root structure. There wasn’t even a garden.  

Besides quackgrass, other things that needed clearing—namely, some dark corners of Katie’s childhood. The property actually had been in her family for a generation. Originally, the plan had been to crash and save some money before taking the plunge and buying land elsewhere. But a pit stop became a long-term residency once the cost of buying a plot of land elsewhere began to make their dream seem impossible. Not long after, Katie’s father signaled he might want to sell to the couple.

“I’ve always loved this property, and I do remember, when I was really little, actually thinking about owning this place one day,” she says. “I started thinking this could be a really empowering experience for me, to take something that has a lot of good memories—and a lot of not-so-good memories—to face those and turn them around a bit and build on that.”
 
Standing inside an old garage that he intended to convert into a greenhouse for winter seed starting, Lindsay handed Katie and her sister a sledgehammer. Clear out the ghosts of her parents’ fighting, her father’s depression, the ensuing divorce. Make it theirs.

Today that greenhouse is full of light and, in late fall, full of empty seed trays that will come into service around the first signals of spring.

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STEELE IS HOLDING A PLUG OF SOIL THE SIZE OF A GENEROUS ICE CUBE. The cube is his own adaptation of a recipe by Eliot Coleman, better known as the "godfather" of the organic movement. It contains peat moss, compost, a healthy dose of the native soil, perlite, kelp meal, and, for PH balance, lime. Like the cube of dirt that he is slowly turning around in his hand, each deliberate action is a building block for a tightly choreographed system that the couple describe as “moreganic.”

There are other words for it that are clinical-sounding words—but they don’t really capture the warm, fuzzy feeling of rolling hillsides, homemade chicken coops and a simple and stubborn conviction that peppers any discussion about what happens here. Call it regenerative farming. Call it agro-ecological. Just don’t call it organic.

The conversation at the farmers’ market in South Lyon typically goes like this. A shopper comes up to the couple and asks if their farm is organic. No, they reply, "We’re 'moreganic.'"

"What’s that?" the shopper asks.
"Better than organic."
"What’s better than organic?"

Steele has his answer down: Organic farming is a great idea philosophically but at some point it was hijacked by laws and big ag. Today, for example, organic farms in the United States can still use certain pesticides, which he refuses to use.

In a 2012 survey, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s census of organic farms tallied slightly more than 14,000. States such as California and Wisconsin and Minnesota led the pack with the low thousands. Michigan, with nearly 332 in 2012, fell in the middle.

Of those 14,000 farms, 3 in 5 reported annual sales of less than $100,000.

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Steele’s farm doesn’t even get counted in those numbers since it isn’t organic by government standards. This is what you call renegade in a region known more for auto parts than heirloom squash. “There are lots of different interpretations for what we’re doing,” Steele says, going on to explain how their farm operates as close as it can to closed-loop agricultural system. Their chief mode of fertilizer is a moveable chicken coop—a homegrown shit delivery service on wheels that prevents them from having to purchase manure or chemicals from the outside. They use intensive planting techniques such as cover cropping, crop rotation, aggressive composting and all that chicken manure to maximize soil health and deter pests. Data—reams and reams of data that Steele has laboriously catalogued—determine how much of which crops to plant and when and what seedlings should be rotated in. Nitrogen to nitrogen, dust to dust. That, and a heavy reliance on Wi-Fi.

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For all of the ancient techniques the couple employs here, they readily recognize the virtues of technology. Their WiFi-enabled soil whispering is informed by a Facebook group of like-minded farmers who happily dispense advice to one another; by YouTube videos from clean farming advocates whose advice is hallowed in certain agricultural circles; by podcasts with quirky titles like Permaculture Voices; and by detailed crop rotation charts that Steele designs on the graphic design software Adobe Illustrator. This is a talent from his former life in Chicago that has proved particularly handy.

Try unpacking all that in a quick conversation at a farmers’ market when someone stops to quickly buy fresh-farmed eggs. Bending customers’ minds at small town markets, Lindsay says, is “exciting—but challenging. There are people out there who know we are growing this produce the way we are, and they understand the quality that it is, and we have them hooked.

“But it’s a challenge—because the other side of that is that people are used to the other vendors at the farmers’ market," he continues. "There is this one big farm: They grow 40 acres of produce, they spray it all the time, they sell their produce really cheap. Sometimes they’re just straight up undercutting us, like, ‘Oh he’s selling his peppers for $1.50 a piece, we’ll sell ours three for $1.’”

He adds: “I don’t want to sink a farmer, but I want them to farm better.”

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As he explains, you hear more examples of Steele’s former ad agency life proving useful in other ways. Rather than a past life, his agency work is essential DNA upon which he is building something new, from the clever name of the farm—Garden Fort—to the logo that is stamped on each box of fresh-laid farm eggs. He and Katie even have a tagline for Garden Fort: the really real.

When the couple describes their farm of the future, they don’t talk in terms of acquiring more acreage. Rather, they dream of fostering an experimental station that can be a stop along the way for others who, like them, are the wayward agricurious—be it renegade beekeepers or goat farmers with dreams of being artisanal cheese mongers. Land is hard to come by, and expensive. But they can help others crack the code and share what they've learned. Perhaps this sort of residency program can even become part of the business plan and yield modest rental fees or more goods for market. 

Already, an artist friend of theirs has been driving in on occasion from Chicago and painting her signature flower motif on the sides of their barns and fences, in essence bartering her talent for a quiet place to recharge. Like the seed trays in spring, she's an early sign of what could be a budding agri-art commune on property that was, a decade ago, just an old dilapidated house surrounded by lots of grass.

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STILL, AS MUCH AS STEELE HATES TO ADMIT IT, FARMING IS TOUGH ECONOMICS. After three years, the couple was first able to pay themselves a wage this past summer. Consider the math: a good week of farmers’ markets and some wholesale to grocers and restaurants can yield $1,200 to $2,000. Multiply that by 25 or so weeks of produce-rich summer and fall for a combined annual income that is in the five figures—one that has to cover mortgage, equipment repair, seedlings, before anything goes to the people tending the land.

To make the numbers work, Steele picked up freelance graphic design projects. His wife worked in the off-season a natural food market in nearby Brighton.

The numbers were barely adding up when Cooper found out she was pregnant. It was around the time the root vegetables were going to market. Talking about the plans for the baby, she was glowing, Lindsay was glowing, the dogs—which had come bounding back safely after their adventure with the hunters—were practically glowing. But the coming baby forced a reckoning with reality for two people who had previously let creativity and serendipity be their guides.

Lindsay considered some hard choices: try to muscle through another season short a laborer—that is, his wife, who'd be occupied tending to the baby. Or he could take out a loan so he could invest in some critical tools, irrigation materials and manpower that would help the farm be more productive—but require an undesirable lien on the farmhouse. There was a third option: step back, dive back into his old life as a freelance graphic designer and steadily try to build back his bank account. The trade-off would be putting the farm on hiatus for the coming year.

"Flying by the seat of our pants, being creative, using what we have, and muscling through has been a good approach while we figure out exactly what it is we're doing and continue to learn," he said. "But we aren't going to survive without establishing better systems and putting in place the infrastructure needed to be more efficient and productive," from better irrigation and hoop houses to some equipment essentials such as a walk-in cooler and a proper pack shed.

When a little girl arrived two weeks early, on Easter Day, the right direction seemed immediately clear. Here was a new life around the time of the first spring plantings. Only Steele wouldn't be planting much this year: He decided to plunge his energies into graphic design and being a new father. He'd still farm but mainly for his growing family; any spare cash and spare time he'd pour into infrastructure improvements on the property with the hopes that Garden Fort would be fully operational again in 2017. 

Before Steele decided to slow down operations, he had been thinking of taking on an employee. A cousin of his wife's—a young German woman—had paid the farm an extended visit and become an indispensable resource while the expectant mama had been sidelined by first trimester nausea.

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At night, Steele says he and their visitor had plenty of conversations about whether she could start something similar in Germany. It’s tough to say what’s more daunting to an aspiring farmer: The cost of land, and the lack of farmland in general, or the knowledge gap that has widened as the number of farmers dwindled over generations. If those things don’t scare people away, the idea of toiling away 80 hours a week for a barely livable wage can.

Still, Steele says he coached his wife's cousin to take the plunge and let instinct lead her. “Once you start doing it, people start to believe you.” He points out that, once he did, plenty of small miracles happened. Other farmers willingly offered critical advice. He used real estate records online to find the owner of the land adjacent to his farm, and she let him use it for free. Ultimately, Katie’s father decided to sell the house to the couple.

“This isn’t what we envisioned,” says Cooper. Steele picks up her thought. “Trying to come to terms with your life—trying to come to terms with what you actually have to do to do it—is hard.”

“Which is interesting,” he says, “because I am waiting for that person, for those people to show up and say, should I do this?”

What would he say?, you ask.

Yes, he says. “I would say yes.”

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