We did it!  We’ve been open a solid week with minimal casualties, the bin dump.  However, we’ve put the call into CJ Pellowski at Centerville Tool and Die and I have complete faith he will save the day, once again, and have us back up and running within 24 hours.  What would we do without our friends?

Already Mom has resigned herself to the 4am shift, somebody’s got to do it.  I’m just glad it’s not me… yet.  Yesterday she asked me, ‘so what time are you getting up in the morning?’  I said, ‘never.’  That’s just a little joke I like to play on the establishment.

The topic of the day was ‘Do we have a stink bug problem?’  We all decided the answer is ‘yes.’  Now what do we do about it?  According to our ‘Tru Earth’ protocol, we don’t have many options.  Our Honeycrisp pack outs are at stake.  I’d hate to think of jeopardizing 30 acres of apples for the sake of a protocol which provides the grower with no financial incentive to certify her crop.  I’m always amused by the people that write these protocols.  Often, they have never tried to grow anything, have no personal investment in the success of their own programs.  Funny.

Ok so for today’s irony, actually this was yesterday:
I’m at the farmer’s market in Winona, MN.  A woman approaches my booth to look at the apples.  She asks me if they’re organic.  I explain that no, they are not organic; however, they were grown in accordance with the Tru Earth protocol.  She tells me that she’s very wary of apples, ‘they’re on the dirty dozen you know.’
Typically, she only buys organic but she’s willing to try our fruit.  I smile and nod.  Her son picks out a beautiful apple with a tiny, brown spot up on the crown.  She tells him to put it back.  She doesn’t want  it, it’s damaged.  Ha, it never gets old.

According to various sources, which I’m about to make up…
Of the 90% of people who claim they want to eat only non-sprayed food, when presented with two apples –one that’s been conventionally sprayed, (it’s beautiful, has perfect shape, color, flawless skin), and one that’s never seen a single chemical application, (this thing is covered in spots, marks, blemishes, scars; it’s mis-shapen; it’s small; it’s ugly), so of those 90% of people, 99% of them will choose the beautiful apple 100% of the time.

C’est la vie.

And it begins…

We’re just getting our ducks in a row to open on Sunday, August 21st for the 2011 apple season.  Today’s activities included: first pie-making extravaganza of the year –although with only 100 pies, it was a bit of a soft start, 175 lbs of caramel, crop insurance audit.  Then at 1:00, the high schoolers arrived for field work.  Unfortunately for them, they were mandated to the blueberry field almost immediately for weeding.  We cleaned the bin dump, picked the State Fair up in the organic block, did a TV interview for News Channel 8, attended the Trempealeau Chamber meeting, updated orchard management records, and here I sit, finally dedicating a few minutes to starting this blog after an unacceptable period of 13 months post this site going live.  Well, as they say, better late…

My goal is to keep posting bi-weekly.  We’ll see if that happens.  Apple growing is a wonderful and wonderfully painful experience as we’ve come to well know over the past 18 months.  I’m going to try to keep a record of our triumphs and complete failures, if only for myself.  Most days it’s a total chit show around here and maybe documenting the insanity will help bring some humor to the tough moments.  Hopefully, we’ll only have to learn the hard lessons once.

Today’s Irony:

So the crop insurance auditors roll up to inspect the crop before picking.  They immediately ask for a Gator (John Deere “all terrain” vehicle, kind of) to cruise the orchard for the auditing task.  As they are not farm help, they are not covered under our current policy to drive that vehicle.

Photos of the 2010 Eckerbeiner Cross Country Ski Tour at Ecker’s Apple Farm! Click to view the full size image.

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