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...

A new love...

We spent our weekend traveling to Wausau, Wisconsin for Travis' cousin's wedding.  We had a great time!...the weather was perfect and we were able to make a quick stop at the Madison Farmers' Market on the way!  I believe the farmers are severely undervaluing their product & shorting themselves!  $5.00 for a large bouquet of flowers?!...how can they make any sort of a profit for their hard work?!

Seriously?...there is no way that they can even be breaking even on these flowers.  I have to tell you, while the flowers were beautiful, I was pretty upset to see this...

A wedding shot with my crazy huge shades!  We had a great time dancing to the 50's & 60's music played by a brass band at the reception!...just my style!   

Guess what was waiting in our garage when we arrived home?!  Our new tractor!!  Travis is in love!

Olive would love to have chicken for dinner...

A few fall photos from the farm...

Lilies that were planted in July...just beginning to bloom!

Now that the tractor is here, I'll be hard at work getting perennials, shrubs, bulbs & peony roots in the ground!....very excited for 2012!