Good morning friends, my monthly musings is a little bit tardy this month, but it is August so I hope that I can be forgiven.
July was very full to say the least, and not with just work this year. We started the month with a flurry of weddings. I think there were four weddings in a 7 day period which is more than I usually do, but Shannon and I dug deep and created some beautiful florals. I love that this year has enabled me to use my creative side so much more. As each month passes it reassures me that I have made the right choice in the direction that I am taking my business.
Wedding Flower Set Up Time
At the beginning of July my husband headed home to England to visit his family. He is a teacher so unfortunately our time off work is the polar opposite. He has long, lovely summers off work and I have slower winter months. I have to admit when he is gone it is hard to sail this ship solo, there are so many things to do in the summer it really does take team work to get everything accomplished. A neighbor was have a bit of a clear out of her books and she found one that she said that I would really enjoy. I love reading but it usually takes me forever, I try and read before I fall asleep, by the time I have dropped by bookmark, searched for where I left off, I last probably last 5 minutes and I am asleep. This book I loved and often lasted more than 5 minutes reading it. It is called The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food and Love by Kristin Kimball. A writer from New York City that falls in love with a farmer and moves out to the Lake Champlain area to farm with him. It is a funny, straight from the heart, with all the beauty of farming along with the dirty grit. One paragraph in the book that stood out for me more that any other…”A farm is a manipulative creature. There is no such thing as finished. Work comes in a stream and has no end. There are only things that must be done now and things that can be done later. The threat the farm has got on you, the one that keeps you running from can until can’t, is this: do it now, or some living thing will wilt or suffer or die. It’s blackmail really”.
What I am getting at is that we are a team on the farm. We balance each other out with chores that have to get done and it needs us both to keep it on even keel. I was glad for his return….and the next day after his return, I handed the baton to him and headed to Los Angeles for the weekend to sit on the beach with my kids and rest and recharge.
Sunrise on the farm
July was extremely hot, which meant getting out into the field at sunrise, which is about 5am here. Trying to get as much done as possible before the heat of the day came making it impossible to stay out there any longer. Siesta’s are the way to go…..our old farmhouse becomes like a sauna upstairs in the summer. During the renovation of the farmhouse, one of our best choices was to install a ductless heat pump which includes air-conditioning, I have no idea how we would have coped during these increasingly hot summers. This month has also confirmed that I will never been living anywhere like Arizona or Texas!
The rows of annuals sprang into life in all their glory, I love to walk the fields in the cool of the evening taking in all of the beauty out there, and see what has opened up that day. The dahlias however are on the slow side this year. I learnt something recently, dahlias do not like to grow when the temperature gets over 85 degrees, and honestly in July most days were over this temperature. Growing flowers is definitely a test of patience. You can feed them, water them, give them a nice little pep talk but really it is on their schedule and there is nothing else that you can do but wait and watch.
Some lovelies from the field include the first, long awaited dahlias
My husband has been tinkering away at restoring a 1977 VW Bus over the past couple of years. That includes putting a new Subaru engine in it to make it more reliable and ensuring that we don’t have a tailback of about 20 cars behind us when we take it out. It is finally finished (ish). So we got a farm sitter and and we took two overnight camping trips. Our first trip was with Kelly & Aaron Welk from Ciderpress Lane. They have a little caravan called “Apple”, so off we both trundled with Apple & Betsy the Bus. We don’t go away to far, but so much fun and laughter in that one night, so good for the soul. Apple & Betsy look so cute parked near the massive RV’s that you see now. Hopefully many more adventures in our future, especially as we did not break down on either of the camping trips - always a bonus.
Camping With Apple & Betsy
The sweet peas started wonderfully this year, however the long hot days did not do them any favors. A few days when the temperature was over 90 degrees made the stems shorten considerably. I was only able to provide a few weeks of sweet peas to Town & County Markets but I was able to stagger over the finishing line for my CSA subscribers. I will now let them go to seed and will save them for next year when we will do it all over again.
Sweet Pea Oban Bay in a bud vase by Cactus & Clay Ceramics
The rest of July was spent keeping the weeds under control, which I am happy to say I am almost doing. There is a constant battle with Bind weed (very similar to Morning Glory), thistles and Smart Weed - my nemesis….my old annuals field was overrun with it. I see it creeping into the field I am now working on and now even to my sweet pea patch by our house. I often wonder is it humanly possible to walk the rows of flowers in the evenings and not pull a weed. It does not matter if I am wearing a posh frock after a night out, I will always pull that darn weed before it shatters and launches 100 of its friends into my field.
That has caught you up with most of the goings on around the farm. I hope that next month I will be able to provide you with so many beautiful dahlia stories.
Spend time with your loved ones & enjoy these summer days.
Much love to you.