Big Changes a Lost Creek Hippies Vineyard and Have a Great Fall and Winter!

On Thursday, October 3, we removed the nets and picked about 600 pounds of our Prairie Star grapes, but they could not be sold or fermented into wines due to a fungal disease, caused by high rain amounts in the 3 weeks prior to harvest. Spraying was not a safe option. This was a real disappointment, as they looked good earlier.

We thank Jim and Stacy, who helped us with the netting removal, and John and Nathan, who helped us pick!

Sadly, this will be our last grape harvest, the expenses, time, chemical exposures and other issues just make it difficult and not sensible to begin pruning again next February. As such, we are slowly removing the last of our grape vines.

However, our Honeycrisp and MacIintosh, Harrelson apple trees are coming along and we’re moving them all down to near our house, where water is available. We hope to have a apple harvest of MacIintosh, Harrelson and Honeycrisp apples next Fall, time will tell.

We started this vineyard in 2007 and have had many challenges, some due to nature and location, but mainly due to not being at the vineyard on a daily basis to quickly address issues as they happened.

We began Lost Creek Hippies Vineyard with a goal to use it as a magnet to help us, by involving you, our supporters to help make our world a little better place, particularly for our local and international neighbors who have needed financial help to improve their lives. And as such, we have indeed through a combination our combined financial contributions and donations of our Altered States Apple wine to charitable events, been able to raise many tens of thousands of dollars for them, as evidenced and documented in our Financial Section of this website.

We do intend to continue our fund raising efforts for our 3 charities as long as it works and we are able to do so. Our annual fundraising event planned for 2020 will be our 5th Annual Fundraiser Party to take place on Saturday, September 12. Each year it has been a little more successful and we enjoy hosting it, seeing so many of you return and always meeting new friends. The pleasure and warmth we get from you all, along with the success of our fundraising efforts, make this a really special and fun event that we and I know you all really look forward to. This is something we plan to continue for as long as we can for as long as it works out!

We continue to explore other ways of helping our 3 charities and any ideas or suggestions you have would be most appreciated!

Meanwhile, we can all be so proud that our 3 adopted charities continue daily to make lives better:

• People Serving People: Who help homeless families in Minneapolis regain safety and support towards a future of financial success.
• Habitat For Humanity of Minnesota: Who help our lower income neighbors gain ownership in safe affordable homes, thus markedly improving their lives and their communities.
• Central Asia Institute of Bozeman, MT: Who educate mainly girls in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan, thus helping to break a cycle of ignorance …poverty…. ..violence in that region of our world.

In short, our neighbors are succeeding in their quest for better lives and since we are all ultimately connected, we are living at a higher and happier level due to our efforts together!

May you all have a joyful and peaceful Fall and Winter and we look forward to a Spring 2020 of APPLE tree pruning!  Stay tuned as we will post a News Section message in February or sooner if we come up with any other ideas to help our 3 charities!

Peace, Love, and Charity,
Lost Creek Hippies Vineyard
Cell: 763-354-0880