After the call from Monte last night I dropped in to update you on why I have not been on for a while. I do appreciate the concern.
Garden produced well this year. Seventh year with the big garden and sales are right in the middle of all seven years. The problem is that I used to have help. Now just the two of us with some occasional outside help. My brother who used to be the biggest help could not help last year but that was not a problem as last year was the worst year I have had to date. He passed away in March and left the use of his house to my younger sister who is single and that means anything that needs doing I get to help out with, case in point water in furnace room, replaced the pressure valve in water heater as a friend of hers turned the temperature all of the way up and it was not working properly, just received a call from her and more water so there is water coming in from somewhere else, this is in addition to redoing a bathroom, painting a quite a few other things this last spring. Normal items for a home that in 55 years old.
My sister who has been helping has had knee problems so I get about three mornings a week from her helping with the pickling cucumbers and beans. We sold over two tons of pickles this year if you have an idea how much picking that is, it is a lot.
Had a 18 year old kid who was supposed to help with the potatoes, told him how to do go through the dirt and pick them up and yet for some reason he needed a shovel to dig out the trench to look for the potatoes, at the end of a week he learned how to do it correctly and his speed was up to about half of what my 68 year old sister was doing last year before the knee problems. Next year there will be no potatoes sold in large bags, cannot afford the labor to do it.
Have had the occasional help of one lady in selling at the market which has been good as we dropped the south market and just working the north market on four days a week and the sales up there have been good on those days as one of the other major vendors had a poor year.
This lady talked me into going to Fort Yates about 70 miles a way on their market day which is Friday and selling, I was hesitant, however it has been a good move as the tribe has a program where there issue vouchers to the elders which are only good at a farmers market if you are set up to receive them, I am the only vendor other that an occasional small local vendor there. This small town has accounted for more than twenty per cent of my sales this year. This has been rewarding in the way that this is the only way that a lot of these people have the chance to spend these vouchers and they are very appreciative of the fact that someone comes down there. In addition to all of that I have been asked to put on a hour long segment at the end of the month on produce pricing at the local college where they are having a one day program on opportunities for making money on the reservation.
Now back to work.
The tractor in the trench shows what happens when you get to be into to much of a hurry and do not watch where you are going. The pumpkins is just a small sampling of the garden this year and the only thing that I have time to take pictures of other than the greenhouse last spring. That is an eight foot wide bucket on the tractor.
New motorcycle I purchased in July to go to the hills for a week to get away before the selling started as the 98 would not start due to sitting for eight years and back ordered parts, it was finally fixed about two weeks ago, it will go to Florida and left down there for some winter riding.