(upbeat pop music) - Growing your own food is humbling and also like very amazing.

I mean, you can see the food come up out of the ground and form and then it's there.

It kind of really reminds you how delicate the world really is.

(upbeat energetic music) (upbeat relaxing music) My great-grandfather, he was the postmaster in Bird Island and so my great-grandmother was really the first farmer at this farm site and she worked it for many, many years.

And then my grandparents Carol and Dallas Lundstrom, they lived here like their whole life and farmed and eventually adopted my dad.

And like he's lived here his whole life.

- I get some people on here, they get about to the middle and then I'll go like that.

(cameraman laughing) They get a little freaked out.

- When I turned 18, I moved to Indiana and went to college for engineering and then I moved to Phoenix, Arizona, and I was there for 15 years as an electrical engineer.

I read this book called The Market Gardener and it kind of explains the economics of the small garden market.

My parents already had irrigation supplies, they had a lot of the farm resources.

So it kind of made sense to move back here.

This winter everything finally worked out that we were ready to move, my wife and I, to move here to back to Bird Island, Minnesota.

- So when Zeke asked me that want to become a farmer at his hometown at Lundstrum farm.

So it is kind of hard for me at first time because we used to be like in the city, right?

And like in my hometown in Thailand too we not really a farmer, we just have like a a few acre of food land, rubber tree, something like that.

But it's not the gardening.

And when he talk about how can we create a beautiful thing and we can eat our own vegetable, something like that.

And it's just like, okay, maybe I give him a try.

So maybe I like it.

Maybe if we didn't like it we can move to do something else.

(peaceful music) - We were married here on this farm.

Neither of us had very strong family ties to Phoenix so we thought it would be great to just come to the farm and have a wedding here.

Still one of my grandmother's favorite weddings to have ever attended.

- And Lyle, Lyle, you're sitting here.

(chairs scraping) With our three-course meal.

- My wife cooks a lot of stuff that I would say is inspired by Thai food, but we also, we eat Korean food, we eat Chinese food.

Everything that, you know, we like.

(knife scraping) - I learned it from my mom, what to put it before what to put it next and what sauce to mix it and how it's turned out.

Or usually I do a vegetable stir fry so we can put all the vegetable in there.

Or I do the curry too, just like a mixed vegetable with curry.

I cannot find a Thai food around here too so I'd rather to cook my own food, yeah.

And sometime I take a picture and send it to my mom to show her like, look at this.

I cook some Thai food and yeah, she's just like, oh, you never cook it at home.

(laughs) So my favorite vegetable is Thai chili and you can see back here and it's Thai basil over there.

Yeah.

So it's like a main thing of the Thai dish that you supposed to have.

Yeah.

For the flavor and the good smell, whatever.

Yeah.

(peaceful music) - We attend the Wilmer farmer's market on Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings and my parents had already done a lot of farmer's markets.

We always did it as kind of a side business or whatever.

We had a very large garden.

We have a large family.

Now when we come back to the market with the Lundstrum Farm name and they were Lundstrum vegetables, people do still recognize us at the farmer's market.

They still come up and say, "Oh, we used to love buying from your parents.

We're so glad you're here."

- I need a couple of green peppers.

- Yes, three, two.

I just really like to see different people come to choose their vegetable, and it's just like some people want to try the new vegetable to eat.

- We've had some success with different products that maybe people don't normally see in the grocery store.

This year we grew giant dicon radishes that we were able to sell all summer and people loved them.

They came back to the farmer's market and bought more of this thing that they didn't even know what it was before they started.

(peaceful music) - Mmm.

- Everything we bring to the farmer's market is grown on our farm by us.

We have probably two acres of garden.

And if you grow green bell peppers and red bell peppers put them somewhere where you know that they're separate.

- Now we don't know.

- Because you have to wait for the green ones to turn red and they all start green.

(laughs) (relaxing chiming music) - My outside jacket is is called mo hom shirt.

Mo hom shirt is represent a farmer like a to be a farmer in Thai.

So a lot of farmer wearing this.

Yeah, like a cop, jeans, that people wear jeans to farm here, but people in Thailand wearing this mo hom shirt and this one is, my friend gave it to me before I left Thailand because they know that I'm gonna be a farmer this year.

So they're just like give me this thing and give him too, but he never wear it.

(laughs) (cameraperson laughing) - I've seen a red one hidden way down there.

- Oh yeah, you should pick it.

See?

It's ready.

- Ever since I was a little kid I can remember entering things into the Renville County Fair.

There was a little cash premium there, you know it was a little contest even amongst ourselves to see who could do the best at the fair.

This year my wife and I entered I think maybe 40 plus exhibits into the Renville County Fair.

And so far it looks like it went well.

(peaceful chiming music) - I was an engineer before for three years before I come to America.

We have system I think.

I don't know how is that, like a, we try to do less work.

- I still feel like an engineer when I farm.

Every day with farming, there's some kind of problem.

There's something new you have to solve.

Sometimes it's just, you know putting your head down and doing the work.

But much more of the time it's about finding the most effective way to spend your time.

(water sloshing) (machine whirring) - They're washing.

(upbeat energetic music) I came back to this farm because I want there to be a future for this land with my family, for it to stay productive.

I'm very lucky that this farm was here to come here and try gardening, to try growing.

- You don't have to be in the office and try to impress all the people.

(laughs) So you can like grow your own food and cook your own food with your own vegetable and yeah.

And selling some to get some money.

It's not that much money but I mean it's, you can still survive and have a good life.

- [Narrator] Postcards is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the Citizens of Minnesota.

Additional support provided by Margaret A Cargill Philanthropies, Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen on behalf of Shalom Hill Farms, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Wyndham, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

Alexandria, Minnesota, a year-round destination with hundreds of lakes, trails, and attractions for memorable vacations and events.

More information at explorealex.com.

The Lake Region Arts Council's Arts calendar, an arts and cultural heritage funded digital calendar showcasing upcoming art events and opportunities for artists in West Central Minnesota.

On the web at lrac4calendar.org.

Playing today's new music plus your favorite hits, 96.7kram.

Online at 967kram.com.

(peaceful rhythmic music)