We are open this weekend for pick your own Royal Gala and Macintosh apples Saturday and Sunday from 10 to 5.  We  have other apple varieties and Bartlett pears for sale in the store. Hope to see you here, no need to buy advance tickets online.  Just show up, but please leave your dogs at home…

It’s been a tough year for growers.  Way too much rain in April, May, June and July prevented farmers from getting onto their fields with equipment.  This meant planting crops and performing chores was delayed.   Excessive and relentless moisture also caused a lot of disease in certain areas. 

We have a crop here but ironically, our biggest challenge is that there are TOO MANY APPLES.  The most important summer job in the orchard is thinning fruit.  This means picking off most of the small apples so that you are only left with a good amount of big ones.  All those rainy days we had delayed this vital and time-consuming task from being completed until it was too late.  The result is we are left with tons and tons of apples that are less than ideal when it comes to size….

We have some very cooperative and helpful employees here this year, and we are very grateful for their positive attitude as part of the team. 

However, as newcomers to our country they had no previous experience working at a Canadian orchard.  The learning curve is steep when newbie employees are given a set of pruning tools and painstakingly trained to start working in the orchard.  Most people simply cannot grasp the concept of ‘thinning’ until they have at least one full seasonal cycle of labor under their belt.

The result is we have a tremendous amount of apples this fall. We have worked hard all season.  Mother Nature has not been kind and we have had numerous hardships to endure involving machinery breakdowns and equipment failures.  Against all odds we are still here and hope that your family has an interest in saving money on food because we are selling fresh picked fruit at a cost far below what is common in the big grocery chains’ produce sections (more on that in a future post)

The store is open this weekend.  We have Macintosh, Paula Red, Gingergold, Tydeman Red, Bartlett Pears, and some early picked Royal Gala and Honeycrisp apples as well.  Other produce at this time include squashes and zucchini.  Macintosh apples are available for pick your own from the  block of trees fronting our orchard. 

Pick your own Macintosh apples open today…

Also available in the store are Gingergold, Tydeman Red, Paula Red, Asian pears, Red and Yellow Bartlett pears, and some really tasty plums… We are also harvesting some squash and zucchini fresh this morning…pies are in the oven as well

If you know anything about the sudden disappearance of these cute little pet birds, who happen to be our personal pride and joy and whom I have helped care for diligently along with their mother pictured below since they hatched this June, please  see them returned right away.  There will be no questions asked.

We desperately wish for  these two young hens to be returned promptly before it becomes necessary to begin  reviewing our security camera footage.  There were not a great many people here this afternoon and certainly it will not take long to identify the person(s) responsible.  Please do the right thing and return our pets.  They are way too young to eat.  If you are in need of food we are happy to help you.  We can give you some other larger chickens, fresh eggs or even money if that helps you.  We just want our two little darling pets back PLEASE.  They are very dear to us and it is very upsetting to lose them.  We have guarded them closely from disease, harsh weather and predators diligently.  Our chickens have been free to roam about the farm daily (free ranging in the truest sense) and enjoy their surroundings in relative safety.

This afternoon they were taken from their mother and the protection of their enclosure by a visitor to our apple orchard. 

It is so disheartening to know that it was not a predatory  hawk,  fox, or coyote but a human being responsible for their abduction.  Just  yesterday, when we opened our farm to the public our chickens had to stay inside of their enclosure instead of free ranging for the first time in 2024 only because of the presence of people other than ourselves. 

We are now pleading for their safe return and offering a generous reward.  These particular hens are quite special because they are considered a rare breed, and we have invested a lot of time and effort to  raise them.  They are very iconic looking, with upright tufts of feathers on their heads which brings pleasure and attracts interest from  anyone viewing them for the first time.  This is why we went through great expense and labor to construct our animal habitat- for our customers to enjoy for free.  We love them and miss them very much and couldn’t be sadder that someone would choose to separate them from their home.  After 30 years of farming and opening our property and welcoming the public to visit this type of theft is not something that we will easily be able to dismiss merely as another bad incident.  These pets are cherished as members of our family.  This is hurtful; our goodwill is suddenly eroded as we are altogether upset and demoralized.  Inevitably  comes a stinging, regrettable lack of trust. We can only hope that the rest of our 2024 apple season will be without events as malicious and dishonest as experienced our first weekend open. 

We are very grateful for all our good and decent customers and your patronage.  It is much appreciated. 

(After deliberating at length whether to post  any  seemingly negative content like the above to our website, I apologize for doing so.  I had to.       Sincerely,                      Farmer Scott ,         Albion Orchards)

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