Sunday Leftovers

I used to do an album on facebook called Sunday Leftovers.  It was vases of leftover flowers from our market sales for the week.  Recently I haven't had many flowers that were leftover for me to play around with and enjoy in our house.  Which is REALLY great!  But this week has been very slow for flower sales for our designers and from the farmers' market.  It wasn't just us but all the vendors had a slow day, guess people are on vacation as school just got out for the summer.  Having a few flowers around the house is really nice but having flowers in every room is not so great from a marketing point of view.  

Jane over at SmallButCharming /http://flwrjane-smallbutcharming.blogspot.com/ is hosting flowers in the house today.  Here are a few of the flowers in our house.

My husband challenged me to include some blackberries in one of my arrangements so donning a pair of leather rose gloves, there are leaves and berries of the Himalayan Blackberry in this vase.  Pretty but dangerous, oh the thorns.

Raspberry sherbert is what I think of when I use these flowers together.  Very bright and cheery, good because it has been raining and gloomy so far this summer.

 Odds and ends flowers, not artfully arranged but they brighten up a corner of the kitchen and isn't that what flowers should do for us.

                                                   A vase of the blues........

  So hop over to Jane's house and see her beautiful flowers and all the other great flower people's designs.                                                           

Quotable Sunday 06/24/2012

Making Hay While the Sun is Shining.

While the calendar says we are officially in summer, here in Oregon, summer doesn't really arrived until after the 4th of July.  So when we get a few sunny warm days, the farmers get real busy.  We live on 10 acres of which about seven is left in grass and it needs to be hayed.  Some enterprising young guys ( teens actually) contract to hay our field and all the other small acreages around us.  It is a win-win situation for all of us.  So with the threat of rain starting on this past Friday, the fields were alive with activity.  Here's the pictorial.

The hay was cut a few days earlier, and now they are doing the swirling to it.  It fluffs the grass up and  lines it up in a windrow to make the bales.  Tony is busy on our field rototilling our flower beds for new hoop house to be built later.

                                       Here's the swirly line of hay in a windrow on the right side.

           The first baler of the hay comes in next.  They are still baling hay on the adjacent property.

         Now two balers are working on the hay, while they are picking up the hay on the neighbor' land.

                  The clouds are thickening and it is suppose to rain tonight.  Hurry, hurry....

        This is a mechanical tool that picks the bale up for them, but they are still hand stacking and  some of  the guys are actually bucking the bales up by hand.  Awww... youth.... strong....

The field to the left of us is done and now all the guys are working on our field.  The sun is going down, the rain clouds are building and they are getting close to being done.

 

The shadows are lengthening and it will be dark soon.  They finished after dark by the headlights on the trucks.  About a hour or so later, the rain came. 

  

 

So we need to get our work done while the sun is shining.  Actually we work in the rain too.  It is Oregon after all, if you wait till a sunny day to work, no flowers would ever be planted or picked.

Whan the sunne shinth make hay. Whiche is to say.
Take time whan time cometh, lest time steale away.

John Heywood

1546

Quotable Sunday 06/17/2012

Kindred Spirits

Sunday again.  Mmmmm, What to talk about, mmmm, let's take a walk.   If you have been following us on this blog, we had a super wet snowstorm on the second day of spring.  Trees split, low tunnels collapsed and rose arbors buckled under the weight of roses and snow.  

This is the arbor after the roses were cut down out of it.  That is hog wire that is twisted and mangled and the rose debris is at the base of the gate.  The roses are still alive and this all needs to be fixed.

One of our best apple trees for making applesauce.  There are too many apples so we will be thinning them out.  Wish I could have them all.  Oh well.

                Lots of pears are setting on and we love fresh pears and canned pears in January. 

           The fig tree is loaded with figs, more than we can eat fresh.  Should try making fig jam or newtons.

Got a new sedum bed started.  Great flower fresh or dried.  Not many stems this year but in a couple of years, oh boy!

       Dahlias are budding up.  Maybe a couple of weeks away, if it stays sunny and warm. Fingers crossed.

          First cuts of lilies were this week.  We should have lilies for the rest of the summer.  Hopefully.

Some of the flowers I picked special for making some vases for fellow vendors at our market.  We love it when vendors want to display our flowers and we love trading.

     Just a couple of vases for the house.  Nothing special just like being surrounded by flowers.

Well, that's the tour for now.  We need heat and sunny days to move our summer flowers along.  

The title of this blog is kindred spirits because I met a kindred spirit yesterday.  When I started this blog thing, I didn't know where it would lead or how it would help us with our flower business.  But we have met online many kindred spirits who are doing this flower thing.  There is something so great to know there are others who love flower growing, who are willing to share ideas and help with problems.  You just know a kindred spirit when you can talk about flowers for hours and no one is  ever bored.  Kindred spirits who get excited by all the things you have in common.  And when you finally meet, wow, fun, feel like I know you!   So thank you for stopping by, Kathleen from Erika's Fresh Flowers and Erika from How does my Garden Grows and Grandma Dixie.  It was so nice to meet you all and I look forward to our blog friendship!

"Inside each one of us is a beautiful flower garden.  This is the garden of the soul.  With each lesson we learn, the garden grows.  As we learn together, our individual gardens form a tranquil paradise."
-  Sri Chinmoy

Quotable Sunday  06-10-2012

Flowers 'n' the Rain and Callie's Birthday!

Friday is our big flower cutting day and it was a rainy day.  Well not exactly, it would rain buckets for a few minutes, stop, the sun would come out, flowers would start to dry, and we would have another downpour.  It went on all day, until dark when we were finally done cutting.  Just as we knew it would.  We lucked out, there were no hail storms or lightening.  Just downpours, typical Oregon June weather.  So the flowers had to be processed and dried in the garage.  Not much room for everything.

Snaps, campanula, penstemons, sweet william, stock, delphiniums and more spent time drying off before going to the cooler.  Two people, buckets, dog, and flowers moving around in a garage, trying to stay out of each others road and not knock anything over.  

We managed to get it all in and to the market, where we put together bouquets that went home with happy people.  Yea!  Another good market day!

Today is Callie's Birthday Day!  She is two years old today and a great dog.  Here is a few pictures of our great girl.

                                          This Callie the day we brought her home with us.

                                                           Just a little pup.

                                            This is Callie on her first birthday. No longer a little pup.

                      Favorites things:  Bones, string cheese, peanuts, running, digging, catching chips 

                       and pancakes in the air and butt rubs.

                      Dislikes:  deer and cats.

Her most favorite thing is to hang out with us.  You sit down and she will be at your feet.  Rub her butt and you have a friend for the day.

 

                                      Happy Birthday Callie the Flower Dog.

         "Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole."  ~Roger Caras

Quotable Sunday 06-03-12

All The Lovely Flowers

People often ask if they could come to our farm and see all the lovely flowers.  They imagine acres and acres of blooms blowing in the breeze.  Awwww....... I can see it, a beautiful sea of flowers.....That's not our place.  The beautiful flowers you see are in the farmers' market right on the table or at your feet. There is nothing to see behind the curtain at our farm.  Well, there is.... but not what you think.  There is grass that is growing faster than we can cut between the rows, there are the wild blackberries here and there, the weeds that need to be pulled and there are flowers that need to be planted.  Although the days are getting longer, sometimes there are not enough hours in the day to get it all done.  So if you want to see the lovely flowers, you need to visit us at the farmers' market each Saturday.  

Old fashion Sweet William in so many colors and some with what they call eyes.  Lightly fragrant and very long lasting.

Campanula is just starting for us.  Long sturdy stems with lots of bells.  Purple seems to be first, following with the white and blush pink.

Snapdragons, the variety is Chantilly, which has no snapper to them.  I find them more dainty and sweet than regular snapdragons.  Customers are mixed on them at this point.

                     I love the colors in the mix we planted, soft and creamy looking.

Here we have some new types of  poppies.  We LOVE the colors but we are still working out the post harvest treatment for them.  We flamed these gals( seared the stem ends) and told everyone to give them a try and report back how they performed.  Quite a few test subjects took up the trial.  Who wouldn't, the colors were great.

Lastly, for me,  a few of one of my fragrant roses.  Three big blossoms, that the deer missed.  We have tried fencing, a dog, netting and chasing them off but still our roses get hammered by them.  So we are still trying to figure out how we can deliver some fragrant old garden roses to those who love them and want many more.

                                          "It is the month of June,
                                          The month of leaves and roses,
                                        When pleasant sights salute the eyes
                                         And pleasant scents the noses."
                                 -  Nathaniel Parker Willis, The Month of June