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Approved 12/12/16 OC Board of Adjustment – 10/10/16 Page 42 of 113 Andy Petesch: Mr. Hughes asked a question a little while ago and, just to clarify, he was asking about the 1 order in which you are implementing the different aspects of the farm and the order in which these are 2 presented. You already have chestnuts growing on the farm, is that correct? 3 4 Kara Brewer: That is correct. 5 6 Andy Petesch: And how many trees are currently on the Morrow Mill property? 7 8 Kara Brewer: 36. And then we’re doing 40 more in the spring. 9 10 Andy Petesch: And do you already have bees and apiary on the property? 11 12 Kara Brewer: We do. We have three beehives currently on the property and we’re adding two every spring 13 until we get up to 20. 14 15 Andy Petesch: And you had some test flower beds? 16 17 Kara Brewer: Yes, while we were under construction. 18 19 Andy Petesch: But you’re going to start… And I would ask the Board to turn to tab 15. Could you describe 20 what this is? 21 22 Kara Brewer: Yes, this is just an overview of our farm plan and how we have everything situated. So you 23 can see where the apiary is, where we’re going to have our hives, where we’re putting the chestnut 24 orchard. You can see the barn. Up to the barn there, that’s where our cut flower beds are going to be. Just 25 above the parking area and then off to the side. I want to start growing the flowers to see what does well 26 and what I might want. Also, in that area one of those buildings will be a cooler. Probably a converted 27 shipping container because we will need a lot of cold storage. And there’s cold storage in the barn as well 28 because the chestnuts have to be refrigerated, as do the flowers. 29 30 Andy Petesch: And would you talk about the processing portion of the chestnut business? 31 32 Kara Brewer: Sure. So the way we process the chestnut is we collect them from the field. We have to take 33 them out of the burr, you rinse them off and then you actually have to dip them in a hot water bath at 120 34 degrees for 20 minutes and then you take them back out, you dry them off and you package them up per 35 pound, depending on who you’re giving it to and what your poundage is. So essentially we’d be putting into 36 15-20 pound bundles. 37 38 Susan Halkiotis: The forestry certificate is a very handy thing for people who have over 20 acres of land it 39 can save you a lot of money in taxes. And so I just wondered. I see that the letter came from the N.C. 40 Forest Service on January 25th. Did you apply in January? 41 42 Kara Brewer: It might have been right around there or just before. I think I contacted them maybe a month 43 or two before hand and then it just took a while to get the process started. 44 45 Susan Halkiotis: Does the USDA off similar property tax cut whenever a property is deemed to be 46 farmland? 47 48 Kara Brewer: I’m not 100% sure. I don’t know that. 49