We will be open for black raspberry picking Monday, June 30 at 7:30 a.m. See you bright and early in the morning!
Open Monday, June 30th
Next open day: Saturday, June 28th
We’ve had a good couple of berry picking days at the farm! Thanks so much to all our black raspberry loving customers! We will be closed Friday and will reopen Saturday, June 28th at 7:30 a.m.
Open Thursday, June 26th
We had a steady opening day but still have some ripe berries in the field, so we will be open Thursday, June 26th at 7:30 a.m. We will open at least for the morning and then see what availability is after that. Thanks to all of our great customers!
Opening Day!
We plan on opening tomorrow, Wednesday, June 25, at 7:30 a.m.!!! Please know that availability will be somewhat limited….the field is not even 50% ripe yet, but there are still plenty of berries that need to be picked, eaten, frozen, made into smoothies, cobblers, pies….
If you are not able to be here tomorrow, we plan on being open Saturday morning also.
**On Wednesday, we will stay open until all the ripe berries are picked. Call before coming out as I will always update our phone message first about availability.
**I know rain is in the forecast, but we will still be here. You can come hang out in the barn between rain showers!
See you all soon!
Black Raspberry Season
We have everything ready for the season to start….we’ve weeded, mowed, pruned, mowed, weeded….and now we just watch and wait for the berries to turn color. With the hot, humid weather we’ve been having, we expect to open sometime this week, possibly the middle to the end of the week. We will update here, on our Facebook site, and will always have a recorded message letting you know when we will be open.
If you are new to our farm, this is kind of how it all works:
**I will update our sites and our phone message telling when our opening day will be. (740-536-7853)
**When we are open, we usually have a large number of customers come in the morning to pick, since it is cooler. If we have a large number of people come, our field may get “picked out” (all the ripe berries get picked!) and so we will close. As soon as we make the decision to close, I will update our phone message. So we always tell people to call before coming out.
**We have to give 2 or 3 days for more berries to ripen before we open again, so keep checking when our next open day will be.
**We have waxed boxes for you to pick berries in, which are yours to take.
**We have an acre of black raspberries. They are trellised up on wire for easy picking. We keep the rows between the berries mowed, too. When people ask what they should wear, I tell them they can wear shorts and flip-flops if they want. The berry plants are thorny, so your arms and fingers may get poked, but it’s not too bad. There isn’t any shade in the field, but you can come to the barn and get out of the sun.
**We have a sink in the barn to wash your hands and splash cold water on your face.
**Our black raspberry season lasts between 2 and 3 weeks.
**Our prices are: $4.00/lb for U-pick, and $6.00/lb for pre-picked. We do have limited availability on pre-picked berries.
Ok, that’s all I can think of for now…Whew….who knew there were so many details in farming?!!
Annnndddd……..some great news!!! John planted another acre of berries! They were planted this spring, so they won’t be ready this year, but next year we will have more berries!!
We hope to see you at the farm next week!
March Happiness (not madness!)
While you were all filling out your basketball brackets, we were awaiting the arrival of our first lambs. This is our first experience with all of this, so we did a lot of checking….walking out to the barn many, many times a day….checking for all the signs they were ready…just watching and waiting. Then, John finally came in one morning and said “We have lambs!” Then we kept having lambs for the next 3 weeks. Here are some pictures and commentary on all the things I never knew about sheep and lambing.
1. Most sheep have more than one lamb. Out of our 9 pregnant sheep, we had one give birth to triplets, 7 gave birth to twins, and one had a single lamb.
Look at how big this momma was before her lambs were born!
2. The sheep are more likely to have lambs during the day if you feed them at night.
New babies under the heat lamp with their momma.
3. Lambs are born with tails. You just put a little band around it and it falls off after about 2 weeks. They are so cute when they are nursing….their little tails just wag so fast!
4. The momma licks and cleans her lambs after they are born. This helps her know their scent. And do they ever know their own lambs’ scent! If another baby comes near the wrong momma, she will take her head and practically lift the lamb up and push her away!
Doesn’t this mom look like she is smiling?
5. If a lamb is born even a little weak, it doesn’t have a good chance of surviving. We lost 4 out of 18….which from talking to other sheep farmers is pretty typical. We tried bottle feeding and really working with those 4, but they don’t have much will of their own to fight to survive.
The lambs are already filling out and growing so fast. They are fun to watch. They will be standing in one spot and all of a sudden just jump straight up like a jolt of electricity went through them! Some of them will head-butt each other over and over again. When we bring in hay for the moms, the little ones will jump right into the feeder and stand on top of the hay until one of the moms knocks them down. And their little “maaaa” sound is so cute!
So, I guess we know a little more about sheep now that we’ve had our first lambs. We’ll see if that gives us more confidence for when the next lambs are born!
If You Give A Man Some Land….
It has been awhile since we have posted about our farm. We have been busy with the girls and school plus just everyday life. We had a wonderful fall and beautiful Christmas….and now it is time to start thinking about our next berry season! John and I were out the past couple of days pruning and weeding in the black raspberry field. We have also had a few more additions to our farm this fall…well let me tell you about it in a story…this story is in the style of the popular children’s book If You Give A Mouse A Cookie….
If you give a man some land…..
then he will say, ” I am a farmer. I need a barn.”
After he builds a barn, he will fill it with tractors and stuff and say, “I need to plant something.”
So he will plant black raspberries.
He likes to eat the fruit, but he gets hungry for more, and eggs sound good, so he gets some chickens.
There will be mice who like to live in the barn and dig in the raspberry field, so he will get some cats.
He will also want some water on the land, so he will build a wetland.
Then, he will say, “The weather is getting colder. I could use a wool sweater. Let’s get some sheep!”
But then he will worry about keeping those sheep safe. He will decide he needs a llama to protect them.
Then that man decides he doesn’t want to walk so far on the land to bring those sheep to the barn at night, so he gets a Border Collie pup to help him.
That Border Collie pup he calls Paige, and she helps him so much. She runs, and listens, and loves the farm. The man thinks she is great.
But if you give a man a Border Collie pup, he may want some more land to go with it.
A New “Paige” in the Ruffwing Farms Chapter
We have a new addition to our farm….a Border Collie pup that Emma named Paige. John and Emma drove to Illinois to get her, and came up with her name on the way back. Emma always has her nose in a book, so she was reading on the way home from Illinois with the puppy in her lap. The pup kept turning the pages of her book and playing with the pages, so Emma said, “How about Paige for her name?” It seemed fitting for our book-lover and dog lover, so that is her name.
She is a sweet puppy with a very nice temperament. She is kenneled in our house but heads outside with us many times a day. She runs through the grass back to the barn and loves to jump at the low-hanging apples on our trees on the way. She sometimes gets one off the tree and is so proud of herself. Paige has met the chickens and seems to already herd them back to their pen. She has also met the cats and they are getting along pretty well. John is excited to see how Paige does once we get sheep. Paige has been a nice addition to our family!
Red Raspberries Available!
We now have red raspberries from our hoop house available! They are so good and sweet! We are only offering them pre-picked, and the pricing is $6 per pound (which is about a quart.) Call to place an order, and we can get them to you within a day or two. They are great to freeze and pull out later for desserts, and they make great jam. The kids are heading back to school, so I’ll be waiting to hear from you! 740-536-7853
Black Raspberry Season is Over
Well…we have made the decision to be done with our black raspberry season. We have a few berries left in the field, but not enough for a big day of customers coming out. The remaining berries will be used for orders and for our freezer! Thanks to all of our customers for a great year! Stay tuned for more things happening on the farm. We will be advertising soon for red and yellow raspberries from our hoop house. They will be pre-picked only, and we will let you know when they are available to purchase. Have a great rest of the summer!
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