A very warm welcome to Darrell Snell

[Ms. Bee]

(02-25-2013 15:33)pgchin Wrote:  Did I tell you I LOVE blueberries? When I was a kid and my grandfather was still alive he had several bushes and my mom would take me over there to pick'em! YUMMMMMM!

[u]Bluebird's Blueberry Farm Update[/u].


I've got some kind of sad news. Of course this isn't the end of the earth, not going to pretend it is, nor is a matter of life and death, and while we were not counting on the blueberries for income, we have worked hard the last three months for this crop, for us and our friends. We got up here Wednesday night, prepared for this next long freeze of 5-6 days, only to find out the last freeze did the majority in.

The early varieties, in an attempt to beat to market, are supposed to bloom in Feb, but we got such a warm Jan in the mid to high 80's that they prematurely blossomed. Not nice to fool Mother Nature! A week later, green berries, then freezing temps and they survived. Started turning blue, and getting big, restaurant quality as our neighbor likes to say, but the last one, the freeze after that got them even though we stayed over that Sunday night, were up irrigating at 1am, when Dee wanted to be at work the next morning. All for naught.

Before the last freeze, the fields were either in a snow of white flowers, and young green leaves, or already in a sea of blue. Beautiful!

We pulled in this Wednesday night just as the sun was setting, and the field is brown. Dead looking. All the green leave, the white flowers, the blue berries gone.

Darrell as he walked through them that night as the sun had just set, was devastated! The next morning I found some, a few, later varieties, while somewhat frost damaged, that are still blooming and have yet to set fruit, but Darrell says "why bother?"

I say, because a few are better than none.

How disappointing though. We fast had to get over it, as our daughter and her boyfriend pulled in the next day, all the way from the West Coast and it's so wonderful to have them here with us.

Prime Rib, roast potatoes, fresh beans, broccoli, and mushrooms in the Big Easy, tonight while the wine flows. Smells great...but it's getting cold.

And I think we should still irrigate, if even for a few.

Ms. Bee