I spent 5 minutes walking around the farm yesterday getting pics. So here is a 5 minute tour of the farm! Go was having a nap by the doggie soaps.


John was working on making a gate for the horses new paddock.


Beaker was supervising everything from one of his favorite locations: underneath a car.


Jake(the boy) was trying to get this ancient and terrifying machine started, while....


Jake (the dog) watched from the nearby shade.


Don, (Donna's dad) was surveying our weed patch.


Future smudge bundles are drying nicely in our drying shed.


The little herb plants (destined for distillaion) are doing their best to grow, but with this crazy weather, it's nearly impossible. They're TINY.


But the crabapples look SPECTACULAR. they're huge!

We've been getting emails about our violet jelly, lately, so I'll answer some of the common questions about it here. :)

1) what does it taste like? Well. it tastes sweet, like regular jelly, with floral overtones, but not as strongly floral as, say, roses.

2) how do I use it? You can use it like any other jelly - on toast, or warm biscuits with butter (MMM). It's beautiful in thumbprint cookies, or delicious on waffles or pancakes or crepes. It can be slightly warmed, and poured over fresh fruit, as a delicious glaze. You can stir it into tea or coffee, as a flavored sweetener. Last but not least, you can use it with cold meats, or on sandwiches of all sorts.

ARGH. STORMS.

We had HUGE storms here last night. I don't know how much it rained, but it seems like it rained for hours. When donna checks her rain gauge, I'll give you an estimate of how much rain we got. But basically, this rainy wet weather is awful for our crops. We're having a horrid year for growing things. Because of the damp spring, we didn't finish our spring planting until July 3rd. (yes, really). None of the plants we put in the ground have actually DIED due to weather, but they are just sort of sitting there, not really growing. It's difficult to watch. (Of course, the weeds are thriving. isn't that always the way?) I'll post some pictures pretty soon, but for now, you can read this July 2008 crop update from Small Potatoes Farm, an organic CSA a few miles from us. They basically get the same weather we do, so you can see how it has affected their crops.

As promised - pictures of the storm damage from last weeks 80-100 MPH straight line winds. This is donna's deck, which basically just disconnected from her house, because of the horrible winds. It was leaning WAY more, but as you can see was propped up on poles, and is in the process of being fixed.

We spent most of Tuesday cutting up huge branches that were downed, and hauling away branches of all sizes into this huge brush pile. it's hard to see the size of it, but it's about 6 feet tall. We'll have a heck of a bonfire when it all dries out.

The neighbors trampoline blew about a half mile away. We found their slide, lawn chairs, and a few kids toys caught in various trees and bushes. Crazy weather!



Sassy adores spending time outdoors. isn't he handsome?
And, now Violet thinks she is a candle, I guess. She is a goofy girl.