Casselton Regional Tourism Committee

Yesterday we had our first official meeting of the Casselton Regional Tourism Committee. I was nominated for and accepted the position of chairperson of this committee. We have many positive thinking members. I think we will have a great time promoting the Casselton area. We have many ideas and will share some here in the future. Does your community have a tourism committee? We are a small, growing community in eastern ND of around 2,000 people. More information is available at www.casselton.com. Watch for tourist related activities. I think we will have a busy winter planning activities.....even with Chokecherries.

North Dakota Nanking Cherries

When I walked into the winery today, I smelled the wonderful aroma of Nanking Cherries fermenting. These cherries came from throughout North Dakota, including Lisbon, Mayville, Valley City, Wheatland, and Oakes just to name a few. I look forward to this wine coming out, but am saddened when it sells out so fast.

Tomorrow we have more rhubarb wine to bottle and clean up from our very successful booth at the Women's Showcase that was held on Saturday at the Fargodome. I would expect over 5,000 women attended the show. haven't heard a number yet, but we went through a lot of wine!!! I think Saturday was the first show where rhubarb was not the most popular wine. This time our Bumble Bee Red wine with honey and red grapes was honored as being the favorite of women attending the show.

It is the middle of October and still no sign of a killer freeze. We have 2 small strawberries on our plant in our front yard right now. They are white. I do not know if there is enough energy for them to finish. If they do, Sarah will get one and Katie will get the other one.

Pumpkin, Pumpkin, who's got the pumpkin?

Our pumpkin grower e-mailed today to let me know the pumpkins are coming in on Saturday. We'll plan on cutting them up next week and then start making more pumpkin wine....hard to believe one of our most popular. In fact, last November, it was our most popular wine at the tasting room. We expect this November to be even better for Pumpkin wine. I envision a big plate of turkey smothered in gravy with stuffing and cranberries on the side with a big, big glass of pumpkin wine. Yum.....only 43 days until Thanksgiving!

Winter is back in our area

It was tough to listen to the radio this morning. October 9th and they are talking about 1-3 inches of snow in Northwestern Minnesota over night. It is safe to say winter is coming fast. That means our wine season is kicking in. Our apricots have been fermenting wonderfully the last couple of days at the winery. We have been fortunate to get a good quantity of apricots this year. It seems mother nature was very helpful this year. Not only did we get apricots in, but we also had people bring in North Dakota pears. I can hardly wait to enjoy a glass of North Dakota pear wine.

Pumpkins are the last thing to come in this year. I expect them to start coming in on Monday, weather permitting, of course.

Welcome to our little part of the blogosphere

It seems I always have all kinds of ideas about things to do here in Casselton and across rural North Dakota, but I don't like to write them down. My wife and I decided to start this blog to talk about ideas, news, and various items across rural North Dakota. Don't worry, we are also going to talk about our winery, tasting room, gift shop, web site, business neighbors as well as off the wall kind of stuff you can only find here.

The first question I have been thinking about is this.....how many Maple Rivers are there across the United States? If you live near a Maple River or in a Maple River Valley, tell us about it!!