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...

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.