Hi. My name is Brenda Martin. I’m the farm store manager at Panola Orchard. I read your post about this past weekend. I want to assure you that none of my employees would ever say anything to anyone about arriving at 4 to pick. I’m very confident that it was no one that works here. 1. We are easily identified by wearing Staff shirts. 2. I’m very selective about who I hire and I have high expectations that they are aware of 3. My employees don’t think anything of customers arriving up to the time of 4:30 as this happens every day so no one would ever think anything of that or think anything of it and would certainly not criticize it. 4. I only had 2 employees working outside. One was a girl at the tent and the other was a man assisting customers. I’m sorry that your experience was anything short of amazing. We work really hard and we strive for perfection every single day. I really wish you would have contacted us directly for a chance to explain prior to the post. It concerns me that people may think that one of our employees said this when they did not. I certainly hope you come back and have a great experience. Thank you for visiting our farm.
My deepest of apologies for tagging the orchard in my comment yesterday evening on Facebook. Not once did I think about it possibly making someone think a negative thing about the Orchard. When I read your comment this morning, I realized that was what could happen.
I have since untagged the orchard and just put a place in Texas.
We have always had an amazing experience there. In April of 2018 we saw a sign on our way back home that strawberries were ready to be picked. We have since stopped multiple times to pick strawberries, blackberries, and peaches. My husband always sees the sign and asks me to check Facebook to see if you’re open and if picking is available.
We absolutely love the orchard, and we had a wonderful time on Sunday evening. We even grabbed one of our favorites … homemade ice cream!!! I was carsick when we arrived. So I wasn’t my normal chipper self.
The entire PURPOSE of my post was related to reflections of MY OWN wrong actions in how I responded to a well meaning lady because I misinterpreted her advice and let it anger me instead of simply saying thank you. Our lesson in our Grow Class the prior week had been on how God uses us as instruments to help others change, and He uses others as instruments to help us change. We often freely give advice out of love, but when it is given back to us, we often get angry and take it out of context.
In my actual post, I didn’t name the orchard. I always try to leave the names of businesses out of my posts (unless it’s a travel related blog with advice on where to stop). But when my friend asked on Facebook where we picked because he wondered if it was at his friend’s orchard, I off the cuff tagged y’all. I did it because I love the orchard. But I recognize it was better to simply say “in Texas”, so I have corrected that.
My deepest of apologies for any hard feelings. My intent in the post was to get people to reflect on how they respond when people tell them things they don’t want to hear, no matter how trivial.
Thanks for running a great orchard. No doubt we will be back in the future if we are passing through and see the sign during opening hours.
P.S. We actually found over half of what we picked in the first strawberry field as we walked to the second one. There were still plenty of strawberries everywhere, even for the end of a busy weekend!! 😊
Good evening,
You may not be aware, the first week of January ( week 19) schedule is coming up as page not found.
By the way, I think what you’re doing for parents ( in my case, grandparents!) is just wonderful! Thank you so much!
Monica Good
thanks for sharing, I have a Christian co op in southern Utah and am always looking for crafty ideas
I’m so glad the resource was able to help your co op! ❤️
Hi. My name is Brenda Martin. I’m the farm store manager at Panola Orchard. I read your post about this past weekend. I want to assure you that none of my employees would ever say anything to anyone about arriving at 4 to pick. I’m very confident that it was no one that works here. 1. We are easily identified by wearing Staff shirts. 2. I’m very selective about who I hire and I have high expectations that they are aware of 3. My employees don’t think anything of customers arriving up to the time of 4:30 as this happens every day so no one would ever think anything of that or think anything of it and would certainly not criticize it. 4. I only had 2 employees working outside. One was a girl at the tent and the other was a man assisting customers. I’m sorry that your experience was anything short of amazing. We work really hard and we strive for perfection every single day. I really wish you would have contacted us directly for a chance to explain prior to the post. It concerns me that people may think that one of our employees said this when they did not. I certainly hope you come back and have a great experience. Thank you for visiting our farm.
Brenda,
My deepest of apologies for tagging the orchard in my comment yesterday evening on Facebook. Not once did I think about it possibly making someone think a negative thing about the Orchard. When I read your comment this morning, I realized that was what could happen.
I have since untagged the orchard and just put a place in Texas.
We have always had an amazing experience there. In April of 2018 we saw a sign on our way back home that strawberries were ready to be picked. We have since stopped multiple times to pick strawberries, blackberries, and peaches. My husband always sees the sign and asks me to check Facebook to see if you’re open and if picking is available.
We absolutely love the orchard, and we had a wonderful time on Sunday evening. We even grabbed one of our favorites … homemade ice cream!!! I was carsick when we arrived. So I wasn’t my normal chipper self.
The entire PURPOSE of my post was related to reflections of MY OWN wrong actions in how I responded to a well meaning lady because I misinterpreted her advice and let it anger me instead of simply saying thank you. Our lesson in our Grow Class the prior week had been on how God uses us as instruments to help others change, and He uses others as instruments to help us change. We often freely give advice out of love, but when it is given back to us, we often get angry and take it out of context.
In my actual post, I didn’t name the orchard. I always try to leave the names of businesses out of my posts (unless it’s a travel related blog with advice on where to stop). But when my friend asked on Facebook where we picked because he wondered if it was at his friend’s orchard, I off the cuff tagged y’all. I did it because I love the orchard. But I recognize it was better to simply say “in Texas”, so I have corrected that.
My deepest of apologies for any hard feelings. My intent in the post was to get people to reflect on how they respond when people tell them things they don’t want to hear, no matter how trivial.
Thanks for running a great orchard. No doubt we will be back in the future if we are passing through and see the sign during opening hours.
P.S. We actually found over half of what we picked in the first strawberry field as we walked to the second one. There were still plenty of strawberries everywhere, even for the end of a busy weekend!! 😊