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?

Staffing the farm

As the winter draws to its inevitable conclusion (really!) my mind goes wandering through all the things necessary to get the farm running.  And as I jumped from one thought to another, I got stuck on employees.  I know I've written about staff before and I could go see what I said so as to not repeat myself, but I'm not going to because I'm kind of on a roll here.

We've had a very interesting time staffing the farm.  Farmer Bill's first employee was our son, who was finishing a gap year.  If you've ever started a business from scratch you know how difficult the first year can be.  You've put a lot - in our case all of Farmer Bill's retirement savings - on the line.  Some things work as planned, many others do not.  Throw in whatever weather issues the spring brings - there are always weather issues for a farm - and let's just say that it wasn't the best situation for the father-son relationship.  But the years have softened the memories and the two men have forgiven each other & get along very well now.

The next employee was a man about 10 years older than Farmer Bill.  Farmer Bill had hoped, from their early conversations, that the man would be helpful working with machinery since Bill has never felt really comfortable as a mechanic.   Stan (not his real name) had been a farmer himself.  He had raised grain crops, thought raising strawberries was a crazy idea and, as it turns out, wasn't really interested in learning anything new, and wasn't really that good at troubleshooting machinery.  He was, however, pretty good at complaining when things didn't work right (often that first year), the weather didn't cooperate (when does it ever?), or he was asked to make yet another run to town for parts.  Because of his unrelenting negativity Farmer Bill finally had to let him go.

One year early on Farmer Bill advertised for pickers.  Other growers we know said "Local kids are a great labor source."  And, "Farm wives love the chance to work for a few weeks and make extra money; we've had the same women back year after year."  So we advertised in the local paper and with the local job service office.  And waited.  And waited.  And nobody called.  Well, that's not entirely true.  One man called, asked what we were paying, and hung up.  I think it was about $0.50/pound then.  Which meant that during the mid-season a good picker could make between $15 and $20 an hour.  When the picking is not so good, our best pickers still make close to $10 an hour & the rate is never allowed to drop below minimum wage.  But it is part time and it is seasonal - a couple to several hours a day for 3 weeks.

Over the years we've had a lot of people come to pick strawberries.  A few kids, but mostly adults.  Women are generally better pickers than men.  Men tend not to pay attention to details, picking berries with bad spots on them.  And they tend to pick less gently, crushing the soft tops of the ripe berries.  It's hard to convince new pickers to leave berries with one little bad spot on them behind.  Yes, that spot could be cut out and most of the berry usable, but they're picking for resale & we have to get good money and repeat business for our picked berries, so we can't afford to sell berries with soft spots.

One year two girls showed up to pick in shorts and halter tops - assuming this was going to be a sunbathing opportunity I think.  I remember two boys who picked one season - they were 15 - and incredibly slow - and picked every little nubbin off the plants no matter what we said to them.  So while not the best pickers, they were tenacious, which is a quality Farmer Bill truly admires.  He thought he might like to have them do other work for him the next year.  Unfortunately, their tenacity meant that they were able to got 'real' jobs the next summer when they were 16.  

And one of my favorite memories is the woman who met Farmer Bill at a market, or maybe she came to pick her own and got to talking to him there.  There was some crisis - I think it was really hot and we had a lot of berries ready to pick so we were doing a big push.  She probably said she enjoyed picking, he probably said would she like to get paid for it.  At any rate, I was there one morning before work, greeting pickers while Bill finished getting the irrigation started on another field, when she arrived.  I went to greet her - and she looked right past me looking for Farmer Bill.  When I explained that things were running a little behind and it would be a while before he was available so I was getting pickers started, she ignored me, saying she had made arrangements to meet Farmer Bill there.  Two customers were picking for themselves in an adjacent field & she looked over, said 'Oh, there he is.' and started walking towards them.  I told her that wasn't Bill, she said it looked like him.  I said no, it wasn't him & I should know since I'd been married to him more than 20 years.  That stopped her in her tracks.  She looked at me for the first time & it dawned on me that she hadn't known Farmer Bill was married.  She didn't stay and work.

So every year has it employee challenges & we don't know yet what they will be for this year.  But it's pretty certain there will be some!

On vacation

Some years Farmer Bill & I have taken traditional vacations - actually leaving town for days at a time.  This winter finances don't allow for travel.  However, I needed time off from my paid work, so I have taken a long week off.  We were able to come up with plenty of small things to do and will spend a couple of days away from home at the end of the week.  Thursday I dropped off a quilt top to be quilted, did a bit of shopping, and then met a friend for supper followed by a visit to a local quilt show.  A lovely first day off.  On Saturday Farmer Bill & I went to the Guthrie with Bill's Aunt Pat.  Pat has season tickets to the Guthrie and generally invites us to attend a show with her once each year.  [Farmer Bill generally reciprocates by inviting her to attend a baseball game with him.]  On Sunday our daughter & son-in-law came and had dinner with us - Farmer Bill helped them do their income taxes.  I spent about an hour transplanting tomatoes and will do some more over the next couple of days.  Tonight we're going to Minneapolis for a program on climate change.  Tuesday and Wednesday I plan to work on quilting and hope to go snowshoeing both afternoons - the weather should be wonderful for being outdoors.  Thursday I'm dragging FB to Red Wing to wander through  antique stores.  We'll spend the night somewhere between Red Wing and Wabasha so that on Friday we can go to the National Eagle Center and Lark Toys.  Saturday and Sunday I plan to work on quilting again & get in a couple more snowshoe walks.  See, even when one doesn't go 'away' a vacation just flies by, the days full of possibilities.  I hope to have a better frame of mind for going back to work (but secretly fear that I'd need something like a 6- or 12-month sabbatical for that).

The tomatoes look very good and are well on track to be transplanted in the hoop house on April 1.  The orchard pruning is probably a bit behind schedule, but can be done well into May if need be.  The newest trees have all been pruned & since we hadn't gotten to all of them last year they were really in need of attention.  The recent snow (and any more that comes) was very welcome.  Snow cover will help keep the trees and strawberries dormant longer into the spring.  Cold and snow also help kill off insect and disease pests.  Plants and seeds for this year's crops are all ordered and will start to arrive soon (obviously the tomato seeds have already arrived since they have to be started February 1).  I'll help FB transplant in between other projects.  The greenhouse we've been using for starting seeds wasn't available, so I  allowed FB to use the back bedroom again this year.  He'd like to build a small greenhouse - it really wouldn't need to be very large - but of course it would cost money & require money to heat it so it wasn't in the plans for this year.

Right now I need to go read a couple of chapters of one of the books I brought home to read this week (I've finished 2 of them so far) before I have to get ready to go to out.  More later, perhaps.