Sunday, July 18, 2010

Farm Income!

This homestead earned some money yesterday!  These three pints of blueberries were picked on Thursday, and went to the Hoosick Farmers Market on Friday where they got rained on and were sold by Melanie. 
Pretty neat!

These are small, wild mountain berries.  If I spend even a few moments pruning or taking care of the bushes, next year should be bigger and better.  There are fewer berries in the upper area this year than last year - I'm thinking animal-related.  I may want to think about taking care of those bushes and protecting them, too.

We had a strong series of thunderstorms roll through the area last night, finally breaking the humidity down to reasonable levels.

Here's what I found in the yard this morning:

It's the chimney cap, blown off one of the chimneys.  Thankfully, it didn't land on the car!

6 comments:

  1. Hey-hey, the homestead is starting to support itself! With all of your blueberry bushes, do you have any bears that bother them?

    The chimney cap in the yard is a sight we've seen more than once. It usually happens at night (it seems) when we have a rain/wind storm and we're awakened out of a sound sleep by what at first seems like the roof falling in (chimney cap bouncing and rolling off the roof). Glad it did miss your car!

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  2. Yay for extra income! Think you'll ever do pick-your-own there?

    I think we got hit by that same string of storms - only we got hail! Fortunately it was light and tiny, and did not do any damage to the garden - unlike last year when it took out all my cucumber seedlings!

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  3. I went to a pick your own blueberry patch Friday and picked 11 pounds with the help of a friend. I paid $15.00. Add a few more bushes and you'll be able to start raking in the cash!!!

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  4. Congratulations! I'll never forget the first time we hauled our produce to the Granville, Ohio Farmers' Market last year. That first sale seemed like a miracle--someone handed me money for something I grew--amazing! Going on our second year, I can tell you the thrilling feeling doesn't go away. Keep it up!

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  5. Mama Pea - something's eating the berries up the hill, that's for sure. May be bear or moose. Think bears would be more destructive?

    Alison - probably no pick your own here, I'm too far into the woods, and my berries are pretty small and hard to pick. Nice idea though!

    Judy - 11 pounds! Wow! I had a few people over today and we only picked maybe 4 pints in an hour.

    Thanks Anon! It is quite a thrill!

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  6. I'm sure no bear expert (or anything expert) but I don't think bears would do much damage to blueberry bushes. Wouldn't they just rake off the berries with their claws and then snuffle them up? I know they do great damage to apple trees but that's 'cause they try to climb them to get at the apples and their weight breaks the branches.

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