Spring farming update

It's another late spring following a long, cold, snowy winter.  I have a memory of winter being long and cold when I was growing up - and usually snowy.  In the past decade it seemed that winters had gotten somewhat milder - sometimes snowy, sometimes not.  But this past winter felt cold and snowy.  If -15 degrees kills powdery mildew spores on the plants and in the soil, we shouldn't have much problem with that this summer - with all the nights below -15 we had over the winter.

The apple trees are just past full bloom - the early blooming varieties are at petal fall - the earliest strawberry varieties are blooming like crazy - and the tomatoes in the hoop houses are also blooming.  Of course, the dandelions, shepherd's purse, creeping charlie and other plant pests are also blooming.  Farmer Bill and his crew are working long days, when the sun shines, trying to keep up with it all.  On rainy days, they work on equipment and try to take a little time off.  [Personally, I wish they'd work more on straightening up the chaos of the equipment shed - it's a bit tricky to find things in there these days.]

Every year during this spring time, Farmer Bill insists that he's going to start dropping crops from his plans next year.  I've long suggested to him that just the strawberries and the apples would keep him plenty busy - without adding 5 other crops in as well.  Last year he swore he was dropping the sweet corn in 2014, but shortly after the first of the year, sweet corn seed appeared at the door... This spring he swore, again, that it was gone next year.  We'll see.

Raspberries may end up gone just because they may become too hard to produce, with the new fruit fly pest that has arrived.  We're setting out attractant traps to scout for the first of the SWD (spotted wing drosophila), and will have to use a spray on the raspberries when they arrive.  There is no effective organic treatment - spray or cultivation - yet.  But since this fruit fly is causing incredible damage to soft fruit crops across the country, I'm betting the chemical companies are working hard to come up with something that works and can be certified for organic production.  Another bet I'd put money on: the price of soft fruit - certified organic or not - will go up. So far, in Minnesota, the June-bearing strawberries haven't been greatly affected by SWD.  All of the other soft fruits have had problems: raspberries, blueberries, ever-bearing strawberries, etc.

We had a few blueberries last year - enough to need to pick them, not enough to make a decent display at the markets.  Farmer Bill sold a few, and I picked a couple of times for baking and freezing.

Most (maybe all? sometimes I'm the last to know) of the melons have been planted into the fields.  While we could, theoretically, have a cold snap and an overnight frost, it doesn't feel like we will.  Even better, the weather forecast from the NWS doesn't indicate anything like that for the next 10 days - which puts us squarely into June.  There were a few really early strawberry blossoms that got nipped in the last frost.  There may have been a few apple blossoms that got nipped, too, but mostly it's been an easy spring for Farmer Bill, frost-wise.  He hasn't had to set up the irrigation system yet (a several days to week-long process) and hasn't had to spend any sleepless nights monitoring the weather and the sprinklers.

At least one field of sweet corn has been planted - again maybe more.  Farmer Bill usually tries to plant sweet corn for early ripening so he doesn't have to spray for corn ear worms.  Also, he gets too busy with the melons and apples to be messing with later sweet corn.  We could quite easily plant enough for us to freeze and have corn at many meals with a bit of the time not spent working ground and planting fields would save.

That's about it. Lots of planting, weeding, mowing, repairing, sharpening, fine tuning going on.

On being everything to everyone

ALA, the American Library Association, held its annual conference in Chicago in 2013.  I am not a member of ALA, but I pay attention to who the speakers are, what the themes of the conference are, and I try to read some of the reports and reviews that come out of the conference each year.

I read this in a list of 'takeaways' from the 2013 annual conference:

‘Doing good’ is not the same thing as ‘making a difference’.” Public librarians need to find out where they can make the most difference and concentrate on those areas instead of trying to be everything to everyone.

Those of you who get email from me will see this as my signature line for a while.  I have been saying essentially this very thing for a number of years now.  No, we don't carry postage stamps, envelopes, writing paper, tag board, glue, markers or other art supplies, supply a notary, give legal or medical advice, or babysit your children (well, yes, we do babysit your children, but not intentionally & if someone flashes them - or worse- while they're here unsupervised, it's on your head).

We do supply books, DVDs, music CDs, audiobooks, free computer use with free Internet and productivity software access, newspapers, magazines, database access to materials not available on the open Internet, and electronically downloadable books, audiobooks and magazines.  We have literacy-based storytimes for parents and children, special music and art programs for all ages, author talks, tax-preparation help, and beginning computer, resume writing, and online job searching workshops.  One thing public libraries do well is provide a starting point.  Technological literacy becomes more important every year, and public libraries have the opportunity to excel at helping people gain that knowledge.

To be a Librarian in my library you must have a professional degree, which means you have advanced training on searching and sorting through sources and resources.  I can't count the number of times a patron will say "I spent an hour looking for - fill in the blank - and couldn't find anything on the internet" and I can find it in a 5-minute search using search techniques that come with my education and experience.  Need materials to support your 4th-grader's science project? Guess what, there aren't books at a 4th-grade level on the chemical composition of laundry detergent.  But there are general books on chemistry, including explaining what biodegradable means.  Need help explaining how and why a solar hotdog cooker works?  There isn't a whole book on a hotdog cooker, but let's go to the books on solar power, and camping, and voila, there's the support you need.  I help people think outside the box, more broadly, to the subject rather than the specific.  And sometimes I help people think more specifically.  Doing a high-school paper on the Holocaust?  It's a broad topic, so maybe you want to think about focusing the thesis of your paper on a specific aspect: one specific camp, or one specific survivor story, surrounded by the larger theme.

The Librarians in my branch were recently told we need to do more outreach. Outreach is not a bad thing; despite being an extreme introvert, incredibly shy, I actually enjoy going out to talk to groups about the library.  But I really think my bosses want us to do more Outreach just so they can say we've done it.  I don't believe they think much about whether the outreach we do makes any difference.  One of the suggestions made to me was to run an off-site book group, in a senior center or residence.  I currently run a book group that meets at the branch library monthly.  That entails finding discussion-worthy books - for which there must be a minimum of six copies available, compiling discussion questions, emailing the group with said discussion questions and meeting reminders, and reading the book.  The reading is done on my own uncompensated time. Adding another book group would add approximately 10 more unpaid hours to my work load every month. I asked whether I could get comp time for any additional hours and got a blank stare with an "I don't know, I don't think so..." reply.  It was apparent that my boss had never thought about the hours I spend reading as work time.  And I do, in fact, already help choose the books for a local senior book group.  The group needs 4-5 large print, 1-2 audiobooks, and 2-3 regular print copies.  Finding titles worth reading that meet those requirements can be a challenge so I asked our book selector about getting a list of large print titles being purchased and I keep a spreadsheet of possibilities.  This is a helpful thing I can do within the confines of my paid work week and the list I've generated can be used to help other book groups and other librarians.

Farmer Bill is often the sounding board for the hard parts of my job. He is always supportive, sympathetic, and on my side, for which I am truly grateful.  I'm going to end this post with two stories about the positive parts of my work, because he mentioned once that he doesn't get to hear enough of those.

On a Thursday in May 2013 a local elementary school had a literacy night at the library.  About 200 parents and children converged on the library for a 2-hour span of time. Spanish- and Somali-language translators helped us explain what the library could offer visitors.  Several dozen brand-new library card accounts were created and many lost cards were replaced (with a waiver of the normal $2 replacement card fee). As each family got cards, we explained that materials were loaned for set amounts of time. If they aren't returned or renewed on time, late fees are applied.  I helped one Latina mother and her children choose some books to read and fun movies to watch, and explained again about movies needing to come back in one week (movie overdue fees are $1/day each and add up quickly for many families).  The following Wednesday afternoon that family came into the library with all of the materials while I was on the public desk.  Recognizing them, I walked with them to the return slot, assuring them that they were completely on time with the movies - and could keep the books longer if they wished.  No, they'd read the books. We returned all the items, and I asked if they needed help choosing more materials.  No, thank you, they knew right where to go because of our session the week before.  And they have been regular visitors to the library ever since.

Just last week, an African-American mother came in with her three children.  The youngest, a 2nd-grader, needed to do a project on our solar system.  Mom applied for and got a library card, we set them up on a computer, taught Mom how to search for, copy, and paste pictures of planets into a Word document (it helped enormously that Mom was reasonably comfortable on a computer, although very shy and a bit insecure of her abilities).  Mom and daughter spent about 2 hours creating a project.  When they finished, nearly at closing time, there was a bit of a rush to get it printed before their computer time ran out.  Mom was concerned that changes would need to be made and wanted to email the project to herself so they could work on it again if necessary.  This was my chance to be a hero & I took it.  USB drives are regularly left behind at the computers.  We keep any we find, or that are turned in by patrons, for a month. Those not claimed after a month come to me.  I clean all the personal information off them, keep a batch of 12 for our computer classes, and the rest go in a drawer to be given away.  I quickly grabbed one of the drives, plugged it into the computer and saved the girl's project on it, all the while explaining what I was doing and how I was doing it. After it was saved, I showed them how to find it again.  When I unplugged the drive and handed it to her, saying she could take it home & the children could use it for future projects at home, at school, or at the library, Mom was briefly overwhelmed.  They took their printed project and the flash drive, checked out some books, and went home very happy patrons who will almost certainly come back to use the library in the future.

Those are 2 stories about what public libraries and librarians can do best: make connections and help close the digital and literacy divides that exist in this country.

Lunch in Paris

The coolers are absolutely stuffed full of apples, both the big one, and the garage. Two years ago, Farmer Bill insulated the garage walls & ceiling and installed an old air-conditioning unit that our friend Robin had laying about, and turned the garage into a temporary cooler for overflow supply. [Which means my car has to stay outdoors until the apple supply goes down far enough for everything to fit into the big cooler.]  Hundreds and hundreds of bushels of Honeycrisp, Regent, Keepsake & Honeygold.

Selling apples has gone well overall.  Most of the farmers' markets have been good to excellent this year; one of our local supermarkets has been taking a regular supply of several varieties; a produce auction in Iowa gets a delivery 3 days a week; and Twin Cities Local Food places a small order every week.  A few other sales possibilities have come up, and one of them is why Farmer Bill owes me Lunch in Paris.

Shortly after the Field Day, our apple instructor/consultant sent Farmer Bill an email.  There's a corn maze on the northern edge of the Twin Cities, run by a man who also raises a few strawberries.  He was thinking about adding apples to his concessions & wanted to try it.  Would Farmer Bill be interested?  Farmer Bill is pretty much always willing to try something new, so of course he was interested.  The next question is how to staff it.  Our current staff were pretty well booked for markets on the Saturday (and I was scheduled at my paid employment).  However, I wasn't scheduled to work the Sunday.  As I was driving home one evening from work, Farmer Bill called. That's not unusual, we often check in with each other at that time.  But when he told me to think of something really nice that he could do for me, I got suspicious.  When I got home, we did whatever farm things needed to be done, had supper, and the moment had come.  What would I have to do to earn this 'something really nice'?  Take a load of apples up to the corn maze on Sunday.  The maze is open from 10 a.m.-6 p.m.  I'd need to be there between 9 & 9:30 to get set up.  The drive is about 90 minutes or so, depending on traffic.  So up I got at 6:30 on Sunday morning, made coffee & had a quick breakfast, went out & loaded 800 lbs of apples into the van, and started north.  I found the proprietor of the maze, we found a place for me to set up, I sold apples until 6:00, then I packed up and drove back to the farm. I got back about 8:30 or so & unloaded the van; it was your basic 14-hour work day.  On my day off.

So for that Farmer Bill owes me lunch in Paris.

This Saturday is my birthday.  I was scheduled to work at the aforementioned paid employment. But being a real job, they also give me paid time off and I had asked for the day off a couple of months ago.  Early this week Farmer Bill mentions that two of his regular staff are taking Saturday off (not paid time off!), and what market would I be willing to attend?  I chose downtown, because we rarely do the downtown market solo, so I know I will be able to do a toilet run when I need to, there are good things to eat and drink: Hmong egg rolls, breakfast bagels, good coffee, pastries, etc.  I can buy a few locally grown vegetables before they disappear for the year and spend the morning with Farmer Bill.  When a co-worker asked what I was doing on my birthday and I told her, she said I should definitely hold out for a whole Weekend in Paris.

Turns out it was fortuitous that I chose to go downtown with Farmer Bill.  The son and d-i-l are doing a flying trip into the Twin Cities for a friend's wedding on Sunday.  They get in late Saturday morning and will hop a bus over to the market, hang out with us until the market ends, and then we'll all go out to brunch (which we'll make Farmer Bill buy).  If I had opted to go to another market by myself, it would have been much more difficult to organize seeing them.

For now, I'll hold Farmer Bill to Lunch in Paris, although really, he probably owes me more like a Week in Paris for all the markets I've gone to, strawberries, melons, sweet corn, and apples  I've picked, and hours I've put in weeding, pruning, mowing, managing the paperwork, doing supply and repair runs, and so much more over the past 10 years. When he's finally ready to really retire, we can talk about how long we'll stay in Paris...

Apple season 2013

It's October 1 and that means the apple harvest is in full gear.  The early apples, Zestar! and Ginger Gold, have been picked and mostly sold.  Our first year with the 'next big thing,' also known as SweeTango, has gone well.  Almost all of them are sold - they will be gone today or tomorrow.  I have had SweeTango in the past, mostly from the store - usually from Washington state - and not been terribly impressed.  But having SweeTango grown locally and picked ripe changed my mind.  It is a pretty tasty apple; a great mix of its parent apples, Zestar! and Honeycrisp.  It has the juiciness of both combined with the crisp of Honeycrisp and the zest of Zestar!  [Personally I find Honeycrisp a bit bland. Sweet & crisp, but bland.]  The Honeycrisp and Sweet Sixteen are both ready now, with the first of the Haralson coming off their trees; the Cortland are also ready & should be showing up at markets soon.  We still have SnowSweet, Regent, Honeygold, and Keepsake to finish off the season - they ripen in early October & everything seems to be about 2 weeks behind this year so we've just barely started tasting them.

Were you wondering how many Honeycrisp there  will be this year?  Well, here's the long story: Straight River Farm was home to a MFVGA Field Day in September.  About 40 fruit and vegetable growers from around the state converged on us and toured the farm to talk about soil management.  SRF was chosen for this Field Day because Farmer Bill has a lot of different soil types and is growing a lot of different crops.  Preparing the farm for visitors during apple season was a bit difficult and in the end a lot of things got shoved into buildings and the doors closed on them.  The grass was a bit longer than we wanted because the belt on the mower broke on the Saturday and couldn't be replaced in time (field day was Monday).  But the day inevitably arrived, the discussions were held, many of our fields were toured, and everyone seemed pleased with the outcome.  So, Honeycrisp.  At the end of the Field Day our apple consultant told us he thinks we have 2000 bushel of Honeycrisp to harvest!  Allowing for his enthusiastic nature, we figure we have at least 1000 to maybe 1500 bushel. Farmer Bill is working on plans to move those apples - in a somewhat flooded market.  What a change from last year, when our apple harvest and sales were over by October 15 and we harvested about 100 bushel of Honeycrisp!  It's a terrifying and exhilarating difference.  When I asked Farmer Bill about selling all of those Honeycrisp, he said "We'll just keep plugging away..."  We're both pretty tired all the time, what with long days and lots of logistics to manage, but it's made a little easier to handle with the knowledge that SRF might turn a profit this year. Farmer Bill might even be able to set aside some money for next year's start up costs.  I am trying not to count chickens until they're hatched, but it's hard to completely resist.

Next time: why Farmer Bill owes me lunch in Paris.

On being a public employee

My paid employment is in a public library, hence the librarian part of the blog title.  If you've read my other posts about the library, you know that it's not all smooth sailing these days.  My library system has become management heavy - and when you have too many managers, they tend to trip over themselves trying to find something to fill their days.  And sometimes that something is you.  We currently have 2 full time managers in our building for 3.6 full time librarians.  The circulation staff is almost the same: 2 managers for 3.8 full time staff (although they also manage the shelvers, of which there are 4 or 5, who work 14 hours/week each).

One of the edicts they passed about a year ago: no staff are to, under any circumstances, go to the back room of the library to look for a recently returned item for a patron.  WTF?  Really?  We are allowed to check the shelves in the public area, but not to check the carts/shelves in back waiting to go out.  When this was announced we were told that disciplinary action could be taken if we disregarded the policy.  We were to tell patrons that we would be happy to request the item and they could come back in a day or two to get it.  WTF?!?  Really?!?!  And they wonder why people bad-mouth public employees?

Here's the deal.  I am a professional Librarian, with a capital L, with an advanced degree in Librarianship.  While not as strenuous a degree as, say, engineering, law, or medicine, it is still a professional degree.  I am a smart, capable adult.  If an item was returned to us yesterday or today, I know that it is most likely in the back room because we are rarely caught up with re-shelving.  Our back room is very well organized and I am smart enough to gauge how long it will take me to get there & look through the particular returns for an item. In most cases it will take just as long to walk out & search the public shelves - when I know the item is not there.  From the beginning I have disregarded this policy.  I will not stand in front of a student who needs a copy of Fahrenheit 451 for school and tell them they can come back in a couple of days, when I can put it in their hands in less than 3 minutes.  I will not tell the senior citizen, who visits the library weekly, that they can have it next week but not this week.  And should I ever be disciplined for this, I will take it public & library administration will get to explain themselves to the local media.

The other side of this is that there are occasions when the item can't be found.  It isn't on the shelves where the computerized catalog thinks it should be, and because of its return date I'm pretty confident it's not in the back room.  In those cases, I must offer to request the item and have it delivered in a couple of days, or to call another branch to check their shelves and arrange for it to be held for the patron to pick up.  I am a professional.  I know how to do these things, and in which order, and what makes sense in a given situation.  And that's what I do.  Being a public employee is often hard, and often stressful.  The public tend to want what they want, now.  I have to say no to members of the public often enough that I refuse to say no when I can just as easily say yes.

It's almost the end of quilting season

I started this post several weeks ago, but got interrupted before I entered more than the title.  In truth, quilting season finishes about April 1 when spring farm work heats up, daylight savings time makes the evenings longer, and I have usually finished some projects and don't want to start another one that I'll have to put aside over the summer.

This year I made a duvet cover for our daughter and son-in-law from a magazine pattern we found. They chose a collection of beautiful batiks that formed the borders, and I appliqued vines on a central background.    I haven't done a lot of applique work.  But I've really enjoyed what I have done, and I looked forward to adding to my experience.  I think the cover turned out really well; it looks great on their bed, so check it out if you go visit.  I made one pillow sham out of leftover bits and have the pieces cut for another that I should go stitch up for them...but I'm busy writing just now.

I chose a backing and machine quilted a lap/twin size pinwheel pattern quilt in 1930's reproduction prints for which I'd finished the top a year or two ago.  It's cute & I plan to put it in our back bedroom for the summer, where it fits with the antique & just-plain-old furniture we have there.

I settled on a backing for the Storm at Sea quilt for our guest bedroom & sent that out for quilting. I wasn't thrilled with the quilting done by the shop I chose (it was okay but not wonderful), so I met with another machine quilter & liked her and the examples of her work very much. So I left the quilt for our master bedroom with her.  Once I get it back (June) and attach the binding, I'll take some pictures.  It's made from some new fabrics that I found, leftovers from other projects, and bits from my fabric stash; a lovely scrappy quilt in a pattern from the Flynn Quilt Frame Company.  I continued to collect MN author signatures for a quilt I hope to complete next year & I will have to start auditioning fabric for it soon.  I  made  repairs on my daughter's going-to-college quilt and started repairs on my son's going-to-college quilt (I might be able to get that done over the summer).  I spent time ironing scraps so I could roll them up to store (and not have them get all wrinkled again); and created a plan for cutting them into usable shapes for scrap quilts; I even got a bunch cut up.  Theoretically, when I am relaxing in the evenings and don't want to read, I could be cutting scraps and have a ready-made stockpile of pieces available to throw together into a quilt.

And of course some hours were spent just browsing through patterns and thinking/dreaming about which I'd like to try.  I get my hands on pretty much every new quilting book that my library buys and look through them, making copies of patterns I like, or putting the book on a wish list.  There are so many traditional patterns that I really like & haven't tackled yet.  I think a Log Cabin wall hanging would look really nice on our living room wall...

I had hoped to improve my machine quilting last winter - enough that I could do something fancier than straight lines with a little confidence.  But I'm still on straight lines, and hiring machine quilting for larger quilts and for those quilts I really care about.  I've got a bunch of practice squares glued together to start in on next fall, and maybe next winter I'll have a breakthrough, but I'm not holding my breath.  Could it be my sewing machine?  Maybe I need a new one?  Can one have too many sewing machines?

All in all, I'm satisfied with my quilting season, and looking forward to next year.  A wall quilt, the signature quilt, and something appliqued are in my plans.

If you walk out into the orchard now (when it's not raining) you'll hear a buzz. The early apples - Zestar! and Ginger Gold - are in full bloom, the other apples are in various stages of bloom, and the bees that recently arrived from their winter home in California are busy flying through the orchard. It's a bit windier than they like it, and thunderstorms have been rolling in and out for the past several days, but the bees are still busy. 

Because last year the blossoms froze and the trees didn't produce many apples, this year the trees are putting out a super bloom.  Thousands of blossoms are popping out; the trees attempt to compensate for last year's disappointment.  So this year Farmer Bill will have to thin the apples.  Thinning can be done chemically or by hand, and he'll do both.  Zestar! are notorious for not setting well, so chemical thinning, a tricky process at best, can take out too many blossoms.  Farmer Bill will take a crew out to the orchard after the Zestar! apples have set and thin those rows by hand.  To get optimum size and flavor, apples should hang by themselves, at least a fist's distance from the next nearest apple.  Too many apples too close together means the apples stay small and can't get the sunlight they need to create their red color.

As soon as the apples start to form, we'll start scouting for Plum Curculio.  This pest of apples is one of the earliest; the adults mate about now and the females dig under the skin of developing apples to lay their eggs.  Most of the apples with PC eggs will drop early, but those that survive to maturity will have scars and won't be salable as first quality.

We've already started scouting for other pests.  About April 1 we put a data logger in the orchard.  It records the temperature every 15 minutes, and has an attachment that records leaf wetness.  The temperatures help us track degree days.  A combination of the leaf wetness hours and the temperature helps us track when apple scab spores will be most active and viable.  Apple scab is the major fungal problem facing apple growers.  In wet, humid areas like Minnesota it's especially problematic.  By tracking the temperature & wetness Farmer Bill can estimate when it's time to spray a fungicide to best attack the greatest number of spores.  He's done so well with this the last several years that he only has to spray twice, early in the year before the apples have even formed, to have virtually no apple scab in his orchard.  [I say only twice because conventional growers with scab problems will spray 5 or more times a year.  Organic growers have to spray every 10 days - or after a significant rain event - all summer long.  Good IPM management has its perks - fewer chemicals used to best advantage.]

The other pests we scout for in the orchard now are Codling Moth, Oblique-Banded Leaf Rollers, Red-Banded Leaf Rollers, Lesser Apple Worm, Spotted Tentiform Leaf Miners, and Dogwood Borers.  All of them are problems to one degree or another in most Minnesota orchards.  In July we'll add Apple Maggots, yet another nasty pest of apples.

The scouting takes time and materials.  We hang traps with liners covered in sticky stuff & put pheromone lures inside them; except for Plum Curculio, for which there isn't an effective lure.  Once a week, more often at times, I go out into the orchard & check all the traps, pull the data logger to retrieve the newest data, and create a report.  We're currently working with the MN Department of Agriculture, who take our data and data from several other orchards across the state to put together a weekly report.  The report is sent to orchards on an email list, and available online for anyone to see.  Those who don't have the resources or inclination to do their own scouting can use the report to help them time their pest control.  

And since Straight River Farm is also using Mating Disruption to fight codling moth, we put out a few extra traps to be sure we don't have a codling moth problem.  Mating Disruption works like this: we hang codling moth pheromone twist ties throughout the orchard.  There is so much scent of female codling moth all over the orchard that the males can't find an actual female.  Thus, no mating is done, the females don't dig into our apples to lay their eggs, the eggs don't hatch, and there are no larvae to worm their way through the apples (pun intended).  And this is done for something less than the cost of chemical spraying that would otherwise be necessary.  Pretty cool.  It's been very successful the previous 2 years in our orchard, so we're hoping it will be again this year.  But, just in case, we have multiple traps around the orchard and check them regularly.

It's a long haul from blossom to apple for an orchardist.  But aren't we lucky that there are farmers like Bill who make the long haul?