High Flying Family Fun on Kite Day, May 6 & 7
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330 Cold Soil Road Trenton Farmer’s Market Princeton, NJ 08540 • (609) 924-2310 Spruce Street www.TerhuneOrchards.com (609) 695-7855 email [email protected] SPRING 2017 2016: A Banner Year High Flying Family Fun on by Pam Mount Kite Day, May 6 & 7 ast year was a banner year here at Terhune Orchards with the ome experience the old-fashioned On Sunday at 2 p.m., our sheep shearer, long construction and anticipa - delight of flying a kite with your Joel Markeveys, will shear sheep in the tion of our beautiful new wine barn. Now family during Kite Day on May 6 barnyard. Children get to take home a card the long process of making a dozen kinds of and 7 from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. This annual tra - shaped like a sheep with a piece of fluffy Terhune Orchards wines has a special dition at Terhune Orchards is wool attached. Be sure to get home! Eleven huge stainless steel fermen - our unique way to welcome to know some of our other ani - tation tanks imported from Italy take up a spring. Take over the skies mals in the barnyard while with high-flying fun and enjoy you visit. Spring on the farm. Take a break and have Children can make and lunch or a snack at Pam’s decorate their own kites. We Food Tent. Our favorite spring use a kite design that is guar - treat is our famous barbequed anteed to fly. We also have a asparagus. Harvested fresh fantastic assortment of pre- from the field, we lightly grill made kites in the fanciful form the tender stalks for a special of dragons, birds and many snack. Sample more colorful Terhune Mount Family in front of our new Wine Barn. designs. Feel Orchards’ free to bring other spring lot of the floor space but we are lucky your own kites goodies enough to have room left over for special from home too. including out wine tastings and events. Take a famous apple Stay tuned for special wine tasting break from kite cider donuts, events, music afternoons and more in the flying and ride a pony or take our tractor- pies, fresh wine barn this year. drawn wagon around the orchard and farm pressed apple cider, country style chili, hot The rest of the family has been super fields. The little ones can join in the fun of dogs, barbeque chicken, and salads. busy as well! Reuwai brings her consider - old fashioned games and activities in the Free parking at the farm. Admission to able talents both as a biologist and people barnyard. Pin the tail on the piggy, sack the festival area is $8, age 3 and up. No manager to the farming operations. Driving races, blowing bubbles and more—have a admission to the farm store and winery tractors, planning crop rotations, planting great time playing on the farm. tasting room. and harvesting schedules for numerous On both days, local musicians will join Call 609-924-2310 or visit www. consecutive plantings throughout the sea - us for country music and fun. terhuneorchards.com for more information. son. Her husband Mike continues at Law - renceville School teaching in the history department and overseeing all the student travel expeditions. This summer, he is going to Ghana to plan a student trip in conjunc - Pick Your Own at Terhune Orchards tion with the school’s new African studies s soon as the asparagus spears The cherry season always comes and program. This builds on his time teaching start to show themselves in April, goes too quickly in mid-June. Our cus - with Reuwai in Cote d‘Ivoire, the Ivory Pick Your Own season begins at tomers love our Pick Your Own cherries; Coast, in West Africa. Terhune Orchards. Picking asparagus is they are best eaten fresh. Their daughters, Maya, 12 years old easy. Simply locate a tender, young stalk and in the 7th grade, and twins, Sasha and and cleanly snap it off close to the ground. Tess, 9 years old and in the fourth grade are Stop by the farm store to be directed to the Plan a Spring School Tour all doing very well at Stuart School. It is a asparagus field. pring is a wonderful time for constant joy that they live so close. They are Strawberry-picking begins in late May student groups to visit the an important part of the farm and often and typically lasts 2-3 weeks. They are easy farm. Terhune Orchards offers give us a young person’s perspective. for children to pick and make a wonderful a variety of educational tours for all ages, Grandson Becket, 8 years old and a family activity. Our strawberries are excel - from preschool students to adults. Spring third-grader at Lawrence Elementary lent for fresh eating, making jams and your visitors will see how apple trees grow, learn School, is a wiz with anything with wires. favorite homemade desserts. about the importance of bees as pollinators He spends most Saturdays on the farm with and make some new friends in the barn - his Dad. Tannwen’s husband, Jim yard. Add on a visit to the pick your own Washburn (you may have seen Jim running strawberry patch for more springtime fun. our pick your own apple orchard in the fall), Our experienced and knowledgeable teaches American Government and Politics tour guides tailor each tour to group age at Montgomery High School. His school’s and interests. It gives us great joy to invite delegation came away with awards during local school children to visit our outdoor the Model U.N. conference this winter. classroom–a working family farm on pre - Tannwen is busy with twins Hadley and served farmland. Clayton, now two years old and walking, School tours are available by appoint - talking beauties. Life on the farm for them ment from April through November. is all about horses (neigh, neighs) and Call 609-924-2310 to schedule a visit. (continued on page 4) Energy at Terhune Orchards—We’ve Got the Power! by Gary Mount became inspired to write this arti - I found out about our farm’s early power equipment from Europe, was not available. cle when we finished the solar from Charles Hunt—a Terhune son-in-law In 1985, it would have cost us $50,000 to installation on our new wine and Dick Terhune—son of Stanley Terhune extend the three-phase wires up our road barn. It got me thinking about power—elec - who owned the farm in the 20’s through from Carter road. Fortunately, the new trical power—on the farm over the years. 40’s. A wind-powered generator was fas - school built next to the farm had to have Pam and I have been here 42 years but tened to one leg of the windmill next to the three-phase power and paid to have the there was power long before that. farmhouse. Dick remembers the shelf that wires installed. We were able to connect held the storage batteries in the smoke - and Terhune now has three separate three house located between the farmhouse and phase services—for our irrigation well, our what is now called the farmstore. The first apple cold storage and our new wine barn. power wires went to the house and the My story now comes back to our new barn. Cows had to be milked twice a day— solar installation. Slightly smaller than the often in the dark. Having electric light to system on our 2010 barn (33 kilowatts vs. replace kerosene lamps was a great 39), it has cost about half as much. Prices of improvement. In the farmhouse, the direct solar equipment have gone down and current power from the batteries ran elec - design and efficiency have improved. The tric lights and a wringer type clothes wash - solar power supplements the “high-line” er. Replacing the drudgery of hand clothes Possibly the first significant power washing with a washing machine was a top came from a windmill which was located priority of installing electric power on a right over the hand-dug well next to the farm and lights made it possible to read and farmhouse. It pumped water for the house sew in the evenings. Elsie Terhune Davison and the livestock and it was a great labor (who with her husband, Jack, sold the farm saving over hand pumping. It was installed to us) told me, “When the batteries wore in the early 1900’s and was about twenty down, then we went to bed.” feet from the house—surprising to me. The Heavier uses of electricity—more noise from the blades and the “mill” or gear motors on the farm and electric irons in the box must have been hard to get used to. house came with the advent of “high-line” This is not to say that I would not like to power from central power plants. Dick have a windmill at Terhune—I would really Terhune told me his father had to pay for like to have one. I have been investigating five utility poles to bring the power up our sources and who knows, this may be the road from Carter Road. Each pole cost $40. three phase power used in the winery and year. The Terhune family had the direct cur - the bakery/cider processing barn—we hope As nice as it was to have pumped water, rent-powered (from the storage batteries) to the tune of 30 to 40% of usage. The solar extension of electricity to the farm was washing machine motor rewired for the produces direct current (DC) just like the eagerly anticipated.