09/03/2025
I just wanted to let my customers know, after much thought and prayer, I have officially dissolved the LLC.
With the passing of my husband in January and my own chronic health issues I have had to close our business.
Yet again, for the third straight selling season year, there are no pecans on the trees out in the orchard right now.
I spoke to another producer here in Clay County if he would be interested in leasing and managing the orchard. He is well more than qualified to grow pecans. Not just anybody can successfully produce pecans. It takes a lot of knowledge, hard work, a good work ethic, a lot of money, employees during harvest and selling time, and equipment and the facilities to do so. This man’s name is Mr. Art Sanders. He has his own orchard south of town that he brought back from a severely neglected state and has really gotten things going now. He attends any workshops MSU Extension hosts for pecan farmers, he goes to pecan meetings all over the US, and he has taught himself so much about pecans. He and my dad were great friends. They could talk for hours about pecans. I have to say that Mr. Sanders is one of the nicest men you will ever meet.
Unfortunately, like me, he is getting on up there in his years and he and his wife had already been talking about retiring before I approached him about managing the orchard. My told me I was not salesman material because I encouraged Mr. Sanders and his wife not to put off going and enjoying and doing the things on their bucket list. As I told Mr. Sanders….You can always work. You never know what lies ahead in your life. The passing of my husband at age 66 and the health issues I have experienced since 2019 have taught me a very valuable lesson. Don’t put off what you can enjoy WHILE you are still able to do so. In the past two years so many of our male friends around our age have died. It’s becoming more and more frequent and that’s scary.
I was sad that Mr. Sanders had to turn down the offer but I fully understood his position and encouraged him and his wife to go travel and do the fun things they want to do while they can. Father Time slows down for no one.
Mr. Sanders told me that he would put out feelers at all the conferences he goes to and all the workshops to see if he thought one of these guys (and a few women) would qualify and might be interested in leasing the orchard. So there’s that tiny bit of hope that someone would be interested and have the money and work ethic it would take to manage our orchard.
But for now, I have decided for 2025 to close our business.
I want to take this opportunity to thank all of our loyal customers that have bought pecans from us for years and our newer customers. I can’t tell you how sad this makes me to have to make this announcement. There’s been around 35 years of hard work that has gone into this orchard and when my dad and my husband passed a lot of knowledge was lost with them.
My husband was right there with my dad when they surveyed the land to set out the trees. Dr. Freddie Raspberry, with MSU, grew the grafted trees to set out for the orchard. A lot of research went into the varieties that were chosen for the orchard. It was a two year project (1991 & 1992) to get the 3,000 trees and irrigation planted and set up. It was, very much, a family business. Farming in general is the roll of the dice. The small family farm is rapidly becoming a thing of the past and that is a very sad thing.
So, for now, i have had to make this very difficult but necessary decision.
Again, thank you to all of our customer for the privilege of selling you our pecans over the years.
