School is out for the summer, and while we have camps and a few fun outings planned, most of our summer is full of work on the farm.
This week was a juggle of childcare so I got to take the boys out for a few hours to work with me. We checked a few (very tall) tall fescue fields and headed out to a newly planted orchard to count trees. We planted a number of new baby hazelnut trees this past winter, and most are looking great, but there are a few dead ones that will need to be replanted.
So Hoot, Auggie and I headed out to do some tallying. A skill Auggie was very proud to have learned this year in kindergarten.
This spring and moving now into summer has been a struggle with the weather and rising costs. It’s a very uneasy time to be a farmer with all that has hit us this year that is out of our control. But it’s also just really amazing to get to be outside, teaching your kids all about what you love to do and seeing how much they love it also!
Someday these summer workers will be full time around here….probably (as I’m told often) before I know it!
We wait for the nuts to naturally come out of the tree, no shaking required. But it’s always a bit of a guessing game as to when to harvest. Too early and a lot of nuts will fall after you sweep them into rows, causing you to run over a lot of your crop. Too late and you risk worse weather and rain storms that make for very muddy, very wet and very frustrating harvest.
NuttyGrass 