Here’s a nice map that you should be sure to pick up in the store when you stop out at the orchard.  It show’s you all the fun things we offer during your visit!

Yes, the news in the paper’s and the word on the street is true.  Lapacek’s Orchard is the host of this year’s Columbia Counties Savor & Sample Fest.  What is the Savor and Sample Fest?  Well… we’re hoping to help you rediscover the benefits of buying and eating locally grown food.

Features of the fest:

• Meander around the orchard
• Grab a map and if you’re in the mood I have scavenger hunts – both photo and scouting ones
• Taste my Uncle Chuck’s Booyah Stew made from almost all locally grown products (almost…)
• Chicken from Lundeen’s Farm
• Green Beans and Carrots from Dorothy Priske
• Onions, Corn, Cabbage, Tomato Juice, Potato’s and Beef from Lapacek’s
• Celery & Peas from our local Piggly Wiggly
• My uncle and cousin came yesterday to start the stew
• And, it’s not 7:00 yet and they’re already here getting the stew going.
• Cooking Demo’s
• 1:15 Ardyce Piehl of Taste of Home Magazine, and Becky Gutzman, UWEX; Ardyce and Becky are making Apple Pie Burritos and Apple-Squash Bake
• 1:45 Drew Nussbaum, Columbia Co Tourism and Visitor’s Bureau; Andrew is making Raspberry-Apple Salsa
• 2:15 Earl Kruger, chef and Sun Prairie Farmer’s Market Manager, Earl is making fruit leather
• 2:45 Patricia Fischbeck of The Speckled Hen Inn; Patricia is making Apple Fritters
• 3:15 Julia Hornacher of Julie’s Java House; Julie is demonstrating how to make grilled apple & cheese sandwiches
• Old Fashion Apple Press Demo and a Hard Cider Expert
• 1:30 & 3:00

A miniature farmer’s market will also be found at the market including -

Lundeen Farms, Columbus – pork, chicken and vegetables – AND they’re bringing a little pig for you to meet too!

Jeff Kelly – vegetables

A Piece of Cake – Portage – a bakery

Tietz Produce – Beaver Dam – popcorn

Circle J Southdowns – Rio – lamb

Sassy Cow – Milk, Ice Cream and String Cheese

I’d better not forget to talk about the fantastic Kid’s Activities that are planned for the day

• Gourd Painting (dress your kids in ‘play’ clothes please)
• Butternut Squash Bowling
• Apples on a String
• Water Balloon Tosses
• Bubbles

We were happily surprised by many visitors to our orchard on Thursday.  I had been busy in the store and just had to go and grab my camera to get a picture of all the hustle and bustle happening outside.  Seems like a lot of families were trying to get in a little more fun before school starts up.

We’ve heard from many parents that they are happy to have the playground equipment so close to the raspberry bushes.  It let’s them pick raspberries without having to worry about entertaining their kiddo’s – a win – win.

If you’ve visited me at the DeForest Farmer’s Market you may have met my new helper – my daughter Cedi.  She’s 3 and really likes to ‘help’ with the money managing portion.  I’m trying to convince her that she may be better suited at getting mama some bags.  It’s been really nice to have her with me and barring a few repeat bathroom visits one day has been a FANTASTIC companion.  I’ve made it into our ‘special’ time and now Cedi looks forward to it each week – let’s cross our fingers and hope this continues!

I took this photo this morning at the orchard...so beautiful...

Once again I have stocked the store with some delicious Maple Syrup from Hedmark’s Mape Ridge.  I have some new sizes and bottles available this year for your own personal use or a fantastic gift to give.

 

Fred Hedmark shared with me his ‘Wisconsin Maple Syrup Producer’s Association Maple Syrup Judge Score Sheet.”  Here are some of the scores he recieved.

Density – Highest Score 15 pts: 15 (66-2 Brix)

Clarity – Highest Score 10 pts:  10 (Crystal clear and clean)

FLAVOR – Highest Score 45 pts;  45(Good characteristic maple flavor)

COLOR – Highest Score 10 pts:  10 (Grade as color designated on grade sticker)

RETAIL CONTAINER – Highest Score 10 pts):  10 (Attractive, clean industry approved maple syrup container, which meets WDATCP requirements)

LABEL – Highest Sxcore 10 pts) – 10 (Meets WDATCP requirements)

For a total Score of 100 which puts Hedmark’s Maple Ridge into the Blue Ribbon Judging Class. 

Hedmark’s was also mentioned in the Wisconsin Maple News, Volume 2, Issue 1 in June 2010.  Here’s part of what was said:

2010 Maple Syrup Judging Results

Submitted by Barry Stockwell

We had a lot of great tasting syrup submitted again this year at the Sat,, May 8, 2010 meeting in Neilsville, WI.  There were a total of 38 pints of syrup entered, 9 were light amber, 18 were medium amber, and 11 were dark amber. 

There were 6 entries that received a 100% grade for the syrup submitted.  Hedmark’s Maple Ridge is one of these 6!

 

So with that, remember, if you need to restock, give a fantastic, unique gift, be sure to stop by the Orchard to pick up some of Hedmark’s Maple Ridge’s Maple Syrup!

Adorable, 7 month old Zoie visited the orchard the other day and was very happy when I gave her her first apple ever (a ginger gold).  She couldn’t stop smiling about it and was just so adorable that I had to share a few pictures with you all!

It was a really nice day at the orchard today.  I was up early and got my girls to their sitter on time.  Grabbed a cup of coffee and headed back to sort apples for the Waunakee Market in the afternoon. 

Everything was sorted when a couple of fun families stopped by to pick raspberries, stock up on apples, and of course have a good time at the orchard.  It is so nice when people come to the orchard right now – I am not crazy busy in the sorting world or the helping customer world so I actually have the opportunity to chat for a while.  If anyone knows me – I love to chat!

Miscellaneous Updates:

• Our duck races are currently out of commission but have no fear – Jared has the parts ordered to fix them!
• The very first of the Wealthy apples have been picked.  They go fast so they’ll be around sporadically – you may want to call ahead to make sure they’re ‘in stock.’
• The sweet corn we have for sale is locally grown using organic methods and it is DELICIOUS!  Super sweet – no need for butter or anything!
• I picked a few pears as they were coming off the trees easily.  I put them in the cooler for 24 hours and now have one out hopefully ripening – I’ll keep you all posted on their progress. 
• Oh – how could I forget – we had a BAT visit us right before Frank left for Waunakee…I know they’re good for mosquitoes but I was still pretty freaked out!
• I had a lot of fun with gold spray paint that I needed for my Project QUILTING challenge now I will have a gold shelf in the store too.

I think that’s all my update’s for now.  Hope to see everyone at the orchard!

I spent the morning in my shed sorting apples getting ready for my first Farmer’s Market of the Season.  That’s right!  I’m heading over to DeForest to sell – a week earlier than planned.  I’ll have Paulareds, Viking, Zestar!, William’s Pride and Gingergolds.  I’ll also have just a few caramel apples – with this weather they’ll just melt away so I’m bringing what I can fit into our cooler which is not many…so stop by early if you want some.  Other things I’ve packed include cookbooks and canned goods.  It will be a few weeks yet before we even press our cider – the more varieties the better the cider.

I’m also trying something new this year – my 3 year old, Cedi, is going to be joining me at the market.  It goes from 3:30 to 6:00 to I figure she should be able to handle it – we’ll find out anyway.

So stop by and say Hi!  It will be good to see some familiar faces and meet new ones!

front page…  I woke up yesterday to find myself featured in 77 Square – part of the Wisconsin State Journal toady.  Woo Hoo!

Once again I have made a fun map for you to take along on your explorations of the orchard.  One of the things on the map is the path for the orchard walk.  The orchard walk starts by the goats and emus.  Then it takes you by the Ginormous sunflowers – seriously – they’re huge this year!  Feel free to wander through them – it’s not a crazy big area so you shouldn’t get too lost ;) 

When you’re turn after the sunflowers be sure to look far to the left to see the trees we have on trellis’s (I’ll talk more about these later) and the pumpkin patch is sort of in front of you.

Then as you walk west along the path you’ll see apple trees and some random field’s my father-in-law planted.  He got a new planter this year so he wanted to try it out.  One of my favorite little sections is a mixture of corn, sunflowers, and broom corn (images shown on post).  I just think it’s a beautiful depiction of fall (even though it’s August). 

At the top of the hill you’ll be able to hang out on our Lookout Deck and look over all the fields in our area.  It’s the highest point around and truly a beautiful view.

 

If you like to have a challenge on your adventures be sure to stop by the store to pick up our Photo Scavenger Hunt Challenge.  There are 12 things to take pictures of and if you get 10 of those things photographed and posted to either our facebook page or our flickr site you can win a free bag of apples!  If you did the scavenger hunt during apple blossom days – no worries, I’ve switched things up a bit…

We have some adorable little kitties on our orchard for you and your children to enjoy.  If you like kitties half as much as my girls do I’m sure you’ll be in heaven when you visit.  Capri spent a good part of the day hauling these kitties up into her playground fort to hang out with here.  Four of them fell asleep they were so content – Capri was in heaven.It’s one of Cedi’s job’s to feed the kitties.  Here she is enjoying her work…

I’m done with the painting and the quilt is dry!  Now I can show you how we hung our barn quilt! 

For this step you’re going to need some strong helpers, we used a skid steer but any type of tractor/loader than can help lift you and your quilt up on the barn would work, a ladder, some lags, and a screw gun.

The first thing we did was get the quilt up off the floor.  We happened to have some random cart-like contraption that made this easy.  I was also able to step back and see a few places that needed some touch ups.  I took care of those before the quilt went up onto the barn.

Next, my husband and father-in-law (I’m going to call them the Frank’s from now on to simplify things) and law measured out the barn to figure out exactly where the quilt would hang (might have been smarter to do this before we even decided to make the quilt just in case our spot wasn’t big enough)>

The Frank’s then went to their work area to see what they had for lags/bolts (also may have been smarter to do this before we started to hang the quilt).  Luckily we had just enough lags of the right size to hang the quilt.

If you have to have your kids around during the installation I recommend bubbles in the shade with Grandma.  This keeps them away from the heavy equipment, safe and happy.

Our next step was to move the quilt from the shed it was painted in to the barn we were hanging it on.  The skid steer worked great for this.

Now it’s time to get the quilt onto the barn!  Frank (my husband) was in the bucket, my father-in-law, Frank operated the skid steer, and I was on the side directing the operator on how close the bucket was to the shed and how high we needed to go.

Once up there, the Franks figured out where the beams were in the shed, drilled the holes accordingly and screwed the lags into the quilt.

Our final step was to put an apple with the name of our orchard under the quilt.  Once the Columbia County Quilt Trail gets up and running I’m guessing people are going to take pictures so we might as well advertise!

I have to say, I am really happy with the barn quilt.  I just love the splash of color it adds to our farm and I can even see it when I sit in my living room.  It was definitely worth all the effort and I know I’ll cherish it for years to come.

I’m finally posting the final color – Bumblee! I had some issues while taping for this color – it was crazy humid and the Frog tape would not stick! So, I resorted to my trusty blue painters tape – it worked! I was going with it… You can see that I had to use the frog tape and the blue tape...the frog tape just wasn't sticking. The first coat of bumblee is on!

That's right! She's all painted! Now we just have to let her dry and figure out how to put it on the barn.

Frequently, when we drive between our old orchard location on Bohling Rd and the new one on Kroncke Rd, we go around the block on Harvey Rd and drive through the edge of Schoenenberg Marsh. It's right around the corner from the orchard and it's always interesting to see what birds are there. For the past few weeks, we have been catching glimpses of pelicans. We've been hoping to get some pictures, but they seem to know when we have a camera handy. I did find some pictures on Flickr, though, so someone must have had more patience (or more time) than we did.

Since we just hung the barn quilt yesterday and I can’t wait to post more pictures I better get moving with the ‘work in progress’ pictures. Here’s what it looked like while I was painting the ‘Poppy’ color. (It was supposed to be red but I keep getting “Ooooh, I like the pink” comments… oh well, it still looks good. Coat 1 Four coats complete – just need to pull the tape! Three colors – DONE!

I will be posting the yellow pictures soon!