Quotable Sunday 07/01/2012

Its Still Raining....

For the second week in a row, our Saturday Farmers' Market was rainy.  Last week it was just showery but this week it Rained.... its June 30th for pete's sake.  While the rest of the country is so very hot, we are wet. It was warm and humid for us.  I forgot my camera but you would have seen canopies filling with water and massive waterfalls splashing down on people, tables and flowers.  I know the flowers like the rain but the rain kills a market day.  God bless all the people who came out and bought from us drippy farmers.  At the end of the day , everything and I mean everything is now trying to dry out.  The cube van has all 3 canopies drying inside.

                                     All the tablecloths and the banner and our windsocks  are drying inside

I have loads of wet laundry and there is work to be done in the fields but it is raining again.  After being rained on all day, an evening of a nice dinner and warm coffee is planned.  Tomorrow we will be out planting again.  Hopefully not in the rain.

                                                           Whether the weather be fine,
                                                           Whether the weather be not,
                                                           Whether the weather be cold,
                                                           Whether the weather be hot,
                                                           We'll weather the weather,
                                                           Whatever the whether,
                                                           Whether we like it or not
                                                                   ~Author Unknown

 

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

Bouquet Parfait

I am drawn to very bright colors.  I like the pastels but the bold colors are what catch my eye.  Our peonies are starting to bloom and we have many of the soft pinks and the creamy whites but I always go for the hot pink gals.  

The roses are for the fragrance.  The rose, Gertrude Jekyll is an old fashion garden rose that has a wonderful fragrance and a billion swirling petals.  It happens to be hot pink as well.  Got to have a couple of the gals also.

I have to cool this grouping down a bit with some old fashion Sweet William which also is fragrant.  I added another rose, a shrub variety called Bouquet Parfait which is a small blush pink rose that can have so many beautiful blooms at once, it is its own bouquet.  It has a tiny sweet fragrance.

It is all served up in a crystal bowl of my mom's.  It is a remembrance of mom, she would have love this bouquet.   Bouquet Parfait!