Pip Pip Horray!

Are we in winter?  Life at Mt. View Orchards has been endless days of warmth and sunshine.  Morning after morning and night after night of spectacular sunrises and sunsets.  Farming in this type of weather has been making me even more grateful to be a farmer. Some have asked me if this unseasonably warm weather is going to hurt our next years harvest and the truthful answer is at this point we are not sure, but as farmers we always remain hopeful for next years crop.  For farming is a profession of hope! With that said, things are looking great around the farm. For I love the anticipation of spring and welcome it with all my heart.

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photo credit Erica Fischer

Farm life has never been so sweet these past days.  I am thrilled to announce that a delicious collaboration has formed between our small family farm and our favorite small (yet mighty) doughnut shop Pip's Original Doughnuts. Many of you have already discovered this magical doughnut kingdom located at 4759 NE Freemont, Portland Oregon.  But if you are sadly in the dark, let me enlighten you on a total knockout business that is changing the world, one piping hot doughnut at a time. 

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Yes, please and thank you! Photo credit Nate Snell

Happy Birthday Pips! Pip's Original doughnuts is celebrating their 2nd year anniversary this month. They already have a well known reputation around town for being full of warmth, generosity, and absolutely fantastic homemade Chai's and made fresh to your order mini doughnuts.  Yes please and thank you!  I love it when small businesses are wildly successful in our communities and I have been championing this place since its opening. I adore Jamie and Nate Snell(rockstar owners) and their three lovely daughters(born leaders, looking for creative outlet ladies).  I so admire their bravery to enter into the ring of Portland doughnuts, along side some pretty pink big shots! 2 years strong baby and the best is yet to come! 

Pip's is the real deal and rallying for their small business is a cause I can align with any day.  Jamie and I were recently walking around my orchard dreaming up ways for me to save my families farm and my mother, gave her a bag of our dried Comice pears to munch on.  Later on that week she reached out toward me and said, those dried Comice pears were the best dried pears I have ever tasted. To quote her she said, "Trine, dried Comice pears are the crack cocaine of all the dried fruit." Which made us both, burst into laughter(a common experience of ours).  She asked if I would consider selling them whole sale to Pip's for a seasonal limited edition doughnut.  After we crunched some numbers on the farm, we were wholeheartedly IN!  

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Mt View Comice Pears doughnuts with milk, STOP IT! photo credit Chris Rod

Are you looking for a cause that you can get behind, friends?  Please head down to Pips Orignal Doughnuts and order a platter of their Comice pear doughnuts, today!  Its a Total Win/Win for us all. Imagine eating the best pear ice-cream of your life on top of a crisp and warmed doughnut! IN!  Thank you to Nate, Jamie and the Pip's family for the opportunity to partner with you all.  Thank you to all our friends and future friends of Mt. View Orchards for heading to Pip's to rally for small family farms by drinking the best chai's and doughnuts around.  Lastly, these Comice pear doughnuts are a (limited edition) seasonal doughnut so they have them until they are all sold out. Please don't wait or hesitate because NOW is the time! Get yourself over to Pip's and respond to the call, today.  So thankful for you all, xoxo your grateful farmer

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Here's a friend of our farm enjoying herself some Pip's Comice Pear Magic! photo credit Nina Horn.

CSA Questions Answered!

First of all, I want to start with a HUGE THANK YOU to all who have been willing to "Respond to the Call," to help SAVE my families farm.  I really have been feeling so good and backed by you all.  WOW, Wow, WOWZA, I have been receiving a huge influx of interest and questions about our All Fruit Mt. View Orchards CSA that launches this Summer 2015l!  In this blog, I decided it would be helpful to share with you all the frequently asked questions from the many emails I have been receiving in hopes that I can bring clarity and motivate you all to take the plunge.  Feel free to share this post forward with your friends and neighbors who are also potentially interested in joining. 

This past summer, I joined an all vegetable CSA(Community Supported Agriculture) in Parkdale, Oregon that my sweet farming friends Andrea and Taylor Bemis run through their farm, Tumbleweed.  Each and every week, I would receive a generous box of veggies and at one point this summer I thought, "We should do that."  Everybody loves the fruit of Summer and what could be more enjoyable but to receive an abundant, freshly harvested fruit box from our orchard each week with our finest cherries, apricots, nectarines, peaches, plums, blueberries, apples and pears. 

1. What is a CSA?

It is a beautiful partnership that forms between us farmer/friends of the farm! Community Supported Agriculture consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or spiritually, the communities farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production(USDA). So if you make the decision to rally for our farm by investing in our CSA you invest now in the spring and early summer when the farm has no income coming in but you soon enjoy the abundant harvest each week July 16th through Nov 6th! 

2. Why should I consider joining? 

It really is a WIN/WIN.  When you make the decision to make "Our farm, your farm" and choose me to be your farmer you then know where your food comes from and know that I am making the most mindful and careful decisions around pest management, environmental care for our land and rivers and providing you fruit at a most economical rate.  You then get fruit priced below big box store prices and I get paid a livable income so I can sustain the farm for generations to come.  We basically lose the middle man so its a WIN/WIN for us both economically.  Also, you are making the right choice to friend a farmer and keep us going strong into the future!

3. How does it work exactly?

Starting July 16th, we provide for you a generous box of fresh fruit from our orchard at your location.  You receive a box each week until November 6th.  In the Hood River Valley, we welcome you to come pick up at our orchard on Fridays/Saturdays and bring a picnic and enjoy our farm.  In The Dalles, you pick up on Thursdays at the Center for Living where I work.  In Corbett, you pick up on thursday afternoon at my cousin Jesse's home.  On the EAST side of Portland you pick up Thursdays from 330-7 at the Cully Farmers Market(NE 42nd) on Thursday Night.  WEST Siders, My sweet friend Marla is the drop site and she lives off the SW Murray Exit in SW Portland on Thursday afternoons/early evenings.

4. What if I am out of town for a week? 

If you are out of town one week on vacation you can have your neighbor come pick up and enjoy or let us know and we will donate to a local food bank that week.  

5. I am a RESTAURANT/BREWERY/FRUIT-STAND and I want to buy whole sale?

 please email me at thegratefulfarmer@gmail.com to discuss your whole sale needs. We love collaborating with small businesses and eateries.  

6. I am IN, How do I sign up? HERE

7. Hey, I am IN too and I am not receiving the mail chimp updates?

Please check to see if they are in your spam folder.  We are sending emails via mail chimp.  Or email me at thegratefulfarmer@gmail.com if you want to ensure you have been added to our group email list.

6. How much fruit should I expect in my box each week?

This depends the the price range of the fruit.  So cherries run between 4-5 dollars a pound depending on the crop so you will receive 25 dollars of fruit each week so roughly 5 pounds of cherries.  Apples on the other hand range between 50cents to 2.50 for honey crisp so depending on what you are getting the amounts will vary but again I promise you will be given ample amounts of our harvest. You will have plenty for eating, sharing, baking, canning and pie making!

7. Where do I mail my deposit check($100) I am so so IN!!!!

at The Grateful Farmer at 6670 trout creek ridge rd, Mount Hood Parkdale OR 97041.  

8. Can I recruit my neighbors?

Yes Please, we need 50 people to join for this to work.  please forward this blog to them.  

9. How much does it cost?

 I worked with a business planner and we decided for this to be economically sustainable it would cost a total of $600.  This includes generous amounts of fruit, growing the fruit, re-usable boxes, labor, milage, etc. It runs for 15 weeks and again it would an amazing way for you to invest in a legacy farm if you want to Rally for our small family orchard. I will include an email each week on the drop day of my favorite recipes for your eating, sharing, baking, jaming and pie making fruit goodness!

Thank you again for all the amazing support and if I have missed a question or if you have other concerns feel free to contact me at thegratefulfarmer@gmail.com  Thank you again, friends of our farm who have sent in a deposit check and are IN!!!!! I am so so grateful that you are rooting and rallying for our orchard I cannot wait until summer and for the CSA to get started up!!!!!  If you are on the fence, I whole heartedly invite you to join our CSA.  It will be generous, sweet and abundant for sure.  All my love, your grateful farmer, xoxo

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Honey Crisps, you're almost too good!!!

Generation to generation.

My Papi told me this morning that there are pear trees in France that are over 900 years old that are still producing an abundant and sustainable crops of Anjou Pears .  Pomme fruit trees (apples and pears) are living miracles and seemly last forever if they are well cared for.  At Mt. View Orchards we have trees that are over 100 years old and we have an apple tree in my parent's front yard that is over 130 years old.  Our loyal trees were here before us and will long out live us.  Lately, I have been believing that the orchard doesn't truly belong to me, but more like I belong to the orchard.  I am just one of its many care takers in a long line up of generations and generations to come.  

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130 year old apple tree needs some props so she can keep holding up her fruitful limbs.

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Treebeard sketch card by BrentWoodside

I've always enjoyed stories where authors like J.R.R Tolkien created characters like, Treebeard, a tree like being who was the Shepherd of the Trees in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Treebeard is described as very tall and stiff limbed, with bark-like skin and leafy hair, like most Ents. Treebeard took a long to make up his mind.  He repeatedly spoke of not being hasty.  Growing up on my families multi-generation orchard I have always felt like our tree's were my dear friends, my favorite tree houses and my protectors.  I have fond memories climbing and perching on a limb and reading books like the "Little House on the prairie," series while leaning against a sturdy limb in the golden delicious apple tree.  

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Swiss family Robinson's Tree House

As a child, I attempted many times to design and draw out what it would look like to build a tree house similar to the Swiss family Robinson's Epic home.  It would be a total dream come true for me to live in the tree tops, surrounded and hugged by a tree.  I haven't given up on this dream and wonder if I will ever be able to create something like this for me on the orchard one day?  I am a tree hugger and feel a lot of protective love for the fruit trees on our small family farm. My parents, grandparents and great grandparents were all care takers and nurturers of our land, trees, soil and animals.  Generation after generation of land loving farmers. Caring for our HOME.

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Apple, cherry, peach, apricot, pear and plum trees all originate from the hardwood forests of Eurasia/Asia.  They are in the rose family (Rosaceae) and are temperate zone deciduous, requiring four distinct season in order to thrive and actively produce fruit.  Last night, as I was walking around the perimeter of the orchard with a friend, discussing our days and praying a blessing over my families land and trees.  The sound of the Hood River Middle Fork river was roaring behind us.  The rapid flow of the water was pushing over river rocks and powerfully rushing down to the Columbia. Again, I found myself exclaiming, "thank you," for this abundant and natural source of irrigation water coming down from our majestic Mt. Hood.  I am grateful for the four distinct seasons in the Hood River Valley and for rich an abundant volcanic soil.  I know I am in my first year of farming and that I have so much to learn in this journey but I find myself again overflowing with gratitude today for the collaboration that we have with our fruit trees.  A faithful friendship I have been lucky enough to know my whole life. xoxo your grateful farmer