“Let’s hightail it out of here!”

It’s a phrase we often use without giving much thought to its origin. From the time Natalie Eick Paino (pronounced “Ike Pain-o”) started toddling around her family’s Northeast Iowa dairy farm, she has moved full speed ahead.

Natalie earned 30 college credits as a high school student, so she graduated from Iowa State University in 2.5 years. She took classes in Agricultural Entrepreneurship while earning a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Business. In 2019, she was one of six members selected to participate in the Rural Entrepreneurship Academy where she job shadowed at both Hansen’s Farm Fresh Dairy in Hudson and Country View Dairy in Hawkeye. She learned about ice cream, yogurt, milk and cheese production in rural creameries.

“My favorite part of this process was getting to assist with the cheese-curd making and trying the finished product,” says Natalie, who lives in Plainfield, Iowa, with her husband, Marquise Paino. He works at Poet Bioprocessing in Shell Rock.

Although Natalie says she has always wanted to be involved with her family’s 55-Holstein dairy cow operation, she needed to find a way to generate additional revenue. Locally produced, value-added agriculture is where her interests lie.

Natalie started making and selling ice cream while she was still in college. Then she revised her business plan during the Covid-19 pandemic to become Hightail Delivery, under which the family direct sells dairy beef. She taught herself how to build a website through Wix and began taking online orders. Then she partnered with Yellow Table Farms and Hansen’s Dairy to expand her offerings to fresh milk, cheese curds, fresh produce and eggs.

In addition to offering weekly home delivery throughout Bremer and Chickasaw Counties, Natalie sells her Hightail ice cream wholesale to Parks & Rec throughout the region. Her sweet treats are served at many swimming pools and baseball field concession stands. She also attends special events and sets up “pop-up stores” at community celebrations and care centers. She sells pre-packaged, six-ounce cups, pints and half-gallons of unique ice cream flavors like Strawberry Cheesecake and Monster Cookie.

“Ultimately, I want to be able to use the milk from our dairy cows to make ice cream, cheese curds and other products,” Natalie says. She got one step closer to reaching her dream in June 2023 when an order she placed for a prefabricated milk manufacturing facility (shipping container) arrived. Natalie was able to purchase this facility with the help of a $50,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Now Natalie is wading through a myriad of state and federal rules and regulations to make on-farm manufacturing a reality. Until then, Natalie and her mom, Kelly, use the commercial kitchen at a nearby nursing home to prepare their homemade ice cream. Kelly makes all of the ice cream toppings herself.

As a fifth-generation dairy farmer, Natalie understands nothing worth attaining comes easily. After all, if it was easy, more people would do it! The family’s goal is to produce their first batches of ice cream in the new facility by the end of calendar year 2023.

Just like the cows high tail it out of the barn and into the pasture after being cooped up all winter, ice cream lovers hightail it to the farm or wherever homemade ice cream is sold. Today Natalie is sharing one of her family’s favorite recipes, which she says tastes better when enjoyed with a scoop (or two!) of vanilla ice cream.

Thank you, farmers!

As National Agriculture Week ends, I want to say thank you to the men and women who work in acres, not hours. Thanks to those of you who work past dark and get up before dawn to care for livestock. Thank you for working tirelessly to provide nutritious food and renewable fuel for the world.

The purpose of Ag Week is to shine a spotlight on American agriculture, preserving its past and celebrating its future. Like the Latham® Dealers with whom we work directly and the Upper Midwest farmers they serve, we are so proud of our agricultural roots.

It is our family’s honor to follow in the footsteps of Willard and Evelyn Latham, who started Latham Seeds in 1947 by answering a need for high quality seed. Willard and Evelyn were what I would call a “traditional farm family” of their time.

When I read Paul Harvey’s famous poem, I picture Evelyn holding a coffee pot and welcoming everyone – friends, neighbors and seed customers – to have a seat at the table:

And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker.” So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board.” So God made a farmer.

“I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife’s done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon — and mean it.” So God made a farmer.

Evelyn would tell everyone to come back soon — and mean it. However, times have changed in the last 75 years that our family has owned and operated a seed business. I appreciate that young girls today are being told they can own their own farms.

Women in Agriculture today have inspiring role models, so today I’m shining a spotlight on a few of these women:

• April Hemmes, first recipient of “Top Producer” Trailblazer Award and first president of Iowa Women in Ag.
• Iowa Senator Annette Sweeney, who chairs Natural Resources Committee.
• Pam Bolin, the first female to serve on the Swiss Valley Farms Co-op Board of Directors

In celebration of trailblazing women throughout the generations, I’m sharing a family favorite recipe from Evelyn Latham.