Farm Tour suffers due to rain, but not the crops!

The Farm Tour was received well by the attendees, although numbers were less than expected.  This may have been due, in a large part, to the threatening weather. "People that did come were very interested, and one family of four asked a lot of questions because they were thinking of purchasing a farm", reported Steve Palosaari. "I had the visitors touch the wool on the sheep to see what lanolin feels like." Steve also likes to tell of the sale of wool from several years ago.  The wool from 20 or so sheep that he sold resulted in a check for $2.84, that was the TOTAL check.  Palosaari is trying some new "hair sheep" that will not have to be shorn, to see if they will be more cost effective to raise.

The visitors to Gary Palosaari's Dairy Farm started the tour looking at calves in hutches, went through the milk house and saw some large milk cows in the barn, then went to the silo room where his three silos all enter with their contents of haylage, corn and corn silage.  "People really didn't understand that what a dairy farmer gets for their milk has to pay to feed young stock until they are old enough to start producing," Evelyn Palosaari related. "One of the women said she will not complain about the price of a gallon of milk after seeing all that has to go into producing it."

John Gierke did a great job on his walking tour of the Gierke Blueberry Farm.  First he led participants between rows of 6 foot high plants.  Some didn't think blueberry plants could be so tall.  This was a rather poor year, due to near drought conditions for much of July and August, although umbrellas were needed during one downpour on tour day.  Gierke explained how much work it is to trim out the bushes as they had been ignored for several years.  Lynn Gierke has accomplished quite a bit by trimming several plants in her spare time.  The Gierke's have about 4000 plants, they have been told, but they have never counted them. Two llamas, chickens and the kids market hogs being raised for the fair were also on display.

Visitors to the Wahmhoff's Lake Superior Tree Farm were able to look at a variety of trees, shrubs, and flowers outside, and picture boards indoors.  Christmas trees and other ornamental and fruit trees are the mainstay of the farm, and each family was given a little blue spruce to take with them.

The Keweenaw Berry Farm Restaurant hosted a coffee, cookie and popcorn refreshment stand, and Judy Szyszkoski had three Boer goats on display with information about them. 

"The turnout may have been better if it wasn't raining," organizer Judy Szyszkoski reported, "but we really needed the rain." All of the farmers involved in the tour agreed.