The ripenin' is faster than the pickin'

The average picker is taking home about 12 lbs of berries (about 2 ice cream pails). Some are harvesting upwares of 20-30 lbs, while many are just getting 5-7 lb. We are seeing many return faces, so I think people are picking when they can.

It appears that the berries are ripening faster than people are picking. We probably should have placed some ads in the paper, but we were afraid to have too many picking and spoiling the fun for the loyal customers/visitors.

We are still lacking rain, when it does come, it may be too late to help the remaining crop. We will remain open now until the berries are sparse. We will NOT be closing/opening off and on, as there are so many berries that there should always be some ripe ones somewhere. We probably won't close until after labor day, unless the berries get picked out.

Happy Picking...

p.s., we have some excellent local honey at the farm. Tim Colling has been mentoring Mike Gierke on raising bees and we have one of his hives out at our farm. We have bottles of Tim's honey for sale at our farm. Mike's bees did not produce enough to off our's for sale this year, but hopefully with an expansion next year we can offer honey, dare we call it "blueberry" honey, next year.

p.s.s., Our kids will be auctioning two pigs at the Houghton County Fair on Saturday, Aug. 23, in the afternoon. They have been fed grain and leftover vegetables (courtesy of World Foods, Houghton). No growth hormones nor antibiotics (besides what they received intially as piglets).