About Us
Hi, I’m Jeanette Boysen Fitzgerald and this is my husband, Tom. We currently live in a fifth-wheel RV onsite at our 10-acre Boysen Berry Farm in Orland, CA. “The Rig” is a 1998 King of the Road, top of the line RV, back in the day. It has all the comforts of a tiny home, and at 378 square feet of living space, it’s just that, tiny, but we think the word, “cozy,” generates more genuine gratitude on our part.
After a long search that spanned all of California Central Valley and a large part of Oregon, we decided on and purchased our Orland farm on February 16, 2018. We are happy to report: we have no regrets! It didn’t come without challenges.
The Beginning
Here’s how it looked, complete with broken well and a derelict power box filled with wasp nests. It had a working septic system, however, and Tom just fixed the rest. See below: Tom is walking the empty field that today is filled with vibrant, trellised boysenberry vines!
The very first day we owned the property, we took delivery of 90 tons of a compost/soil mix to be used to fill 1,200 planting holes Tom would soon create with a 24” auger, a 36” hole for each future vine. So many more details belong to the beginning of our farm.
What We Have Now
This is a photo taken during the joyous 2020 U-Pick season. It was Mid-May, and stay-at-home orders had just been lifted. Timing could not have been better. Families were ready to enjoy an outing, any outing and they filled our field! We had prepared COVID-19 procedures, assigning each family or party of berry pickers to their own numbered row of boysenberries. Each row was planted eight feet apart, affording everyone adequate space for social distancing.
It turned out the COVID-19 procedures saved our U-Pick because we experienced an influx of about 4,000 boysenberry pickers in the space of three weeks, up from 300 or so the previous year. Giving each party their own numbered row to pick, numbered 1 – 40, saved us from disappointing customers.
Everyone was so happy to pick enough boysenberries to fill their buckets, and they would sometimes wait several minutes just to check out. Oh, the solutions needed to prevent such a wait this next U-Pick season. Problem solved, by the way.
Fun Stuff
A few fun details about us: we discovered on our first date in 2005 that we share the same birthday, March 22, 1958. He was my date at a corporate holiday banquet. A friend suggested we introduce ourselves around the table, and tell our birthdays, since hers was right around the corner. As we went around the table introducing ourselves, my turn came. I noticed Tom visibly sat back in disbelief when I said my birthday is March 22. He even asked to see my driver’s license!
Was I ever surprised when I asked him why! He said his birthday is March 22. Now it was my turn to doubt. “No, it couldn’t be!” and he reached into his back pocket to pull out his license. Sure enough, we were born on the same day, same year, even! About a year later we celebrated our birthday by getting married on March 22, 2006.
Between the two of us, we have six grown children and ten grandchildren. Our collective family is spread from coast to coast across the US. Tom and I don’t get to see our kids and grandkids nearly enough now that we’re farmers.
By the way, we are also both left-handed, but Tom is way more coordinated than me. Tom also excels at anything he puts his hand to, from designing and laying out an irrigation system, to silversmithing, to ceramic art, to designing and building our future home.
I’m a retired special education teacher and teacher facilitator/specialist. I recently returned to special ed. as a teacher’s assistant and enjoy every minute with the students and with the excellent, fun loving teacher I work with.
Up and Coming
Tom has designed us a home. We began building at the end of 2022. We hope to be in our new home by the end of 2023. Until then, we will continue to embrace gratitude for our cozy little Rig.