Happy 2015, all 7 billion+ of you.

Brought my baby Kiwi plants in before the hard frost settled in. I've got another 100 or so seeds waiting to plant in a week. If this cold doesn't hold, my potting soil is frozen hard.

Wishing everyone a happy 2015. Despite all the worrisome things, it is still a glorious world full of wonder and beauty.

Solstice solicitudes.

Wow! Around three quarters of a year since I posted here. Gonna stick a speed tag in my browser and start trying to write here more. Thoroughly fed up with reddit and Twitter, I would feel better shouting into my own echo-y tin can here. Paul McCartney is on the radio and I'm studying neural networks with Geoff Hinton via Coursera. Good stuff, I've worked with neural nets before, way back in the late 80s but so much has changed since then. Fun to stretch my brain a little but for the first time in my life learning something new is tiring. I've literally fallen asleep during several lectures and that should be hard because Geoff is a hoot. His sense of humor is subtle and deep. It's just a bit past the winter solstice and I'd like to wish you each and all a prosperous winter/summer (depending on your equatorial relationship.) a very Merry Christmas and an especially happy new year.

nothing like some time mixing soil in the greenhouse to restore my inner peace. Kinda feeling a little melancholy as I continue on with this years farming operation, suppose I'm missing Dad. But the melons, peppers, and tomatoes are sprouting good under the fluorescent lights in the plant room. Gonna eat my pork salad wrap for lunch then finish planting another tray of bell peppers and some ogen melons. After that the lawn should be dry enough for me to prune on the apples some more. Y'all have a rockin' great late winter day.

2014 underway

Tomato plants are a couple inches tall in the sprout room and the small greenhouse is prepared to receive them tho I still have some clean-up to do in there. Gotta get the seed order out this week, it's getting late with less than a month of winter left. There's been some snow in the hills but we're short of water. Nothing like the catastrophe faced by southern California and still a lot of rainy season left so I'm keeping my fingers crossed it will be enough.

So, so busy

It's still above 95 out there so I've taken a little time after dinner to flop down in the dark, cool basement. The season is finally starting to shape up. All the crops are dialed in so we'll have at least a little of all of our mainline products with at least 2 plantings of each variety. A few weeks ago I was on the verge of despair that we'd ever catch up but in the last week a lot of plants just sort of exploded. Now I'm in a panic to get my tomatoes staked and wired up before they sprawl beyond saving. With all the planting done my schedule has gotten simpler but every hour is still used up with things that should've been done yesterday. Stay cool!

Playing with the 21st century!

Donate Bitcoins Setting up my accounts and stuff to accept bitcoins. If I can talk mom into it we might be accepting these at the stand this year.

Minty wintery delight

Every few years I like to try a new endeavor on the farm. Last year it was beneficial herbs and teas. I even managed to get a tea Camilla which is still doing well. But last year was a pretty tough solo mission for the Guyman and I just barely managed to end up harvesting some miserly little piles and bags of leaf and flower. (nothing federally disapproved of, so don't ask) I was a little disappointed but I know these things aren't one-shots and settled my mind on other things while giving the tea thing a rest.

Just now as I came back from the greenhouse on a whim I stopped at the shelf where I dried my herbs. I gathered a nice bag's worth to half-fill a tea ball. Agastache, small leaf Japanese green tea [leaf and flower], Manuka, and Wintergreen berries. Agastache is sorta like minty catnip and Manuka has a sagey taste tho it's no sage.

YEAH! It's really good. Much of my disappointment has been washed away by this single cup of tea.

I hope your winter day has been surprised with some undisappointing delight too or will be soon. Rock on!

Sun, sun, sun!

Having such a great day. Started out kinda down but once the fog blew off and the sun warmed things up I really started going. Pruned a bunch on the apple trees and worked on cleaning out the pond. If the rain doesn't come too soon I might just get it lined in time to have some water put away for the dry part of spring. Hoping to get the tiller going tomorrow and put in our first row of spring onions, peas and maybe some spinach.

It so bright and warm for a late winter day, it really make me want to roast some hot dogs and marshmallows!

Ice, ice, ice

We've had a bit over a week of hard frost now. Great for killing garden insects but not great for outdoor activity. Our highest daytime temps have been around 36°F. Low nighttime temps have been 20-26.

Sadly I've also hit a patch of 'writers block' with my software design work. So turning my mind to work in the greenhouse and what field work I can get done when the sky melts for a little while.

Winter is always tough but my electric blanket is waiting for me at the end of each day. Keep out of the wind!

Rain, rain, rain

Gotta love it! Been inside so much I've finally had time to write something on here.

Fall cleanup is still majorly under way. Turning to the dusty confines of the basement and the winter greenhouse for places to put stuff as revamping the house for Xmas continues. Will post some pics when we're done decorating the tree.

Hope to get out this week and do some mushroom hunting. Getting a little late for some things like chanterelles but the more exotic characters like bluets might start showing up soon. Seen a lot of boletes and various agaricus in my recent wanderings.

Autumn auguries

teetering on the top of the orchard ladder as the last rays of twilight silhouette branches of the yellow delicious apple tree. Picking apples by feel from the spindly, gnarly, gnobby branches. Yes, autumn is upon us. 

We'll be out of sweet corn for about a week, until the weekend or the 8th or so at the latest. The last field is taking its time getting ripe as the days shorten and the nights cool. 

To fill in the gap we'll have plenty of large, ripe, red tomatoes some beautiful red and yellow delicious apples, sweet green grapes with a golden autumn blush and finally our usual unusual assortment of culinary and beneficial herbs.

Labor Day dalliance

We'll be laboring on this fine Labor Day.

Corn, melon, tomatoes, squash, cukes, grapes, apples, plums, peaches, potatoes, onions and maybe even some green beans in stock today.

I should be out picking corn already but the puppy sleeping on my lap is slowing me down.

Y'all take care and have fun.

Summer grind

My poor, sad, ol' blog has all but withered under Ra's Blazing Eye. Like one of my pumpkins being sucked dry by Coreidae.

Well, your loss has been the cantaloupe's gain. We've begun to harvest some really great melons and this evening I [finally!!] was able to pull in a whole bucket of tomatoes.

So you can understand why I've been so taciturn.

As we switch gears going into the height of summer I'm really hoping I'll have time and tech to take up my old hobby again soon.

Happy Birthday, Mom.

My mom's 75th birthday is today and she'll be celebrating it in Kansas with her brothers and sister. Hope you have a super great time, Mom. You deserve it.

End corruption of our government

A movement is afoot to return control to the American people.

Tough summer day in spring

2nd planting of corn put in today. Boy was it hot! Being a miser with an inflatable swimming pool (thanks Todd & Robin!) full of water for my little lettuce and cabbage plants. I sure hope I don't use it all up before the polywogs get their legs. The big greenhouse has some great looking bean, tomato, cuke, squash, cantaloupe and watermelon plants in the ground. I'll be taking that down in a few weeks when the danger of late frost is officially past and those little plants should boom up into big plants. If we're lucky we'll have production maybe as early as the 1st week of July.

A delightful spring Sunday

what a delightful morning. Rotten night's sleep but a delightful morning. Sparky's asleep in my lap, warm cup of tea at my elbow. I can hear mom snoring and a few roosters still crowing. There's some lovely sunshine out there but even though I've got so much to do I'm not gonna ruin such a peaceful Sunday morning with tiller noises. Oh! now I can hear birds singing in the front yard. Sweet music to you all today.

Surprise! a rainy spring day in Oregon

Just filled the bird feeders and we have quite a flock in the yard.

The greenhouse is filling up quickly with lots of little plants. Hundreds of tomatoes already putting on dark green growth and a big flush of new herbs and interesting flowers. Still waiting on a bundle of new plants to come in; they won't ship until the danger of frost has passed.

Sunday I plugged the next set of mushroom logs with pearl oyster spawn. One more round for the lion's mane mushroom and I'll have my 1st experimental runs going. Also have some cardboard spawn and some delightful sawdust spawn running in my sterile chamber from both oyster and a wild lion's mane I found in fall. The spawn from that wild mushroom is wonderfully aggressive, growing quick & bright white.

Next week I'll start planting the early melons. I'm also hoping the weather will moderate for a few days so I can get the 1st greens field rototilled and the big greenhouse inflated. Once that is up I'll be planting the early garden of summer squash, cukes and tomatoes in there.

Wishing you all vigorous growth and rich soil :)

A great winter day.

Rototilled our 1st two late winter/early spring garden plots this afternoon. Hoozah! Really nice to get the tractor out under the open sky and a bright yellow sun. Mom and I also managed a supply run to Medford this morning. Lunch at Tintin buffet. Just all around a great day. All is lined up to start planting lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, and other garden greens by Monday or so. Hope these late winter days are giving you each and all the same fine treatment.

Late winter frosty

25°F out there this morning. 42 in the greenhouse with 2 heaters running. Have reached about 1000 plants in there, another 400+ seeded in and kept warm in the sprouting room downstairs. I'm planning on trying to inflate the big greenhouse in the next 10 days, start getting it ready for more transplants plus early tomatoes, peppers, squash and cukes. If this sub-freezing junk will go away I'll start prepping soil to put out the greens, lettuces and cabbages.

Sorry it's been so long since my last post, just really busy here. Keep finding your happy place.

Winter struggles

Well, my cold decided to hang around some more & I didn't get the floating row cover down, darn it. Did manage a few baby steps on my job scheduling app though, that was nice. Hope you had a good Tuesday.

Greenhouse complete.

A view through the newly finished door. Mixing a little more soil next as you can tell from all the bags.

Winter wrestle.

I've been having a challenging morning but making a little progress despite the struggle. Alas not on the greenhouse, that'll wait until this afternoon. But cleanup is going well now that equipment is cooperating. A tiny bit of sun is showing through the winter haze.

Greenhouse beginnings

Happy New Year!

Sending us all a fine & fortuitous 2012.

Christmas misfortune

My friend Terrie's sister lost their home & possessions in a house fire Christmas evening. We're all pulling together trying to help them out, if you'd like to participate in the helping, here's a place for coordinating contributions & donations.

And a special thanks from me in advance for even a prayer of help.

Life moves on

Got the 1st leg and rafter of the small greenhouse put up on the back of our house yesterday. 9 more to go plus 2 pieces of polyethylene to top it and 2 ends to cover plus a smattering of slats, stakes and gussets. Tomatoes are growing great in the basement along with some super happy looking cukes and zukes so the greenhouse is becoming a pressing issue.

Xmas behind us, New Year ahead. Lots of work to do real soon & already falling behind on the pruning and spraying of fruit trees. But I wouldn't know how to operate if I wasn't behind schedule :)

Hope life is turning over little treasures for you all.

We've got the unpleasantness of the funeral and the pleasantness of seeing so many wonderful family members behind us now. The hard, cold, icy snap of the last 2 weeks is abating before a stormy night tonight. I'm starting to get my mind back on the work plan. Tomorrow I plant tomatoes, squash, and peppers. Wishing you all a fine late autumn night.

God Speed Johnny

At 3:45pm today our father Johnny Giesbrecht at last set down the burdens of this world and went on to that great adventure which awaits us all. He was surrounded by his loving wife and children and was in no pain. We're all grieving here but you needed to know Johnny to understand why that grief comes with a silver lining. Though dad was often a sombre man he was never one to dwell in grief. His humor and stick-to-it-ness support us even now. Dad often said "Take care of your job & the rest of your life will take care of itself." and with that we should all get back to the business of living.

Late autumn relaxations

another foggy Oregon morning. Aunt Anna & I are enjoying a nice pizza breakfast with hot tea.

Uncle Leo, aunt Margret & uncle Ben left a little early yesterday, uncle Ben wasn't feeling good so they made sure he had plenty of time to rest at the hotel before their flight left this morning.

Dad is resting ok, but he's got the hiccups pretty bad.

It's Sunday, so no work for me today :) Hope y'all enjoy this fine day and find many inspirations.

2011 season end

Hi folks! Just wanted to let everyone know we were throwing in the towel on 2011. It was a great season, we had lots of fun growing great food for you all but business has slowed down too much and we've just got too many chores that need doin' so next year will be even better. Thanks again & God bless you all.

autumn check-in

Busy! Good weather means good work. Mom & I are gonna break routines and run errands in town this evening. Hope fall is treating you well.

Prizes from my niece

My niece is having a giveaway! on her blog "Cooke's Frontier", 3 boxes of cereal & a 25$ Walmart gift card. Check it out & sign up at Cooke's Frontier. Expires in 3 days, on Oct 12th so get on it!

Dad inspecting the gala apple harvest.

Sweet seedless grapes

Today's canning corn orders

Some went out in bags so it wasn't all cased. Lots of happy canners!

Here's our little buddy Sparky enjoying one of his favorite repasts....

Cantaloupe crown pick is upon us!

Gotta go crash into my bed soon, must get up early while dew is still on the melons to pick them and pack them in before they get even 1 degree warmer. It's the crown pick, I'm predicting better than 4 wheel-barrow loads. Sizes are running A-1 to freakin' huge! And just standing over a bag of these things is like intoxicating.

And on that note I'll tottle off to dream land.

Sweet & fragrant !

I'm just astounded by how many large cantaloupe are coming out of the field. Their fragrance fills the stand & even seems to billow a ways out into the breeze where I sit in the shade.

Still a steady trickle of our regular customers finding their way to our new/old location & here's one now!

Summer sales & fun

Cantaloupe continue to come on strong. Saw one of our good regular customers, Randy, at the post office & told him where our new/old location was. He showed up shortly before closing & picked up some corn and 'maters.

GPID sent out the ditchwalker yesterday & hooray! today the water is full and deep. Now it will be interesting to see if we can keep any water into the week. In the meantime, the extra power service is really paying off. We've been able to run a big sprinkler across the top cornfield in just 2 passes. Really soaked the fields too.

Hope these fine summer days are delivering a harvest of fun.

Sweet, sweet melons

Can hardly believe how great the cantaloupe crop is turning out to be. Glowing feedback from everyone who has taken one home & the crown pick is still to come in. Now if the water stress just won't squelch the late season fruit set we'll all be happier. Corn is coming in really nice too, just picked the 1st of the "Incredible" type, a little young but so tender and sweet.

Gotta go now and pick a few more mickey-lee watermelon, sure don't wanna run out.

Y'all have a fun day.

Corn harvest begins

Nice bit of corn coming in, and the cantaloupe are so sweet. Wow! was the stand busy today, the melons sold like crazy.

Lots of familiar faces coming in all day, "rediscovering" us back at our old address in our new location in the same building we used to have down the road. A few new people have also been brought in from our web presence. Which I find very cool, thank you much!

Work will be intense this week as we lean into the beginning harvest-avalanche so posting will be sparse and sporadic.

Here's a heartful of peace for everybody :)

Fresh cantaloupe

Just picked these sweet Oregon beauties!

Sweet and pretty

Yummy plums

Morning chicken cackles

I keep forgetting about the eggs. We are now carrying eggs from my sister-in-laws chickens. Finest quality, these chickens are fed the surplus from our garden so they eat as well as we do. Supply is limited so get here early.

Green beans!

Green bean harvest has begun. Only 5 to 10 pounds a day are becoming available now but we anticipate a much larger harvest as water and labor allow us to increase.

Getting some color

Summer vicissitudes

Whew! what a long, hot day. A little business at the stand, mostly our regular regulars. Now enjoying a banana popsicle while waiting for the delicious smelling B.E.L.T.s mom is making. Today is our last full irrigation day, hope to have the last field finished by midnight. Electricity coming on Tuesday will make watering easier, I might even get a full night's sleep next week!

Have fun & stay alert.

Open for business

Dad's summer job

Here you see dad, my brother & I moving the new power pole for the additional irrigation pump. And the resulting green tag (hooray!)  This was a very stressful job for dad, so glad it's over.

Opening day

We will be opening tomorrow, Wed. August 3rd around 10am. I say around because we'll be around before that :) Cukes, zukes, sweet onions & red taters along with a few other goodies will be in supply.

Sorry I haven't posted more frequently but I'm doing most of the garden work by myself this year due to dad being busy with other stuff & chemo, so I haven't had much time to blog. Add to that the new website for Savage Creek Farm I've been working on & you get the picture. Speaking of pics I'll have a few new up shortly.

Lookin' forward to seeing you all down at the stand. Have fun and stay alert.

We have bean!

Getting closer

Last corn planting for 2011

Cement work

Last week we poured the slab for our new selling location. Here's Amber, Rodger, Todd & Travis finishing up the final troweling. It turned out beautifully. A little more carpentry to put up a couple walls & it'll be done but we might open before then so don't be surprised if you stop by for some squash or a melon & things are still looking a little rough.

Earning the pity of Sisyphus.

Once more I envy Sisyphus, he just had the one job to worry about.
But at least these wonderful cantaloupe are growing so nicely.
Hoping this fine summer day fills you with joy.

Trying to identify this tree.

We thought this was a black walnut for years. Now it has flowered we are sure that isn't correct.

Update: It's Sumac. Soon to be a very short stump.

Blueberries!

Dad on his cubby.

Summer solstice delights

Popsicles are so wonderful on the 1st day of summer.

Cold Spring plantings

We're scrambling to get mounds pulled before the next block of rain blows in. Harvest in the greenhouse has begun with Zukes, cukes & broccoli. So far just enough for friends & family but in a few more weeks we'll have enough to open, although the broccoli will be done by then. We've got 4 fields of corn planted with the 1st 2 out of the ground already. Funny what we heard from the uncles in Mississippi: their corn is tasseling already!

I'm off to work, wishing you a delightful Memorial Day.

1st harvest 2011 !!

We ate the 1st bok-choi out of the greenhouse stir-fried w/ chicken, broccoli, other veggies & sesame-peanut sauce for dinner. So delicious! Gonna have to start selling soon.

hot & cold spring day

It's sooo hot in the greenhouse. Well, so hot anyways, especially when compared with the chilly breeze outside.

Ice on the water buckets this morning but everything in the greenhouse was fine, whew! 1st zucchini should flower in about a week.

a little greenhouse action

the 1st of our pak-choi type chinese cabbage is just about ready to cut, some of the lettuces are getting close too. Gonna have to scramble to get the stand moved and open before the broccoli starts to head. Here's a pic:

long time no blog

An apology to any regular readers I might still have, we've been mighty busy with the greenhouse and garden so it's been hard to find spare time to write. I'm gonna line up the stuff so I can blog from my android phone & then we should see a more regular flow of posts. In the meantime, here's some cuteness to assuage the hurt.

rain delay

Starting to burn our way into our spring planting dates as the rain continues to sludgify every open soil surface. The brief periods of dry coming up in the forecast won't help much either but I'll sure take every hour of open sky I can get.

Nonetheless, it's a beautiful winter day in early spring.

Winter working

It's a rainy day but the work goes on in our big greenhouse. We've spent the last couple days cleaning it out after last year's tomatoes & a brief stint of chickens. Dad tilled and fertilized a bed for our first lettuce and cole crops while I was hauling out debris. We'll probably start planting later today.

Dad's heading into the doctor's shortly to (maybe) get his chemo if his blood tests from yesterday came out ok.

Mt. Fielder is putting on a lovely show of fog and trees this morning while Sparky and I enjoy our morning tea time.

Hoping your day is peaceful and lively.

Signs of things to come

We're putting together one of our last seed orders. Holy Cow! the prices have skyrocketed. This and other expenses will have to be passed on to our customers which will not be well received.

This shows exactly what is happening throughout our economy. And hints at just how bad things can become in a very short time.

Hooray! for Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin.

Keep up the good work Scott, it's time for the reasonable and realistic people to put their foot down and tell the whiners to take a Waaa!mbulence out of town.

It's still winter

I could feel the bony grasp of the ol' hags hand through my moccasins this morning.

Forward thinking

Our Egyptian buddy Sandmonkey has an idea for them that sounds like a good idea for America too! A way to circumvent the gridlock of our Dem-Rep dichotomy.

A call to freedom

A fellow I've followed for about 8 years now, the Egyptian Sandmonkey has posted this extremely moving piece about the situation in Cairo. It is a must read cry to duty and a warning to all those of us who wish to live out from under the thumb of tyranny. Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.

Update: Some a-hole authoritarian has shut down Sandmonkey's site. Until it comes back up, here's the Google Cache of his very fine prose. SM was arrested and beaten after writing this, trying to take medical supplies to his people.

Re:Update: SM has gotten home and seems to be well, hopefully he's resting now. More details on his twitter account. The pigs stole his phone... No offense to actual porcine.

Winter morning reflection

On a lighter note, it's cold and foggy here. The first hole in the sky is shinin' through on Mt Fielder.

Sunny winter day

Today should be round 2 in the fruit tree spraying battle. Really soaked the almond trees yesterday. Apples and pears get it next.

Enjoy this fine day on planet Earth.

Spring's a comin'

Already getting busy with spring anticipation. Also would like to get at least 1 of my software projects finished and released before we get too busy and lose the rain time.

Hope things are sailing smooth for you.

Happy New Year !!

May your 2011 be 1 better than your 2010 ;)

Great Xmas

What a fun, comfortable family Christmas we had. Kept the house warm with a roaring fire while we exchanged presents. Then we packed up a bunch of snacks & some perogas and drove out to see big Sis for the evening.

So now it's easy for me to wish the whole world a Happy New Year too! It's always kinda weird as the last few days play out. We can all use the extra well wishing.

Mid Winter start of planting season

Dad filled a couple of 288 trays yesterday with fresh made soil and I've just about got the plant/sprout room cleaned up. Gotta buy a few seeds but should have early spring greens planted before new year.

I've been having a good time in the dark mornings writing on some software for android apps. Should have my first apps up on Market in a month or so.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Good skygazing to you!

Hooray! Full lunar eclipse tonight! Got my eye on the radar images, looks like there's a clear spot on the back of the next front. Should be through in about 2-3 hours, leaving (maybe) an hour window for viewing right around 10:30. Good sky gazing to you! Thanks Uncle Bob (Amos) for getting me into the stars.

Showery Fall Wind-down

Headin' out to do a little prunin' on the apple trees between rain showers. Mt Fielder is looking quite pretty on this rather temperate late fall day. Hope you're all being productive and/or having fun.

Fall ruminations

Wouldn't you know it, just when I overcome a couple of hurdles and start to make a little progress on my software endeavors, the rain goes ahead and moves out. Darn! good weather means outdoors work.

Not that we were totally sedentary in the rain. Yesterday Dad and I dug a trench in the big greenhouse to drain one of the air inlets and then we fenced an area in which to slaughter the hogs. <-How's that for not leaving a preposition at the end? Also set up a tarp cover for if it's raining, probably the reason it stopped all butterfly effect and stuff.

So we'll probably kill the hogs this weekend sometimes, not sure if I should post pics of that.... probably not a good idea.

Hope y'all are enjoying the fall wind-down.

Cooke's Frontier: Virtual Cookie Exchange on the Frontier!

Here's a neat-o chance to win some Xmas gingerbread goodness from my niece! Give it a whirl. Deadline is tonight at mid-night. Sorry about the late notice.

Cooke's Frontier: Virtual Cookie Exchange on the Frontier!

Red Alert Klaxon's a'ringin'

Well, the United States government is taking a swipe at having total controlling power of its citizens food supply. Check it out here. Senate Bill 510 currently in line for a vote in the next 50 days or so will hand enormous power over to the government's bureaucracy. It will allow the imposition of extra-judicial punishments (i.e. without recourse to either judge or jury) on citizens. It will create a new class of criminals from one group of innocent people.

fall recovery

Getting our fall legs back under us after the colds & closing. Also had my laptop die on me so that complicated things for a bit. Finally knuckled under and bought a new HP presario which I got pretty cheap on sale. So far it's quite nice. Still, even cheap it cost me more money than I could really afford. Gonna have to hunt me up some winter software work or design some sellable apps.

Anyways, still a lot of clean-up to do in the fields, harvest a last little bit of winter squash, maybe help Bro butcher a couple of hogs.

It sure has been a lovely fall, lots of good color.

fall slowness

Been fighting an intermittent head/chest cold for several weeks now. Sort of comes and goes with fits of coughing and spurious fevers.

Add to that the rains, short days and post-sales-season let down and you get some major slowness going on around here. Just doing a few "baby step" things each day, catching up on reading, email etc. Making plans to spend some of my time writing some software ("apps") for android. Have all the software, sdks and all that downloaded just need to buy an android phone now for testing. Got my eye on an HTC phone.

Y'all take care and enjoy the fall colors.

Relief

Feeling lots better. Still a little coughy, congested and feverish at times but so, so much better than 48 hours ago. Nice to get most of a good nights sleep. Was also blessed to dodge the rain while picking corn and punkins this morning. Y'all have a Happy Halloween.

headcold

I am experiencing a fierce head cold. Fever, sore throat, cough, nausea the whole 9 yards. Better today than last night, hope it's a short one. Wash your hands, cover your mouth and avoid sweets!

Jack Frost stay the heck away!

A chance of frost tonight is threatening to end our season early. Considering how short a season we had on the other (spring) end I'm really hoping this one misses us.

Tomatoes!

Finally! Tomatoes! Dad, Robin and Amber got all medieval on the tomato patch and we finally had a big display of tomatoes in the stand all day.

cold summer & fall, slow business

It's been one of the toughest summers we've had in a long time. Just way to cold, lots of things not producing well. Very little summer squash, cucumbers and tomatoes are just finally starting to ripen, almost 2 months of lost sales late.

It has been a good watermelon and sweet corn year though. Some of the biggest cobs we've seen in decades. The grapes are doing well also. Although it won't come out ahead at least something is doing well.

The weird part is how slow the traffic is. I'd guess there's 20% less tires on the road just in front of our stand. And people coming in are spending less too.

Despite it all, there's still nothing I'd rather do. Keep on keepin' on.

the day before

Another fairly cool day. Still few tomatoes. Fragments of thought skittering around in everyone's head at the stand it seemed. Dad and I couldn't do math and our customers were behaving stranger than unusual. A lovely day, all-in-all. Be well.

Tuesday overcast

Nice cool morning. Lots of melons to pick today. Still waiting on the 'maters. Have a good'n.

Rockin' day at the stand

Had one of those top ten awesome closing hours. Was selling watermelon like crazy! All the people coming by were in a super mood, very happy with what they were buying and full of energy. Probably the cool weather and beautiful skies.

Speaking of skies, on the way home there was a huge, glorious rainbow circle broken by bands of virga hanging above our driveway. It made me feel so glad to have been on this earth long enough to see such a thing and to know enough to appreciate its beauty and rareness.

Intending to you that life gives you a moment to love the beauty and wonder surrounding you.

Stormy turnings

Want to apologies to any of my late day customers. Had to dive out early because of this big ugly storm that is blowing by. Some pretty gnarly rain and lightning drove me off to take care of jobs that had to be taken care of before being outside became too dangerous, slippery and wet.

Anyways, if the "H" stuff doesn't pound my crops and the rain doesn't split too many tomatoes and melons we'll be back in good stock during the next couple days. Thanks for your patience and keep up the good spirits.

Pizza & Root Beer

Wow! Almost a whole week since my last post. Been real busy picking corn and melons. Today was a slow day at the stand, too short on tomatoes. The cold spring and early summer has really cut into productivity.

Pizza & Root Beer for dinner, gonna crash early in hopes of having some energy for tasks tomorrow morning.

Wishing you happiness and comfort.

A lovely Sunday morn

Finally got a couple hours of good sleep this morning. Funny how much better everything is when you're not exhausted.

Our little dog, Sparky, got sick 2 days ago, throwing up blood no less. So we ran him to the vet who said he might have cut his insides on some grass he ate & we left him there overnight. He seems fine now but we're still touchy about him and have to struggle with a different routine for another day or two until we're sure he's ok. Plus we've got to give him antibiotics and another medicine for a couple weeks.

Corn harvest begins Monday so that'll be another routine change. Kinda weird after the long pre-harvest season it seems like starting this is actually winding down when actually we've still got a lot of picking ahead of us.

Wishing you all a day with small wonders and large joys.

slow day but tiring

Had a decent Saturday. Not terrible busy at the stand. Got our puppy back from the vet, (thanks for looking out for him, Ellen.) he's a bit subdued but we're all happier now, he had us so worried. Now for a little actual weekend relaxation. Everybody be well & happy.

TGIF business

Just about to head out to open up the stand. Way too little sleep last night. Cukes, squash, onions, taters, tomatoes and golden sweet melons all on deck this morning. Happy TGIF.

Weekend shadow

Preparing myself mentally for another couple days of being open this weekend. Corn will begin harvest Monday or so, 90% likelihood. We've harvested the first few golden sweet asian melons so those should be on base for this weekend.

Hope life is bringing you all many wonderful moments.

business Saturday

Taking a short break after picking squash and cukes. Dad & Todd picked tomatoes. Heading to the stand shortly, gotta be open before 10. Happy Saturday everybody!