Good morning!

Blogging has been on the back burner lately.  To be honest it has been on the back burner for at least the past crazy, challenging year.  Time to get a little caught up on what has been going on.

The farm

It was a snowy winter and one of the wettest springs I can recall.  I know that some places set records and if we didn't here we must have come close.  Everything went in late.  Some farm fields in the area didn't get planted and I doubt that many of those that did will have good crop yields.  My garden went in late and I still have a few things in pots yet that I might still try to get in the ground.  I had a nice amount of asparagus that I was able to harvest this spring.  I have had a few green peppers and am still waiting on tomatoes.  Something ate my beans and edamame so I will try replanting them.  It is raining today so that may be a Friday project.  I am working on adding some flowers to attract pollinators.  I have expanded the flower bed near the gate and added a few new things to the hitching post garden.  Last fall I had some arborist wood chips delivered and I am in the process of mulching with them.  My birthday hydrangeas from last year came back and are doing well.  I am growing wedding flowers for my daughter's late August wedding.  I am growing two varieties of eucalyptus and two red flowers, an amaranth and a celosa.  It is a fun project. 

The orchard

I planted two new peach trees last year and they did not survive the winter.  The new apple tree is doing well and the older apple trees have some fruit coming.  Something is eating the leaves.  I have never done a spray program but may have to start.  The pears and plums are not getting any fruit.  They are young trees and the pears have not had a fruit crop previously.  One of the plums had fruit last year but none this year.  My elderberry bushes did not leaf out on the established parts but there is new growth surrounding the dead looking parts.  They are currently flowering so I am hoping to get berries.  Although not a part of the orchard the other tree that is struggling is my river birch.  It barely got any leaves.  In researching why this 25 year old tree would all of a sudden struggle it sounds like the wet spring might be the culprit.  I am hoping that it will come back next year. 

The vineyard

Last year I planted 12 grape vines.  I have four grape vines on an arbor but they are hard to manage so I decided to add some more and grow them like a traditional vineyard.  This year I need to install the posts and wires and start training them.  The three rows flank my second driveway with two rows on one side and one on the other.  They look a little silly right now, three very short rows but I am planning to add to them next year.  I want to add a pollinator garden near the new grapes as well.  I am thinking at the corner of the pasture where the corner fence bracing is falling down.   

The herd

This year in late winter/early spring we lost two goats and our one sheep.  The goats were pretty young and I am not sure what happened to them, they died only about a week apart.  The sheep was very old so not a surprise.  Our two Great Pyrenees, Elke and Libby remain.  Libby is the new puppy that was added last spring.  When she came to live at the farm we had Codie and Elke.  Codie was an old dog and Elke was a young adult.  We lost Codie in the summer and I think that she was a stabilizing influence as after her death the two young dogs started to leave the yard and run.  Efforts to keep them home were not successful and although Elke always came home Libby did not and after the third (and scariest) episode she spent a few months with my daughter and son-in-law in the Twin Cities where they have a fenced yard.  She is back at the farm where she is a house dog that is only outside when supervised.  My daughter and son-in-law did a fantastic job training her but she cannot be trusted yet to stay home.  She is all grown up, 97 pounds worth, but still has a lot of puppy in her. 

The farmers market

Our small local farmers market is open on Thursday afternoons and Saturday mornings.  Last year I went nearly every Thursday and every Saturday.  It was a tremendous amount of work.  I didn't have a lot of garden produce so I sold baked goods and jellies.  Each market day required a good part of a day of baking in preparation and the market schedule meant that four days in a row each week my time was occupied with the market and other things like mowing and gardening and sleeping were tough to fit in.  This year I am only doing the markets on Thursday afternoons.  I am hoping that is a better fit.  We will see.  I will have to get a few pictures and post about how it is going. 

The garden tour

This year I had a milestone birthday.  Since I am not really the surprise birthday type my kids wanted to do something together as a group to celebrate so what we decided to do was a garden tour.  The Hennepin County Extension/Master Gardeners do a garden tour every year and last weekend we did the tour.  Nine of us toured 10 gardens.  They were generally flower gardens although one was a community garden and a couple incorporated some vegetables.  I came home inspired and hauling a few new plants.  It was a good time.  I didn't take as many photos as I should have and I have yet to sort them.  Perhaps they will get their own blog post at some point. 

The weddings

My daughter and a niece both have late summer weddings this year so we are in bridal shower mode.  The end of June we had a shower for my daughter and the end of July we are having a shower for my niece.  In both cases they are showers put on by a group so the work is shared by many.  The showers will be different.  The first one at a log cabin shelter house in a park.  The second one in a church.  To be totally honest, I didn't take a single picture at my daughter's shower but others in our group did and I will try to post some of their pictures in a later post.  Caitlin's shower gave me a chance to use my vintage china, which was fun.  And since I have the dinner plates for five different patterns out of the dish pantry it seems like a good time to dust the shelves before I put it back so I have stacks of clean dishes that I need to put away yet but I am going to empty off the rest of the dishes and clean and then put them back.  We hauled a lot of stuff to the park but it was so nice.  We didn't use any disposables.  Cloth tablecloths and napkins, stainless silverware, glass punch cups.  We used the bride's vintage decor to decorate the tables.

Hope all are having a good summer.  It is Wednesday and tomorrow is the market.  I better get to my baking.