The cooler weather is settling upon us in central Iowa, snow is even predicted. So what to do on a cool Sunday afternoon, cook! I wish you could smell our house today. The simmering strawberries and aronia berries release a fresh, sweet, comforting fragrance that makes your mouth water. I’m creating Strawberry/Aronia Fruit Spread. I will have it available at the Holiday Showcase in Carlisle next Saturday. I always have some on hand to share with friends and it makes a great gift. Pure goodness in a half pint for $5.
It’s definitely cold and cough season in Central Iowa! Around our house the grandchildren have all had ear infections, croup or just a crummy cold/cough. Their parents have had sinus and ear infections and Woody even caught the crud and ended up with sinus infection. BUT…guess who just has a little evening tickle and cough? Why?
I’ve been drinking or using more Aronia each day for the past month when all the snotting, sneezing and hacking started around our house. In cereal or oatmeal, in soups, on salads, you name it, I have it with Aronia. One of my most recent creations is to juice some berries and use about 2 oz of juice in a glass of orange juice. It’s also a great icee if you zap the oranges and berries and ice in the Vitamix! I call it my Antioxidant Punch:)
The powerful punch of our little purple berries packs a knock-out for virus germs so prevalent right now. See for yourself!
Or walk through the aisles and just listen to the birds chirp and the bees hum as they flit from place to place enjoying all the blossoms.
Watching that big, mean Rottweiler stop and smell the flowers is a real treat too. Although, I couldn’t get a really good picture of him this year! It’s just too funny watching him stop and sniff.
Right now when they are so pretty you can overlook all the grass that is trying to grow under the plants and just enjoy the beautiful miracle that is happening turning those tiny little plants we planted 10 years ago into the beautiful floral beauties and then a super nutritional berry right before our eyes. Isn’t the power of nature magical!
Odd title? You wouldn’t think so if you joined us the last few weeks in the field. You see after the 17-year Cicada damage we suffered in June 2014, you’d understand. Pruning is best done in December-March so the cuts can callous and harden off. On some of the warmer days we have been out cutting back bushes. It’s a cold, snowy field and the footing is a little slippery. Secondly, you have to bend down and inspect each branch and remember we have nearly 5,000 bushes, so it seems like it takes forever. We’re still not done, but we’ll get there a little at a time as the backs can handle it.
I say cussing because It makes you physically feel sick to cut off so much of some of the plants and know how you are cutting down on your yield for the upcoming year. You have that to deal with emotionally. I keep telling myself those damned Cicadas layed the eggs in the little branches and weakened the bushes now to the point that they will not support the weight of all the berries they will be having now and in the future. If the damage isn’t cut out now, they will suffer later. So I cut and cuss.
At the same time, I praise the quiet time alone in the woods and in the field. I am so thankful we are where we are and we have a hardy bush that will survive, thrive and be so strong and large in 17 years, the next Cicadas will not be able to damage them this way ever again. Thus, the life of a farmer.
We had such high hopes for our crop this year and were so excited for the changes we were making to our farm. Yet another lesson in patience.
We ordered our Weed Badger in early April and hoped to be ready to till around the plants in May. I should never have trusted and sold the little riding mower that went between the small plants. The weed badger showed up last week! But it is going to be awesome. We need some practice with it, but it will do the job, we’re just set back a year.
On June 17th while mowing we noticed all kinds of damaged to the berry bushes. We couldn’t decide if the heavy winds the night before had damaged our plants or just what had happened. Turns out it was the 17-year cicada emergence. They really did a number on us. The females bury their eggs into the small stems of plants. Well our place is very wooded and was 17 years ago too, so we had a terrible infestation. It was like walking on crunchy shells everywhere in our fields. Turns out they were a problem. We had lots of branches die and many more erupted and weakened so they did not support all the berry production. Our crop suffered dramatically and probably will next year too. We’re thankful it’s only every 17 years!
Cicada Damaged Bush
Cicada Damaged Branch
June 16th our Horizon Building arrived after a LOT of dirt work that was done, thanks to our son. The wonderful Amish crew had the building up in a week, mostly. It rained and rained all summer and the inside was muddy, our granddaughter loved mud stomping inside! The floor was finally poured (in the rain) August 27th. But we have a place to put all the equipment for winter storage and it’s wonderful.
Mudstomping Inside the Building
Through all the rain, weeds, and cicada damage, we’ve been so impressed at how hardy these plants are. Plants we put in the ground two years ago have really thrived despite the conditions they had to deal with this year. That field was neglected this summer with all the rain and the lack of a good way to mow between the plants and the cicada damage as well, but they look really good.
We keep believing the plants will be able to produce a nice crop for us. We have had friends with excellent yields. Meanwhile, we keep finding new ways to enjoy them.
May 10, 2014 – We have Blooms! In fact in field two we were out mowing and for the first time we could smell the future. The bushes were loaded with blooms there Woody and I could smell the sweet fragrance of aronia for the first time. It was an unexpected pleasure! We have quite a few blooms even in fields three and even four. The nights of frost worried us a bit, but hopefully it wasn’t cold enough to damage any berry production. Time will tell…
Fogles Organic Aronia Berries – A Homegrown Super Food!
Oh I wish you could smell these!
