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.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Garrison Keillor always begins his Lake Wobegon stories on "Prairie Home Companion" with "It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon.....".  We can very rarely say "It's been a quiet week at Ramsay," and this week has been no exception.

Last week, work continued on the fish pond cobblestone patio, Bobby's crew was here part of one day to finish some trim work on the Grigg barn, internet technicians were here to make changes to wireless service to the Estate House and the Guest Cottage, the lawns and pastures were mowed, and all of Ramsay's hourly workers were busy, including Sherry, Geo, Kyle, and Connie.

The painting crew prepped and painted the old chicken coop (not the temporary one where the hens are now) last week.  The building is just across the farm lane from the Grigg barn, and with its newly cleaned and painted roof and walls, it looks quite elegant in its simplicity and proportions.

We're so pleased that Kevin, Ramsay's master carpenter from last summer, has returned and is applying his skills to re-building/restoring all the shutters on the Estate House, and also to several other smaller projects.

Shutters dismantled for restoration

Kevin removes decades of weathered paint from louvered french doors.

Kevin taking down a shutter for restoration

Kevin replaced the threshold to the Carriage House door.

The July 4th holiday fell on this past Friday, which meant some well-deserved time off for farm workers who had worked many long hours in weather most people wouldn't be caught dead in.  Most work stopped on the farm at Noon on Thursday due to the forecast for severe weather by Noon that day, and which we could see coming up over the mountains, and hear, as thunder rumbled toward us in the late morning.  Thursday afternoon, we received some torrential rain, but the more significant factor was the derecho-type winds that struck the area.  We were fortunate not to lose power at Ramsay, and the farm suffered little damage from the wind.  There were tree limbs down on all the lawns, and clumps of green leaves everywhere, covering the lawns and the vegetable garden like a layer of green mulch.  Stephen and I did the pick-up, as all the maintenance people were gone by then.

Stephen and I hosted a small gathering of friends and family on the lawn at the Farmhouse on the 4th. It was a beautiful day, everyone enjoyed seeing Ramsay's beautiful views, and the chickens made lots of new friends.

One of the most time-consuming and challenging projects this summer has been the installation of additional up-lighting in the formal garden area and around the outdoor fireplace and Guest Cottage lawn.  Much of the work has been done already, but changes are being made to several installations.  In addition this week, the biggest challenge has been undertaken and successfully accomplished:  creating electrical connection to supply lights in the large cast-stone urn in the center of the ellipse in the boxwood garden.  Special tools had to be acquired, and extra manpower solicited in order to move the urn off its base and drill out a core without damaging the urn.  This was completed today and Connie has restored the plantings in and around the base of the urn.

Alterations being made to a previously completed installation

Drilling out a conduit through the urn in the ellipse

The vegetable garden is growing almost as one looks at it, due to the sunny days and either rain or daily watering.  I noticed some mildew on the zucchini earlier this week, and found a large horn worm on one of the largest tomato plants, so while purchasing chicken feed at Countryside Organics in Waynesboro yesterday, I bought an organic spray to kill the mildew and an organic pest-repelling powder to apply to the tomato plants.  The cucumbers continue to produce well, and today there are several red tomatoes on the large plant we bought from Turnip the Beets farm.  The other tomatoes have plenty of green tomatoes on them, but no ripe ones yet.

This evening we are again under a "severe thunderstorm" watch, surrounded by thunder and lightning, and with mountains having disappeared behind curtains of rain.  This is a big contrast to the weather of this past weekend, represented here in a view from the deck of the Farmhouse.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

I was away last week, so wasn't here to witness all the activity at Ramsay first hand, but here's a recap based on Stephen's account and photos.

Work continued on the surround of the fish pond, and Chris from Kennedy Electric was on site to hook up the electrical part of the new filtration system.

Bobby's crew completed their restoration work on the Grigg barn, and John's painting crew was here to complete painting the barn, a section of fence along with the new gate into the barnyard, and the roof of the old chicken coop across the lane from the barn.  David A. completed his work on the cupola of the barn, installing the lightning rod/weather vane on top of the cupola.

Workers were here to replace the ceiling material of the portico of the barn and to paint it once complete.

The vegetable garden is thriving, producing crops that are either ready for harvest already (lettuce, Swiss chard) or are on the small side now and will be ready within a few days (cucumbers, eggplants, peppers).  There are many promising blooms on the squash plants, and many green tomatoes on all the vines.

Kyle, Geo, Sherry and Connie were on site, providing the necessary skills and labor to keep the grounds neat, maintain and improve garden areas, and to keep all the dwellings spotless.

The hens continue to seem happy in their temporary aviary, while plans are underway for a more permanent coop in that area.  They reliably provide four eggs per day, many of which are being given to guests in the Cottage as well as being sent to the main house when residents are here.  The hens also provide help with recycling vegetable and fruit which would ordinarily be discarded.  They love strawberries, grapes, blueberries, and greens of any kind, especially the ones from fresh carrots.