Field Day: More Details

A few quick updates and details about the field day as we do our final day of preparation:

1. Remember, use the map on our website to find us- navigation systems usually don't work.
2. Registration starts at 9:30 this year. First tours at 10.
3. Morning tours: Woody Ag, and Mature Hazel Management. Hazel coppice demonstration!
4. If things go well, we'll have a lunchtime raptor roost raising.
5. Afternoon tours: Hybrid Hazels (possibly including harvest demo), and Animals in Woody Agriculture. Farm-hatched guinea keets!
6. 3 PM other demonstrations and discussions start, possibly including fertilizer demo; brush puller demo, and husking. Q&A session.

The weather is looking pretty good; we hope you'll be able to make it!

Working in the Chestnut Shade

--- This post is from Meg, who due to my swamped-ness isn't yet an "official" author on this blog. -BLR -----

It is HOT today. The weather sites on the internet claim that the temperature in Canton MN is 90 F and the thermometer on the north wall of the cabin is reading 89F in the shade. So I would conclude that it is HOT.

We were doing harvest and other related field work this morning, but we abandoned that in the heat and are now working in the shade of the chestnuts. The plan is to do some pruning and clearing out to make chestnut harvest a tiny bit, or a whole lot, easier.

Hazel harvest is trickling in. I hope it will wait to crush us in an avalanche of nuts until I am in the cast so I can actually go out and help the field crews.

Brandon is continuing to scare the crows with the shotgun. If luck holds he'll hit one or two that we can hang up as a warning to other crows to enter our fields at their peril. Not that he's a bad shot, but crows are really smart. He's also wrangling the field workers and volunteers. Sometimes I wonder if it's a bit like herding cats, but they are getting a lot of work done and we are grateful for the help.

Philip is working on press releases and the tour content for the field day. He's sequestered upstairs with earplugs in so he can actually work and not be driven insane by Elly the Dervish. He, and all of us at Badgersett, are hoping to make it a really great event this year. Hopefully we'll see some of our readers and friends there.

Consequently, I am writing this quick update. I hope you liked it.

Meg

Pest Control

Never a dull moment!

Pest control– the harvest has started, and so have the squirrels and crows (jays and woodpeckers come later; mice and ground squirrels are a bit harder to see sometimes). Critical to know- squirrels and chipmunks will steal nuts before they are ripe; so you must really be on your guard. I was harassing them today, starting before dawn, with some good effect. Permanently de-commissioned four red squirrels; those little guys certainly pack away the nuts. We also put up a new hawk roost today; I think our first one made from a chestnut tree. Combine that with keeping the crows back, and maybe we'll get the hawks back for a bit. The owls, of course, use the roosts at night without worrying about crows at all.

Now (or maybe last week) is a good time to check out the vintage post on checking ripeness, and on determining ripeness, as well. New growers should check them diligently; you'll lose them! Before my work today, we'd already lost the entire crop on one of our earlier bushes.

19th Annual Badgersett Field Day, August 21 (and HARVEST)

Every year we have our annual field day on the third Saturday in August; this year that is about as late as it can get– the 21st. Hazel harvest will be in full swing at that point; there may be fewer nuts left on the bushes but there will be more in processing.

We've been a little slow in getting the reminders out for the field day this year, partly because we're trying to nail down a machine harvest demonstration for the field day, and would like to include that in our notices, and it will have a substantial effect on the schedule of the day. Other than that, the form will be quite similar to last year, so you can start your planning based on that in the meantime.

As always there is a lot more for me to say here, but I need to get our greenhouse worker trained in watering today so that I can be out in the field more for harvest. We'll be posting notices about farm work scheduling (for harvest, hawk roost raising, etc) in the near future– let us know if you want to be on the weekend worker list!

Harvesting- Chestnut Poles

That's what we're doing today- cutting some of our older chestnut trees; to use as poles for our "raptor" roosts. We hope to let them dry just a bit (with the help of the leaves) before we have to wrassle them into place. They are really important if you don't want the mice, bluejays, 13-liners, etc., to get all the hazelnuts.

This is a Great Horned Owl using one of our "hawk roosts". They'll start using them immediately - but you DO have to put them up. This pole is black locust, but our stand is getting thin. Chestnut is pretty much just as rot resistant.

We need quite a few new ones; these will be as dry as we can get them in a week or two. If you want to learn how to get a 30' tall tree up; think about coming and giving us a hand; we can use the help.