{"id":2188,"date":"2010-10-24T20:58:49","date_gmt":"2010-10-25T02:58:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/?p=2188"},"modified":"2010-10-24T21:02:23","modified_gmt":"2010-10-25T03:02:23","slug":"an-afternoon-at-the-tippy-top","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/?p=2188","title":{"rendered":"An Afternoon at the Tippy Top"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a>

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Meet Mike Manogue aka “Mr. Tippy Top”.\u00a0 I met him at the farmer’s market<\/a> about a year ago.\u00a0 He is quite possibly the most ebullient, passionate, and genuinely happy person I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.\u00a0 I decided that we should become friends so that I may steal his secret to happiness.\u00a0 Last weekend I finally scored an invite\u00a0to his place.\u00a0 An invitation to the Tippy Top Orchard is reserved only to\u00a0a select group of people you know.\u00a0 Well, that’s what I’d like to believe anyway :).\u00a0 The orchard is tucked away in the hills outside of Dodgeville.\u00a0 On our way we saw people busy with harvest, got a bit sick driving on the up and down and windy roads, and Keith almost killed his second raccoon this year\u00a0fattened up from the summer’s abundance.\u00a0\u00a0As we pulled up the gravel road, Mike rode his bicycle towards us with arms stretched to\u00a0his sides, gave us a big smile, and a boisterous hello.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A Tippy Top Orchard Welcome<\/em><\/p>\n

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It was twenty years ago when Mike started his dream of\u00a0having a\u00a0fruit orchard.\u00a0 He has planted and nurtured each one of the over 350 pear and\u00a0apple trees, all of which are grown organically (non-certified).\u00a0 It is not uncommon to hear loud exclamations at the\u00a0market\u00a0once they have a bite of Tippy Top\u00a0Orchard\u00a0fruit.\u00a0 He does have the best apples and pears I’ve ever tasted.\u00a0 They are extremely flavorful and\u00a0juicy.\u00a0 Keith who doesn’t normally eat fruit cannot get enough of the D’Anjou pears.\u00a0 My favorite is the Mutsu apple and the Asian pear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Apple Boulevard<\/em><\/p>\n

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To begin the tour Mike showed us how to properly pick an apple.\u00a0 Do you know how to?\u00a0\u00a0In my mind I was thinking of course, who doesn’t know how to pick an apple?\u00a0 I proceeded to grab one and twisted it.\u00a0 That’s the wrong way.\u00a0 I thought I saw Mike cringe a little.\u00a0 To pick an apple properly, you must hold the apple firmly from the bottom then slowly raise it until it pops off the little stem.\u00a0 The stem is very important because that’s where next years bud will come from.\u00a0 Hence\u00a0twisting an apple off a tree can damage next years bud which mean less fruit.\u00a0 Things went a little smoother after that.\u00a0 We walk\u00a0around\u00a0and sampled several varieties (Mutsu, Fuji, Jonagold, and others).\u00a0 After that we went over to the pear trees.\u00a0 I must admit that\u00a0I secretly hoped to see\u00a0a partridge nestled in one of the pear trees :).\u00a0 No luck though.\u00a0 We did however get to pick and eat some Asian pears.<\/p>\n

Asian Pear Jewels <\/em>(look at the right hand side of the pic)<\/em><\/p>\n

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As I mentioned earlier, Tippy Top’s fruit are grown organically which means it is even more labor intensive than at standard fruit orchards.\u00a0 As you can see below the fruits don’t look as “perfect” as the ones you’d see at the produce section of your local grocery store.\u00a0 The spots and blemishes might not meet the ideal that we’re taught fruit is supposed to look like but they don’t affect the flavor.\u00a0 They are simply a natural side effect of the organic method.<\/p>\n

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Seeing what he’s accomplished for the past twenty years in his land was incredible.\u00a0 Besides taking care of the orchard Mike also grows a lot of vegetables, herbs, and berries.\u00a0 Did I mention he also built his house on the hill?\u00a0 As if the man isn’t busy enough we found out that he does cross country ski racing all over the world!\u00a0 So what’s his secret to happiness?\u00a0 Simplicity.\u00a0 It is\u00a0doing the things you truly care about,\u00a0being in tune with nature, and doing away with the rest.\u00a0 People said he was a bit crazy,\u00a0well\u00a0a lot crazy when he\u00a0started looking for land in the area 20 years ago to make\u00a0his dream come true\u00a0but I think one needs that to make something really worthwhile.\u00a0 Thank you Mike for being a living example of what many try for so many years to figure out.\u00a0 Do what you love.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meet Mike Manogue aka “Mr. Tippy Top”.\u00a0 I met him at the farmer’s market about a year ago.\u00a0 He is quite possibly the most ebullient, passionate, and genuinely happy person I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.\u00a0 I decided that we should become friends so that I may steal his secret to happiness.\u00a0 Last weekend […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[40,94,185,184,183],"class_list":["post-2188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-farms","tag-apple","tag-dodgeville","tag-mineral-point-farmers-market","tag-pear","tag-tippy-top-orchard","no-featured-image"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2188"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2281,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2188\/revisions\/2281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/driftlessappetite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}