Category: Weather

Well…it’s still raining in Oregon

Well we are still waiting for the rain that hit in October to stop.  Sheesh this has been a frustrating fall, winter and now spring for farming.  I’m hopeful it will turn around here soon, but I have to be, because as a farmer what else can you do but be optimistic about the weather?!

Here are a few shots of our filbert orchard.  I am still out getting pruning done, it’s coming along…slowly but surely.Also we headed out this week to check out some of the damages as the water goes down.  This is one of the smaller of the tile holes we marked.  This happens when our drainage tile (which runs underground) breaks and the water pushes up through the ground to the surface.  For now we just flag them so no one or thing falls in.  We will farm around them this year and come back in the fall to fix the drainage lines.

**My Aunt Marian just told me in comments below that my Grandpa Carl always called tile holes “suck outs”.  Which is what we still often call them today 🙂

We have had a few nice days here and there.  Fingers are still crossed for a couple, a few, a LOT more!

A “Little” Hazelnut Pruning

final-58I went out with Matt today to do a little pruning on our youngest hazelnut trees.  I say a “little” pruning because I only made it about four trees before I realized that I was no where near dressed with enough clothes on for a 33 degree wind chill.  final-59But what we were able to accomplish was some consensus on what we were going for, once it warms up or I get more layers on, we will be able to get the job done.

Trees, especially hazelnut trees (which are naturally more bush than tree) take a lot of work get looking just right.  We were working today on making sure that the crotch of the tree has the correct angles for the most support system to hold up the branches and the weight of nuts.  final-60Also we were looking at branches coming up through the middle.  Light in a tree is a very important factor.  And then just the overall shape of the tree, are there branches going just one direction or in all directions?  How tall is the tree and all of the leaders?  Lots of questions…final-57

And since every tree and the way every person looks at a tree is all very different, it’s important to get try to start on the same page, where you end up will probably be all over the board (haha!), but starting out on the same page is good!

Weather Update…It’s Still Cold!

Well it’s still freezing here in Oregon on the farm.  We did get a little insulation for the crops in the form of snow, but not sure it’s enough to make a difference. final-25

I get a lot of questions about what this will do to our crops.  So far I’m really only worried about our vegetable seed crops that were planted in the fall.  We have both cabbage & swiss chard that is still pretty small and not looking too happy with this cold weather.  I am told not to worry too much until 12 degrees, we have gotten down to 14 so far, hopefully that is the lowest we get!

final-22final-23This is a photo of some of our younger hazelnut trees.  These trees pollinate in the winter, however not when it’s this cold!

Just another reason why being a farmer is truly so risky, no one can control the weather, and no one can tell you what is going to happen.  Would we have changed our planting schedule last fall if we had known this was going to happen…probably so!  But once again (I feel like I say this a lot) that’s farming!

final-26Yukon sums up how we all feel about all this cold weather & snow pretty well…we know how you feel old dog…and we are right there with ya!

Happy Friday folks and stay warm!