Summer at Penn Cove Ranch

The beginning of Fall marks the end of the lavender year. The lavender plants will take a much needed rest. It has been a wonderfully productive year. As usual, we discovered things that we didn’t know. We also confirmed that we have been blessed with talented and dedicated associates. Nothing would have happened had it not been for Alex, Mario, Javier, their father, Ramon, and Alex’s wife, Lorena. Joannie and Soon worked in the harvest and then constructed the beautiful wreaths and bouquets. Nick and Dale were always there when I needed them. Dan gave us great turn around with the GCMS results.

A real bonus for me and Susan was getting to work with our children. Teresa continued to display not only her creative talents as chief product designer but her scientific skills as well. She organized the final steps of distillation and created a very sophisticated data base to help us collect and analyze distillation results. She was the catalyst for the wreaths. Katie functioned as the business manager. She set up the blog and of course the new web site. She designed the new label and all the marketing collateral material. She is as thorough at follow up as anyone I have observed in almost 40 years of business. Michael held the Ranch together until he had to return to LA. He did some early, helpful research with Hydrosol. Lindsay and Billy helped us modify some very tortured paragraphs.

The new still was a Godsend. We had 100 distillations and collected over 550 lbs of oil. The old distillation setup would have required over 500 distillations. Since each distillation takes about 2 hours; it is not hard to see its contribution and necessity.

Penn Cove Ranch as a family business took shape. We sold fresh flowers through a distributor to markets all over the Puget Sound. We have national and regional buyers for our organic lavender oil. We are selling buds, bouquets, and wreaths via our web site. We are expanding our wreath capabilities. We are also exploring the development of a home spa kit using all of our ingredients. I am going to Expo East in Baltimore this week to start that process.

We had a personally productive year in other ways. Teresa and Adam brought a baby girl, Zooey, into the world. Three weeks later Lindsay and Manuel followed with Lucia. Children and parents are well. Grandparents are overjoyed. Adam defends his Phd thesis this Friday at the University of Oregon. Shortly thereafter he, Teresa, and Zooey will head off to Denver where he will do a post doctorate with the National Renewable Energy lab as a new Physicist! After three long years Michael was called back to American Airlines. He fortunately is now assigned to LA, his home and will fly MD-80s from there.

Agriculture has its own unique appeal. It can be rewarding and devastating. It is science and art as well. I try and read all I can about lavender. The amount of contradictory advice is often amusing and at the same time unsettling. The time between making a decision and seeing if it was the right decision is most likely 12 months. I am certain that most of my experience is still in front of me.

We all look forward to what the Spring will bring with awakened lavender.

After months of hard-work, we are thrilled to announce the launch our new website. The site features our beautiful lavender wreaths, bouquets and buds with the ability to purchase products online (a first for us). We also added a more in-depth section about our family & farm that includes an easier-to-use photo gallery and nice description of Our Story. In the upcoming months, we hope to add new products, such as wreaths for Christmas and Valentine Day, as well as additional interesting content about the farm. The lavender plants may be dormant through the fall and winter… but we are still busy bees!

- Katie

Photo: My father and me after the harvest a few years ago.

Saturday was a great day. We had a couple of revelations that should really benefit us next year. We used the Japanese tea harvester on the Twickel with great success. We had shied away from it because it does not do a very good job of shaping plants, especially the smaller ones. Alex, Mario, and Dale harvested 900 Twickel plants in the first hour. This compare to a normal productivity on plants this size of about 30-50 plants per hour per person! We have concluded that we should use the harvester on the larger plants and then clean up the uncut stems by hand. It should reduce the labor component by at least 40%!

Dale distilled the first tub and made 115 ozs of oil. Then the fun began. The bags that collect the cut lavender have always been somewhat problematic. They are easily torn and sometime shredded by the woody lavandin stems. After the morning harvest both bags were inoperable. The holes were too big to ignore. Dale then took Susan’s sewing machine and sewed up both bags! We were back in business.

Dale leaves for a 5 day trip to London to visit his sister on Tuesday. Hopefully he will return next summer. We should finish up the harvest next week end. We have about 1000 plants remaining. Yesterday we were only able to run two tubs due to the bag issues. The second harvest of the angustifolia is still an unknown. The Buena Vista is rallying. All others are still dormant.

The web site is near opening. We also have oil samples out to several people. Progress advances on all fronts.