Ashcove, ME Lobster Crew A Maine Sunset

As Season 2 of our series on Public Television officially rolls out, I wanted to take a moment as the series producer and director to say what a wonderful season it will be. I had the incredible opportunity to travel the country meeting people that are inspiring, down to earth, and just plain real in every sense of the word.

I do not take those sentiments lightly. Having worked on other series for HGTV, Spike TV, Major League Baseball and OLN to name a few, I have to say that the stories we are telling at Farmers’ Almanac TV are one of a kind. I think the one major factor that separates our show from all others is the “human” quality we try to bring to each and every story we tell, not only is there great information and story telling, but you actually feel like you know the people involved, and that I fear is lost in much of the programming out there today.

We started shooting back in March of last year and after crisscrossing the country twice and going to Canada for the first time for a story, I figure we traveled about 30,000 miles or more, much of it riding in a van loaded with crew and production gear. Glamorous it is not, but that’s the point, to get to the hard to find stories, we had to dig a little deeper and travel off the beaten path, and it was worth it!

Dan and Jana Dennison

The travel wasn’t all that bad however, and there were a few perks, for instance, when we visited Ashcove Lobster in Maine, at the end of each day of shooting, they would pull freshly caught lobsters from the holding crates, and cook them up for us until we couldn’t eat anymore - thank you Fern Giard! There was also Dan and Jana Dennison who asked us if we had ever eaten fresh Iowa sweet corn, when we replied no, they drove an hour and half from their farm on the fourth of July, to deliver perfectly cooked sweet corn to our crew - amazing! When you spend the majority of time in a van traveling and eating gas station snacks, moments like those stick with you!

Doug Elliott

Our stories this year cover the gamut, they range from the light hearted and quirky like giant pumpkins weighing more then a thousand pounds, organic shoes and visiting the farm toy capital of the world, to the inspiring, like Ken Brecher’s unique collection, and of course, the first ever Special Olympics USA National Games. There’s also a lot to learn as usual as we continue to bring you Weather Wisdom, Astronomers Notebook and add several new features including Almanac Facts with Pete Geiger and Sandi Duncan and the incredible naturalist Doug Elliott.

The Giant Pumpkin Story

Some of things you’ll learn in season 2 is that it’s easier to live in one of the largest cities in the world, then it is to live on a small farm. There is a brewer in Delaware brewing beer with green raisons and St. Johns Wort. You can actually race a 700-pound pumpkin across a freezing lake. There are very few people more inspiring then the athletes of the Special Olympics. You can actually make shoes out of bamboo - and they can be fashionable, and that a very special family can farm for nine generations, and still love it! And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

In the end, this is more then a job to all of us at Farmers’ Almanac TV. We are bringing you real life stories from all around the country, and we are as passionate about telling these stories as the people featured within the stories. We care, and we hope it comes across to you at home. One last thing, it’s a big country, so if you have any ideas for stories that would be good for us to tell, send us an email, we’d love to hear them.

Enjoy season 2, and while your doing that, we’ll be out preparing for season 3 - by the way, does anyone have any advice on how to make a van ride more interesting?

Sincerely,

Paul Leone
Supervising Producer
Farmers’ Almanac TV
PaulLeone@FarmersAlmanacTV.com