A Farm Dogs Purpose?

For anyone who has been to Butternut Farm to enjoy some of the pick your own fruit that it offers you may remember seeing this guy. His name is Mr Spot. His place of residence is Butternut Farm and he has just completed his first year of being a farm dog. Mr Spot was rescued from the kill shelters in Tennessee. Last spring we found him on Pet Finders.com and decided on adopting him. The picture on the left is of he and Gala, the old lady of the farm whom sadly passed away shortly after Mr Spot arrived. It is now up to him to "Carry the Torch" all on his own! He is about one and a half years old and becoming a great dog.

As you can see in his picture he is showing off a trophy. Yes it is a dead mouse which he caught when we were up trimming the upper apple orchard just last week. A job well done if you ask me, and for any of you whom have seen what orchard mice or voles can do to an apple orchard during the winter you will surely agree. I just wish he had a pile of 5 of them at the end of the day.

Now I was saying to Mr Spot the other day that being a "farm dog" is not an easy task. The job description is very vague! And for a dog who is looking for a lot of direction like he is it can be confusing at times. Except when the farm is actually open for the pick your own fruit season! Then he falls right into that "scratch my belly" and "Hey do you have any treats in your car for me" roles. That part of the "Pick your own Farm Dog" job description is not vague at all. For the rest of the year though it can get fairly boring for a dog around Butternut Farm. The sheep are gone and the cars full of people looking to give him attention aren't driving up the driveway any more. To boot the farmer is usually very busy growing the crops for the upcoming season so he has little time to give Mr Spot attention. This is where the life of a farm dog can get a bit confusing. There is no clear purpose to everyday life.

Finding a purpose in the life of a farm dog is not easy, however Mr Spot is navigating the terrain fairly well. He has already demonstrated his ability to catch mice. A worthy purpose to fill his spare time. Also the squirrels behind the farmstand have shown to give him hrs of companionship and fun getting chased around the rock walls, always just out of his reach.

Those stinkin pallets

Here at Butternut Farm we receive a lot of stuff on pallets! Those pallets seem to accumulate over time and I've finally found what to do with them.

At first you start stacking them behind the barn. Then the stack gets moved "Out Back" where it is out of sight. Eventually though the ever growing stack of pallets starts to wear on you and a solution must be found. They are handy in helping the yearly brush pile to burn! This seems kinda wasteful though unless of course the pallet is "Beyond Repair". So the old rotten ones are tossed in the brush pile to burn but we are still left with the good ones! There must be a use?

The answer came one day during the pick your own apple season a couple of years ago. Todd Scruton was visiting the farm with his family and we got to talking about firewood. Now anyone who has ever used wood as a source of heat knows that it must be moved way to many times before it gets moved into the woodstove, and each move is almost always done manually. Todd said to me: "Gee Giff you have plenty of pallets and a tractor with a set of pallet forks, why not devise a way to use the pallets to store and move your firewood around". Seemed simple enough and it could save at least one if not two "moves" of the wood. So I figured I would give it a shot!

3 years later I have finally come up with a design which seems to be working. The first two evolutions of this design were prone to blowouts which always seemed to occur while moving the pallet full of wood. Nothing like stacking it twice onto the same pallet! The most recent design involves using slats from one pallet which is ripped apart (more on that later), to build a combinations of braces which hold the 3'*3'*4' stack of firewood on the pallet. The only thing is those stinkin pallets are hard to take apart! Talk about questioning if your using your time wisely or not. Taking apart pallets to generate the pile of slats necessary to build the braces is very time consuming. I often thought maybe it would be more economically feasible to just buy some strapping from the home depot to build the braces with? However for the sake of using the resources I had without spending money on bringing more stuff onto the farm I decided I would continue to tear apart the pallets for my source of slats. Turns out too that the pallet slats hold up better over time because they are made of hardwood, while the construction strappin which is made of pine falls apart very easily when exposed to the elements.

When all the dust has settled our pile of pallets is no more and with the advice of one of our customers and some stubborn desire to "find a better way", we have eliminated one manual move of the wood. Was it all worth it? I think so.

The snow covered firewood was processed in January and is now seasoning for the upcoming heating season of 2012/13. The other photo shows wood which was processed last winter and is now staying dry in the barn ready to burn.

spring rush

Well this spring has been nothing like last. If you remember last season felt like sprinting a marathon to the finish line. And the finish line was the beginning of strawberry harvest which came on June 7th in 2010. This season I expect strawberry season to begin no sooner than the 20th of June and maybe 5 days later! Which means at least 2 more weeks if not closer to 3 do get the same work done! So this season is more like jogging the marathon. Still difficult and the same amount of work but it can be taken at a much more relaxing pace.
Butternut Farm has come through the winter well though. Our pick your own crops should be plentiful this season. Right now our plums are in full bloom and the cherries are just coming into bloom. It would be nice to get some warmer weather to help pollinate those crops. The bees tend to stay at home if it is below 60 or raining so everyone think sun! Most often though mother nature finds a way to set the crops so I try not to worry to much about these things which I can't control and just focus on running the marathon which I can control. The peaches will be in bloom probably by mothers day or slightly later and the apples will be soon to follow. If your reading this by then take a trip up to the farm and walk around if you like to watch the bees doing their work, it fascinates me every year. Be sure to do it on a warm sunny day though!
Any way take care and see you in june for PYO strawberries!

Snow Shoes

A quick google search on "snow shoes" informed me that they were invented about 6000 years ago by people living in central asia. The people apparently observed the foot characteristics of animals like the Snow Shoe Hare and built the first snow shoes based on this animals' large webbed feet.
Well needless to say the farm purchased a pair of 21inch snow shoes for me to use while pruning the apple trees this winter. I tried one day without and quickly realized sinking into my knee on every step was going to get bothersome over the course of the pruning season. So a quick trip to Philbricks produced a nice pair of middle of the road snow shoes, cost about $110. Boy what a great feeling to be walking on, instead of in the snow. I imagine the first people to use snow shoes must have felt such a sense of freedom and mobility once they strapped those shoes to their feet. So did I. And to boot I am now a whole 1.5 feet taller and am able to reach the tops of those trees so much easier, its like walking around on stilts!

My dad always told me a piece of equipment was a good investment if it allowed you to get a job done faster. I would say this $110 was a good investment.

Mid winter blues

Today is feb 2nd and the snow is coming down hard! Not much to do today on the farm but plow snow and stoke up the woodstove! So I figured it would be a good day to update the farmers blog and post a couple of pictures which remind us what summer is like!
Its been a great winter so far from the farms perspective. December was relatively mild and snow free which allowed us to clear more land for crops to be planted. We removed to overgrown rock wall areas near our strawberries. Not only was it fun to play with heavy equipment for a week but the benefits to the farm are numerous. Removing these walls cleared .5 acres of land for future plantings of strawberries and eventually peaches. Their removal will also increase the air drainage off the property and will allow for more efficient land use (hey were paying for that half acre of sunlight might as well harvest something off it). To boot we got about 4 cords of firewood from the hard woods that were growing along the walls! Also in December I was able to set the posts and build the end braces for the new bird netting system to go in around our younger cherry trees. Can't wait for cherry season!

That was December, then the snow came and it still seems to be coming. In between snow removal January was tax, budgeting, and business analysis time. On one of the better days of January I was able to get out and do some wood splitting. Now that job is complete and it is about time to start pruning the apple trees. The only problem is now there is at least 2 feet of snow in the orchards which obviously makes getting our there and moving about the orchard a bit more laborous. The farm might have to invest in a set of snow shoes this winter! All this snow does make winter chores more difficult however I would rather have it then not. The thick layer of snow makes a great blanket to insulate our plants and trees' root systems from potentially damaging extreme cold. Remember that while you are out shoveling snow this winter. The snow is a royal pain now however its' abundance should lead to a plentiful crop of pick your own peaches, strawberries, and raspberries this summer at Butternut Farm.

Thanks for reading and stay warm. Remember Pick your own strawberries is only 4.5 months away.

2010 season has come to a close

Phew!!! What a season! Looking back now I am able to gain a bit of perspective on the season that just came and went (so quickly it seemed) and reflect on it as a whole. The highlights that come to mind include an excellent peach season. The trees bore heavy, the fruit were large and clean, and the flavor was out of this world. We salvaged a good strawberry season from what I thought in mid may was going to be very disappointing due to the severe freeze the region had on may 10 and 11. We ended up picking what I calculated to be about 80% of a full crop and the fruit was good quality. Thankfully the frost only affected the quantity. Raspberries had their best season ever and could have been better if it weren't for the extreme heat and humidity in mid july which greatly reduced our customer visits and resulted in losing some of the fruit to rot. Blueberries were only 2/3 of a full crop. I wish I knew why! I don't think the may freeze affected them and I also don't think I pruned them to hard which I have been known to do. So I am still working on that question. This was our first year of actually harvesting cherries because we invested in a bird netting system. Those like the peaches were a nice treat this past summer and any one who came to pick some I think really enjoyed the experience. The dry summer weather was perfect for growing cherries which resulted in very little fruit cracking (except for the Rainiers). The memories of this past cherry season are all positive so we will charge ahead and invest in more netting to cover our younger trees. We will see if the memories are just as good next season at this time, the cherries are the riskiest stock in our investment portfolio. Apples went very well this season. almost too well. The ideal marketing weather this fall (NO RAIN) coupled with the early season (we started picking jersey macs in JULY) led to The last apples off a tree being picked at 11am on the saturday of Columbus Day weekend (we ended up selling only drops for the remainder of that 3 day weekend). The season ended at least 2 if not 3 weeks early in my opinion. I would like to develop a PYO apple business where people can rely on Butternut Farm as a source of apples, cider, and pies up until halloween. I bet next year we will still be open the first week in november trying to sell the rest of our apples. Each season is so different.
In addition to the may freeze and the great weather for marketing most of our crops the only other big impact was the fairly extreme drought we had. We ran the irrigation well pumping 15 gallons/minute for 24 hrs a day 7 days a week for the entire month of july, august, and 3 weeks of september. Can somebody tell me how many gallons of water that is? Thank goodness we had irrigation. I don't want to know what our orchards would have looked like with out it. So to increase our irrigation capacity to accomodate the growing farm we hooked in another well to our irrigation system which will add 25gal/min to our capacity. The only problem is everytime we run that well our neighbors' well goes dry! (oops) We are going to have to find a solution to that problem!!
2010 was a great season! Actually our best yet as far as total farm sales. This site and this soil constitute the two key ingredients for a great place to grow fruit. I am looking forward to the 2011 season already! The challenges will surely be different than those of the 2010 season.

What a summer

Giff is very busy growing and selling fruit. When he is not out on the farm he is trying to squeeze in some family time. As I type he is sitting behind me at his desk planning for the week to come. Strawberries will be renovated, the Red Haven peaches still need to have their last thinning, the new strawberries need weeding, the fruiting canes on the raspberries will be pruned, and there is more hand thinning to be done on the apples.
This summer has been unprecedented with it's weather. We are consistently almost 2 weeks ahead on each crop and expect to be picking apples by August 1st.
I have been asking Giff about this blog and he just can't find the time (as you can imagine). As soon as he has time he will let you know what has been happening and what is to come.
We both hope you are finding some relief and fun in this warm summer and are enjoying lots of fresh fruit.
Mae (Giff's wife)