The Price of Tea in China

Is anyone else ready for fall?  I feel like it will never get here.  July has been one long, hot month.  If this is an indication of the future of climate change (which I fully believe it is) we need to seriously re-think how we're using our resources (me included).  I really don't think I'll be able to live in a world where my air conditioning can't keep up with the temperature outside for three months in a row.


I haven't posted, because we haven't been doing anything particularly interesting.  We're keeping up with the CSA on Tuesdays, that's about it around here.  I have to say I am really glad we did that this year.  I enjoy getting the boxes together and seeing the members every week.  I feel like I've really gotten to know some great families and I hope we get them and more back next year.  Other than that we're planting soybeans (or as The Boy calls them, soilbeans.  I've repeatedly tried to explain to him it's soy, not soil, but he's an Odom.  There's not but so much I can do to counteract natural pigheadedness).


Soybeans aren't terribly interesting.  You plant them, you spray them, you fertilize them, you watch them grow, they die and dry out, you pick them.  'Course to hear The Husband talk they are just fascinating.  I hate it when he wants to take these family trips to check out how the crops are doing (but, when I went to report the crops it really helped since we had some field confusion and I was able to answer questions without making a phone call that likely won't be answered), because I know it's going to be a ride filled with soybean talk.  If it's not soybeans it's pigweed.  Weeds are smart little things.  Just like viruses become resistant to antibiotics, weeds can become resistant to chemicals, namely, roundup.  Sometimes it looks like if anything it fertilized the thing rather than killed it.  Sometimes the only way to get rid of them is to pull them.  On that note, do you know anyone who needs an attitude adjustment?  Have ungrateful lazy kids at home with a smart mouth?  Tried everything?  Have I got a solution for you!  Contact your local farmer and you can get free attitude adjustments.  'Cause if there's one thing that will make them appreciate what they have, it's pulling weeds.  I'm serious, let me know.  I'll be more than glad to set you up!  

Public Enemy #1 - Pigweed

The most interesting thing about soybeans is the price we're getting on the market for them.  For row crops (i.e corn, wheat, soybeans, corn) you sell to a company based on the market price.  Every day (several times a day) The Husband gets the market prices texted to his phone (he can only get, don't ask him to text back) and he comments on how much they've gone up and down (every. single. time.).  After you watch the market get to the price you want (it's a big gamble), you call the company you want to sell with (the one offering the best price) and book so many bushels with them at that price.  


All the news can talk about is the drought in the midwest, and don't get me wrong I'm glad they are.  Usually farmers get no press so this, even if it's bad press, is good.  But they're concentrating on how the short supply is going to push up food prices, which it will.  People see these prices and think that farmers are really making a killing.  We got that a lot last year with the high cotton prices.  What the general public doesn't realize is that everything else goes up too.  Seed prices, chemical prices, fertilizer prices, it all goes up.  Then we're getting hit at the grocery store too, and having to pay high fuel prices.  So while it looks like we're getting a huge boon, it's really more like a cost of living increase.  Don't get me wrong, no one's going to complain about $16+ a bushel soybeans, but when you compare gross profits vs. overhead, it's not always the picture the media wants to paint.


Anyway that's my soap box.  Didn't meant to bore you talking about soybeans and market prices and drought.  I guess I could have written a disclaimer advising you to skip over those last two paragraphs (I know I like to tune out the soybean talk in the car, mostly with music.  Music is a wonderful thing.).  There's just not a lot going on this time of year for us and honestly it's nice to have a break.  Especially since opening day of the corn maze is less than 2 months away.  We're going to get started out there in the next week or so, so hopefully I'll have a hilariously entertaining story about The Husband cutting down trees or something.  Or if there's something you're particularly interested about, crops or maze or berries or otherwise, let me know and I'll be glad to write about that.  Until then stay cool and think fall!

Hits and Misses

Well, as if anyone needed a reminder with the 100 degree heat we're expecting this weekend, spring is over.  Today we officially ended strawberry season by The Husband spraying the strawberries to kill the plants.  If I could drink, I would toast them Irish Wake style.  It's been a good season, but I have to honestly say I am so glad it's over.  Last year we picked 6 - 7 weeks.  This year we picked 3 months.  Thanks La Nina!


As with anything, we definitely had some hits and misses.  Overall I'd say strawberries were a hit.  Even though for me it's not as fun as the Fall activities (it's a whole hell of a lot more work, and the spring isn't my favorite season since it's heating up and getting humid), I have really enjoyed seeing all our friends from last season and the fall and I have loved making new ones and meeting new families.  Thank you all so much for coming out to support us!  We've definitely had some interesting times, from being chased by the bees to flipping a picnic table over and pulling it across the yard on the Gator (alright so before you judge, these things are really heavy and very cumbersome to move.  It was me and two other girls trying to move it.  I'm pregnant and we had to move it clear across the farm.  There happened to be a chain in the back of the Gator...I figured why not.  My motto is there's more than one way to skin a cat) to dealing with two groups showing up out of the blue one Friday morning, we had plenty to laugh at around here.  I figure if you can't have fun while you're doing it what's the point?  


Below is a lovely gallery of the many uses of our Gator over this past season (John Deere, please feel free to compensate us for this free advertisement on your part).  The (very short) video is of us using it to pull out row covers.

Dragging the field, yes, he is pulling a section of a chain link fence. 

Pulling the table

Pulling the hay trailer

As for the misses...produce was an epic fail.  The CSA has been great.  I love doing it.  I love having the members come pick up their boxes and seeing their excitement as they pull out their sheets to see what's in their box this week and what recipe I've included (on a personal note, as mentioned I have a discriminating palate so I eat pretty much nothing we grow.  Trying to come up with recipes for foods I do not eat is not easy.  I choose them based on three things, a) how hard are they to make, how much time will they take, b) how many ingredients does it take and how exotic are they and c) how awful do they sound to me.  So far I think I've done pretty good, but I'm always open to suggestions).  It's something I definitely plan on continuing next year, hopefully on a larger level (delivery sound good to anyone?).  Selling produce at the stand however, not such a great idea.  We had a lot of calls for more produce, but as with anything else, people wanting things does not turn into people buying things.  It's discouraging to sit down at the Stand all day with only a few if any customers or to spend money advertising to see no result (this is another off-topic rant, but do you know it cost at least $20 more a week to advertise in the classifieds of the News Argus vs the News and Observer...there's just something not right about that!).  So we've cut back to basically just selling the sweet corn and later butter beans and peas.  Of course we'll keep providing for the CSA (don't worry!), but working so hard to be open down there every day (especially when the temps are above 95.  I don't take heat well, and with Sea Monkey becoming my own personal internal heater it's just worse and not looking any better until Dec.) just doesn't seem worth it at this point.


Still, we are looking forward to the fall.  Today we planned out the placement of the corn maze and pumpkin patch and punkin' chunker (I want 2 this year, and maybe, just maybe, a trebuchet) and other new additions we want to add to the farm this fall.  I am really, really excited for the fall (a - it'll be cooler and b - I'll be three months closer to meeting Sea Monkey in person) and corn maze season.  So mark your calenders, we'll be open September 29 for fall family fun on the farm!

Confession

I love Pintrest and someecards.com.  Always entertaining.

Alright.  It's confession time.  I got chased by the bees (I think I promised someone a blog about this).  

Anyone who's been on our Facebook or read this blog before probably knows I'm a little fascinated with the insects.  I just think they're amazing with their instincts and social structures and little dances.  With all the swarms and the proximity of the hives to the stand I've felt pretty proud of how brave I've gotten.  I'll walk right up to the hives to take pictures.  I see them in the field and think nothing of it.  Well, on the day of our last swarm, I got a little too close.

Usually I'm not there when they swarm.  This day, they started as I pulled up.  I was excited because I've been wanting to get pictures of this since the first swarm.  it was cool until they started coming close, then my and the girls at the stand ran for our cars.  Two of us climbed into mine and I held my phone to the window to get pictures.  It took a couple minutes for them to pass over us and when they did I started the search for where they went.  I heard them on the other side of the irrigation pond, so after a few minutes when they didn't seem to be flying so much, I decided to find where they pitched.  

The view from my car.  Yes, those black specks are all bees...and this wasn't our biggest swarm.

I could hear them buzzing loudly from at least fifty feet away, yet still I felt determined to get my picture.  I bravely (stupidly) continued stalking them down until I reached the tree on the edge of the pond they pitched on.  They weren't calm.  Some of them had landed, some of them were flying.  I slowly walked to them with a calm demeanor.  Usually, if you don't freak out, they won't attack.  Well.  This wasn't a normal day at the hive.  They were still worked up from swarming, and one (or more I really didn't take time to count) started bumping into me (kinda like sharks do before they eat you, or so the Discovery channel tells me).  Bees will run into you if they find you a threat, and this is a warning for you to leave now before they sting.  Well, my mama didn't raise a fool.  I took the warning and turned around and started walking away (disappointed, because I still didn't have a good picture of the pitch).  Apparently, I wasn't walking fast enough, because I could still hear the bee flying around me and still feel him bumping into me.  That's when reason and rationality left me, and I started hauling a** across our parking lot, shrieking and yelling, phone in one hand, pants in the other (I've been trending to looser pants, but that's another story).  I felt a little like Winnie the Pooh being chased by the swarm (except that there is absolutely no way I am jumping in our irrigation pond.  I shudder to think about what I might catch in there).  All of this is done much to the entertainment of my girls in the stand and the pickers, who happened to be in the field right there (I think I provide a lot of entertainment for them).  It's not until I get to the other side that I no longer hear the bee chasing me and I can stop, and then I stand there for fifteen minutes catching my breath and laughing at how dumb I just was.  Oh well...there's always one.  That day that one was me.  

I did go back later, when they were calm, and got my picture.  All it took was a little perseverance.

30,000 bees pitched on a tree.  At least they all didn't chase me!

So, about the looser pants.  Well, come about December 28th, there will be a new addition on the farm.  We're expecting our second baby!  I guess that means I'll have to come up with a new nickname.  Right now, since we don't know the gender, it's Sea Monkey (just add water and watch it grow!).  I have a feeling that just like The Boy for our son, it will end up sticking.  

The Highlight Reel

To say this season has been busy would be the understatement of the year.  Seeing all of y'all has been great.  We've met new customers and neighbors and got to catch up with old ones.  I love to see how children grow and families change and know I've been a small part of that.  The crop's been good too.  Our berries have produced triple what they ever had, we opened three weeks early and are looking to go to almost the end of May.  Here are some highlights of the season, since I really haven't had time to settle down enough to blog:


Every day we take the berries we aren't able to sell, or the ones who don't look the best, and cap them to freeze them and sell them to a dairy.  I took some today.  92 2.5 gallon bags went in the back of my father-in-law's truck and were then transported an hour and a half northwest to Hillsborough.  It doesn't matter how fast you go though, when you get there the bags are in various stages of melting.  So when you get finished not only are you covered in red strawberry juice, it looks like you've murdered someone in the back of the truck (the last time The Husband made a run a highway patrolman followed him for 10 miles.  Coincidence?  Maybe.  But he drives like a grandma and I've never seen a highway patrolman who didn't speed so...maybe not).

I think I need a better way!

Saturday was mother's day and our annual treasure hunt.  It was an absolutely beautiful day to pick berries.  Around lunchtime I was out getting lunch for the employees (victims) and while I was gone the bees decided to swarm again.  I noticed they seemed to be 'acting' weird all week, coming out to pitch on the hive, not flying in their normal patterns.  Instead of swarming earlier in the day when we were not as busy or later even they decide to do it right at lunchtime while we have a family enjoying their lunch underneath the tree they decide to pitch on.  

Notice the thicker blobs in the middle of the picture, that is the latest swarm

We've had some really great groups out this year.  It's been another learning experience for me (my motto is to go with the flow, and we've done a lot of that this year!).  I'm used to speaking to older groups, schools and other groups of older children who have had experience sitting down and listening to someone talk.  This year I had a number of preschools/daycares, younger children who haven't had that much experience.  The first group that came baffled me completely.  Then I realized I had a great resource right there in my hands.  The NC Strawberry Association offers Strawberry Activity books and the first few pages explains how strawberries grow in preschool terms.  From then on I read the book until I memorized it (this I can remember but I wash my phone in the washing machine?).


Our CSA boxes started going out the end of April.  Again, it's a learning experience.  That first week The Husband called everyone (I'm much more of an e-mailer, facebooker, or texter.  He refuses to join the twenty-first century and this is THE one area where I appreciate it) to make sure they were happy with their boxes.  I'm hoping in the next few weeks we can add more variety and have more quantity too (there are only so many cabbage or radishes one can eat).  So far it's been great and I really love the idea that I go pull the onions that morning and someone's eating them that night.  It's great.

Week 2 Box

So, that's the season in a nutshell.  It's been great.  I hate strawberries officially until October now.  The smell was fantastic for week one, now it makes me sick.  Now we embark on our next adventure...produce!


Oh!  And I'm already planning my new punkin' chunker' 

Photo Shoot

One of my photography friends posted the other day that not everyone with a camera is a photographer.  This is a very, very true statement.  I've never been a big picture taker.  I used to like to do it when I was younger.  I think it had more to do with being old enough to have my own camera and all.  It lost it's appeal to me as I got older.  I was always too interested in the things I was doing to remember to take pictures.  Even now with The Boy, I see these moms constantly following their kid with the camera taking pictures or videos, you know the ones I mean, the ones with those really nice big professional looking cameras that take awesome pictures, the ones who have their kid pose every five seconds so they can photograph every second of whatever activity it is they're doing (now, if you're one of those moms please do not take offense.  One day you'll have all these memories to blackmail your kids with) and there I am with my Kodak or my phone only remembering to do it because they are.


However, now, I am chief photographer of the farm.  I take these pictures for three reasons.  One, if I was looking for a place such as mine to go, I would like to see pictures of said place before I arrived.  Haven't you ever pulled up to a place and it not been at all like what they described.  You think it's going to be completely awesome, and you pull up and the grass is knee high and there's some random dog hanging around and the building looks like it's falling apart and you swear you hear banjo music in the background.  I want people to be reassured that won't be the experience they'll have here (I did spend three hours cutting grass Wed. and we just built a new shelter and the only banjo you'll here is Mumford & Sons, but there might be a random dog.  Three outta four ain't bad right?).  


Two, education.  Most of the pictures I take never see the light of day except for my power points, which, incidentally never see the light of day either.  I try and take pictures of every stage of everything we do so I have it to demonstrate what I'm talking about with farm tours (The Husband teases me because I call it stock footage).  Sometimes the things we have to do are hard to describe, if you see a picture you understand better.  Plus I like for people to see what's going on here, maybe they'll learn something just by looking at the pictures.  It kind of ties in with reason number one.


Third, advertising.  I love taking pictures of ripe berries and putting them online.  I know when I'm looking at recipes on Pintrest or watching the Food Network I can be completely full and get hungry simply on the power of suggestion.  Even I can't look at a full flat of fresh ripe berries without my mouth watering a little, and I don't even like strawberries (Oh! The horror.  I know.  Sometimes having a discriminating palate really sucks).

Case in Point!

I have a new respect for wildlife photographers.

So in case you were wondering, yes, it's me taking those pictures, and yes, I'm doing it mostly with my Droid, and yes, I did follow that bee around from plant to plant for at least five minutes trying to get a good picture of her on a flower (so yes we now know our bees are working, or at least, that one was) and yes I have tons more.  At some point, hopefully in the near future, I'll have a projector so I can actually show these pictures to people when they come for tours.  And if you ever see one you have a question about please ask.  I would love nothing better than to explain it to you!  

Side note - we're opening Monday!!!  Finally!!!  I think if we don't The Husband will spontaneously combust.  So come by and pick a flat or two...you might catch me taking a picture!

Countdown

Well, strawberry season is fast approaching (thank you climate change).  In two weeks we will be picking berries.  After months of watching, waiting, plotting, and face planting daily in the field (I literally do it every time I go out there.  I don't understand why.  I watch my step.  I grew up jumping tobacco rows and walking down middles but it never fails.  The other day The Boy saw me do it and started face-planting for fun.  I guess it's pretty much hopeless for him.) they're finally getting ready.

Which means I'm about to explode with anxiety.  I was met with this in the field just a few minutes ago:

First one of the season!  Yikes!

The Boy said "oh.my.gosh.  That's a red berry!"


There is so much to do.  I have to talk to my girls and get them lined up to work, order containers to put them in, make sure the signage is ready, start marketing, book groups to come pick, make sure I have coloring books, line up things with the dairy, order shirts, deal with The Manic Husband, update the website/facebook/twitter...you get the picture.  My mama always said that hindsight is 20/20 and I believe her.  If I'd have known I'd be responsible for all this, that I'd be running an agritourism farm, I'd have definitely gone to business school.  Ninety percent of the time I feel like we're the blind leading the blind.  And every year we add something new and different that we've never done before, like produce and the CSA, so we can't get comfortable and think, yeah, we've got this.  So while The Husbands running around like "Wow! We'll have strawberries in two weeks!" thinking about eating that first ripe one, I'm like "wow, we'll have strawberries in two weeks" thinking about all the things still on my to do list.

I am excited though don't get me wrong.  I'm ready to see people out here enjoying the strawberries and having kids come though the farm tours.  I'm excited about our open house and the recipe contest and possibilities there.  I'm ready to start packing CSA boxes and (hopefully) hearing about people enjoying our vegetables and seeing pictures of the awesome things they cooked with them.  I'm excited about that wonderfully fresh sweet scent that you can only get with real fresh local strawberries.


That being said I hope you're counting down the days like we're counting them.  Come out and see us in a couple weeks for those first ripe berries.  Bring your kids out to pick while you're on spring break and let them run off some energy with us.  We'll be glad to have you!

Sleep Tight

So, things are really ramping up on the farm.  This warm winter is pushing everything up, including strawberries.  They've been blooming since December and it's already time to worry about frost protection.  This past weekend we had an arctic blast again, therefore it was time for either a) overhead irrigation or b) row covers.

See the black spot in the middle of the flower  - that's what the frost does to the berries.

Last year we did some overhead irrigation but it's not our preferred method of frost protection.  You have to put so much water on the field and everything becomes a sloppy mess.  Not to mention there are some diseases that are spread easier by the water running through the field (it touches one plant, and then runs down the plastic infecting every plant in it's path [like Outbreak for berry plants, did you have to watch that in hs biology?  I did.]).  So this year we got enough row covers to cover all of our berries, thanks to the helpful folks at the Soil and Water, and Saturday was our first time putting them on.


Saturday morning we had the help here pulling weeds out of the strawberries and off the plastic (there are some that grow up the sides of the plastic, eventually covering the berries.  You see the problem.  I have pics, but that's probably another blog for another time).  The Husband was running around as usual, and I was ditching the water that fell Friday out of the middles (there are places it's shin deep).  We should have been filling rock bags to hold down the row covers.  In the past we've used sandbags.  This year we have this roll of netting that we are supposed to cut to the appropriate size and fill with rock and tie both ends.  it sounds easy right?  Yeah, in theory it is.  In practice, that netting is cumbersome to stretch and difficult to tie.  I got the idea to use zip ties instead of tying them (it's that kind of plastic that it doesn't matter how tight you get it, the knot can slip out).  Still, me working alone was not producing enough bags.  After lunch we got everyone involved, and still it was not going smoothly (and it was driving me crazy).  That's when the Husband decides that we need to lay one out to see how many rock bags we need.


Alright, so remember how windy it was Saturday?  Well, these covers are the texture of that black landscape fabric you put down for weed control, just a little thicker, and they catch the wind like you wouldn't believe.  We load the roll of material like a spool on a contraption mounted on the end of a forklift, and The Husband and another worker grab the end and walk Santa-style to the end of the row.  Again, it's a lot harder than it sounds.  The rows are narrow-ish and uneven, not to mention the covers catch the wind like a sail on a boat, so not only are you hauling the weight of the covers (which are surprisingly heavy) but the weight of the wind blowing them around (alright confession time - I did fall in the mud.  I was holding one of the covers so one of the workers could hold it down for a shovel of dirt when the wind unexpectedly got in it and it dragged me down.  I had to laugh at my own self at that one.  Too bad I didn't have the camera out then).  When we got to the last row near the path, The Husband got the idea to tie the end of the cover to the gator so he could drag them out with it, it actually managed to work (despite me saying 'this is going to be bad' like a mantra and cringing).  Too bad we couldn't do that every time (I did get a short video, but I had to stop filming to make sure it didn't tangle, so it really wasn't worth posting).  Once we, they, get them out we have to spread them out to cover four rows.  At that point we realize it's going to take 40 - 60 rock bags per cover with this wind and we have 20.  The Husband comes up with the practical if not far-sighted idea (now we have holes about every foot or two, some of which are almost a foot deep, that we'll have to fill in somehow so you won't break your neck in the field) to use shovel fulls of dirt to hold them down.  It takes all afternoon, but we manage to get almost all of the rows covered.

There's more than one way to skin a cat

The Spool - Forklift contraption

It reminds me of snow...without all the mess.

Yesterday we took them off, but it looks like first of next week we'll be putting them on again.  It won't be as hard, just pulling them over the rows, but still I hate it.  Still, we have to do what we have to do, and yesterday The Husband found one of the first potential berries.  So get your mouth right, 'cause we'll have berries the first of April!

First berries :)