I have to say it-Christmas Eve is 44 day away!!! How did that happen? Honestly, we keep thinking summer just finished and now we will have time to repair things on the farm, do some painting, we still haven't finished disking the fields; and cleaning up the vegetable gardens.
I was asked to make several floral arrangements using pumpkins for a special birthday/Halloween party. They turned out really cute and I think I may make more of them next year.
I was at the hardware store yesterday buying paint to paint my garden shed door and I saw all these boxes and boxes in the isles for employees to put away. I asked Kenny what was in all these boxes? He said $10,000 worth of new pruning shears, didn't I know? Remember this is farming country and basically we are all doing pretty much the same thing, at the same time. Kenny was right, I should be out pruning the fruit trees,heck I thought I had another 2 months in my mind clock of things to do, when.
I was reading a newsletter from a family owned, local nursery I like and he was reminding viewers it was time to start thinking about the 3-dormant spraying times. OMG, that is right, Thanksgiving is the time frame when we need to do the copper spraying. Now I am starting to panic that I have too much to do and not enough time.
Since my last posting, we delivered our final, Fall Harvest CSA basket. It was so full, almost too heavy for me to lift. In the basket were late tomatoes, peppers, egg plant, cilantro, squash, 2 kinds of persimmons, strawberries, pomegranates, kiwi, Meyer lemons, dried fruit, shelled walnuts. It is two fold when we delivered them, happy that it was our last box for the season; but sad it was our last box for the season and we won't be communicating and seeing our fabulous members. I think the feeling is fairly mutual too because now our members will have to go to their local markets to buy produce.
We still are marketing our pomegranates and persimmons. I believe, because the weather still remains warm it is difficult for people to think about making jelly, juices or baking using persimmons. I decided to post these items on craigslist.com. I have used it previously to purchase items and occasionally use it if I have excess produce that needs to be moved quickly or it will spoil.
I received a call from a nice man in Yuba City asking if I still had both these items. I said yes. He said he was cleaning out his garage and decided to list some tires he had on craigslist to get rid of them. He received a call from some people who were driving through with a produce delivery van and wanted to purchase his tires. While talking, they mentioned they were buyers and sellers of large amount of fresh produce, they were from the State of Washington. They bring down produce from Washington and then pick up produce in California that is generally not grown in Washington and were looking for persimmons and pomegranates. Lots of it!!! 2000 lbs or more of each item.
This nice man went to craigslist to check out what was available locally since these produce buyers were not from the area and didn't know the local cities. The man called me and passed on the info. I waited for a call but it did not come from the buyers so went on with my farming jobs. Then yesterday morning at 6:30am I got a call from these people from Washington saying they were driving thru Gridley in 30 minutes and would I have the produce ready. I do not have the amount they wanted, but they said they would look at what I had. While they were here, they asked if I knew anyone else selling persimmons, which a friend of mine did. I gave my friend a call, he came over and talked to the Washington buyer, made arrangements with them and he sold them 2000 pounds of hachiya persimmons. My friend didn't have Fuyu persimmons, so he called one of HIS friends who did, the Washington buyer went over to that farm and purchased 2000 lbs of persimmons from him. Even though I only sold about 8 cases of persimmons and 4 cases of pomegranates of our Windmill Farm items, the buyers helped our fellow farming friends sell their items. One ad on craigslist, helping a buyer looking for produce; sellers looking to sell produce or tires!! Pretty amazing.
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