Consider Appleton Basket Company for your holiday gift giving ideas.

Season's Greetings from the Appleton Basket Company
Dear Tom & Theresa,

Please accept our wishes for a warm and wonderful coming Holiday Season. Recent events have affected all of us in some way and we hope that you are able to celebrate this Holiday Season with family, friends, love and peace.

With more people shopping via the internet, our goals remain simple. We strive to provide reasonably priced, fun and useful gifts, with outstanding and personal customer service. We have added over 35 new Gift Baskets for the Holiday Season so come and see what's new!
Holiday Gift Baskets Crazy though it sounds,we have to start planning for the Holiday Season in August. It's a bit difficult to begin to think of Christmas when it's in the 80's but we've tackled that challenge this year by creating over 35 new Gift Baskets.Many of these can be found in the Holiday Gift Baskets section of our website. The rest are located in different categories throughout our site. Some of the more popular new baskets we've listed recently include: Fun With Hannah Montana, Little Dinosaur, 'Cue N' Me BBQ and Fun In The Sun. Our Maine-ly Chowdah Gift Basket continues to be a favorite gift in New England and I'm predicting that our new Tin of Gold Chocolate Gift Basket will be the gift of choice for those with a sweet tooth.
Good Stuff from Maine
Every year, we are amazed by the bounty of good things that come from our state and the creativity of the good folks who live here. Part of the fun we have comes from meeting these people and finding new things to add to our selection of gifts.This summer, at the Union Fair in Union, Maine, we met a wonderful woman who handcrafts ceramics then handpaints a blueberry design on each one. At that same fair, we met Pastor Chuck who makes Organic Applebutter and Applesauce. His motto: "One Taste and You Will Know The Difference Between Good and Evil" says it all. We also met the folks from Highland Blueberry Farm who make Organic Whole Blueberry Tea; full of amazing antioxidant power. Our Maine fairs are a wonderful showcase of local talent and creativity and we enjoy bringing that to you in our gifts!Cathy has also recently hooked up with an old friend who has started a new business making fine french chocolates. Her blueberry cream filled milk chocolates are to die for! You can find all of the above items as part of our selection of gift baskets in the Gifts from Maine section of our website.
We Donate.We believe in supporting the good work of charitable organizations. Each of our Gift Baskets is associated with a different charity and we donate $2 from the sale of each basket to that charity.Pay It Forward.Our Maine Gift Baskets are filled with sample sizes of some really good stuff! We view our business as creating really fun Gift Baskets, not as a product distributor. We list the web sites of many of our vendors so that if you like what you get in a Gift Basket from us, you may order more directly from the vendor.
Save 10%
Holiday Season Discount!Our Holiday Gift to you this season is a 10% discount on any Gift Basket you order from us this Holiday Season. Offer begins when you get this email and extends until December 22nd. We appreciate your business and the opportunity to help you provide the perfect gift to friends and family once again. Thanks for your patronage!
Enter Code CCE upon checkout.
Once again, warmest wishes for a happy and joyful Holiday Season.Sincerely,
Cathy & Jeff CleavelandAppleton Basket Company
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Appleton Basket Company 326 Fishtown Rd. Appleton ME 04862

Bangor Daily News Article

September 17, 2008 Bangor Daily Newspaper published an article about the work that goes on here at Highlang Blueberry Farm. It is in the Lifestyle section of the paper.

To read the article on line visit http://bangornews.com/detail/50868.html

Busy Summer

Well blueberry harvest came and went. Wow, August sure does fly by. Even with all the rainy weather we were able to rake and freeze the berries. Of course we have lots of berries in the freezer for the tea.

We also presented the tea at the Union Fair. Tom did a great job mostly working the fair by himself while the girls and I continued with the harvest of the blueberries.

Now we are preparing for the Common Ground Country Fair on September 19, 20, and 21 in Unity. This is a big fair for us and we are frantically preparing for this event.

Bangor Daily News did a write up about the farm in the paper which should run on Wednesday, September 17, 2008.

We will post pictures of the fair next week. Hope to see you at the fair and be sure to stop by our booth, we are set up in the Agricultural Products Section, look for the "blue" tents.

From everyone at Highland Blueberry Farm.

Highland Tea spotted on Maine Watch

Highland Blueberry Farm was included in a Maine Watch program on 7/25/08 along with many others. To watch the show about specialty foods in Maine go to

http://www.mpbn.net/mainewatch/Maine-Specialty-Foods.html

Tea with the First Lady, Karen Baldacci

Highland Blueberry Farm together with Peaked Mountain Farm, Co-sponsored a Tea with the First Lady for "The Friends of the Blaine House" on Tuesday, June 10th at the Blaine House in Augusta with special guest performance by 17 year old Nathan Lesser playing violin. Nathan was accompanied by Pianist Dr. Patricia Stowell.

The Tea was catered by Jane Thibideau of Jane's Caterer in Old Town. The sweets and savories that Jane prepared for the tea was wonderful. Great job ,Jane!

Our Organic Whole Plant Wild Maine Blueberry Tea was served to the 19 guests that attended the event. The tea received great reviews and an invitation from the First Lady to present our whole plant tea as a special gift from Maine to the dignitaries from Japan. Thank you, Karen, for supporting organic local products.

Peaked Mountain Farm, owned by Daniel and Gail VanWart, is the home of the original Bite O'Blue Dog Treat. They presented guests with a sample gift treat for a special dog in their lives. For more info, check out their website http://www.peakedmountainfarm.com/.

Highland Blueberry Farm also presented samples of the whole plant tea to the guests at the tea so that the could take "a taste of wild Maine blueberries" home. Jane from Jane's Caterer also had a sample of her sweets and business card for guests.

Here is Tom, Dan, Gail, Theresa, Barbara and Jane at the Blaine House.

Our Blueberry Tea just got COOLER!!

Thought that the Whole Plant Blueberry Tea was just for cold winter days??

Well think again….

Our Organic Whole Plant Wild Maine Blueberry Tea just got cooler!

Use a French Press to press the premium loose tea before pouring over ice for a refreshing cool blueberry drink.


Add your favorite sweetener and a hint of lemon to make a cool summer-time

Blueberry Lemonade Drink.

Blueberry Tea on ice with blueberry bushes in bloom

Invitation to UMO Pilot Plant to meet the Governor of Maine

On Wednesday, May 7th, Highland Blueberry Farm was invited to display our product at the Test Kitchen in the Pilot Plant at the University of Maine Food Science Department. Dr. Beth Calder asked if we would show our product and provide samples as well as a tasting of our whole plant tea. This was quite an honor for us as we are so grateful to everyone in the Food Science Department who helped us with the research and development of our whole plant tea after being awarded 3 Maine Technology Seed Grants.

My daughter, Chelsea and I gave the Governor a taste of the tea, to which he commented, "This is very good." We also gave him a 5 oz. tin with tea bags to take home. He promised to do more to promote blueberries.




This was the set up of our hot and cold tea samples at the UMO Test Kitchen.


Next month we will be hosting a Tea at the Blaine House together with Peaked Mountain Farm maker of Bite o' Blue Dog Treats. We will get to serve our tea to The First Lady and others that attend the tea.

Theresa and Chelsea

The Importance of Bees and Blueberries

After some pretty intense work on the prune field and on-going maintenance of both the prune field and harvest field, we now get to watch the bees do their work of pollinating the blueberry fields. Check out the pictures posted earlier. A great DVD to view is listed below with some details. It is so important to be aware of what is going on around us and this film does a great job of speaking on this topic.

Health & the Hive: A Beekeeper's Journey explores the importance of honeybees in our lives. Topics addressed in the film include pollination, queen breeding, disease control, bee venom therapy, organic agriculture and honey-based plant medicine.

The central figure in the film is Todd Hardie of Honey Garden Apiaries (www.honeygardens.com). Hardie, a lifelong beekeeper, is inspired, articulate and knowledgeable about bees. For him, keeping bees and making plant medicines is a series of partnerships with farmers, horticulturalists, queen breeders and many others. The film follows the web of teamwork that makes up Honey Gardens Apiaries.

The current crisis of the bees which has received so much media attention is not the central focus of the film, but it is impossible to talk about bees these days without addressing that crisis. In the view of one of the experts in the film, the “mysterious disease of the bees” is nothing more than the consequence of bad agricultural practices. Bees, one of the best bio-indicators in nature, the proverbial canaries in the coal mine, reveal how degraded our environment has become. The film suggests that a more respectful, less industrial approach to agriculture in general and beekeeping in particular will lead to a better outcome for both bees and the humans who are so dependent upon them. (53 min.) 2008

Go to this website http://www.jancannonfilms.com/honeybee.htm
Theresa

Bees and Bloom

Beautiful blueberry blooms of pink and white.



Bee taking flight after feasting on a bell.

Drinking a blueberry bell of sweet nectar.

Family, Mission, Ministry

Part of what we do on the farm, besides tending to blueberry fields and making our organic whole plant blueberry tea, is to raise our family, teach and serve those that come to the farm, whether it is the women of Blessed Hope Ministry or all those that come to our farm to work or to buy our products.

Blessed Hope women learning.

FAMILY: Tom and I have 5 young people in our family. Our 23 year old is living in Texas, while the other 4 are at home. Our youngest ones are 15 and 16 and are working on their high school careers at home and the other 2, both 21 years old, are working on moving into their future careers. It has been great being a big, blended family with all of the opportunities to stretch and grow while challenging one another in family issues of respect, responsibility and caring. With the farm comes opportunities for us to invite other families to come and experience our walking trails, beaver dam, deer, moose, many birds and plenty of plants and insects. My momma always said that a family that worked together, stayed together. So far we have had plenty of work to do around here and we are staying close together!

MISSION: Our mission has been to be a teaching farm. We desire to teach young people who come work for us during blueberry harvest a good work ethic. We understand that parents are entrusting their 12 to 18 year old to us and we want to be good stewards of that relationship. We want to teach the young people how to work hard, be diligent, and work steadily. What it means to work hard and do a good job that they will be proud of, while doing a good job that is pleasing to the owner. We teach respect and honesty by example. We believe in a safe environment for the young people to do their work in. It is an honor and a privilege to work together with those that come to our farm for 4 "blueberry" filled weeks!

We also teach the ladies from Blessed Hope Ministry who come and work for us during leaf harvest and leaf preparation as well as tea making. We teach them how to use the gifts and talents that God gave them and some discover gifts and talents they never knew they had or have not used in a long time. The work they do here helps them to learn that God does love them and that He has made them into beautiful women. They learn that they can work hard and they can persevere in hardships and various trials that they encounter and that by turning to Him for guidance, they do not have to turn back to their old lives of drugs and alcohol.

We also love to teach the Word of God through the Bible. Sharing Jesus with those that come to work for us is part of who we are. God has given us this gift of land and work to do and as we set about learning His word, we see Him in all that He created and all that He has allowed us to do. It is an awesome journey and opportunity for us.

MINISTRY: Tom and I believe that we have been given a unique opportunity to love the broken-hearted, encourage the young, love our children, teach truth, life, and love to those who come to our farm. The Blessed Hope Ministry is a residential discipleship program for women who are seeking to live a life free from the destructiveness of drugs and alcohol, not to mention the many other destructive behaviors that accompany this life-style. We believe that freedom from these snares is found in a relationship with Jesus Christ. The women who come have a unique opportunity to enter into the Blessed Hope house for 6 months while learning who Jesus is. While they are living in the house they will do work projects in addition to studying the Bible.

That is where Highland Blueberry Farm comes in. The women will come to our farm year round, several days a week to work in the fields pruning, cutting, and harvesting blueberries and blueberry leaves. When the weather is cold our work turns indoors, where we prepare the dried blueberry leaves for packaging with the dried blueberries. Everything we do on the farm is by hand or with hand tools. The ladies learn to drive tractors and use power tools. They learn about plants and insects; about the growing seasons and the mysteries of nature. They get to see animals and birds up-close or from a distance. We love to walk our trails to the beaver dam and see the Osprey and Blue Herring nesting in the trees above the dam. We see the beavers swimming about splashing their tail as a warning to us intruders. We minister the hope of salvation through a life lived to Christ.

Theresa will also teach Proverbs 31 to the women during the winter. This is a Biblical teaching that comes from a real mom to a real son about a real woman and the many gifts and talents that she endeavors to follow and they are good. Not that we all need to do all of them, but the possibility is there!! We invite older women to the farm to share with the ladies of Blessed Hope their gifts and talents in knitting or crocheting. For many of the Blessed Hope ladies it is their first time learning this skill. It is exciting to watch them make blankets and scarfs for their loved ones or for a local food pantry or a friend in need. For some it is rediscovering a lost art that ones grandmother taught them when they were a child and they are moved in their hearts to continue putting their hands to good things.

So you see our farm is much more than selling blueberries and blueberry tea.

It is about family, mission and ministry.

Here Theresa is teaching the Word of God to some of the Blessed Hope women who come to work on the farm. Before we start work we will study together and grow in the wisdom, knowledge and understanding of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Another day in the fields.

Yesterday our friend Ross came over and together with family we burned another portion of the blueberry fields. It really is a big job, but it is also good work for which we are grateful for. Chelsea and Whitney are troopers, not soft, able to get out and work hard. Great to have Chris helping and Father Bob, he loves burning and it reminds him of his childhood. Mom kept us feed. Tom and I get to work the land that the Lord gave to us. It is fulfilling. Thank you God.

We even had a visitor, Beth. She came to take pictures for her 3rd Grade students. She will be documenting the farm work and showing it to the kids next year. How fun.

The weather has been great this past week. Drying the fields and slowly waking the harvest field to produce its buds for bloom which is coming soon. Snow still rests in the woods surrounding the fields. I even threw a couple of snow balls at the girls while we were in the field burning. Chelsea got me with the water tank hose, it shot water faster and farther than I could run away!

Well more later.

Theresa

Field Work

Well the field work has begun. With part of the burn behind us, we are now able to get out in the field and begin the laborous work of pruning small trees and plants that did not burn.

It is fun to watch the fields begin to become interesting to the birds of the sky. We have had a marsh hawk flying over the parts of the fields that have not been burned. Life is beginning to stir. I saw a spider crawling about and a sand piper in the harvest fields. Soon the queen bees will be looking for the best nests and the bells will be in full blossom.....sorry getting way ahead of myself. But as you can tell, spring is a long anticipated event here at the farm. Speaking of queen bees, can you find the bee in the blueberry blossoms? (This picture was taken last year, blossoms are just forming, but soon the fields will look like this.)

Well time to get to work,

Theresa

Burning, burning, burning...

With burn permit in my hand, water tanks strapped to our backs, fire in-hand, perfect wind conditions, 6 of us set out to burn the blueberry fields.

It was perfect. The fire went where we wanted it to go and we consider it a success due to the fact that we did NOT burn down our house or our neighbor's houses, nor did we catch the forest on fire. (Thanks to the snow still in the surrounding trees and puddles of water dotting the landscape.)

We have more work to do in the fields, but this gives us a good start and now I know that burning can be done with the help of a few good friends and your family. Thanks to everyone who helped. The pictures speak a thousand words!

Theresa

First Blog

Today feels like the first day of spring on the farm. High 50's and lots of sunshine. I believe that I was almost run over by a bumble bee, probably a queen looking for a new nest of her own. This week we will attempt to burn our fields, the part of the field that was harvested last year. Chelsea, Whitney and I along with someone who knows what he is doing will try to light fire and burn. Pray we do not burn woods, houses or limb!

We will check back in to let you who are wondering what the smoke rising from Highland Blueberry Farm is, house or field.

Theresa