We are Moving!



We are moving.  No, not away from the farm but we are moving this blog to a new website.  We have spent the past couple of months of winter designing a website.  The designing was done by us, no professionals so please be kind as it was a real learning experience for both of us.  You know how they say that if a couple can hang wallpaper together without harm occurring; well, designing a website is very much like that experience.  Now we can say we have done both and are still together.  The reason for the new website is to streamline the social media aspect of this business.  It is also to make all this stuff much easier to view on a phone.  Since everyone including us is using a phone for everything, (computer, entertainment, etc) everything except for making a phone call; we needed to get with the program and update everything.

All our blog history and comments are available in the new website.  In fact searching for past topics is now much easier with  the new site having a much more powerful search capability. 

We will provide a link to the new site below.  We hope you all will take a look at the new site and hopefully connect up with us there.  We have not be able to find the plugin to move everyone over automatically so you will need to check us out and see if you would like to continue on this journey.  If yes, then connect through the email subscription service  or your RSS feed.  Our new website is called baremtnfarm.com.

If you are tired of us, two bozos; we thank you for your support and we wish you well in the future.

So here's the link and we will see you on the flip side.  Thanks!!!

baremtnfarm.com

As We Were



Jane at Small but Charming has posted a photo request of the way we were.  My contribution is this:

I am 9 years old and am at my grandparents' house for a summer vacation.  My grandpa wanted us to have fun goofing around so he modified a riding lawnmower they had so it would not mow.  He put an old metal tractor seat on the back so my brother and I could ride together and no one had to wait.  The fight to who got to drive still occurred a lot.  It was great fun and went pretty fast. You can see I was an outdoor type girl.  Still liked Barbies/dolls but liked the stuff my brother liked too.  Hot wheels, sports, and playing in the dirt. Guess I was destined  to be a farm girl.

My First Little Anemones

I was able to cut my first anemones, well , my first very small anemones.  Eight whole anemone stems to be exact and they are tiny, only about 7 inches tall.  Got to cut them so they will keep on blooming which works out for Jane's first flowers in the house of 2014.  When I saw her post for flowers, I figured I would pass since I didn't have anything. But lo and behold a few miss firing stems of flowers in the greenhouse and a vase of flowers is created.

The vase contains the tiny anemones, some snapdragons and dianthus that bloomed prematurely in the greenhouse, camellia leaves, dried sedum heads, a few stems of helleborus and twigs with moss. 

                                       Here is the rest of what is flowering on my windowsill.

                                              We are awaiting the rest of these anemone beauties.

 

Check out what other folks are offering at Jane's house.flwrjane-smallbutcharming.blogspot.com

Things are changing!

Just when you think it is the dead of winter and nothing is growing, you would be greatly surprised.  Our anemones and ranunculus are growing despite spending two weeks in temperatures between 0 and 10 degrees.  Spring is coming!

Quotable Sunday 01/05/2014

A New Year, A New Focus

Here we are again at the beginning of a new year with all sorts of plans, schemes and ideas.  We are also thinking back to the past year and evaluating what things were great and what needs to be improved.  We chose a word for the year past and it was "healthy". A small review of how we did, trying to be more healthy.  

For our own personal health, we have been on our very low carb eating plan for over a year. With no slip ups, any cheating and falling off the diet wagon; we feel this new way of eating is now a part of our life.  It has been no piece of cake(oops: kale). There have been times of frustration, hunger and temptation but we feel so much better. It is just so worth it to keep going, as we gain more energy, strength and improved health. Weight is coming off, muscles are slowly coming on and flexibility and balance are improving.  

The health of our little farm is an ongoing process.  In many areas the soil is most definitely improving but other areas need more work.  The quality of our soil is dependent on our continuing to work with nature and provide the minerals, and organic matter that the soil needs to produce our beautiful flowers.  It must stay a habit just like our eating patterns have been ingrained.  We are feeding our  soil quality nutrients as we feed our bodies quality foods. In turn our gardens produce good quality food for us to eat and gorgeous flowers that we are proud to offer.

So as we continue on with "healthy" as an important factor, we are choosing a new word for this year.  The word is "FOCUS".  

There are a million things that any small business owner must keep track of in a given year, season and day. Flower farming seems to have a million or more things that we must be aware of, plan for, schedule and execute.  Sometimes (most of the time) it can be very overwhelming to keep it all straight.  Plans are made, budgets are drafted and schedules are made up; only to be dropped, forgotten and you end up crazily running around trying to get things done. So we are going to focus on what is important, what has to get done and what will help us achieve our dreams.   Yeah, I know, it all is important, has to be done and doing everything is the dream.  As much as we want to, should do, could do, would do and try to keep up with others; we have to stay focused.  Focus on what we do well, can accomplish and makes us happy.  There are a hundred opportunities out there that we would love to be apart of but in the end, we need to focus on those that make sense for us, make us smile and leap outta bed in the morning. We are excited by the opportunities that we are going to pursue and it will take our focus to make them successful.  

So our focus this year is to still work on personal health, good farm health, staying on plan and budget and encouraging local and healthy flowers to all that are interested.  We will be avoiding comparisons of others, sinkholes of time and negative thoughts/feelings.  Focus is "trending" in 2014.

Genuine happiness can only be achieved when we transform our way of life from the unthinking pursuit of pleasure to one committed to enriching our inner lives, when we focus on ‘being more’ rather than simply having more.”   -Daisaku Ikeda

Quotable Sunday 12/29/2013


The Farmers in San Francisco

In the seasons of raising flowers there are not too many days off where we can go many places.  However we like to make the trip to California at least one every other year to see Farmer Tony's family.  They live north of San Francisco in a suburb named Novato in Marin County. 

After a very gorgeous drive down to California, a lovely holiday of food, presents and family, we planned a trip into the city. That is what, San Francisco  is called, "the city"   The plans were to take the ferry from Larkspur to the city, see the Ferry Street Market, go to the Farmers' market there, go to the San Francisco Flower Market, have a lovely lunch at my sister-in-law's favorite restaurant and see the sights. But the plans didn't quite go the way we were hoping.  Here is the story with photos.

 Here we are leaving Larkspur on a beautiful sunny morning.  Meet Farmer Tony's younger sister Vicky.

Gliding past San Quentin prison and Alcatraz, former prison, the day is bright and my excitement is building. I love going to the city and with a new camera we are playing the part of tourists to the hilt.

Coming into the city, we snap a few gorgeous photos of the San Francisco Belle paddleboat and the Coit Tower in the distance.

The Ferry Street Market place, the docks and the beautiful city scape.

Excitedly we leave the ferry and head to the Farmers' market.....which we have been to before on a previous trip but for some reason we can not find this time.  After asking for information we set off to another locale where the market is.

 Bummer #1  Two booths do not make a market.  Turns out that the day after Christmas is not much of a market. Seems everyone is taking this day off.   Loads of tourists are milling around but there is nothing really to see.  So we are checking the phone for directions to the San Francisco Flower Market.  According to Vicky's phone it is walkable but a bit of a hike.  So still smiling, off we go.

Okay, it turns out that this walk is more a endless hike uphill, downhill and cross blocks that seem like miles. It is warm and we are getting tired but determined because I have seen photos of all the beautiful flowers and I so want to see it and share it with Vicky. 

So we walk and walk and walk...stop for a coffee and walk on.  What have I got us into I keep thinking.  But the payoff will be so worth it, gorgeous flowers everywhere.

Finally, the market appears but..... there is nothing there.  Bummer #2

According to the last vendor who was closing up, the market was technically closed the day after Christmas.  He said it was okay to wander around inside so we did, which only continued to bum me out more. A daunting hike to no flowers.

All the vendors I have heard about, followed and dreamed of seeing, were locked up and absent.  Crap, I am thinking, this day is not going as planned, can it get much worse.

So we make the looong hike back to the Ferry Street Market.  We encountered all kinds of people and all kinds of neighborhoods. But finally we were back at the water front, tired and hungry.

Bummer #3 It turns out that the restaurant that Vicky wanted to take us to, was also closed for the day after Christmas.  Three for three....strikeout.  Not the day I had planned.  

The Ferry Street Market turned out to be a lot of fun.  Lots of shops to poke through, lots of things to taste and lots of people having a good time.

So finally spending a bit of time in the bookstore and grabbing another coffee; it was time to take the ferry back home.  While the ride on the ferry took about 40 minutes to go to the city, the ride home took about 25 minutes.  Once we left the pier, we were really booking it on the water.  The wind was cold and the ferry was bouncing along but the sights of the city as we left were so magnificent. That was so fun!

 In the twilight of the evening, the city is gorgeous.  Despite the days' plans going awry, we had a good time.  Lesson learned.....come to California before Christmas and go to the city before the holiday. 
With the Golden Gate Bridge fading in the distance, and the sun setting at the end of a fun day,  San Francisco is wonderful place ....and  we vowed to return to the city when everything is open.

"The Bay Area is so beautiful, I hesitate to preach about heaven while I'm here. "
~Billy Graham

Quotable Sunday 12/22/2013


Winter Solstice

You know when you are sledding down a hill, riding a bike or skiing down a slope; isn't amazing how fast you get to the bottom.  But when you head back up to the top of the hill, it seems so very slow and more difficult than the joy ride down.  The seasons are like that too.  It seems that we get to the shortest day of the year, Winter Solstice, in record time but it is a long, slow time to get to the longest day of the year in June. Maybe it is because of the time of year and the weather.  Here in the Willamette valley, many of the days in winter and early spring are gray, foggy and somewhat gloomy. Time seems to pass so very slowly as we wait for the first wonderful day of spring. Maybe, it is how little we see the sun or how cool and damp it feels.

Nature really doesn't care about this, it just goes about the business of rebirth.  It may not seem like there is anything going on out there in nature but there is.  Seeds, sprouts, shoots and  buds are all watching for the light, the signal, that special moment that tells them to grow.  It is happening out there all around us, no matter the weather.  So today we say  " Happy First Day of Spring!" Maybe not technically but definitely on the road to spring.  

 

The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper

So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive,
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - Listen!!
All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This shortest day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, fest, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!!

 

Quotable Sunday 12/15/2013


A Snow Event!

We live in Oregon, where the old standard joke is: " it rains nine months of the year there!"  Not quite true but some seasons it does feel like that.  We don't get regular snow like many growers so we designed our hoophouse system to protect for the rain with a bit of protection on the beds in the form of Agribon frost blankets.  Every few years we do get an EVENT that makes us all go crazy for fear of snow, driving in snow, freezing temperatures, round the clock newscasts and frozen pipes.  We don't usually get too worked up by the EVENT except for heavy wet snow collapsing our hoophouses and the freezing temperatures for our baby flower plants that went in to the ground in October. This year was an EVENT for us!

We had a snow event which really wasn't too bad, about 6 inches of snow fell. It wasn't the heavy wet variety either and so it wasn't a great deal to remove from the hoophouses.  But the temperatures were really cold and we didn't want the snow frozen on to the plastic.

Dressed in a multitude of layers and armed with a rope pulley system of snow removal plus squeegees, we set out to remove the snow.  In the distance we could hear the neighbor kids having a blast playing in the snow while we worked removing it and all the while it kept snowing.

In my case, I was pulling more snow down on me but I was at least warm but needed ski goggles.  The rope pulley system didn't work and we will need to come up with something for next time.  When we build a couple more hoophouses we will need to be faster with removal.

The squeegee ended up working best but we need a bigger head on the end of our telescoping poles.

Finally everything was cleaned of the snow, we checked all the baby plants to see that they were covered.

                                                           Anemones wrapped up in a couple of blankets.

                                               Ranunculus under a couple of blankets.

We settled in for about 10 days of very very cold temperatures. Nights were in the single digits, one close to zero, the days temperatures in the teens.  We have never tried to grow anemones and ranunculus at these cold of temperatures.  The blankets were buying us a few degrees but we were hoping that the ground in the hoophouses was dry and wouldn't freeze up and killed the babies.  We couldn't remove the blankets to let the light in and so we waited and waited, afraid to look and see the damage.

                      The sun would try and shine and things tried to thaw but mostly just froze up.

Finally the sun came out and the rain came and everything started to melt away. The covers on the beds could be removed and the damage assessed.

Anemones came through like troopers although those ten days will delay them.  So hoping for nicer January temperatures to speed these babies up for blooms on Valentine's Day. Fingers crossed!!

Ranunculus looks a little more ragged but still alive. Some of the outer leaves may be damaged but the crowns still look good. Yay!

The snapdragons and the glads took a beating.  But they were just tests to see if we could get late glads and early snaps.  More snaps are growing in the greenhouse.

                              One busted outdoor pipe, oops forgot that one when winterizing.

   A little snow remained along side the hoophouses for a day or so and then the EVENT was over.  Just hoping that is the last EVENT for this next growing season.  Probably not so but it is nice to think positive thoughts. 


There's one good thing about snow, it makes your lawn look as nice as your neighbor's.  ~Clyde Moore

Quotable Sunday 12/01/2013

What Are We Reading?


 The weather is cold , the days grow shorter, and the outside work slows down a speck.  So finally there is time to spend with our books.  We should be reading all year around but face it, there are only so many hours in a day and  there is always a ton of work that needs to be done; so reading takes a back seat in the bus of things to do.  But as the days slow down, the guilt of spending a few hours reading just doesn't seem so bad and frankly we are still reading for the business, so win/win.  Here is some of the books on our shelf.

We have been buying gardening books for a very long time and there are so many great books we have read.  Being flower farmers, the books that deal with growing flowers have been read over and over.

These are the design books that I have so far.... Each have been perused completely and sit by my chair for convenient research and inspiration.

 These are the books we have read or are reading currently.  So many things we can discover about growing flowers and veggies.

These are the books that Farmer Tony has read. He is currently reading a lot of books on Kindle, mostly about improving the health and tilth of the soil.

These are the current books I am reading.  I need more information on starting seeds more successfully, we are working on propagation and I am learning to become a better photographer.  I too, am reading a few short books on Kindle about successfully using social media (ie: blogs, twitter, facebook, etc) to enhance our business.  There are many books on our wish list for Christmas also so keeping our finger crossed for more goodies. You can find these books at your local independent bookstores or garden centers or check out our library of  books on Amazon using the links on this page.

So use the winter's slow and cold days to catch up on your reading.  In just a week or two we go back to seeding for the 2014 season.  Time to get on the treadmill and do some walking.  Oh, that is another topic for another day.   


"The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination."
— Elizabeth Hardwick