Dear Friends,
2007 has been both exciting and challenging. We have been blessed with our first son-in-law. Will and Kylene were married September 8, 2007 in the same church Hal and I were married in 30 years ago. They had friends and family from as far away as Maryland and California attend the happy occasion. Will is a police officer with the Austin Police Department and Kylene is constantly adding new clients to her successful massage therapy business. They both are avid hunters and love to spend time at our ranch in South Texas. We will be adding another son-in-law in 2008. Jared and Jennifer are getting married March 29th. Along with planning her wedding she is very busy installing a new computer system. This will make ordering easier for our customers and us as we expect to have better records on our customers and the mail orders they have placed. It is such a pleasure to hear compliments about the wonderful gift items in our pecan and gift store and on our website, www.berdoll.com, which Jennifer oversees. Berdoll Pecan Farm would not be what it is today without her and her many talents. Thank goodness Hal now has help with the nursery and orchard which he so rightly deserves. Brandon graduated with magna cum laude honors from Texas A&M University and received the most outstanding construction science undergraduate student award. He just finished remodeling his grandmother's bathroom and has come on board with us to help with harvest and build some much needed improvements to our kitchens and shelling plant. Since purchasing a 115 acre producing pecan orchard in March, planting 5,000 pecan trees on the farm we bought last year, and having a pot in pot container pecan tree nursery totaling a mere 150,000 trees, you can understand how happy we are to have Brandon working with us.
Both orchards are mostly the "Pawnee" variety which is an early ripening nut. You will see Pawnee in the Pecan Store and in the mail order catalog from now on. They are slightly smaller than Choctaw and Kiowa but larger than Wichita. They tend to be less susceptible to pest and fungus problems. Therefore, we are extremely glad that we bought the orchard this year.
What started out as the best crop Hal and I had seen in 25 years has dwindled down to barely sub par due to 60 days of rain or showers this spring and summer. when pecan trees get too much rain they develop a fungus which attacks the leaves and nuts called scab. It prevents the nuts from filling out and causes them to drop from the trees. Don't worry though, we will still have enough to supply all of you, our faithful and valued customers, with the excellent quality pecans you deserve. We will keep our heads up and hope for a better year next year.
With our initial orchard of 8,000 pecan trees on the Colorado River, the orchard we bought this year, and the newly planted orchard, we should have a good supply of pecans for the increasing demand bought on by the growth of our retail store, located 10 miles east of the Austin airport on Highway 71. The mail order business, and easy to order website www.berdoll.com are surpassing our expectations as well. We have added more sugar-free pecan candies due to requests from our customers. Honey glazed has been the best addition to our wonderful candies and has taken over as our best seller. Hal came up with the recipe and they are delicious. If you haven't already tried them, you need to. Our famous pecan pie sells extremely well all year. During the holidays customers give them as corporate gifts and buy them by the arm loads. We put at least 2 cups of our superb pecan pieces in each pie. We like to attribute our claim to fame to having excellent quality, outstanding employees and great customer service. Thank you for all your continued support and business.
Sincerely,
Hal and Lisa Berdoll
