Amid the “Dog Days of Summer”

By Ron Eichner

Hi folks, it is often said, “The dog days of August,” well, we had it a month early in July. Our region had hot, humid temperatures and no measurable rainfall during the first two weeks of July. Farmers growing crops, fruits, vegetables, and grains like soybean and field corn would welcome about an inch of rain a week. An easy word that people say is irrigation, or do you irrigate? Easy stops there because irrigation is expensive, usually labor intensive, and most farmers are already crazy busy.

August is harvest time for seasonal fruits and vegetables. It generally goes into October until a killing frost occurs. There is a lot of planning of field preparation and timely crop planting to support the harvest period. When you get seasonal droughts like the third drought of this season in July, it destroys the harvesting schedule. Also, in the drought periods, local farmers' crop fields turn into salad bars for the critters of the woods, such as deer, groundhogs, raccoons, rabbits, and other animals.

There are great family farms in our area like ours that work long and hard seven days a week growing fruits and vegetables to support our community and valued customers. All we need is for the community to stand behind us.

Speaking of support, August 26 is Women's Equality Day, which celebrates the 1920 ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment and, with it, women's right to vote in the United States. This is something worth noting since this is an election year.

The Avian flu with poultry has been a concern of mine and my family since 1996. The significant outbreak in 2015 was challenging on poultry farms, and the outbreak of 2022 and continuing into 2023 posed many questions. Since 2022, the Agricultural Secretary in Washington DC said the 2022 flair-up would be less severe than in 2015 because the Avian flu will cease to exist when the summer weather comes. However, the flu continued worldwide in 2023 and is rearing its head in 2024, not only in poultry but in dairy cows as well.

The Avian flu is a respiratory virus that usually spreads through close contact and respiratory droplets, not food or milk. When these "gains of function" research occur, accidental or deliberate leaks are inevitable. For example, the money given for the "gain of function" research on the Avian flu viruses conducted in the 2010s intentionally made strains of HSN1 bird flu viruses transmissible. Again, look at what this science has done to the poultry industry for decades.

For years, our farm customers would ask my dad, "How does Ron have the time to do it all and focus on health and wellness? Dad would say, "His mom and I set the seed on Ron, and he took it to a higher level."

I hope we all get some much-needed rain by the time this story is printed. Our first flock of day-old turkey poults came on July 17, and my second flock of 250-day-old turkey poults should arrive on August 14. So, I become Mother Hen for caring for the turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas. You can bring the kids and grandkids and experience the "little peepers." Stop in our farm market for our seasonal harvest of vegetables. Our laying hens produce high-energy eggs, and our meat case contains six types of pork sausage, sliced slab, Canadian bacon, four-pound roasting chickens, homemade cookies, and fudge. If you want to experience life on the farm, we have it all, even the farm smell.

Visit us at 285 Richard Road, Wexford, and make Eichner's Whole Farm and Greenhouses a destination. Discover "the rest of the story."