Some of you know, but most don’t because we worked at being optimistic, but 2016 was a tough year. Today, however, we are grateful. We are grateful for you and for the blessings of this year.
We grow fruit. We don’t manufacture it. Fruit it grows in the climate and weather we are blessed to receive. We need the rain, we need the sun and we need the seasons. But we don’t get to pick and choose when things happen. We have to work with it and hopefully manage the trees and strawberries in such a way as to bear fruit. There is a lot that goes into growing fruit in Minnesota. It is a challenge but it is also rewarding.
In 2016 we were dealt a blow early that we had to manage through the entire year right through harvest time. This spring, shortly after bloom we had three nights of below freezing temperatures, kind of like what we’ve had this week. But it was in May. The result is that we had damage. We had a smaller crop. Some varieties we had nothing at all or very little. And we found ugly fruit. Frost rings showed up right away.
Then there was the rain. We don’t like drought. But the unrelenting rain, inches and inches of it during the summer created a whole other set of challenges as we strived to bring our crop to ripeness.
But we were grateful. Grateful we had a crop. Mixed in with the ugly fruit we had beautiful fruit and we are grateful we could share this with you.
Going into our fall apple season we didn’t know what to expect, how you would respond or how our season would go. Some apples ripened early, some took their time. We had to close pick-your-own apples two weeks early because we ran out of fruit. We couldn’t do our December sale because we ran out of fruit.
But when we closed our doors on November 6, we looked around and we were grateful for a good season. A solid season, with good sales, good traffic and great customers! You believed in us, you tried our ugly but good tasting fruit, you bought pies, caramel apples and cookies, you went on hayrides and you got pumpkins.
So we are grateful. We are humbled by your support and your belief in us. We are delighted when we see so many happy faces at the orchard, the photos on Facebook and Instagram. We are grateful that we are able to bring meaning to your lives.
So as we celebrate Thanksgiving please know, in our family, we celebrate you!
Jim and Judy