Corny Week 15: New BOTW 🌽 Peak Summer Corn-tent at the farm!

written by

Stephanie Schneider

posted on

August 8, 2025

Burger Night is open, rain or shine
Thursday & Friday 4pm-9pm
Saturday noon-9pm
Sunday noon-7pm

Happy FryYay! farm friends!

It's Week 15 of the 2025 Burger Night season and we've officially hit peak corn-tent. 😄

We've got a corny burger, more cornhole, a corn sale and puns for days. (don't you just love it here?!).

But, you must really get serious about planning accordingly (accorndingly?) because there are ONLY 8 WEEKS LEFT!!

Aw shucks, you really butter our corn, did you know that?!? Look what we were just given! On top of the four free TVs you guys brought us for trivia and bingo - now this amazing set of Brewers corn hole.....we have such an incredible community! 🥰 I'm already getting so sad that winter is coming....we're in single digits now folks. 😭

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Brand new Burger of the Week!

I was pretty busy with Taylor Swift Trivia so I haven't gotten a picture of the BOTW yet, but our every-Thursday-nighters (shout-out to Nikki, Jordan and Aaron! 👋) did!

The feedback was allll positive on this one - people loved it!! And I hope you do too:

🌽 Mission A-corn-plished

- Roasted sweet corn salsa

- Cojita cheese

- Chipotle ranch

- Arugula

- 100% grassfed beef patty

- Toasted brioche bun because what's corn without butter??

It’s creamy, corny, slightly sweet, slightly bitter, definitely savory, seasoned with just the right amount of salt and dressed with just a touch of spice to keep your taste buds fully engaged for the entire journey through this burger - a real ear-resistible summer bite.

This week’s burger is a-maize-ing 🌽

The grill’s hot, the storms are brewing, and the corn is poppin’! See you on the farm for some corny fun!!

📷: Thanks Nikki! (She comes to Burger Night every week - we should all strive to be as cool as her.)

(Note that we have about 15 other main meal options on the menu, not just whatever the BOTW special is; you can see the menus on the website.)

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Thursday, Aug 14th (NEXT week)

Taylor Swift trivia was last night and I spend waaaaaay too much time working on these games and so I'm sorry I didn't get the email out sooner but it was a great time for a lot of VERY SPECIFIC people.

The great news about next week's trivia is that it's MIXED BAG which means anyone can play and it's a super fun time.

Pro-tip: the teams that tend to do the best (usually but not always) are those with multi-generational teams.

So looking for something for grandma and little Timmy to bond over - TF trivia.

Looking for something to do on an otherwise uneventful Thursday night - TF trivia.

Want to win some absolutely FREE amazing(ly small) prizes from the phenomenal prize table - come to TF trivia! (or bingo!)

Want to make sure your ego (or your husband's*???) is kept in check? Come to TF trivia!! (*be careful with this one - there is the potential for this to backfire if he happens to be awesome at whatever categories we are doing that night but if you come to EVERY TF Mixed Bag trivia it's likely going to even out. Marriage counseling is available by request.....if you don't care about the quality or long-term outcomes of said counseling.)

Trivia at 7pm: Mixed Bag

Yes, it's Mixed Bag but I do know the topics:

Famous Ships
Flower Power
Picture round: Dr Seuss Books
Audio round: Songs with Prominent Drums
Desperately Seeking Susan
"Life" Songs
and more!!

Remember, we give prizes to 1st place, 2nd place and Last place! So bring your friends and let's have some Thursday night fun.

Grab your friends and play trivia with us at 7pm Thursdays!

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Friday, Aug 8th

LIVE MUSIC from Taylor Peterson, 6-9pm

Taylor Peterson is a Northern Minnesota singer-songwriter with a voice as soulful as her story. After busking her way across the country, sometimes with just her guitar, her horse, and her dog, she now brings her heartfelt originals and bold covers to stages around the Midwest. Her music connects deeply with listeners, blending grit, grace, and a one-of-a-kind sound.

🎤 From gas stations to grassfed, Taylor Peterson brings her one-of-a-kind sound (and wild backstory) to Together Farms this Friday at 6PM.

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Saturday, Aug 9th

LIVE MUSIC with Blain & Leah 5:30-8:30pm

Blaine and Leah Howard are a beloved acoustic duo from Fairchild, WI, known for their rich harmonies, heartfelt originals, and crowd-favorite covers spanning six decades of music. With over 20 years of performing experience and a devoted local following, they bring warmth, talent, and a little something for everyone: from John Denver to Indigo Girls to Chris Stapleton. Whether it’s your first time hearing them or your fiftieth, their set always feels like home

Fan favorites Blaine & Leah Howard return to the farm Saturday at 6pm with their signature harmonies and a setlist that feels like a hug from your favorite playlist. 🎵
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Sunday, Aug 10th

3 - 5:30pm: Free Xtreme Bingo for the folks over 21 and free Kids Bingo for the folks under 21!

Cash jackpots are currently at $1100 and $8,000.

✨ Remember, if you wanna win, you gotta play! ✨

A cold drink in one hand, a bingo card in the other, hard to top, right? But wait... it does get butter.

Throw in a sunshiney, low-humidity kind of day, some squeaky cheese curds, an ear-resistible burger, and a little ice cream for the road...

Boom. That’s one a-maize-ing Sunday if we’ve ever seen one.

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Farm Store Updates

All things corn are on sale!! 🌽🌽🌽 Popping corn, Gus's favorite corn dog toy.....stop in and check it all out.

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Wednesday, August 20th

Wine dinner! 6 plates + 5 wines.

Tickets are finally available and going fast!! You can buy on-farm too if you'd like to avoid some fees.

--> Early bird pricing ends Sunday at midnight!! <--

Wine Night Tickets

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The weather may try to rain on our corn parade, but this ain’t our first rodeo. Farms don’t stop when it gets hot and neither do we. Dress accordingly (the whole "No such thing as bad weather only bad clothes." thing), bring a friend, and come hungry.

Love you, mean it! 💚

Steph

p.s. Any questions on the goings-ons, or if you want to book a private Burger Night, send an email to steph@togetherfarms.com

Britt left us a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Google Review

Sensational organic and seed-oil free food on a beautiful farm in the Wisconsin countryside. Great music, views, and trivia nights. Will definitely be back soon! 💖

Reviews are soooo helpful to small businesses like ours, if you have something nice to say, let google know please - it makes a difference! Click to leave your stars here. (Or hit reply if there are any problems we should know about).

Pricing Updates & Freezes

Heads up, farm friends, it’s that time of year when all our behind-the-scenes costs start creeping up again, and unfortunately we have to pass along a few updates on delivery/shipping starting tomorrow. We’re still the middle man in a lot of ways, and the middle is getting a little more expensive. 🙃

Celery in meat - more deception?

UPDATE, 12-19-2025: I just learned that synthetic nitrites, aka pink salt, are pink because red dye is added to it. But, since it's at such a low percentage it is not required to be labeled on the meat (more bs in my mind). So that would be a point for Team Celery; however, with red dyes being banned, all the red dyed pink curing salts are now being phased out. So point is nullified, Team Celery still loses. Today we're talking about something that really irks me, really gets my britches in a bunch, really makes my blood boil, really drives me up the wall....but I will do my best to not devolve into anger and name-calling, I am clearly a professional so we'll keep this educational and factual because that's what you're here for and I don't even know where to get knickers from to twist. I'm obviously in such a state of controlled rage because it's Easter and so up popsCELERY. 😡Obviously. The gist of it: My belief is that nitrates and nitrites in meat should be avoided due to the creation of nitrosamines and that this is created whether the nitrates/ites are from the chemically pure lab-created (aka synthetic) nitrate/ite or if they are from concentrated nitrates/ites derived from celery because the same reactions will occur and be treated by your body in exactly the same way and it's best avoided. To further confuse matters, "their [synthetic nitrate/ites compared to those derived from celery] chemical composition is absolutely the same, and so are the health effects," says Joseph Sebranek, Ph.D., Morrison Endowed Chair in meat science at Iowa State University. 1 Just like how my blood sugar will spike if I eat a spoonful of sugar or a hunk of sugar cane. 🥄🌿REGARDLESS of what the label on the raw sugar cane says - it could say "natural", it could say "organic", it could saw "raw", it could say "derived from natural locations".....my blood sugar will spike because my digestive system is 100% immune from marketing gimmicks or downright deceptions.A+ work digestive system....please teach the eyes. 👁👃👁 Finding smoked meats without any added nitrates/ites in ANY form from animals raised well and organically on a small farm and then processed by an animal-welfare approved butcher that cares about health is quite a feat! Congratulations! 🎺🎺🎺Pictured: our $99 March Bundle of the Month (not pictured: included recipe cards and all the transparency we offer, mostly because it's transparent).Now that it's Easter time, the SMALL FARMS I follow are out there telling their customers that their hams are "uncured" and contain NO nitrates/ites because they use "celery" and therefore it's healthy....either they are directly saying it's healthier or are very heavily implying it. But they are literally say "NO nitrates/ites included" in their emails and social posts.Which is actually 3 lies. ‼ Lie 1. It's not uncured. Celery-derived nitrates/ites are chemically the same BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE. No literally. There's more. Since the USDA will not classify celery-derived nitrates/ites as being a curing agent (which makes zero science-sense) they will also not regulate it's use and so it's basically it's like the wild wild west.Not only that, but I have had butchers personally tell me that they then use MORE just to be "safe"!And the fact that nitrate/ite levels in meats using celery-derived nitrate/ite compounds is at least the same as synthetically sourced nitrate/ite was actually found to be true by researchers. So again, the chemical will behave the same, like a curing agent, regardless of how it came to be. Chemistry. Lie 2. It's just some celery - you know, the green leafy vegetable that is good for you. Well, yes but no. That's just like saying high-fructose corn syrup or glucose syrup is corn. 🌽Yes, but no. Yes it was derived from corn but after extensive further processing and concentration. If you told me "here's some corn for you to eat", I would imagine a cob of corn or perhaps a bag of frozen corn, I wouldn't think you were handing me a spoonful of glucose syrup. Same with the celery.They are not rubbing the meat with a stalk of celery, they are highly refining and processing the celery to extract out the naturally-occurring nitrates/ites and concentrate them which they then use as a substitute for pure synthetic nitate/ite curing salts. The entire point of adding the celery-derived nitrate/ites is for the nitrates/ites, not for flavor or nutrients or color or anything else. Nobody is even pretending there is any other reason for it's use except to act as a cure. Lie 3. It's healthier. I feel like we proved the point as far as celery nitrates/ites are the same chemically as synthetic ones and your intestinal tract also can't read, so just like my intestinal tract, it is what it is.The nitrosamines are created and probably cause colorectal cancer. But, wait, the celery option itself actually gets even a little bit worse. Okay, so it's true that nitrates/ites naturally occur in foods - especially leafy vegetables or any veggies with higher water content (because nitrates/ites occur in water) so then the veggies themselves concentrate that, some a little more than others, and we eat it, but that is seemingly okay. Kind of like how nicotine is naturally occurring in some veggies and actually might be good for you in small doses of that raw form, but I'm doing my best to stay focused here. Just remember, the problem seems to be the heating up of the nitrates/ites in a protein-rich environment, not necessarily the nitrates/ites themselves.Okay so what else are veggies that are full of water going to be full of? That's right - pesticides, herbicides and whatever else is floating around in or dissolved in all that water they are drinking or being splashed with. Celery currently ranks #16 on the EWG's pesticide contamination list (again, they don't look at any of the other -ides) and, here's the kicker! Non-organic celery is used to make celery-derived nitrates/ites even for organic products! 3So along with those celery nitrates/ites comes the concentration of whatever else was in that celery. I mean, at this point, if we didn't have this godsend of an option with our butcher of "D. None of the above".-------> we would choose synthetic over "celery". <------- Now at this point I should just leave well enough alone and send you on your merry way to digest all this info but I'm not really a professional like was indicated earlier so before we go, I'd like to show you this label and you tell me if it's telling you the truth and can be trusted or if it's deceiving you: It's hard to read but under the white banner it says "No Nitrates or Nitrites Added" and then in the asterisk at the very bottom in the white it says "except those naturally occurring in....celery powder" which you'll see below was added. 🤣 what?? so which is it? added or not added?That would be like if the Snickers or whatever candy bar said "no sugar added except for those naturally occurring in corn" instead of "high fructose corn syrup". 🤯And, of course, it says "uncured" in giant letters as part of the name, which it chemically is not Again, the back is hard to read though it does say you can have "peace of mind" eating this (more like, I'll give you a piece of my mind Applegate).A close-up of just the ingredients is included. Notice that the celery is not organic even though this is an organic product. It's not just celery. Some butchers will say "vegetable" or use carrots or beets or some other veggie or combo of veggies but it's all the same - a veggie being highly processed to extract and concentrate nitrates/ites to then be used as a better sounding cure. Could actually be worse depending on how much those other vegs concentrate bad stuff. Okay so they both said "no nitrates/ites added" but also then added the concentrated form of celery nitrates/ites which is chemically exactly the same as the synthetic nitrates/ites and behaves exactly the same way....as a cure.Okay and here's a picture of our label - what do you notice? The label says "uncured", the ingredient list does not include any vegetables or any asterisks that say "except for..." so it really is uncured and there really are no nitrates/ites added. Just good meat that was in a salt & sugar brine and then smoked the old-fashioned way using a smokehouse and hardwood chips! No water injections or reforming either. Just a smoked ham. That's right - actually no nitrates added. Congratulations! You have just unlocked a new set of decoder glasses complete with a ring! 👓💍This is a big deal, as the "Celery in Meat" ring + glasses are both are very hard to collect. This got much longer than I expected so I am going to save the butcher story for next week. I am also a little concerned I'm on the verge of starting a cult with all these secret super powers I am giving you so stay tuned for part 2 as to why and how we ended up here - clean meat, raised organically on our small farm and processed well. No way are we going to work so hard on raising the best meat we can (hand-fed pastured pigs!) only to have questionable ingredients added at the butcher! Hard pass. Of course if you want to eat meats with nitrates/ites in any form - great! If you aren't worried about nitrosamines, great! If you don't think I'm right or my references are not trustworthy, that's all fine. Of course, you probably shouldn't expect to be invited to present at the Annual Convention of Chemists, aka ChemCon, but that's fine, you've got better things to do anyway. 🧪 I just want you to be able to have the CORRECT and trustworthy information you need to make those decisions. And right now, "uncured" meats and "celery" are a huge pile of lies, deception and greenwashing. This really might be the worst example of greenwashing I can think of, specifically because we assume the word celery = better and we assume we can trust all these small farms. It's actually worse even than meat being able to be labelled "Product of USA" no matter where it's from because at least small farms aren't doing that to their blindly trusting customers. Ugh, it all just makes me so sad and frustrated. Also a small pro-tip, according to my chef friend, celery is best left out of broth making too as it brings some unpleasant flavors with it (nitrate is that you??). So keep celery in its place: Bloody Marys and we'll all be fine and live forever. Hmm, a drink actually sounds really good right now. Thanks for being a part of our little farm and I hope you really can trust us - I don't think we are self-deceived (although that's the thing about being self-deceived) and we do our best to be as transparent and honest as possible, but you'll never get the full story until our reality show becomes reality. ❤ Your farmer & founding-member-of-the-Church-of-the-Flying-Anticelery-Monster friend, Stephanie Schneider

Holiday & Sale Updates & Deadlines

Since the weather refuses to co-operate I've been trying really hard to get all the products online but whooo boy! It's a big task. I've added a TON though and am actively working through all the candles. It's day 8 of the 12 days and today all candles, melts & diffusers are 20% off!! I love these new candles made from upcycled wine glasses, check them out here! I'm working through the milkhouse candles now - my success here will depend on my level of success in the physical farm store, if we are busy, you won't see much more added, if we are not, they should keep showing up! We have something for all the candle lovers out there:🐝100% beeswax only.🐝100% beeswax with essential oils.🕯️Diffusers with essential oils only.🕯️Soy-wax with high quality fragrance oils.🕯️Electric candles with built-in 6 hour timers, they are even dipped in and made from wax so they look really legit but without the fear of fire or forgetting to blow them out. And without the pain of turning them all on every day! I love them. We have every shape and size: taper, tealight, small and large pillars, toads, mushrooms, fox, corn and more! Even the DIY candles are on sale today! So no matter your candle preference, you'll want to stop by the farm store for some free sniffs today! Open 2-6pm Table Centerpieces Unfortunately, we are woefully low on holiday centerpieces for your table (you guys are learning from all of our selling out in past years!). We have some beautiful pork tenderloins that make a great centerpiece especially when wrapped with bacon (or use a pork roast and make the family-favorite (and easier-than-pie) Bacon-Wrapped Kalua Pork which will IMPRESS). We have hams, but we may need to combine a few smaller ones to get to your desired poundage. No whole beef tenderloins but we do have filets (again, bacon wrapping is pretty spectacular) pair them with a whole side of one of the wild Alaskan salmons and you'll have the perfect surf & turf! Deadlines Until Christmas, ignore the online default deadlines (every time I try to override them, I screw something up): we will ship non-meat orders ASAP until the 23rd (flat $9, free for orders over $179). To bypass the store's limitations, follow these steps. Order MEAT and we'll ship this week if you are ready with Monday the 22nd being our last ship day (and a risky one for some of you, especially since the meat will arrive frozen, so plan accordingly!). Thank you so much for shopping small! Ironically, it makes a WORLD of difference to not just our little farm family but to all the small businesses you buy from through us too. We have 100s in our little farm store that we'd love to show you. ✨ Holiday Sale