IMPORTANT NOTICE: PROJECT FRESH COUPONS HAVE EXPIRED ON HALLOWEEN OCTOBER 31 (Today).  WE WILL NOT ACCEPT PROJECT FRESH COUPONS FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR AND 2010 COUPONS ARE NO GOOD FOR 2011.  ALL 2010 PROJECT FRESH COUPONS SHOULD NOW BE DESTROYED!  PLEASE TEAR THEM UP OR BURN THEM!

First off, we never did get around to that vegetable soup.  The 26 hour power outage plus some personal business made it almost impossible.  Hopefully this week we will get to it.  Our Magicland Farms Pumpkin Patch was a big hit with our customers.  Next year look for even more of an expansion.  A common question this time of year is "How long will you be open?"  Well, this depends on two things, the weather and our supply of things to sell.  While we still have a good supply of a variety of winter squash and potatoes, we have already sold over 85% of the crops of each.  Now with hard frosts, our supply of tomatoes, peppers and sweet potatoes will dwindle down rapidly since there is nothing out in the field anymore.  We think our lettuce will be good for a while since we planted frost tolerant varieties like Winter Density and Rouge D'Hiver.  Also, we plan on putting low tunnels over our long triple row of lettuce which should protect them just fine until perhaps even Thanksgiving. We also have a good supply of turnips (both greens and white roots) in the field and popcorn in both jars and on the husk as well as small supplies of carrots, parsnips, beets, radishes and cabbages.  We were a little disappointed in the sugar snap peas even though they did grow well this fall and are still growing well. .  It seems that while the vines and flowers can take lots of frost, the small peas can't.  While "frost kissed" peas are great eating, when it gets too cold the "frost kiss" turns to a "death kiss."   We also are now selling both seasoned hardwood firewood and green applewood and we still do have lots of fall decorations like gourds and Indian Corn.  Since we will be on and off on self-serve this week please take some change with you when you come.  Checks are also fine!

Fishing Report

Friday afternoon was beautiful and Matthew took off from the farm work and spent a few hours fishing.  Well, while he had a great fishing story to tell-he lost a huge bass-he also caught a real nice bass that was 20 inches long and nearly 4 pounds in weight.He caught the bass around 3PM on Pickerel Lake just north of the big reed island. He caught it on a crank bait.  Bass, as you may know, are just fair eating in warm water (July and August) but are delicious when the water gets cold in October. 

I've noticed bass fishing has improved the last 10 years on Pickerel and Kimball Lakes-at least it seems that way.  However, panfish (bluegills and perch) are getting hard to come by.  I've talked with other fishermen and they feel even more strongly about this.  Walt Bancroft, who fishes all year long, primarily for panfish, mentioned to me that this year was the very worst year for panfish since he has been here, which was a long time.  He has definite views on why this is true but he admits he isn't sure about this and I won't mention it here because there is a bit of controversy about it.  My feeling was the water got much warmer than normal this year-it often got as warm (or even warmer) as the Gulf of Mexico-and the panfish were driven way down a lot deeper than fishermen are used to.  By the way I got to talking to Walt about walleye and he said that he knows a guy who scuba dives and he noticed bunches of large walleye near the bottom of 50 feet of water in front of the Little Switzerland Resort.  He also knew of several walleyes being caught near the creek outlet in Kimball Lake's North Bay.  Steve Yonker, a guide from White Cloud, thinks a good place to try for walleye in these lakes might be near the sunken island in front of Camp Henry, which is on Kimball Lake.  Also, the DNR planted 15-20,000 walleye fry in 2009 and 2005 and many more before that.  However, I know there are also native walleye in Pickerel Lake since my grandfather caught them in front of where I live back in the 30s. 

Have a wonderful week and we hope to see you down at Magicland Farms.