♪ ♪ JOANNE: For the past ten years, Maryland's agriculture has been on full display.

Did you know, you can't been sheepish when shearing sheep?

She's like, 'you've never done this before'.

The only way to reach this community of farmers is by snail mail?

And that Al Spoler had a close encounter that packed a wallop?

AL: Hey!

JOANNE: Don't go anywhere!

A special 10th anniversary episode is coming your way, next on Maryland Farm and Harvest.

NARRATOR: Major funding for "Maryland Farm & Harvest" is made possible in part by, the Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board, investing in smarter farming to support safe and affordable food, feed and fuel and a healthy Bay.

Additional funding provided by: Maryland's Best, good for you, good for Maryland.

Rural Maryland Council, a collective voice for rural Maryland.

MARBIDCO, helping to sustain food and fiber enterprise for future generations.

A grant from the Maryland Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop Block Program.

Farm Credit, lending support to agriculture and rural America.

The Maryland Soybean Board and Soybean Checkoff Program, progress powered by farmers.

Wegmans Food Markets, healthier, better lives through food.

The Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts.

CHILD: The Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation, promoting the importance of agriculture in our daily lives.

NARRATOR: And by, The Maryland Nursery, Landscape and Greenhouse Association.

The Maryland Seafood Marketing fund.

The Maryland Farm Bureau Incorporated.

The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment.

And by... Closed Captioning has been made possible by Maryland Relay, empowering those who are deaf, hard of hearing or speech disabled to stay connected by phone.

(theme music ends).

JOANNE: Milestones are measured in many ways.

Birthdays, landmark discoveries, significant events like graduations, even with actual stones, placed every mile along a road.

Hi, I'm Joanne Clendining.

Welcome to the 10th anniversary season of Maryland Farm and Harvest.

For us, a milestone marks ten years of bringing you the stories of the folks who work the land, and grow our food.

130 episodes that have showcased many of Maryland's farms and farmers who have given their time, energy, patience, and humor to make this series great.

Coming up, we look back and celebrate some our finest moments with the folks who are behind the scenes pulling the strings.

But first, it was March 2013 when I auditioned to be the host of a new TV series about Maryland agriculture.

I said to myself, "Hm, this could be interesting" and whew, was I right.

Meeting amazing people and worked right alongside many of them during the making of this series.

Here are some of my most memorable moments.

Hello, I'm Joanne Clendining, and this is Maryland Farm and Harvest.

Oh my gosh!

(smooches).

(clippers buzzing).

WOMAN: And then you could... (clippers buzzing).

JOANNE: Look at them!

Aren't they cute?

GIRL: Yeah.

JOANNE: Yeah.

Ooh!

Just got smacked in the face.

(hammering).

It's harder than it looks.

For those of you who say "Eh, you've been to one fair, you've seen 'em all", maybe you've never been to a Maryland county fair where jousting is always on the schedule of events.

Charge, fair maiden!

Into our nets.

Woo, look at that one!

MAN: That's a nice one, there.

JOANNE: It's like bobbing for apples.

So this is, this is gonna be my riding partner today?

WOMAN: It is.

This is Titan, he's a former Baltimore City Police Officer.

JOANNE: Oh, nice.

WOMAN: So he is used to all sorts of stuff.

JOANNE: Excellent.

I'll try and behave then.

(laughing).

MAN: She'll push against you, just relax a minute.

WOMAN: You'll feel on the side, they have two parts to it.

MAN: It is alive, it's moving its head.

(cheering).

JOANNE: Oh my gosh!

This is so exciting, I can't wait to see what happens.

(cheering).

Oh my gosh did you guys get to see the cow being born?

GIRLS: Yes.

JOANNE: What did you think?

GIRL: It was the most amazing experience of my life.

JOANNE: I know me too!

What about you?

GIRL: I thought it was so cool!

JOANNE: I'm Joanne Clendining, thanks for watching.

We want to give a special shout out to the Carroll County Farm Museum.

We're filming this special Maryland Farm and Harvest episode from their amazing Westminster complex.

Coming up, I sit down with several producers from seasons past, and take a stroll down memory lane.

But first, you might say that if it wasn't for this long-time MPT executive producer, I wouldn't be here talking to you today.

Here's an interview with the show's creator, Mike English, on how it all began.

MIKE: Well, Maryland Farm and Harvest was born out of the idea that the Maryland farmer had a lot of great stories to tell.

And there are a lot of great stories out there.

It's sort of a surprise for a state this size, that there are that many agricultural operations in this state, but there's there's quite a few, there's more than 12,000 farms in the state.

And they run the gamut anywhere from large farms like large grain farms, dairy farms, livestock operations, all the way down to little mom and pop like operations like goat milk, goat cheese, that kind of thing.

So what happened was, um, the Maryland Department of Agriculture came to us and they said you know, is this possible and we said yes, it's very possible.

And we got some great support from some agricultural organizations.

And the objective of the program is to help people understand where their food comes from, and who's growing it, and what kind of challenges do they face every day?

So people love it, and are find it very very interesting and are really engaged with the life of Maryland farmers, they find it fascinating.

The very reason that public television exists, I think, is that we do what other broadcast outlets don't do.

We pull the curtain back on things like agriculture, and the people who grow our food.

JOANNE: Mike mentioned in that piece that Maryland has over 12,000 farms and each one of them has a story to tell.

It's the job of producers and videographers to find, shoot, and edit those stories.

Well, joining me are several of those intrepid storytellers, from the past nine seasons of Maryland Farm and Harvest.

Welcome everybody.

So tell us, how do you come up with all of these stories?

SARAH: One big thing that we try to do is spread the stories throughout the state, so we want to make sure that we're hitting western Maryland, the Eastern Shore, central Maryland... STEFANIE: I think one of the, one of the resources that actually has proven really invaluable to us, over the course of ten seasons has been the University of Maryland extension.

I remember, in past seasons we would often at the beginning of the season kind of split up the counties of Maryland and reach out each of us to different counties, and kind of call the extension officers, and ask them "Hey, what new is going on?"

JOE: Yeah, absolutely.

It's funny the longer the show was on the air, the more people heard about us, the more farmers would call us and email us.

SARAH: Yeah, and Joe's right actually, as the show picked up in popularity.

I remember in seasons one and two, we would call farmers and we'd say oh we're Maryland Farm and Harvest do you want to be on the show, and they'd say you know, who are you, what is this?

People were really sort of dubious.

But then, as the show picked up in popularity, like Joe said, people started calling us.

And people were for the most part, thrilled to be a part of the show.

JOANNE: I remember the same thing, when we first got started and we'd go out and do like a walkabout and we were like "hey can we do an interview, Maryland Farm and Harvest' and they're were like "what?"

and now people are like, "Hey, is that Maryland Farm and Harvest?"

You know so, yeah the longevity definitely... SARAH: They'll say, "Is that Joanne Clendining?"

(laughing).

HARPREET: And actually, Nick has been a great resource also, cause he's gone out with every producer, and has been connected to every farm.

NICK: I try, I mean my job is the photography.

So, my challenge is just to try to find something a little bit different.

I tell everybody pretty much the same thing when we go out in the morning I'm looking for some little magic moment.

It could be you know, something evocative, something joyful, or an animal giving birth.

WOMAN: Hey!

NICK: Look at that.

WOMAN: Hi!

JOANNE: Well and you do such a great job with it, I mean, the photography is awesome.

NICK: I try, I try.

JOANNE: So, speaking of live births, I know we've had a few on the show, and it must be really tricky.

NICK: Sarah and I were trying to get a live birth of a horse, and it happened, what about 3:00 in the morning?

SARAH: Yeah, 3:00 to 4:00 am.

And, you know, we were definitely a little bleary-eyed uh, by the time the uh, the foal was actually born.

But it was really exciting.

JOANNE: Such an amazing thing to see, you know, for the viewers.

Because how often do you get to see a live birth of something?

SARAH: Well Joanne, do you remember the uh, the time at the sheep and wool festival, when you were shearing the sheep?

JOANNE: Yes, I do.

SARAH: And it got away from you?

JOANNE: Yes I do remember that!

That was like, okay clearly this sheep knows that I do not know what I'm doing and so maybe they'll take over.

But that was an amazing experience.

SARAH: Yeah, but that's why we love having you on camera, doing things, um I think it's sort of, you're the stand-in for the viewer.

And, so the viewer can kind of imagine well this is what it'd be like if I was out there shearing a sheep.

You're a great sport about all of that, cause we've definitely had you do some, some wacky things.

HARPREET: Yeah, that's what I was going to say, your attitude is always great.

I remember going to the great fair of Frederick and I was like, okay we've got rides here, we'll get you on the Ferris wheel, we'll do these rides, but what else can Joanne do?

And you were interacting with the kids... WOMAN: It's his first time at the fair.

JOANNE: Nice.

WOMAN: Yeah.

HARPREET: And then we had that combine that was converted into a slide.

JOANNE: Oh my gosh, that was so fun!

HARPREET: And you did a standup and I was like "Joanne, do you mind going down the slide?"

And you were like sure!

And you went down... (screaming).

JOANNE: But here at the fair, it's being put to good use.

HARPREET: That was a fun one.

JOANNE: It was so fast!

NICK: I think we got so close, you were probably that far away from the camera.

JOANNE: So Stefanie, you had an interesting story, where it was with Mennonite farmers that the only way you could communicate with them was through snail mail, can you tell us a little bit about that?

STEFANIE: Yeah, yeah.

So we did we did, we did this story about the Loveville Produce Auction, run by Southern Maryland's Mennonite community, the organizer of the auction didn't have a cell phone, didn't have email, and the only way that I could really get in touch with him was actually by sending him a letter in the mail.

JOANNE: Carrier pigeon?

STEFANIE: Well that would've been an option too, didn't think of that.

But, I got this letter back in the mail, this handwritten letter that was like "yeah, come on down".

What was really cool was that they trusted us, uh, to tell their story and to respect their boundaries basically.

If you watch that story, you'll see a lot of group shots, you'll see a lot of like, backs of heads.

There's a couple shots where there's a watermelon being hoisted up in front of someone's face kind of blocking the camera.

And it's kind of funny but it's also just kind of a testament to the fact they, they trusted us to come in and to tell their story and to respect their boundaries and and because of that we were able to kind of open this little window into this community for our viewers.

JOANNE: You know, you bring up such a great point that some of the farmers that we've worked with have been amazing.

SARAH: So accommodating, yes.

JOANNE: So accommodating.

And like you know, how can I help, what can I do?

Which makes I mean, every all of our lives so much easier, absolutely.

But these farmers, not only are they generous with their time and of themselves, but they're so generous with each other, and other people.

JOE: Absolutely, we've done so many stories about farmers who are giving back to their communities.

During the, the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, you saw so many farms, you know, places were shut down, farmers were donating produce and donating food, and they were setting up drive-thru farmers markets to make sure people still had stuff to eat, it's just really incredible how generous the community is and how, how blessed Marylanders are to have these people in their neighborhoods and backyards.

JOANNE: Okay, this is too much fun.

Don't go anywhere, and that goes for you folks at home, as well.

♪ ♪ DIRECTOR: Rolling.

JOANNE: All right, it's time to put on your agricultural thinking cap, but this week we have a special friend of the show with us, to give you the hint.

Meet Scott Holniker, he's the recently retired curator here at the farm museum.

So, what do you have here?

SCOTT: This is our thingamajig for the week, Joanne.

This is a plow, but it's not used on soil.

JOANNE: Alright, well stay tuned and we'll have the answer at the end of the show.

We're thrilled to say that we've gathered an amazing following on social media, and you have provided us with countless hours of joy looking at your photo submissions.

Take a gander at some of your best work.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Coming up, from soft shells to hard hits, Al Spoler joins us to share some of his most memorable moments from "The Local Buy".

But first, they say no one really wants to know how the sausage is made, but what about how a television series is made?

We pull back the curtain to give you a glimpse of the making of Maryland Farm and Harvest.

MAN: Well, another day of farm wraps.

JOANNE: Yep.

MAN: Cause we gotta do something else.

JOANNE: I gave it to... ROBERT: Those wraps is where Joanne introduces segments.

JOANNE: Here we go!

Gotta hide the wires.

Smoke and mirrors.

Gotta love fun little scene partners like this.

ROBERT: It's all a coordinated effort between weather, location, script, animals.

But that's what makes it fun!

Here we go, let's make this happen.

NICK: We are looking for our next location.

And then move this way, you've got this wonderful little thing here.

MAN: We're trying to get these ponies into the shot, they weren't really cooperating.

NICK: Be a fencepost!

JOANNE: Remember our thingamajig?

ROBERT: All right, hey guess what?

That's a wrap!

JOANNE: Now hold on, we're not done yet!

That was fun to watch.

And so much work goes into making this show.

And no one knows that more than the man sitting next to me, Al Spoler.

Hi Al.

AL: Hi Joanne, it is a lot of work, but both you and I have been doing it since day one.

JOANNE: Absolutely.

AL: So that's a lot of farms we've seen.

JOANNE: It is, yeah.

And so we've been reminiscing about all the crazy shoots, the wonderful farmers, the inspiring stories, and you know... why don't you start us off with the infamous kangaroo story?

AL: We were at Wagon Wheel Ranch down in Howard County.

And the farmer there had a whole collection of wild animals, he had baboons and monkeys and a kangaroo.

And we were in the same paddock as the kangaroo, minding our own business.

NICK: The other part of it is the kangaroo came at me first.

No one had a camera except for me.

Wow, wow.

And then he eyeballed Al.

AL: Okay, ready.

In three, two, one... NICK: Al at the time did not know what was about to happen.

AL: All of a sudden I looked over and this kangaroo was charging me.

And he did not have love in his eyes, I could see.

Hey!

And he came, he came running right at me, and I realized, I can't run, I can't run away from this character so I'm just gonna stand my ground.

Hey!

(hitting).

JOANNE: And so Stefanie, what are you doing during all this time?

NICK: Laughing, she's laughing.

STEFANIE: Probably, honestly.

You, you saved yourself.

JOANNE: You saved yourself.

AL: I did my best.

JOANNE: And no kangaroos were injured.

AL: No, no, no, they're tough.

STEFANIE: No Al's.

NICK: You want to have another go at it, Al?

With the kangaroo?

AL: No, can we get him well in the background?

MAN: In the background?

AL: Yeah, way back there.

But then there's times when I get something that's really sublime.

And I'm thinking about the story we did about soft shell crabs at the Patuxent River Seafood Company.

And my job was eat a soft shell sandwich.

And usually Joanne I just take one bite, and you know, say "Mm, boy that's really good" I finished the whole sandwich... JOANNE: You ate the whole thing?

AL: I ate the whole thing, and I had another one, I had two of 'em.

JOANNE: I don't blame ya.

AL: And it was just absolutely perfect, so.

You know, from the ridiculous to the sublime.

JOE: As a very envious producer who did not get to eat soft shell crab, when you came back and I got to watch the footage from that story, it looked delicious, but I also loved that you got to ride along in the boat and you got to see them catch the crabs.

And I always love stories where you get to get involved, whether you're helping dig the potatoes, you're helping catch the crabs, you're helping shuck the corn, but you get to see and sometimes even help... AL: Look at that!

JOE: Do the thing to harvest whatever the, the food is.

AL: They snap right up, how about that?

Well Joanne, I, I, sometimes I'm asked to do things that are really a lot of fun.

And I remember one of the times we went to a farm where they had a lot of gourds.

And I think they had kids come in and paint up the gourds and make little characters.

And I got to paint up this one little gourd that they had created in the shape of the chef, and it's still in my kitchen today.

JOANNE: I remember you brought it... AL: You remember him?

JOANNE: To the Thanksgiving shoot we did, it was adorable.

AL: That's right, that's right.

JOANNE: It was adorable.

That was a fun shoot, the Thanksgiving shoot.

AL: Yeah, I remember we had a logistical problem with that.

JOANNE: What better time to celebrate the diverse bounty of Maryland farms than the day we give thanks?

Sarah do you want to talk about that at all?

SARAH: Sure, yeah.

Well I mean, everybody who does television knows that you know, sometimes there's some bumps in the road.

And this was probably early October, maybe late September and typically, you're not gonna find a whole turkey in the supermarket that time of year.

So we had arranged with a local grocery store to have a full turkey, to have it cooked and delivered on location.

And long story short, there was a little mix-up in the dates, and no turkey arrived, there was no turkey.

The closest thing we had was a frozen turkey.

What they ended up doing for us was, sort of, they said, "well nobody's actually going to eat it, right?"

And I was like no, no we just need it to look nice, we just need it to look believable.

So they pretty much speed cooked it about two hours, just to get a little bit of a, a golden brown sort of on the outside, and if you look at the episode you can see that you know, it's believable, maybe not super edible.

But Al did not taste that one.

An unnamed crew member did take it home.

JOE: And finish cooking.

SARAH: Finished cooking it, yes, yeah, and he survived.

JOANNE: And he survived.

SARAH: Yeah.

JOE: I always loved the episodes where we could have the two of you together.

We did a holiday special and you remember we had hot cocoa in the mugs and the tree in the background with all the little tractor ornaments on it.

AL: Mm-hm.

JOE: Because a lot of the times, you're on the same episode but you don't actually talk to each other.

JOANNE: No.

JOE: So it's very fun any time we can have both of you in the same room.

JOANNE: We make a good team man.

AL: Yeah we do.

But you're sort of like my phantom friend.

It's like "and that's it...

Joanne?"

JOANNE: Thanks, Al!

AL: And you're nowhere in sight, you're a state of, far away, you know it's fun.

JOANNE: I'm there in spirit.

AL: Yeah you are, and you're great to work with.

And people ask me, "Is she really that nice?"

and I'll tell ya, what you see on camera is what you get in real life.

JOANNE: Aw, thank you.

AL: You just, you're a real sweetheart.

JOANNE: Thank you, thank you very much.

You are just as well.

Exactly, you are what you get, exactly.

AL: Oh good, good.

JOANNE: Oh my gosh, so many fun memories over the past decade.

And you can watch all those great Maryland Farm and Harvest episodes on MPT.org/farm.

You can also check out our recipes and our resources, they are there as well.

Also, don't forget to follow us on social media for show updates, pictures, and videos.

Now hold on, we're not done yet.

Remember our thingamajig?

Did you guess it?

Did you guys guess it?

Alright, not so sure.

So Scott, please tell us, what is this thing?

SCOTT: What we have here Joanne is an ice plow, it's used to harvest ice.

We would take this plow, hitch it to a horse, out on the pond and we actually make a grid pattern.

After the grid pattern is made we come back with a handsaw and saw out the ice blocks, and then take them to the ice house.

AL: Oh, boy.

JOANNE: Ohh!

Well congratulations if you got it right.

Thank you, Scott.

SCOTT: Thank you, Joanne.

JOANNE: Join us next week for another thingamajig, along with more stories about the diverse, passionate people who feed our state.

I'm Joanne Clendining, thanks for watching.

But hold on, we are still not done yet.

Some of you may not know that in my spare time I sing and play guitar in a couple of different bands, and so I was asked to share that side with everybody.

So, this is a little song I wrote for my husband.

♪ ♪ ♪ Out of coffee in the morning ♪ ♪ And there ain't no time to stop ♪ ♪ There's traffic everywhere I turn ♪ ♪ Started right around my block ♪ ♪ Press detour on the GPS but even she can't find a way ♪ ♪ To make this day go any better ♪ ♪ "Recalculate" is all she'll say ♪ ♪ My head is in my hands as I slide to the floor ♪ ♪ It's only 10:15 and I can't take anymore ♪ ♪ Then I feel the text come through ♪ ♪ And I smile cause it's from you ♪ ♪ It says just want to say I love you ♪ ♪ No I mean I really do ♪ ♪ Cause when I love you by yourself ♪ ♪ Is not enough to convey ♪ ♪ The way you make me feel when you say the things you say ♪ ♪ And do the things that you do ♪ ♪ That little tag after I love you ♪ ♪ Let's me know how much you mean to me ♪ ♪ Yeah you really do ♪ ♪ Pull in the drive let out a sigh ♪ ♪ As I walk right through the door ♪ ♪ First thing I do is look around ♪ ♪ To find out where you are ♪ ♪ Cause I gotta tell you now before this day is through ♪ ♪ Just how much I love you ♪ ♪ And I mean I really do ♪ ♪ Cause when I love you by yourself ♪ ♪ Is not enough to convey ♪ ♪ The way you make me feel when you say the things you say ♪ ♪ And do the things that you do ♪ ♪ That little tag after I love you ♪ ♪ Let's you know how much you mean to me ♪ ♪ Yeah you really do ♪ ♪ Cause when I love you by yourself ♪ ♪ Is not enough to say ♪ ♪ Just how much you mean to me each and every day ♪ (applause).

AL: You're good!

JOANNE: Oh, thank you.

Now the show is over.

NARRATOR: Major funding for "Maryland Farm & Harvest" is made possible in part by, the Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board, investing in smarter farming to support safe and affordable food, feed and fuel and a healthy Bay.

Additional funding provided by: Maryland's Best, good for you, good for Maryland.

Rural Maryland Council, a collective voice for rural Maryland.

MARBIDCO, helping to sustain food and fiber enterprise for future generations.

A grant from the Maryland Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop Block Program.

Farm Credit, lending support to agriculture and rural America.

The Maryland Soybean Board and Soybean Checkoff Program, progress powered by farmers.

Wegmans Food Markets, healthier, better lives through food.

The Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts.

CHILD: The Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation, promoting the importance of agriculture in our daily lives.

NARRATOR: And by, The Maryland Nursery, Landscape and Greenhouse Association.

The Maryland Seafood Marketing fund.

The Maryland Farm Bureau Incorporated.

The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment.

And by... (applause).

♪ ♪