I just read my day's emails and it seems the fridge trailers will be pulled out tomorrow. The last of the berries sold last week and were picked up on Friday. Unfortunately, I wasn't sure when they were going to be picked up and so I had to pay rent on the trailers until I could cancel on Tuesday. They're not cheap. The berries all sell. I can sell every berry to the cannery. They pay the least - as a general rule. (I'll write some more about that in a moment. I'm drinking a wee bit.) But, as I said, they don't pay very well. The goal is to sell the cannery as few berries as we can. The cannary's goal is to buy all our berries at the lowest price they can pay. I also prefer to sell my berries to people and not nearly-faceless corporations. The cannery company gives zero fucks and they just smash the berries to shit and cram 'em into cans, which they sell to people who produce commercial blueberry products or sell as canned blueberries. Yup... You can buy blueberries in cans. But, call it my immaturity, I prefer to sell them to people who not just pay more - but will actually be happy with the attention and care we give our crop. In fact, anyone who's local to that area can just come pick blueberries in our fields and, so long as they're for personal use, I'm not even going to charge them. Blueberries are little bites of pure delicious. They make people smile. I'd rather the blueberries go to someone who smiles than go to someone who shows up in a truck and pisses and moans about the long drive back. When I say the cannery pays the least, that's not strictly accurate. There are two companies that buy our berries and get a price lower than the cannery. One makes delicious products with Maine wild blueberries - and gives me a ton of their result. The other one is pretty new, as in we just picked them up last year. I give them a discount because they make delicious blueberry wine and they give me some of the wine. (If anyone knows the legal issues well, I'd be interested in mailing them out to a few of you as holiday gifts. I'm not actually sure how legal it is for me to send alcohol without actually doing some formal ID check - and I'm pretty sure nobody wants to be a part of that.) Anyhow, the last things remaining are just finishing up pulling any string left over (berries are 'raked' in rows) and putting hay on the field. Seeing as I'm here... There are eight fields. Each year, four of those fields are harvested. After the harvest, the fields are covered in hay. This is called 'haying the field' but that just confuses people. Really, we're putting hay on the field. The hay sits on the field all winter. Then, spring comes - and we set the fields ablaze - which is every bit as awesome as you might imagine. That's right... We set the mountain on fire. We don't even go to jail for it! That year, the fields that were burnt will not produce berries. We alternate the fields, so each field is harvested every two years. Why do we burn the fields? It kills any animal or fungus pests that are in the ground. Blueberry plants survive it just fine. They regrow quickly and the field has fully recovered by the following year. Burning the fields also kills (m)any unwanted plants - such as tree saplings. It basically stops Mother Nature from reclaiming the fields as her own. But, the blueberry harvest is mostly finished and now you know a bit more about blueberry farming! Seriously, burning the fields is awesome. You gotta stay sober for it but it's hard work and a good reason to celebrate afterwards. You run around with giant "Indian Pumps" on your back. First, you burn a firebreak and then you just set that fucker on fire. It's done in the spring, while there's still snow in the woods (usually) and the ground is too wet (usually) to be a major problem, but sometimes whole mountains have gone up in flames - burning many acres. So far, that's not been something I've experienced. Note: I don't *usually* actually control the burn process personally. The guy I bought these fields from is quite an expert at it and it's a potential forest fire. So, I just happily run around with the pump on my back. It's a good workout and the view is spectacular. Alright, so now you know a wee bit more about blueberries. They're delicious! Obvious disclosure: I have a direct financial interest in the Wild Maine Blueberry industry.