Farm News

So I’m nervous about posting our blackberries on the harvest ticket, I’m really surprised how slow they’re ripening, and despite our pre-dawn heroic efforts, we’re barely able to find enough to put in our large shares. I’m pretty sure we’ll be in blackberry heaven next week for all.

Tomatoes are here! Yeah!

What’s up with the non existent apricot shares? Yup, got ripped off AGAIN. So we care for our apricot trees, water, prune, feed and weed all year. And at the last minute, every year for 4 years now, they’re stolen. Every last ripe one. We have ONE tree of unripened fruit left. I’ll tell you, it’s beyond discouraging, because in a way, our property rights are confiscated if we can’t grow and care for a crop without pretty much certain 100% theft.  Whomever picks, does it at night and can’t tell between ripe and unripe, so they strip pick (which means they pick every last one and sort later.) (And since all those apricots were destined to go into our CSA boxes, each and every CSA member got ripped off (again) this year as well.  We should either fence the front parcel or give up the 1000 or so trees that are planted there. We’re debating the ($) dilemma.

Ok, here’s a copy block of an email I sent off to a loyal egg buying subscriber:

Sorry we didn’t fill your egg order this week! We had no idea what the demand for our eggs would be, and have more orders than we can fill. I have asked our software developer to put new orders on hold, but we’re having a software issue. Either we’re “sold out”, or we’re “not.” We’re neither. We HAVE eggs, just not enough to fill any new orders. Ha ha, you should have seen us last Wednesday, literally I was standing in the chicken coop waiting for eggs to be laid. Everyone’s tapping their feet in the barn and I’m calling out, “Got one! Got another!” I’ve been farming for a long time, but you know, I’ve never actually seen an egg being laid. So that was a first. I fumbled with my I-phone camera feature, and every time an egg  popped out,  I missed it.

Another thing that is interesting, I was unaware---we have dozens of nice nests but one favorite one that is made out of plastic that the hens actually stand in line for. We may increase egg production if we provide more of those nests. I just had preferred the old fashioned wood nests, but the hens like the ugly plastic one. Who knew?  As the truck drove out on Wednesday, we were putting the last of the eggs that had been laid those last 20 minutes in cartons for delivery. We could have waited another hour and filled all orders, but decided that wasn’t a good idea to delay any further.

So we will continue to increase production, and will rotate those that don’t get their full order…until through attrition or increased production we are even again. You shouldn’t miss out for a while now.

And no new orders, I promise!

Thanks for referring your friends to us; that means a lot to me and I’m truly appreciative. Of course, jeez; they can’t have eggs. We just ordered another 50 baby chicks, but they won’t be in production for 6 months.

Donna