St Croix River Road Ramblings

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Friday, September 27, 2013

Rambling into Autumn

This week has been busy as we harvest the garden.  A trailer load of squash; two trailer loads of large pumpkins, lots of apples; heavily loaded tame and wild grapes; carrots, and more.  






We sell pumpkins, squash, maple syrup and apples at the River Road Ramble on the Hanson Farm on Evergreen Av on Saturday the 28th.  In a good year we sell most of the produce.  What is left over we sell some and give some to the local food shelves. 

Today is apple picking day.  The apples are not loaded, so the size is pretty fair.  I sprayed them with Sevin 4 times this summer and that seems to have kept the worms all out.  The wet spring means that some varieties have apple scab, a cosmetic flaw that makes them hard to sell but does not damage the apple underneath.  I would have had to spray them early in the season with a fungicide--but I don't really like doing this as they are really quite potent neuro damaging sprays. 

Took a break and a stroll along Wolf Creek at brother Marv's. 


Wolf Creek meanders through brother Marv's woods--part of Grandpa's old farm. 




The next neighbor to the north -- the creek goes through some boggy wetlands and an open cow pasture in the distance and then in the far distance brother Ev's 60 acres.  Along the creek channel is a little wild rice -- hinting of a time when the Native Americans lived upstream on Roger lake, growing pumpkins, squash, making maple syrup and harvesting the rice.

Marv's house boasts a brand new roof --One that will "do him out!"