I'm Back!

I can't believe it has been 4 months since my last entry, on October 12. Where did the time go?????

We sold almost all of our pumpkins but could feel the effects of the softening of the ecomony in that people did not buy as many pumpkins, skipped some of the other decorative items like hay, corn stalks and Indian corn, and ignored the scary decorative items for the most part. 2008 was not a year that people reveled in gore and we noticed very few front yards filled with gravestones, ghosts and headless ghouls. We did sell some huge, $100 creatures for $25 - $40 to regular customers with tweenage kids still in to Halloween magic.

In early November we closed the store for a few days and John and I drove to Myrtle Beach where we enjoyed an incredible week on the beach (and on the golf course for John). Our friends, Selene and Ron from Johnson City, TN joined us toward the end of the week. They brought me a Flip Video (which I hope they don't live to regret) so now you can enjoy a taste of our resort and location.

When John and I returned to Northampton after our trip, we launched full-speed ahead in to the Christmas Holiday Season - cutting greens and making wreaths, setting workshop schedules, and getting the gift shop dressed for the season. Eve, Abby and Brenda all helped to create some amazing fresh green decorations. The photos below do not do them justice, but will give you an idea of what we were up to.

We had several private parties for groups to make their own wreaths, kissing balls, centerpieces, etc. These workshops and parties are among the highlights of the season for me. I love it when participants come in thinking they have no skill and can't do it and leave with a gorgeous piece they have created themselves!

Growing up, my family always celebrated holidays in a big way, and Christmas was the biggest. I still love the food, the eggnog, the presents, the good spirit, the gatherings of friends and family. And, I also love the feeling of being crazy-busy at the farm. Major snowstorms on two of the three weekends between Thanksgiving weekend and Christmas most definitely impacted our sales, but we did sell all of our Christmas Trees and hold our own in the gift shop. This was not a big year for holiday decoration sales, even ornaments, which are usually a good item. We got the sense that people were simplifying this year and perhaps didn't have the energy to put everything out and then pack it up again. It also seems that we have all become desesitized to sales in the last couple of years, and in fact, seem to expect them. We don't mark our products up 200% so that we can put them on sale shortly after we put them out like many of the bigger stores, so a 50% off sale for us means we are selling items below cost. Used to be that we would do some pretty good business in the week after Christmas before we closed for the season but this year we saw only a very few of our regulars show up for eggnog and good deals.

After working 7 days/week for over 9 months, we were somewhat sad, but also relieved to close on December 31st. Since then, John had his right hip replaced on 1/5 (and has been pretty much out of commission for the last 5 weeks), we have ordered greenhouse supplies, seeds and starter plugs (and even gotten some planted), attended New England Grows, cleaned the greenhouse, done a physical inventory at the store, paid the bills, updated our bookeeping for year end and helped Maxx apply to two colleges. Maxx has taken over llama-care duties and was in charge of snow plowing until the transmission died on the truck. In late January, Faye and Abby spent 3 days at the New York Gift Show, scouring the market for fun, functional, unique, sustainable, useful, creative, enduring, meaningful, thoughtful, delicious, sensual new items for the gift shop. Stay tuned for more on that.

Pumpkin Carving (and seed eating)

We all know that when choosing pumpkins to carve, the face is the most important thing! Some people like tall faces, others like perfectly round ones. People that like to carve really scary pumpkins often will chose those that have bumps or scars on their skin (as long as the scars are healed over) to add to the creepy appearance. Some folks think that you can only make jack-o-lanterns out of the larger pumpkins, but I have seem some of the cutest ones made from little sugar pumpkins. The trick there is to make the candle hole in the bottom of the pumpkin and not take off the top. I actually prefer to make cut a bottom hole in all of my jack-o-lanterns, and just place it over the candle or light. Then, I never have to worry about the top caving in.

Pumpkins for carving do not have to be perfect. You can often get a discount on a pumpkin that has a bad spot and work that part in to your design. Speaking of design, there are a variety of patterns available in kits or on-line that allow you to create amazing designs. If you prefer to “free-style”, pick up a pumpkin carving knife. They are small and flexible, and have great teeth for cutting the pumpkin, but not the carver! Don’t forget to save the seeds from your pumpkin!! One of the best things about carving a pumpkin is baking the seeds! Check out the recipe below.

Hickory Dell Farm is holding a pumpkin decorating contest on Sunday, October 19 from 1 - 3. Click here for more info http://www.hickorydell.com/seasonalspecials_specialevents.html

Baked Pumpkin Seeds
Cooking spray, olive oil, or butter
The seeds from your pumpkin
Optional: Salt, garlic powder, onion powder, seasoned salt, or other seasoning of choice
PREPARATION:
Rinse pumpkin seeds. Use your fingers to remove all the pulp. Drain seeds and discard pulp. Spread out on paper towels on a cookie sheet to dry overnight. Preheat oven to 250 F.
Line a baking sheet with non-stick foil. Toss seeds in olive oil, butter, or spray with cooking spray. Sprinkle with salt, garlic powder, onion powder, seasoned salt, cayenne pepper, or your choice of seasonings. Toss to coat. Bake about 1 hour, tossing every 15 to 20 minutes, until golden brown. Cool pumpkin seeds before eating. Store in an airtight container at room temperature up to 3 months or refrigerate up to 1 year.

Llamas and Pumpkins and Gourds, Oh My!

The air has been crisping recently, though, thankfully, we have not yet had a killing frost. We are entering one of our top three favorite months here at the farm. October is the month for llama photos, for pumpkin decorating, and for glorious color. Sunny, warm days and cool, clear nights. Leaves turning red, gold and every shade in between. And Halloween! We love it all.

We will save most of the Halloween photos for later, but for now, enjoy the current bounty.

Mums are huge and colorful this year.

This is a Long Island Cheese Squash. Looks like the pumpkin Cinderella's fairy godmother turned in to a coach, but it is more of a tan color. These not only look great, but make a delicious pie when your seasonal decor turns to things more wintry.

The best decorations include pumpkins of many colors and sizes, and gourds in amazingly crazy and fun shapes and colors.

If you want to do something really creative, arrange your flowers in a carved-out pumpkin. We line the inside with some tin foil to keep the pumpkin fresh longer. For best results, change the water daily. The arrangements above were made during an afternoon workshop at our farm last fall.

Our scary Halloween decorations will be coming out shortly. I know they have been in the stores since July, but we will hold out for at least another week. In the meantime, some of our cute decorations are on display, like these very cool painted rocks by Westhampton artist Kate Fontaine.

Check out our website to learn more about our llama photo day, and pumpkin decorating contest.http://www.hickorydell.com/seasonalspecials_specialevents.html

Flower Bunches

John and I pour over seed catalogs beginning in September, to identify the absolutely most wonderful plants to grow for the next year's flower bunches. After his hanging baskets, flower bunches are John's most exiting product. He loves to make them colorful and unique, and he almost always adds herbs to the bunches so that they smell as well as look wonderful.

This year John hired a wonderful young woman (Stephanie) to help with the greenhouses and garden. Steph was a real weeder, and took excellent care of our cutting garden until she had to leave for college. Here are some pics:

In addition to the cutting garden, we grow glads, dahlias and sunflowers in a field setting near the pond and brook on the property. Each year it seems that one variety does much better than the others and one variety does much worse. This year, the sunflowers were strong, but the dahlias bloomed late due to a cool and wet June/July. The glads were a huge disappointment. Many turned brown before opening and it seemed only the orange and red were able to overcome the weather conditions. Of the more than 1200 bulbs John planted, only 10% were salable.

As long as the frost holds off, we will have beautiful flower bunches for sale. We have done table centerpieces for weddings and anniversary parties, and provided gorgeous, colorful arrangements for birthdays and anniversaries, to brighten a hospital or nursing home room, as well as for sellers holding open houses. Our bunches have also given to clients by our real estate agent and friend, Amy, and placed at the cemetary in honor of loved ones. We sell them in our store daily and at the farmers markets we attend in Springfield.

More HAY!

With the possible exception of the week we so luckily spent at Lake Winnepesaukee, it seemed every day in July included some period of heavy rain. It got so bad that it made the news. Here is a clip of John talking about how it affected farmers in the area.
http://www.cbs3springfield.com/news/local/26429154.html?video=pop&t=a

The rain continued in to August but now, instead of overbearing heat and humidity, we are starting to experience that September feeling. Blankets at night instead of a sheet and two fans blowing. And, no rain for three days in a row, which made it possible to start second cutting. Then a thunder storm, then another few days of sun. So now we have 2 large fields of second cut hay complete and one more to go.

This was not a good year, volume-wise for hay and right now we have barely enough to feed our own animals over the winter. The customers that usually count on us for second cut for their horses have been told they will have to look elsewhere. This is disappointing to us as well as to them. And, the hay will not be easy to find. We are hoping the weather stays warm long enough this year for us to do a third cutting, but that is a very rare occurrence, and it is much harder to dry the hay when the days get shorter and the nights so much cooler. Keep your fingers crossed!

Hay!

Our farm includes about 40 acres of hay fields, a necessary crop for providing food for our llama herd. But, hay is also a cash crop for us. The 21 llamas require less than 1500 bales/year. In a good year, we may harvest 3000 bales between first and second cutting.
Our ‘hay crew’ consists of John’s 90 year old dad, John himself (who by the way is in need of a knee replacement, and probably, a new hip as well), me, when I am not at a farmer’s market or having to watch the store, and Maxx, if he is not working at Stop and Shop and we beg him hard enough! From time to time, a neighbor might take pity on John and pitch in for a while. I actually love being out on the wagon, but it really is quite strenuous work, particularly in the hot and sunny weather required for a successful hay harvest.
We sell our excess hay to horse owners, other animal owners, for mulch, and for Fall decorating. The mulch and decorative hay is usually the result of poor drying conditions, like when it rains after the hay has been cut and partially dried. Hay is probably one off the most weather-dependent crops in existence. You need rain in the spring and during the summer to make the hay grow, but you also need 2.5 - 3 days of sunshine, preferably with a nice breeze in order to cut, dry and bale the hay. First cutting usually starts in mid-June and, with perfect conditions, we can finish before July 4th. This allows sufficient re-growth for a second cutting in mid-to-late August. The second cutting is called Rowan, and is more tender and tasty than the first-cut hay.
This year has been a tough one for making hay in western Mass. The farmers that raise cows have done a green-chop which they essentially roll in plastic or put in a silo to make haylage (which is like the silage made from corn) which they will feed to the animals over the winter. People that depend on hay to feed their animals are stressing, though, because no one has hay to sell. We got a good start in early June and had about 3 wagon loads of hay available. That was gone within a week, though, and the constant threat of thunder storms and showers prohibited us from cutting more. Finally, on June 30th, John took a risk and cut a marginal field, thinking that if it got rained on, the hay could be fed to the less-picky llamas, or sold for Halloween décor. Things looked good, but late in the afternoon of July 1, it rained on that hay. John pushed forward and continued drying that batch and in the evening cut a front field, hoping for a couple of days of sunshine. The rain held off and we started baling at about 1:30 on July 3. Racing the clock, we were able to get a few hundred bales on the wagons. The sky opened just as John was putting the last of 4 wagons in the barn. So now we have hay to put in the barn for the llamas, as well as some to sell to those desperate animal owners. We have 2-3 more sections to hay before we can leave on our summer escape to Lake Winnepesaukee, NH (courtesty of John’s brother, Bob) and the forecast is still calling for scattered showers. We have high hopes, though, that ‘Mother Nature’ will appreciate our need to take this break!

To learn more about haying and its history, click on this link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hay#Early_methods

Fireworks!!!

I recently saw my cousin, Faye, (yes same name and spelling) at a lovely family wedding and she asked me why I hadn't been adding to my blog lately. The answer is simple. June is a month where we work 15 hours/day, 7 days/week. Planting, weeding, watering, desigining, displaying, and hopefully, selling our garden and gift products. For the months of June through September, I attend 3 farmers markets/week. Tuesday at the X in Springfield (http://www.farmersmarketatthex.com/), on Wednesday at Tower Square in Springfield, and on Friday morning at the Jewish Community Center in Springfield/Longmeadow. I have a couple of hours ot do 'off-farm' things on Thursday but otherwise am at the farm/store. This leaves little time to get on-line, particularly since we do not have internet access at the store.



So, what does all of this have to do with fireworks, you might ask. Well, not a thing! But, at the end of June I always look forward to the fireworks and celebration held in Easthampton by the Kiwanis Club. Growing up in Beverly Farms, the 4th was probably our most exciting time of the year. A holiday to be celebrated at least as gleefully as Christmas. We had the 'night-before dance' and the Hastings House, the Horribles Parade early in the morning (with many of the participants still inebriated from the all-night effort of putting the float together), the afternoon races at the beach for kids as well as adults, and wonderful cook-outs, and of course, the 'best fireworks in the world'! We would lay on the beach and watch them explode over our heads. Sometimes, if the wind was right, the ashes would land among us. We were never too old or too cool to love all the festivities, and when I married John, he knew that the Fourth in the Farms would always be part of the plan. And it was for quite a while. But, once we opened the store it was difficult for us to get away for the holiday, so we started a new tradition of openening our pool to friends and family on the 4th and closing the store early to enjoy the afternoon. The fireworks in Easthampton made it all bearable. This year they were cancelled because of foul weather forecasting. I am having trouble recovering from my disappointment. It just doesn't seem like the summer without those fireworks. My friend, Di, promises to find another venue to feed my barrage additction (that IS the part I love the best), so I am still holding out hope.....