Tomorrow April 7th, 2008 we open to the public after a full year of planning, purchasing, farming, and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.  We have had a very bad week of weather, nothing but rain and overcast skies, but there are a few ripe berries out there ready to be plucked.    I even pumped a little water into the pond yesterday, but the big rain missed us and it was mostly wasted effort on my part.  I took the big truck to Locust, NC, to buy 50 bales of barley straw from a cattle farmer.  We'll have to spread a lot of that in the middles to give the pickers a little traction on that slick mud. 

I hope that our limited amount of berries does not hurt the customer's perception of our operation.  I've been encouraging phone callers to delay their picking date by a week or more so that there will be plenty of berries in the field when they arrive.  But there are enough out there now that they need to be picked or they will spoil.  And there are some super sweet, gigantic berries ready to be picked.  Soon enough the field will be sinking under the weight of ripe strawberries and then we'll be in full swing.