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![]() Pushing Back Wood Prairie Snow Banks. This time of year, with snow still accumulating - and temperatures remaining cold enough that not much melting has taken place - the snowpack in Northern Maine reaches its greatest depth. With every snowstorm, snow plowing becomes a necessary, repetitive task which pushes new snow out of the way. But that snow has to go somewhere and so, little-by-little roads become narrower and yards become cramped as the piles of built-up snow grow. Eventually there is the need to ‘push the banks back’ to regain lost ground. For years we used our 1964 Cat D-6 Bulldozer for this job. We had bought it in the mid-1990s from loggers in Fort Kent, Maine who used it extensively for road clearing and road building. They had welded ice cleats onto the tracks which, with the heft of all that dozer iron, makes for phenomenal traction. But in the end, tracked-machines are slow when compared to machines which are rubber-tired. Since we bought our huge, old-timer 1970s gravel-pit Michigan Payloader a few Summers ago, it has become Caleb’s first choice for pushing back those banks. Here, after moving piles of snow on a sunny, cold Maine afternoon, Caleb puts away the Payloader so he can get back to the real Winter’s work of shipping out our Organic Seed Potatoes.
![]() Pallets of
Organic Seed Potatoes Awaiting Their Turn to
Ship. Because
by all measures the prime Spring planting season for Potatoes
across the USA represents a relatively narrow window, it
takes a surprising amount of planning and maneuvering
for a small family farm to be able to keep up with the
flow during the peak shipping tsunami of March and
April. To the greatest extent possible, we try to
organize our work-year so our crew – that’s those in our
family and the neighbors who help us – can focus
intently on keeping up with your many thousands of
orders we ship during the March/April rush. The
clock starts ticking when we work hard to plant Potatoes
on-time in May, to enable us to harvest on-time in
September. This timing allows us to suberize (wound
healing) our Seed tubers in October. Immediately after
suberization, we quickly drop the temperature in our
underground Potato storage down to the perfect
long-term-storage temp of 38ºF. Then in November we
begin cleaning, sizing and pre-grading our entire Organic
Potato crop. That way we can finish grading
in January, ahead of the northward march of Spring,
which begins in the deep South. After grading we like to
put up major orders prior to that March/April
crunch-time window. In this shot, pallets of Organic
Seed Potatoes in our underground storage have been
stretch-wrapped and placarded. They await their turn for
the trip of their life, an all-expenses-paid road tour
to a warmer clime somewhere south of us.
![]() Cardinals Takes Up Winter Residence on Wood Prairie Family Farm. For the first time ever – after waiting nearly 50 years – this Winter we have had a nesting pair of Northern Cardinals take up residence on Wood Prairie Family Farm. In this photo you can see the brilliant, bright-red male as seen from a window in our office. His mate is usually close at hand, though she is quite a bit more muted in color. Because the snow had piled up nearly to the top of her office window, this week Megan had to shovel the snow back so that her feathered friends could regain access to their buried window bird feeder. In addition to the Cardinals, Megan has been supplying Sunflower seeds to Evening Grosbeaks, Mourning Doves, Blue Jays, Nut Hatches, and Chickadees. Mainers value loyalty. The small and easily recognizable Black-capped Chickadee was named the Maine State Bird back in 1927. Chickadees stay around Maine all Winter, just like the rest of us. ![]() |
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Quick Links to
Popular Products.
Caleb & Jim & Megan Gerritsen Wood Prairie Family Farm 49 Kinney Road Bridgewater, Maine 04735 (207) 429 - 9765 / 207 (429) - 9682 Certified Organic From Farm to Mailbox www.woodprairie.com |
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