so much happening on the farm so little time to post!

First off thank you to all that have placed your orders for our fall wines! The 2010 wine release has been very successful and the wines have been very well received - If you haven't gotten yours yet drop us a line and we'll ship them off to you!







The garden has been great this year Brian has lead the charge with beautiful beans, winter greens, potatoes and root vegetables among other things... I grew the broccoli, tomatoes, onions and cabbage and herbs and a few other odds and ends...








The animals are all doing well on the fall pastures which are lush and green and full on a second crop of white clover... we have also integrated our goats in with the cows to create a 'flerd' (flock and heard) that cooperatively graze! : )

Brian smoked Don and man is he tasty ! all the fall pork and chicken is safely tucked in the freezer... which is COMPLETELY full so everything else that comes in needs to be dried or canned from here on out...





Hence lots of canning is happening... about 40 Quarts so far and still more tomatoes and apples to go! We're lucky in some ways the grape harvest is so late gives us a chance to fill the larder.








I picked up only a small portion of the apple harvest - more still to go it's a beautiful crop I'm hoping to can apple juice...





all the wood is all stacked!! which was done with a lot of help from Mila who is a lovely young German woman who is staying with us this fall she has been a HUGE help on the farm not to mention a real pleasure to share our days with...







finally some shots of Mr Levi who is growing up beautifully !!


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Till the next post happy fall!! cheers ...

Poor Ronnie - and a VERY full weekend!!

It's kind of amazing how much happens around here when the sun comes out!!



Ronnie lost his manhood this weekend thanks to these tools and Duane - who roped him and then he and Brian held him while I banded him and have him a shot... I'm not sure he's gonna let me near him for quite a while...

In other news Duane and I picked up the new to me cart I got a few weeks back for my boys I need one more piece of harness and we are all set to roll!!! this should be a tom of fun to have around the farm.



Duane and I hung out a bit at his place too - we took some water to a lower pasture and I got to drive his super c - VERY fun tractor to drive : )





This is Duane driving back perusing his 'piece' it's was a spectacular weekend!

Oh also on Friday afternoon we had (HAD being the operative word) some honey bee's (not the ones from our garden) trying to move into a wall - So our friend Davey helped us re-locate them .. this is Brian pulling boards in the wall and then he vacated (as he's alergic to bees!) while Davey and I got the bee's into a box... - no running down the gravel road with a bee in my hair this time.. : )



We got a ton more things into the garden it's finally drying out a bit around here ... yippie!




These are just some gratuitous - shots of the sunshine!!

post wine weekend on the farm

After the Big Holiday weekend we ALL got to enjoy a VERY sunny day Saturday ... my friend Laura (aka bee queen) came out and we spent the day in the garden and then played with the horses as our reward and Brian worked in his shop doing some spring cleaning and enjoyed some wine and jazz that drifted over to the garden where Laura and I worked in the sunshine --- ahh now that's summer... too bad the rain came back in full force.. the good news is it's looking like we are about to get two solid weeks of clear dry weather!! yippee!!






50 new chicks to replace the ones that jsut went to slaughter on Thursday.









We enjoyed super fancy grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch with some of the beautiful raw milk cheese my folks sent us!! Thanks guys what a super nice gift!...

This weekends harvest

Got into the garden and got the rest of the tomatoes - still have to finish the borlotti beans but we are almost all in!! then to finish canning - then I get to REST maybe : )



a few more apples to can if I have the gumption - got about 5 trees more in that back field - we'll see if I get there...




The beautiful Borlotti beans


- the girls got a bits that where too far gone : )


and the winter crops are doing well - beats, parsnips, kale, cabbage, spinach, turnips, arugula -- all those cold weather dark green ones... : )

I love my new garden site!!

This year is our most productive garden to date! - I was disparaging of our napa garden and paltry 7 chickens (that ones for you porter) Brian reminded me that with out that time of learning and being inspired on a very tiny scale we wouldn't be here now ... he's so good at seeing the process and me well give me the bottom line baby ... I guess that's why he's a winemaker and I stick the labels on.. : ) at the end of the process...



Brian made some more sausage from our roosters! - less noise more yum : ) It goes really well with our Pinot (which is a big fat tease because it's not released yet - Brian wants to give in a bit more time to -recover from bottling and get the labels glued on - but the release letter will comming very soon!!

June Nancy and the State Fair

Our Friends June and Nancy came to visit - and we made a stop at the state fair to see duane and the crew there - we caught them collecting a blue ribbon with Willie! - and enjoyed the livestock shows -







it was a nice visit with June and Nancy we picked berries, harvested in the garden and made pies and generally just enjoyed big table...