Our weekly meeting at the Fielder dojo began with Rod and Sara making us salivate about the idea of one day visiting the Provence region of France. We hope that the dirt rows dotted with farm cottages, family tapenade competitions and vibrant markets, roman bridges, and old French men playing bocce in the parks are still there by the time we get around to it. Oh, and we also spent a good deal dreaming about the Oregon Country Farm logo, which we have spent recent days brainstorming and marinating on and will come at you with visuals soon.
We got a visit from Bob Bronson (or was it Ron Swanson?), the Fielder’s farmer insurance guy, prompting lots of talk about Oregon history, logging, farming in the region, and a bit of talk about insurance. Rod and Bob could have gone through ’til supper talking about stuff that sounded really cool but left Serah and I sufficiently glazed over. Bob did do us the favor of reminding us how important the books are in running any business, and I think Serah got a little giddy at the thought of keeping a hand written ledger as we made this realization.
After lunch, we headed out to the Dirky farm in Halsey, OR. Halsey lies about 15 miles west of us, on the other side of the I-5, still very much in Linn County grass seed farm territory. We saw some crazy bald eagle golden eagle amazing raptor beast flying low through a flock of sheep grazing a grass field, presumably swooping down to get some tasty sheep afterbirth. We’ll have to share more soon about the amazing raptor activity that we witness around here. Anyway, Farmer Birky greeted us in the driveway of his very impressive 40 acre filbert operation, and we got our first glimpse of the harvesting equipment used in the filbert biz. In general the farm was really clean primmed organized and nice, and quite a bit different from our own. Let’s just say that our farm has a distinct mossy old charming random feel to it. Amidst the logo discussion from earlier in the day, we discussed word associations that may help us brand our operation, and the words simple, unrefined, and raw came up. My conclusion from this visit was that not all farms exude those qualities, and that I’m proud that ours does. Thanks a million to Mr. Birky for showing us around, very openly sharing his knowledge, and selling us 85 Jefferson Filbert babies to be planted in the holes out in the orchard!!!
Rod checking out a 'Sweeper,' which pushes nuts into neat rows that are sucked up by the massive harvester. And the two really funny dopey farm dogs.
A 40 acre orchard of the 'Jefferson' and 'Ennis' varieties. Right when we all started to discuss fertilizers used in the orchard, this dog decided to start fertilizing.
After gathering more brush, tooling around on the Kubota, and while finishing seed starts (we’re right at the 4-6 weeks before the last frost-stage), we received a call about an exciting new addition to the Oregon Country Farm lineup…let’s just say that an OSU Doctoral Soil Science Student from Japan will be living with us here for the next great while.
YES (fist pump).
The sun shinin' through at Oregon Country Farm
Oregon Country Farm 