Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Activity here on the farm is largely divided into two major components at this point:  restoration/repair and maintenance.  For Stephen, there is the additional job of being the innkeeper for weekend rental guests.

The major restoration/repair projects underway include work on the exterior of the Estate House, with Bobby's crew working on siding and trim and Kevin working on shutters and doors.

The crew replacing the ceiling of the portico of the Grigg barn completed their work last week and the painters were here over the weekend to finish the job.

The stonemasons are in the home stretch with the re-grading of the surround of the fish pond and re-laying the cobblestones.

The carriage was brought back to the farm last week with the new dashboard, top and fenders, made by the buggy shop in Dayton.  The work is beautiful!

Seat cushions yet to be installed...

Geo and Kyle have maintained landscaping by continuing to water trees and gardens, mowing, weeding, and general pick-up and debris-hauling to the burn piles.  Connie has been helping to maintain plantings and flowers in the garden areas around the Estate House and the Cottage.  Sherry has cleaned all the residences, including having the Carriage House ready for guests who arrived today and will be here for a week.  I have done pruning and weeding in the garden, and did the "first day breakfast" shopping for this week's guests earlier today.

The vegetable garden is still doing very well.  We are sharing the bounty of cucumbers with some of the people working here on the farm.  So far, there are very few ripe tomatoes, and the squash look promising, but haven't begun producing yellow squash or zucchini.  The lettuce has done really well, and I have been making salads with our greens along with roasted beets, goat cheese or feta, sliced onion, cucumbers, and vinaigrette dressing, so I can attest to how much better these home-grown greens are than anything we can buy in the stores.

Lettuces and zucchini

Blue Lake green bean plants blooming, blooms soon to be
followed by beans.  These were planted as seeds, as opposed to having
been already started.  It always amazes me how this bounty can grow up
from the tiny seeds we planted just weeks ago.

The hens and the horses are all sleek and happy.  The horses help keep the grass mowed in their paddock, and the hens have enjoyed cleaning up their own organic feed as well as greens and clippings from the gardens.  And I expect there isn't an insect anywhere within the confines of the chicken enclosure.

North Star, Smokey, and (behind Smokey) Toby, all enjoying the
 beautiful, lush grass in the new paddock southwest of the Grigg Barn

We've had several wildlife-related events this week.  I think there are hawks nesting in one of the tall trees along the fence line with Ridgely in the northwest field.  A hawk, which may have been the mother bird, hissed in a very menacing way when the dogs and I walked near the tree last weekend, and rather than flying away, which she would have done ordinarily, she stayed put and tried to warn us away.  I took heed and we gave her a wide berth, not wanting to experience an airborne and angry big predatory bird!

At the other end of the bird size and attitude spectrum, a little mother bird of some sort has made a nest and laid eggs in one of the hanging baskets on the front porch of the Farmhouse.  She is very timid and flies frantically away whenever we or the dogs appear nearby, so we are trying to use the back door now in order not to disturb her any more than is necessary.

Here are a couple of miscellaneous pictures from one of my walks last week:

Blackberries approaching ripeness.

Sunset view west to Ridgely, from the southwest
corner of the estate.

Clover, Queen Anne's Lace, and unknown other wildflowers in the
southwest field.  I learned recently that clover is a legume, which furnishes
protein to grazing animals.