Hi, 

Wow! What a beautiful mid-November day yesterday was! It was a joy being at the farm and apparently many people agreed since it was relatively busy for so late in the season. In the last newsletter I mentioned this weekend would be sunny the temps would only be in the 40s. Well, the upper 50s to near 60 would have been a better guess. Believe it or not, next weekend looks almost as warm as this one was although I can't believe it will be sunny too, but who knows?

If the last time you were down to market was before Halloween, you might wonder what happened to all that squash! Well, it was sold. I have to admit I am a bit surprised to realize how little squash is left because I know very little of the squash we picked went bad. Our squash is disappearing fast and it will likely be nearly all gone by the time we close on the day before Thanksgiving. We still are selling our acorn for $10 a bushel but have put an end to selling our butternut and buttercup by the bushel. There are probably a couple of reasons for the increase in demand for winter squash. First, while squash is sweet, it does have lots of fiber (and lots of vitamins and minerals) and thus is a great, healthy food source. More importantly to the demand is that this health information is getting out to the general public so more people know about it. Now, the other reason for the demand is related to this. Supermarkets have raised their prices. For instance we noticed many stores, like Walmart are asking $1 to $1.29 a pound for the squash. While the price in some stores is now 79 cents a pound, this is higher than other years. Remember, a bushel of squash weighs about 50 pounds and our price is $10 for a bushel. You don't have to be a math major to realize that this price is roughly 20 cents a pound. Our individual priced squash, such as our 3 for 2 buck squash, is around 30 cents a pound.

We do still have a moderate supply of several types of apples including Northern Spy, Jonathan, Idared, Empire and Red Delicious. Also available in limited quantities are Hawaii, Splendor, Ashmead's Kernel, Golden Delicious, Fuji, Granny Smith, Spartan, Golden Russet, Roman Beauty, Jonalicious, and even a few Calville Blanc d' Hiver. We plan on storing apples until spring in our cooler and putting them up for sale in March or April-depending upon the weather.

By the way, the refrigeration for our cooler is provided by an inexpensive room air conditioner. The controls for this air conditioner were custom designed by yours truly and consists of a Picaxe microcontroller board (a Picaxe microcontroller is a tiny computer that understands the BASIC computer language) that takes the place of the A/C's controls so the A/C can keep the cooler at the temperature of a normal refrigerator. Nuts and Volts purchased my article for this controller (Smart Room A/C Controller) and published it in their October 2008 issue. I have been selling the bare printed circuit boards for this project and I plan on selling in the near future complete kits as well as completed units. If you know of someone who would like an inexpensive walk-in cooler, contact me. For more information about the Smart Room A/C Controller go to my website Magicland Electronics and select Kits under the Products drop down menu.

This week Magicland's Corner Bakery will again have delicious Double Chocolate Cupcakes, Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies, Apple Cinnamon Muffins, Pumpkin Coffeecake Muffins, Apple Pie Pastries, and other baked goodies. These baked goods have proven so popular that we have received orders for them. Three of my daughters have reserved a table at the Holiday Bazaar sponsored by the St. Bartholomew's Ladies of the Knights Auxiliary located at the St. Bartholomew's Church in Newaygo. This popular Bazaar will run from 9am-3pm on Saturday, December 3.

We now have seed nuts available for northern (Wisconsin strain) pecan trees, pawpaw (Michigan strain) trees and Shellbark hickory trees. All these seed nuts came from our own trees. These native nut and fruit trees are best grown by seed since they have taproots (which makes transplanting difficult) and do not have fibrous roots. They also are best planted in the fall. Full directions are given free of charge.

Want to find out about the upcoming winter? Then make sure you read my next Boss's column (November 20,2011) because the Old Injun Chief will give you the lowdown!  

OUR NEW NOVEMBER HOURS ARE 1 PM TO 5:30 PM. AS USUAL, WE WILL BE CLOSED ON SUNDAYS.

THANK YOU!

Nashle,

Tom