The Long Winter

Yes, that's the title of one of the Laura Ingalls Wilder "Little House" books.  This winter for us has been nearly the equal of the one she documented- in fact, when they report weather statistics, the winter of 1886-87 is one of only a very few winters that can match the statistics for cold and snow that we've been racking up this year.  And since we live off grid entirely- with houses and greenhouses giving us a full mile of road to plow for vehicle access - it has slowed us down.  Lots of our local roads now need a  snow-thrower type plow to clear- and we rarely need that in SE Minnesota.  2 videos, then 3 photos, in case you want to actually experience it with us.  This first video goes through an intersection with a mailbox (around 0:50), so you can get some scale.  The banks are actually higher than the car... and when you get to the trees?  No drifts, no plow banks.



It's not just a few drifts, in a few places- it's extensive.

This one is on the way home, later in the day- drifting up again.  You have to drive fairly fast in order to be sure you'll get through the next drift.  And yes, some of this is "white out" blind for a few moments.


And both of those videos were made- BEFORE we had the biggest snowfall of the winter- we're now at around 3 feet deep in the woods- you cannot move without snowshoes or skis- or if you're on an old packed snow trail.  Out in the open- that 3 feet of snow has blown into drifts; also not easy to get around in.

Just a few more photographs here- to give you some idea.  I've never seen snow this deep in March; in 35+ years.

This is a full sized 45 gallon trash can.  We're not using it for trash, but to store roofing tools, nails, etc., which is why it's undisturbed.  Before this last snowfall- you could still see what it was.

This is our porch.  This is the first year we haven't been able to keep it shoveled off.  The cats and dogs get their food (all from 1 bowl) under the round table... the snow around it is actually pretty packed by the critters.

And these are our two, expensive, "big dog" dog houses- which the dogs refuse to use.  I'd think it would be nice and warm in there at this point- but they'd rather sleep on snow.

New Article on "Resilience.org" -

In case you haven't caught up with all your Internet reading yet; you may like to know that the website "Resilience.org" has been gaining a lot of traction.  It's a news and information site; very well edited, and reaching a lot of folks.

And, today, we're featured, in a great and broad reaching article by Dan Allen - who made the time to meet with us while we were at MIT - even if only for a few minutes.  Short as the time was- we had a trunk-full of solid arguments to show him.  Take a look; he's done a great job.

Leave that strip of grass!

Just a quick note- those of you who have been to our short course or field day may remember that we strongly recommend a) mowing as the method for weed control during establishment, and b) leaving an unmowed strip of grass along the row, with the hazels (or other infant woody plants) in it.

This is one end of the  hazel field we planted in late July; we did get it mowed according to our own directions this time around, including one high pass over the rows themselves, in order to allow a little more light down to the tubelings.
There are a bunch of reasons to leave that strip of grass, but here's another: catch more water over the winter!

A little chilly-

So far, we're having a "normal Minnesota" winter here.  Which includes this:

Yep, that says "21 below" - F, not C.  Oh, and 41 - inside, overnight.  Chances are, in lower elevations on the farm, it was colder than that last night.

Our "test winters" are typically at 40 below F; it's been over 10 years since it got that cold.  But this is the second time we've hit 20 below in December, which is a bit unusual; and the coldest part of winter is yet to come.  We'll see.  At the moment, the jet stream is "stuck" with an abnormally deep loop- bringing us air from west central Canada; the "Alberta Clipper."  I'll be surprised if we don't see 30 below; and not surprised if we see 40 below this winter.

This does mean we're a bit "hunkered down" here- it takes more firewood, cutting, hauling, stoking - to keep the computers from freezing up.  Slows things down a bit.

Meanwhile- best of everything for the New Year; from everyone here.

The future markets for nut crops

This is old news for those of us in the nut business; but nuts are HEALTHY- and that message is being very solidly delivered to the public by study after study.

The most recent one comes from two of the most highly respected long term health tracking studies in the world, the "Nurses Health Study" and the "Health Professionals Follow-up Study" - which together track ~119,000 men and women, over some 30 years.  It's in the NEJM and is also reported on here in plain English, in The New York Times.  And Carl Albers recently emailed me this article, which refers to the same NEJM study (thanks, Carl!)  And we covered the previous "big new!" article on this topic, from March 2012, right here.

Cutting to the chase- the more nuts people eat; the better for them; in every way they can measure; including such things as death from cancer and heart disease.

The scientists and doctors are mostly bickering about which causal factors are most important at this  point; not whether the data reflect reality; the benefits are solidly accepted.

So- one more factor indicating an increasing market for nut products.

It's worth noting that chestnuts are not included in any of the tests so far.  So far as I know, no researchers have stated their reasons for excluding chestnuts from the studies; but I expect it is due to two factors; 1) chestnuts are very low fat, unlike all the other nuts in the studies, and 2) chestnuts have not been available for easy "snacking" throughout the year as all the other nuts are.

My own opinion is that #2 is due to lack of snack-consumer friendly chestnut products, and also a pure lack of chestnut crop availability.  We can hope to change both of those factors.  Our new "chestnut polenta" provides a highly adaptable starting point for "snacks"; the chestnut ginger snaps and polenta crackers we've made were raved over by our test subjects; and the polenta will be very easy to commercialize.

Health researchers need to be alerted - to the possibility that although chestnut is low fat, if may nonetheless have health benefits similar to other nuts.  The evidence for that speculation comes from the pork industry; multiple sources report this same, very intriguing, fact: swine fed on chestnuts - and/or acorns - produce lard that is considerably less saturated than the lard from those fattened on maize; to the point the rendered product may be liquid at room temperature.  While far from absolute; most health professionals expect that less saturated fats are better for health and highly saturated fats.

Perhaps if eating chestnuts makes for polyunsaturated pigs- it might also make for polyunsaturated people.  It really needs to be investigated; if any readers are in contact with researchers who might be interested, please have them get in touch with us- we have chestnut product available for testing, and we've got plenty of experimental designs to suggest; this  has been on our radar for a very long time.