sutton023

We've been wondering all year if we would get a real chestnut harvest this year, or not- since the abnormally cold spring led our trees here in Minnesota to flower about 2 weeks late. The trees have made up their minds though, and their answer is YES - This is T-401-S in flower (and Eleanor beneath) - and all those flower did indeed turn into chestnuts, currently loading the branches heavily. This tree has had the chestnut blight for 5 years- see how poorly it's doing?  No?  You're correct- it doesn't care.  Even though there is a large basal canker; you simply can't see anything from a distance.  I photograph the cankers each year- and keep worrying they'll win the battle one day; but so far - the tree is winning; and making nut crops to boot. That's Anastasia posing under the tree, our pony mule; the horses were too busy eating grass- and pruning chestnut limbs; to come when I called just now. Something that's not only interesting- but important; the s...

The horses here are now an established part of the operation.  They do tremendous - skilled - mowing, pruning, and brush clearing for us; in both the hazels and chestnuts.  They're almost the only reason we CAN harvest chestnuts these days; if we had to mow and clear by machine and hand, we'd never get it done.  Seriously; we've tried.  Yes, you have to manage moveable fence; get them water, and manage them off season- but the work is considerably less than the money and time needed to use machines. Plus; horses reproduce; tractors don't.  That was one of the original arguments back when tractors were replacing horses as primary tillage technology- but it was pushed off by- cheap fossil fuels, subsidizing manufacture and the entire system.  Yes, yes, fracking has solved our peak oil problems- until, of course, it doesn't.  Meantime- there is a human and natural benefit to the horses.  Tractors, with very few exceptions, do not totter up to you and...

Hi folks.  If you haven't heard from us in a while- this is probably why: That's Meg's leg, today.  The apparatus you're looking at consists of 2 steel pins through her skin screwed into her right tibia; there are two more screwed into the femur at the top end of the high-tech carbon-fiber stiffening bar. She broke her leg on Thanksgiving; and was operated on to install all this that night at the Mayo Clinic.  She has another operation scheduled for tomorrow morning (Friday 30th) to actually do the internal pinning necessary to reassemble the top of the tibia. You'll recall that we have horses now... they do a tremendous amount of work for us in clearing grass and brush before chestnut harvest and grazing grass in the hazels; they're highly compatible with these crops, when supervised carefully. One of the horses we have here now is trained to do heavy draft work, however; a registered Spotted Draft in fact.  So- we were working on that... Meg is a highly exper...

(click on photo for bigger views) Badgersett Research Farm 20th Annual Field Day: Saturday, August 20th If you want to learn about growing hazelnuts in the Midwest; it makes sense to go and see where it's been done the longest. That would be us, we're at 32 years, and counting. No other grower or researcher has production rows like ours. We're making a concerted effort to expand our Field Day event this year; we're inviting quite a few other folks to bring what they have to show and sell, and set up booths in the chestnut rows, where we can guarantee good shade. Stay tuned to this blog, where we'll be announcing the specifics as we have them. We're inviting hazel growers, graziers, wool spinners, wood carvers- anyone who makes a living, or wants to, from sustainable farming and integrated woody crops. And our Amish neighbors will be here, of course. Plus- in a change from the past few years, we WILL have plants available for sale this Field Day; hazel, ...

Quite a lot of our work here on the farm consists of coming up with new excuses for "why we haven't gotten back to you yet." Here's the latest one: Like all good drama, there is both tragedy and joy in this story. This is "Atlas", born 1:30 AM, March 31st, 2011; about 12 hours before this photo. His sire was Brigadier . But- his sire is dead. We lost him to colic, months ago; a devastating thing for us, and still painful. He left us with two mares pregnant; and yet more tragedy. The day before Atlas was born, his half-sister was born- in a breech position, and she did not survive. Meg was able to save the mare, which was great, but did not entirely ease the pain of the lost foal. Then- 24 hours later- Atlas arrived. His dam is Lacey, an Appaloosa. He seems to have his father's size. It was mostly an easy birth, but he still needed help. His hips are so big they stuck; Meg had to pull and rotate, to get him out. She was there. Then there ...

One of those things that happens. We are snowed in, by the blizzard; and will not be able to even get our roads plowed out probably until Monday afternoon. At the moment, Meg is attempting to dig her way into the main greenhouse- both doors are blocked by long 3-4 foot deep drifts; the first time that's ever happened. Water access for the horses is only possible from inside the greenhouse, and one of the mares is just about to foal; any time now. We won't be able to ship chestnuts until Tuesday; but there should be no problem by then.

Chestnut (and hickory) harvest is in full swing; we're about 1/3 of the way into it. The 80°F, flooding rains and high winds of a few days ago (we got off easy, only 4.3" in 24 hrs) brought down a huge number of nuts. We're almost caught up with the pick up process, and the cool weather now has slowed the drop slightly to let us catch our breath a little today. We're finding it has been an above average year for chestnuts; size of nuts and crops per tree are both up. For those who persist in thinking it's not possible to grow "big" chestnuts in places like Minnesota, we offer the following: Just a quickie photo there; too much contrast, and they need to be held in a human hand for actual scale to be effective. Basically; these are huge, by any standards. Chestnut harvest is being helped out this year by our horses; we're not using them to pull carts of nuts; we put them to pasture in the mature chestnut groves. Using electric fence, they w...