Anticipating the blossoms

She's blooming....
From the moment she made the decision to step out into the unknown,
to face her fears and walk through them ...
Her relationship with herself shifted
She felt strong
proud
self respectful
self appreciating
confident in her own power...
As a tightly closed bud, she had no idea how beautiful she was, how gifted she was, how loving she was, how strong she was, how wise she was...
How could she? It was impossible to see her full magnificence.
© Caroline de Lisser

My mornings are starting rather early these days because our electric fans are turning on when temperatures drop below 30 degrees most nights.  In the wee small hours of the morning, I am walking around the orchard, feeling pretty groggy and cold ensuring that our fans are doing their job so we have a cherry crop come July.  Through the process of inversion the fans move the cold air upwards and draw the warm air downward to protect the tender baby blossoms.  It can be a little spooky walking around the orchard in the dead of the night by oneself so I hum a little song so my dear heart doesn't have a freak out. My favorite song these days is, "Thank God Im'ma a country girl."

My amazing mother has been working on cutting brush and raking the limbs while my dear old dad has been helping to organize the solid set pipes for a project we are going to complete on 33 acres of our farm on the north side of our driveway.  We have solid set irrigation already on the south block and now is the time to do the north side as well because we are going to be hosting weddings this summer and we need to not have aluminum irrigation pipes across our farm roads.  I really couldn't carry on my families farming legacy without my lovely parents.  I sure do love them and feel so thankful for their support and help each and every day.  Multi-generation farming is a beautiful dream come true for us all.  Farming besides my sweet parents is rather dreamy and it is an honor to give all my lovely daughterness to them here on our small family farm. We are a family that believes in family legacy farms.

I was able to complete pruning many of the new apple trees on the orchard and it feels good to have shaped and nurtured these smaller trees.  On monday my mother and I are heading into the big city to pick up 100 late blooming blueberry bushes for September u-picking/harvesting. We are also picking up over 400 new fruit trees including pink pearls, macintosh, spitzenburgs, honeycrips, rainier cherries, bings, lapins and replacement pear trees.  Thank you to all the returning All Fruit CSA family and welcome to the new households.  Please head over to this link, to learn more about befriend our farm and joining out delicious and local CSA. We are a farm that people love to come and pick with their friends and families and we ran out of u-picking last year so I am trying to create more areas for families to come and enjoy our harvests in the coming years and for generations to come. Thank you Portland Magazine for naming us the best Family Friendly Farm in all of Oregon. Such an honor and totally our mission at Mt. View Orchards.

On Saturday afternoon after I complete my pruning payroll, I am meeting with my favorite photographer Marla Cyree of Simply Splendid to decide who wins the Wedding Giveway. There have been so many beautiful entries to be candid and it is going to be very hard to pick a winner.  I love me a good love story and I am thankful for all the brave couples who put their hat in the ring.  Rooting for you all to have a life time of love together.  To learn more about getting married in our orchard meadow head over to Mt View Orchards Weddings.  We are having some specials right now for the 2016 and 2017 season so shoot us an email at mtvieworchardswedding@gmail.com to ask about how to have an beautiful and affordable wedding at our new wedding venue at the base of Mt. Hood in the heart of our family farm. 

Its farm worker appreciation week and I want to share some GOOD NEWS, I have been praying for weeks that more excellent Pruners would come to the farm and offer to help us out and on wednesday morning 8 stellar pruners showed up and answered all my prayers.  We will complete our pruning tomorrow before the blossoms pop and I can add another testimony of the goodness and faithfulness of my Papa to always back me up as a farmer.  So so grateful. Thank you to all my friends and family who prayed with me as well. xoxo Your grateful farmer, Trina

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Cherry buds in the tight cluster stage. They don't like it too cold so I help to keep them warm

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Magnificent Mt. Hood and our 100 year old Golden Girls.

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We are having farm to table dinners in the middle of the row of trees this summer, To be cont...

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Photo by Luke and Mallory, in our orchard meadow with this stunning bride

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Your grateful farmer pruning away with all her heart.

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Please mail your CSA deposit in the spring to enjoy our fruit all Summer/Fall friends

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Photo by Simply-Splendid of a lovely couple in front of our Wooden Fruit bins..

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Our Golden Row Hard cider is coming along quite nicely. Cheers

Cherries, peaches, nectarines, donut peaches and plums.  All Fruit CSA HEAVEN!

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Our CSA family Krys from our East Side Drop! Picking up her box of fresh local fruit!  

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Sunrise in our orchard, after checking fans all night. 

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pouring concrete at the wedding venue pavilion.

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The amazing Javier, fixing an older John Deere tractor. 20 years working here on our farm!

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Walking around the farm early one morning. Hello Mt. Hood, the Moon and our Wedding Venue

Lessons I've learned farming with my Mom

One thing you may not know is that my mother is she is hands down the most generous person I know.  She never ceases to amaze me with her thoughtful extensions of love and support. Just this morning I found one of her infamous secret cards filled with a sweet card and cash with the hopes she can buy myself and a friend dinner tonight.  I come from a long legacy of people who share forward and I love that this is what my people are known for. Our farm is a farm that gathers and you will not leave my mom's home or farm without being good and loved and gifted. Kindest!

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My favorite memories as a kid where cooking beside my mom making gifts for others.

I want to be like her when I grow up because she is the bravest woman I know on the planet.  From being the only girl willing to learn to play the trombone in 5th grade to being on the catcher on the first women's softball team at the University of Oregon this woman was made to be a pioneer and defy gender stereotypes from day one.  When I was saving up to buy our small family farm she told me she fell in love with farming at a young age and didn't care that their were no other female farmers.  She remembers driving around my grandparents orchard on her tractor all summer summer long around the tender age of eight, imagining what it would be like to raise a family on an orchard one day.  She explains that she responded to her calling of becoming a farmer easily and took on her families mantle of growing food for our region with great satisfaction and pleasure and she always hoped and prayed one of her daughters would follow along in carrying on the farming legacy.  I was unsure of what it would be like to be a single female farmer in such a small town but my mom assured me that if that was what I dreamed of then I should run after it with all my heart. Bravest!!

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my mom on the far right with her new christmas gun!

My mom considered herself a tomboy growing up in post world war II America in a small rural farming town in Oregon. She explains one of her most favorite Christmas presents was receiving a shot gun and her favorite chores on her families farm involved caring for the animals and farming hard in the orchard with her Dad.  She reports that she wasn't the doll type, the primping kind and would arm wrestle anyone who challenged her. She remains fiery to this age as well and I have found memories riding around the farm with her trying to scare of deer in the gator last summer.  She has a drive like know one I know and is usually the first one out to work on the farm and often the last one in from the fields even as she has breezed into her 70's.  She is compelled by the love of our land and it has been a total honor to learn to farm from my favorite farmer. Pioneer!

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my mom literally riding shot gun, not harming any thing just moving pests off our property.

She raises beautiful fruit and has learned the important of being a farmer that is well known.  We have had people coming up to our farm because they have a friendship with my mother for almost 50 years.  There are so many loyal costumers that know her by name and shout out "Ruthie," as soon as they see her our farm stand each and every year.  She has been a farmer for 65 years and still farms just as hard since I bought the farm 2 years ago.  To the friends of our farm she is semi famous because of her kind heart and ability to open our farm up like a big living room and teach people who to grow fruit in our region.  She loves to have large school groups and international farmers come visit and she happily takes them on farm tours because we are a farm that really cares about agri-education and teaching people where their food comes from.  She also happily helps out other farmers on the street because she know how important it is to help one other out and be a farmer who is willing to assist another farmer, especially those just starting out. Fiercest!

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Giving me a welcome home toast when I bought the farm!

She is such a compassionate woman and regularly gives away fruit to those who cannot afford it and annually gives fruit away to the Oregon Food Bank and many non profits and schools. She has been very supportive of all of my new dreams and innovations on the farm.  She is always willing to try something new that will promote our farm.  She was thrilled when I suggested we start an All Fruit CSA and jumped at the chance to help me organize it each week. She is unafraid of change and it has been such a joy to carry on her farming core values. She also has been so supportive of farm to table weddings and making hard cider on the farm.  She is a very successful business woman and has many innovative ideas herself that I love trying out each year.  We make a great team. She is fearless and is not afraid to try new value added products to help our small family farm be sustainable. Did you know she makes all the jams and jelly that we sell at our farm stand!  Unstoppable!

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My mom with her sisters when she bought the farm in the early 1970's

There isn't one job not the farm that she is not willing to do and she has taught me a lot about being a farmer that really values and honors their employees.  Many of the families that work on our farm have been here for over 40 years and we have many multi generational family members that help us harvest each and every summer because they have become kin and they believe in the mission of our small family farm..  We believe in always upgrading housing, paying as much as we can afford and always extending generously to your employees is how my mother has taught me how to farm. It is a total dream come true to farm besides my amazing mother and I hope and pray she lives forever because deciding to come home and carry on the farm was the best decision I have ever made thus far in my life.  Sure do love you Mom. Thank you for being a farmer and encouraging me to follow after your farming legacy.  You are my My SHero! xoxox Your grateful farmer, Trina

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2016 Wedding Giveaway at Mt View Orchards

In my life my most favorite childhood memories include growing up here on our magical small family farm, dancing wildly at weddings with my family and welcoming new babies into the world.  These days here on the farm most Saturdays and Sundays we are hosting hopeful, engaged couples who are wanting to see Hood River Valleys premiere wedding venue that stands in the heart of our orchard.  We have had friends of our farm, ask us for decades if they could get married here because they consider our farm a special place in their hearts.  So last year, at the persistent urging of a dear friend of mine, I took the plunge and started the process of the lengthy application and walked around to all my neighbors homes to ask them how we could host weddings in a way that would be honoring to their adjoining farms as well.  I am so over the moon because our wedding application was approved and we can host weddings here at Mt. View Orchards.   My dream of big harvests and farm to table weddings is now coming true!

So one evening over dinner, I was sharing with my dear friend, Marla Cyree that I have been thinking about giving away a free wedding on the farm this summer. I explained that I am meeting some lovely couples, with big love for one another but do not have a big wedding budget therefore they are struggling to find the venue of their dreams.  She agreed that it would be so wonderful to throw a Wedding Giveaway on the farm and she would be willing to donate her services and be the photographer!!!!  There are not enough kind words to describe how much I adore her pictures.  She is my fave for sure, hand down.

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Lately, we have been busy booking weddings for this coming summer and the Summer of 2017 but if you are newly engaged and still looking for a venue and would love to get married in an orchard meadow at the base of Mt. Hood this summer, I strongly urge you to apply at the 2016 Wedding Giveaway on Simply Splendid's site. We have already read through some beautiful applications thus far and are deciding on who will receive this giveaway this month.  Here's your chance to have the weddings of your dreams because one of the philosophies of our farm is to be exceedingly generous and we want to always be known for being a farm that is welcoming to everyone.  

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ABOUT SIMPLY SPLENDID

Marla Cyree of Simply Splendid is an Oregon wedding photographer who specializes in film and shoots from the heart with a timeless, fine art, editorial style.  A hopeless romantic who believes love conquers all and pinches herself every time she gets to partner with a couple on the biggest day of their lives to create imagery that captures the truest essence of that beautiful day.  She has a strong affinity for gorgeous authentic color, stunning black & whites, and making photographs that stand the test of time.

Marla lives in Portland with her family and takes full advantage of the vast treasures the Pacific Northwest has to offer, including all the amazing food, delicious drinks, and beautiful scenery available.  Mt. View Orchards is one of her favorite places in the PNW and she’s overjoyed about partnering with them for this wedding giveaway!

ABOUT MT. VIEW ORCHARDS

Mt. View Orchards is a third generation family farm established in 1974. Mt. View’s fifty plus acres are nestled at the northern base of Mt. Hood.  The orchard was planted over a hundred years ago and today, most of the original fruit trees have been replaced many times over, with one exception. Right at the heart of the orchard, just alongside the Orchard Meadow, stands a row of century old Golden Delicious trees, which continue to produce some of the sweetest apples in the region year after year. Our “Golden Row” symbolizes the blessing we wish for every Mt. View Orchards wedding; that the union of two hearts, families, and futures would grow strong and be fruitful for many years to come.

2016 unveils the new Mt. View Orchards Wedding Meadow, a one of a kind wedding venue in the Hood River Valley of Oregon.  Framed by a stunning view of Mount Hood and surrounded by over 100 varieties of beautiful fruit trees, the Orchard Meadow is a truly magnificent site for your big day.

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GIVEAWAY INCLUDES:

Mt. View Orchards, Orchard Meadow Wedding Venue

• 12 Hours Availability of Site
• Epic panoramas of Mt. Hood and Hood River Valley
• Includes Beautiful Wooden Tables and Benches for up to 160 Guests
• Expansive Lighted Dance Floor
• Covered Open Sided Wooden Beam Reception Barn
• $8,300 Value

Photography Package from Simply Splendid

• 8 Hours Wedding Day Photography, expertly photographed with film and digital
• Complimentary Engagement Session
• High Resolution Files Delivered Via Private Viewing Gallery
• $4,250 Value

A total package value of over $12,000, yay!

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Why such a phenomenal prize?

Mt. View Orchards Orchard Meadow wedding venue is a new wedding venue positioned perfectly in a century old working orchard. Owners Katrina (Mt. View Orchards) and Marla (owner of Simply Splendid) have been friends and mutual supporters for over 6 years and are excited to introduce Orchard Meadow to couples as a most unique and beautiful wedding venue.  YOU could be the recipient of this fantastic giveaway! Please head over to the 2016 Wedding Giveaway to share your love story with us. Rooting for you all, xoxo your grateful farmer, Trina