Thankful.

Travis & I have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.  We have accomplished a lot (A LOT!) within the past year! 

We...

...went to Houston, TX in January as my {warm!} surprise 30th birthday present from Travis!

...made the trip to Seattle with my mom for Cut Flower Growers' School {& to visit our friend, Lacey!}!

...participated in an awesome event, The Handmade City Spring Art & Craft Fair!

...ran the Boston Marathon!



...got married!

...bought a house with 10 acres of land!

...had a very successful season at The Freight House Farmers' Market thanks to our wonderful customers!

...had a very successful season of wedding work!

...bought our first tractor & tiller!

...got chickens!

...and Travis built them a coop!  

...planted rows of perennials!

...made an appearnace on Paula Sands Live!



...planted 1,000's of spring bulbs!

...planted 50+ flowering shrubs!

...planted about 100 peony roots!

...brought home a new rescue puppy, Kevin!

...still have a very happy, healthy little Olive!  ;)



...bought our first little hoophouse!

                                          Okay...no photo yet...

we still have to get it put together!  :)

...made the trip to Reston, Virginia for the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers' National Conference! (sorry...better photos to come soon!!).

...have many wonderful weddings booked for next season!

...are expecting our first baby this spring!!!

As you can see, we have so much to be thankful for!...and I'm sure there is so much more that I have left out!  In between all of this busyness, we found time to hangout with friends & family...for which we are always thankful!

 

Wishing all of our friends & family a very Happy & Safe Thanksgiving! 

Here, There & Everywhere!

Holy smokes!...I've been slacking on the blogging lately.  We've been up to...A LOT!  Tilling, planting, cleaning, traveling...a little bit of everything!

This coming weekend will bring more of the same.  Travis is off to visit some relatives while I stay home to do wedding design, work at Deere & hopefully get the dahlias dug.  40 yards of compost is arriving tomorrow for the flower rows!  We'll till more 50' rows and get the compost all worked in so we're ready to go with planting next spring.  Travis will be home Saturday night & we'll hopefully take ourselves out on the town for a date!  Sunday morning, Travis is going to pickup our new/used hoophouse!!!  I cannot wait to get it setup, covered and begin planting in it this spring!  It's going to be a great help in extending our growing season!

So...about the wedding design that I'm doing this weekend...I sort of took it on as a favor for a lady that I work with at Deere.  Her daughter was getting married in 3 weeks & then headed to Japan.  I knew that I wouldn't have flowers on October 29th, but I agreed that we could order the flowers.  While the customers have been very kind, I will never, ever, ever...EVER...order flowers again.  The quality is really unbelievable...in a bad way.  I will make them work & it will be a lovely wedding...but when you work all season long with fresh, unchemicalized (is that a word?) flowers, you really develop a standard for what you expect a flower to be.  To me, these are not flowers.  I'm disappointed...and sad.  It's so sad that these dilapidated, scentless, vibrancy-lacking "flowers" are what the average consumer expects flowers to be.  My fresh, local, sustainably grown flower mission has become even stronger with this experience...... 

Anyway...I will save my sad flower ranting for another day.  For now, enjoy a few photos taken before our hard frost...

Routine

I love fall. 

It ranks right up there with spring as one of my favorite seasons.  It just misses the title of favorite, though, due to the fact that it leads into winter {my very least favorite} and it is a bit more routine than spring. 

Sure, spring comes with the typical seeding, planting and a whole lot of hustle & bustle to get everything done that needs to be done, but inevitably never all gets done & somehow everything works out anyway.

  Fall has chores...normal chores...not so much of the excitement that comes with spring.  That's where were are right now...in the routine.  A lot of cleaning, tilling, composting, planting and preparing.  The preparing part is actually a bit more fun this year because I am preparing to go full-time beginning in 2012!  This will be an enormous help and alleviate a lot of the stress that comes with working a full-time job & then coming home to squeeze in as much work as possible for Seeded Earth.  I am crazy excited to dive into more farmers' markets and weddings!   

Olive loves to come help me in the field!

In the midst of routine, there is still much fall beauty to be found...

Kevin says 'hi'!...he's beginning to settle in and become *much* more of a puppy!  I see a portion of our yard being fenced sooner than later!  ;)

Oh, What Fun!

What a busy, busy fun-filled weekend! 

I began prepping for wedding floral on Wednesday night by getting wine bottles sorted & ready to use as vases...some full size & some cut in half.  Flower cutting began on Thursday afternoon with a stop by Miss Effie's to get a milk jug of snapdragons, a few salvia and strawflower.  It's always fun to talk flowers with her!  Then, I made my way home to the flower field to cut as many flowers as I could before darkness set in...earlier and earlier these days!  Friday afternoon was more flower & foliage cutting and then the fun part...design!! 

I always have this vision in my head of how I want things to look...thankfully, Mother Nature & the Flower Gods {they must exist!} were very kind and provided fabulous colors & textures! I really loved how everything for this wedding turned out!

The excitement doesn't stop there!  We had a chance to visit our friends in their new home right after the wedding floral delivery.  The plan was to help them move, but the 2 p.m. delivery and then a 45 min. drive made us a bit too late.  It was great having dinner & laughing with them, though!  

 THEN...on Sunday, we drove 3.5 hours to Niles, IL near Chicago.  Travis & I have talked about getting a large dog to be a friend to Olive & I.  He really likes Bernese Mountain dogs...I just wanted a nice, big dog...one that would be nice to Olive, too.  Out of the blue, I did a search on PetFinder for a dog.  Well...after two weeks of discussing & applying to adopt, we made the trip to Wright Way Rescue to get this little guy!  It was a rough ride.....he gets car sick....but he was happy as could be once we got him home & cleaned up!

His name is Kevin.  ha!  Yep, I know...Kevin.  Travis named him.  We came up with some good names the night before with our friends...Oscar, Tom Selleck (!!), Grover...nope...Travis liked Kevin.  Remember the bird from the Pixar move, 'Up'?  The name reminded me of that silly guy (er...girl) & I did really like that movie.  Kevin it is!  So far {we've only had him home for 19 hours}, he is a really nice, sweet, cuddly dog.  Olive isn't too happy about this new guy stepping on her turf, but I think she's going to be alright.