Trip from Texas

Friday, Dec. 26 - rose at 4:30am, was at airport at 5:50, flight to Atlanta then after sitting on the tarmac, left 2 hours late for Austin.
Arrived in Austin about 1:30pm, picked up at airport by Mrs. Lisa Berdoll who graciously fed our hungry tummies before giving us a tour of both their retail store as well as the orchard and some of the harvesting buildings. The Berdolls are some of the nicest people ever, and we got to meet their daughter (Jennifer) and son-in-law who are buying the store on Monday, as well as their son (Brandon) and his wife who works at the retail store.
After seeing the orchard and Hal's new sorting machine (which he designed himself to re-sort pecans to his own more stringent specifications), we stocked up on some fantastic pecan products at their store and got a few pointers from Hal about planting the trees. They had already loaded up our order (85 Desirable and 235 Pawnee trees that are 2 year-old grafted onto 2 year rootstock, as well as 12 young Pawnees that have been budded but not yet forced, and one large Pawnee that will go at the entrance to the farm).
We drove to the closest Home Depot, bought a padlock to help protect our lifetime savings packed in that truck!, and hit the road just before dark. We drove down to Houston, and on into Iowa before stopping for the night. (Yes, Iowa! - Iowa, Louisiana, that is :) !). Saturday morning we fueled up at Waffle House and got gas for the truck, and hit the road. We crossed Louisiana amidst scattered light showers, marveled at the acres and acres of rice fields, drove across the southern edge of Mississippi, and on into Alabama. From Mobile we headed up to Montgomery, then on to Atlanta by about 8:30pm Saturday night.
Derwin was feeling very achy and feverish by late afternoon and by the time we reached Atlanta was into a full-blown flu. I had thought I would trade off driving with him when needed but a 16' truck loaded with everything it had taken us 30 years of marriage to save, and our two lives at stake if I made a mistake on a rainy, foggy interstate was more than either of us wanted to risk. So we stopped for the night and although D got very little sleep between coughing and headaches, he hung in there to drive us the rest of the way home on Sunday evening (he's amazing!).

Plan for planting:
1 - Unload trees under garden shed cover where can be wrapped/covered if freezes below 15 degrees or so before planting
2 - Subsoil the tree holes where they've been dug with 3' auger in at least 4 places (2 times across each hole)
3 - Level off each hole if sunken
4 - Dig 9" hole for each tree
5 - Remove from pot and plant in hole, packing in well, and then watering
6 - Berm about 3' from trunk around each tree (to hold in irrigation during dry spells before irrigation system is put in); mulch inside the bermed area
7 - Put up electric fence to keep deer out
8 - Wrap tree protectors around each trunk and put up bamboo supports & tie them
9 - Get sprayers, insecticides, etc. ready for spring
10 - Mark varieities with more permanent markings at each row
11 - Log varieties and planting info (weather, etc.) in computer database
12 - Water as needed
13 - Determine/file tax information
14 - Continue to monitor and log weather and soil conditions throughout winter and in preparation for spring fertilizers, etc.

Texas

D returned weary but happy very late Saturday night (technically Sunday morning). Where do I begin? There was so much to see and do and find out but the main things are:
1 - We will definitely get as much of our stock as we can from Berdoll's. He does not carry some of the "Eastern" varieties we want but he does carry Pawnee and Desirable, 2 of our 3 main varieties.
2 - Other nurseries in Texas don't even come close to the quality he has (and we want)
3 - We are more convinced than ever that the key is going to be not just in growing a great product but in marketing it directly to the consumer, often with additional processing being needed.
4 - We will have lots of headaches, problems and many, many hours of labor before we produce a crop but won't it be great to produce something that is healthy and of real value, not like so much of what is produced and consumed in this country (eg movies!!). Sure, we'll never be as rich or famous as movie stars but that's another good reason to do this!

On the home front, it looks like we will still have to wait on burning for now. Praying for more rain and for that ban to be lifted soon so we can finish prepping the land and get some of those beauties growing!

In the meantime, I'm having lots of fun "taste-testing" all the goodies D brought back with him from Texas!

Daily journal

D is in Texas and had a fantastic meeting with Mr. Berdoll. We will definitely be getting trees from him but we need to decide fairly soon what size and get our order in to him before someone else snatches them up. Nursery stock is very short this fall after that very late spring freeze and ridiculously hot and dry summer here in the South. (This man and his family produce well over 1 million pounds of pecans a year, buy more from other growers to meet their demand, and sell about 25-30,000 trees a year! I can't even begin to think in those kind of numbers!) Tomorrow D goes to visit one other nursery and several orchards, retail stores and processors.

I haven't made much headway with the number crunching but hope to do so tomorrow. The land is cleared and graded (thank you Lord!) and we had a little rain this morning (much bigger Thank you Lord!!) If the Governor will just lift that burn ban for a few days we can finish prepping the land. The fruit trees and berry bushes have been hanging on and I am hopeful to keep them alive and actually get some small harvest from them next year, Lord willing. I especially would like to see the raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and grapes produce at least a little. It will probably be 2009 before we see any apples, pears, peaches and plums, though.

Bees - still researching how/when/where to set up the hives. As soon as we can get the clover established in the pecan orchard and it is feasible we would like to set up hives. It will not only be good for the clover and the bees but for the whole farm.

We've sketched out the layout of the retail space and will work on it ourselves over the next couple of years so that hopefully it will be ready by the time we need it. D and I have also been playing around with the layout of the logo but I think we need some more help. I am going to try to get Matt, Russ, Katy and Joanna all to give it a try to see what they can come up with either from their own photos or drawings or computerized drawing.

Update

1 - Planned D's trip to SE Texas to see orchards and nurseries - probably the end of this week
2 - Revised (again!) orchard layout - adjusted two more rows to be Pawnee after discussions about availability of productivity
3 - Dug 9 three-foot holes (7 on our land, 2 in Gran's pasture) to determine "perkability" - as of 24 hour mark, more than half have completely drained, remaining ones have from 2-6" left. Will recheck tomorrow morning (about 40 hour mark) and tomorrow afternoon at 48 hours. Recommended by Texas growers to determine whether soil composition is good and for which varieties on which part of the farm.
4 - Attended the last part of "Pecan Day" at Oak View in Raleigh. The good turn out at this event is a good confirmation that we are proceeding with the right idea. Mr. Bill Bunn and his wife were there and although we missed his presentation (busy fixing the tractor - which did not want to start on this cold morning - and attaching the auger to dig the holes) we were glad to get to see his slide show and see him for a few minutes. He had pecan halves, in-shell pecans, pecan pies all for sale; samples of cinnamon and sugar pecans as well as "roasted"/salted ones and taking orders. We bought enough halves for two or more pecan pies for the church supper next Sunday :) !
5 - Still unable to burn due to burn ban; still praying for rain!
6 - Still awaiting bulldozer for final grading (supposedly mid-week this week)
7 - to be done this week; finalize some cash flow projections including fencing, lime and ground cover costs; finalize D's trip (he will check Monday am about taking off work since they just had 20% of their workers laid off last week); discuss plantings on family land; continue research for crackers/shellers