When Juliette died this spring I lost my motivation to blog. That didn't mean life stopped for us around here, far from it. We had a very busy growing season and our most productive plant sales to date. After a long 5 month break from the blog, I come with an update. It's a long one, but I think it'll give a good idea of what we have been up to.
We sold thousands of plants this spring. We spent hours in the greenhouse every week. Transplanting, watering, and seeding.
We were so busy this year that we had to put in another shelf in the greenhouse.
It wasn't empty long. Kelsi did a significant amount of business in flowers this year. She had that shelf filled before it was even built.
After a few months without our farm dog, we adopted this fella. His name is Finnegan. He is a handful, energetic, and he has a troublemaker in him. On the bright side, he is healthy, happy, and well loved.
This was the greenhouse prior to our warm weather sales. Although we did have a great turnout and we sold more than ever, regrettably this was our last year doing the greenhouse business. Our time input was large. Hours every week. When the hours added were compared to the sales, it is a wash. Not to say that we don't enjoy doing it, but when profit is the driving force it became less enjoyable and more of a pain. So, next year we will go back to where we started. We will grow enough starts for us, and some extras for our gardner friends, but it will be our hobby again.
After the plant sale season was all finished Kelsi and I went on a trip.
We had the opportunity to spend some time in Maui this summer.
It was a good vacation with family.
We still have lots of crazy cats.
I traveled to Israel for a two week study trip.
It was hot, some places greater than 120degrees.
And I got to ride a camel! That's pretty cool in my opinion.
With all that time away, it's a big surprise that we had a garden to come back to.
But we did, and better than ever.
The beans climbed over the 8ft fence, and choked out our chicken windmill.
Finn loved to spend time in the garden.
The chickens are good as usual, eating bugs.
The ducks and geese continue to be loud.
The sunsets over the garden are still beautiful.
There is a cat in that bag of food.
Her name is Lucy, very sweet, and very much a kitten.
Finn went on his first camping trip this summer. He had a pretty good time.
Clouds over our campsite.
Kelsi and her parents competed in a group triathlon.
The sunflower patch brought lots of bees.
The new kitten Lucy spent a lot of time with us in the garden.
Finn took shade under over grown cauliflower leaves.
Onion harvest 2012. 9gallons worth once they were dried and trimmed.
Dori snuck off and hatched some eggs.
She ended up with 4 babies. She is now a thriving full time mother. The babies are almost as big as her, but she still huddles them under her wings nightly in the coop. She loves to bring them down to the garden where they can fit through the fence and range in the garden. None of the other chickens can fit, but the little ones have a good time.
Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes!
We picked pounds and pounds of them, every week.
The tomato plants in the greenhouse grew through the roof again.
We had a good variety this year.
Our last big picking was 53lbs.
Our last big pepper picking was a pretty good yield.
And for the last big news.
We are expecting.
And we are moving. We bought a house on a couple of acres not far from family. We have to move all of our infrastructure from the garden, the greenhouse, fencing, and the chickens. It's a lot of work, but it'll be worth it once we are all settled in. The house is a fixer, and we are going to have to reestablish our garden, build a new coop, and many other projects. So i will have lots of stuff to write about.
Hope you all enjoyed the update and thanks for reading!
