Groundbreaking Week Kickoff!!

1 busy week! Dumplings brother came down from Chicago to lend a helping hand with the farm stand project. Luckily carpentry skills run in the family!!

Cant believe these guys lived to tell about it since a MAJOR heat wave overtook us. Here's a little photo journaling of whats been going on at the farm.
Uncle frank digging the 25 postholes for us. That old telephone pole truck came in real handy!!

Lets just say, wouldn t have wanted to do these by hand!!

Then the decking floor went down.

I would come home for lunch and find another stage of the project completed. Felt guilty being in my cubicle at work in the A/C while these two slaved away!!

Wall #1 up. Exciting times.

Full steam ahead -

These two getting some bonding time - making it happen.

Unloading from another trip to home depot. Notice the camel packs - not sure if they would have made it without those packs strapped to their backs .... 110 heat index!!

Made the guys do a farm pose for me :) look - smiles!!

Dumpling was telling Jeff how to pick up the chicken and jeffs comment was priceless - I never held a chicken before - only in a chicken sandwich. I hope she didnt hear that!

By the last day of the visit, dumpling accidently caught jeffs finger between a board. owwwwee. Notice the different expressions.

This is the point where i can t look too much! The boys worked until it was dark every night, barely able to drag themselves in for dinner.

Came home tonight to see the final look coming up.

The boys got a ton done in just a few days- More to come on the stand progress !

Wonderful Family Flower Day Success!

Free flower day was a big success! We broke ground on the Veggie stand this week and in celebration hosted a free bouquet day in the front field. Lots of families came out to pick flowers and get some great photo opps of their kids in the fields.

Despite the 50-75 people picking, still no dent was made in the flowers! I was actually begging people to pick more before they left lol!

Glad we hosted the day and feel like there is a great opportunity to do some creative marketing for the farm and bed and breakfast with future events.

Some darn-right adorable pics for the day : Field of flowers

Fellow facebooker Grey and her family were out.

How cute is this little guy? Taking a short break from flower picking...

One busy bee - Too cute!

oh boy - Yes it was hot!!

Met some great contacts with the ladies from the 100-mile food challenge. They host a non-profit organization that is all about eating locally grown produce.

Got a special surprise when the writer from our local paper - the Virginian Pilot - came out to check out the farm. Possible story about our eco-friendly wedding sometime in early oct.

Boys were all about picking flowers for their moms!

This picture sums it up- one pretty exciting day!

Mid-July Update

Random Pictures for the week. We were so busy driving back and forth to home depot, focusing on finishing the apartment but its finally done, finished, complete! Phew! Good to get our lives and farm time back. At least we made good use of the days when it was just too hot to go outside.

Did a walk around the front acre where I had planted a bunch of parsley and dill for the black swallowtails. Checked on it and realized they were covered with babies!! Butterflies that visit our flowers stop by to lay their eggs on it - and the resulting caterpillars can reduce a parsley plant down to nubs in a matter of a few days. Here are some caterpillars that will turn into the black butterfly that is commonly seen flittering around in our fields.

Here they are quite hidden in a thicket of parsley. I have them away from the front in hopes of protecting them from the hungry birds. Came back a few days later and couldnt find any of the little guys. Had to do a double take as I realized they had started to change - into yet another stage of camoflage! Wow - Pretty good impression of a leaf! Dumpling said if I hadn't had pointed it out he would not have seen it. Expecting more swallowtails soon. I hope to catch it as it emerges, so I can catch some shots, but that will be pretty hard to do!

The new hens are settling in and have gotten some blue eggs already. "Yum"

Buckwheat is ready to til under. This buckwheat is acting as a "green manure" to fertilize the field. Expecting a delivery of 6,000 sunflower seeds in the mail any day now. Planting that next week, more photos of that step by step process to come.

We had a great July meeting of the tidewater beekeepers association. A master gardener gave a presentation about what to plant for your bees. Seems they are most partial to massive quantities of small flowers. Example, if you let your basil go to flower they will adore that. Alot of herbs have tiny flowers that bees get really excited about, like the mints.

Dumpling was motivated to do some photography and get some videos at the entrance of the hive, here he is checking it out, Camera in tow. I will figure out how to post some videos here soon!

Some up close shots of the entrance.

This shot definetly required the bee suit, lol! Some side views, looks like our house is "beeing " taken over! Very Cool.

I recently learned that 85% of a bees weight, when it returns to the hive, is pollen and nectar.

The girls have been busy.

On a side note, I am drowning in flowers. ! Havent had enough time to even harvest (takes about 3-4 hours minimum to deadhead and cut flowers) so in the last week it has really caught up to me.

Here is me trying to get back on track. Overflowing buckets of petals. Here are some close up shots. Tons of different color variations.

Flowers have gotten alot bigger and better since the first blooms.

More flowers to come!

Reggies Veggie's Stand is on the Way!

I Can tell dumpling is getting excited to start working on the project. Here is the latest sketch. It seems like it will be a good spot...Even our neighbor told us today that he watches people driving by slow to figure out if we are selling something yet. People even stop to ask if we are "pungo blueberries" a few times since they just opened up this weekend. -- No - they are further down the street, but I'm about to peddle alittle cart out in the front to sell some stuff! Hahaha.






Another fun weekend as we got 4 new chickens today! We were contacted by a couple who were were doing some underground urban farming so to speak, and had to move their chickens out to a farm due to a cranky neighbor enforcing some city zoning issues. Luckily through some creative networking they picked our farm to adopt them.





We are introducing them to our new hampshire red girls today, it will be interesting watching them get a pecking order re-established - hopefully no one gets hurt! They brought over a Rhode Island Red, Americana, a mixed breed (beige color one), and a Black Austrolorp - the black one is just like our 15 babies we already have. The Americana lays blue eggs so that will be interesting to mix up our brown egg layers. One big happy family!

We found out that the couple is really into homebrewing too, so we hope to exchange some wine making tips for beekeeping tips in the future - Networking with a farm twist, how fun :)

Butterfly

Found out that the florist really like the Green flowers! Here is a "green envy" zinnia against the backdrop of some purple ones. Its fun to go out and walk through the fields. Every day there are more butterflies coming to visit the garden and now the goldfinches have found our sunflowers -they are a sight to see flying between the sunflower patches. I have planted about 20 plants of dill for the black swallowtails to lay eggs on and they are down to nubs from caterpillars chomping down on them.

More pictures of butterflies - Finally monarchs are here! Noted the first one of the season was spotted June 31st. Its amazing to think these little creatures that weigh only a few ounces fly all the way to mexico, across the gulf! I remember seing some fly along the bay bridge tunnel and being amazed, what a trip!

They lay their eggs on butterfly weed which i have started over 50 plants from seed that are doing so well. Getting ready to plant so they can have some host plants in addition to nectar plants.

On another note, another new farm project is on the way! Doesnt look like much now, but alot went into getting to this point! After jumping tons of hoops with the city of Virginia Beach, 3 inspections, 3 permits, 2 visits from the power company, and lots of expenses and fees later...we finally got our power hooked up for the "Reggie's Veggie's" stand.

Here is dumpling surveying the premises. He has lots of drawings on the future plans and it will be spectacular! It will be a huge construction project so his brother is even making a trip to help complete the buildout later on this month. Thankfully construction skills run in the family...More dumpling in action shots to come!

View from of the house.

Buckets of flowers still pouring in. Actually it takes a good hour or two to harvest our field of flowers. Here is just a sample of what comes in after a visit through a row.

Now that we have the hang of this flower growing thing - vases overflowing with flowers will fill our bed and breakfast during all future summer - thats for sure. I'm getting a taste of what it feels like to be a florist anyway..

Lots of basil to accompany the tomatoes.