Fall Pumpkins, Wedding Flowers

It finally got cooler and our pumpkin harvesting time has begun.  

We picked all the white pumpkins first which will mostly be used in our October 14th Pumpkin and Flower Decorating Class.  

We also picked many small and medium sized pumpkins to sell out at our roadside stand.  The ugly part about this is that the stems on pumpkins have these sharp prickly points all over them so gloves are a must.  

The fields have been so dry and dusty, the pumpkins are dirty too, so each one had to be picked, loaded into the Gator; then unloaded in our sorting shed to be washed.  Then re-loaded up and placed out front at our roadside decorated stand.  I cut up a few smaller ones, put some floral foam and filled with fresh cut flowers to sell at a very reasonable price.

Another event happening at our farm is on October 19th, the Walton Pre-School kids are coming out to spend a few hours with us.  They will be picking their own pumpkins; taking Gator rides; and then doing a little craft project out at our sorting shed.  The kids are ages 3-5 years old so this should be such a fun thing to do.  If anyone locally or nearby is needing any pumpkins, we have them either one or many!!!

Everything is coming up flowers!!!  It is interesting how everyone starts doing the same thing at the same time.  Let me explain.  I may not get a telephone call for my farm fresh chicken eggs for a week or more.  Then in one day, I will get 5 calls just in the morning for as many eggs that I have available.  This last week, I have gotten at least 10 calls from all over California with people looking to buy fresh green olives to cure.  My olives are very small this year so not selling any but do refer them to the few places I know to look for fresh olives.

The same thing happened about a month ago, people started calling to see if our farm could do the flowers for their small weddings, all in OCTOBER and November!!!  

Not the best time to get flowers in a season, but we still have beautiful dahlias, hydrangeas and other flowers so we said YES.  Above are some photos of a flower cuff I made; a bridesmaid bouquet and the boutionerres.

Then we received a telephone call from a local photographer who wanted to know if they could take some high school graduation photos out in our flower gardens.  Of Course!!  

But I did tell her that this is not the best time of year to show the gardens off and especially since we had such a huge wind storm recently.  Honestly, I was afraid to even go back there to look at it, I figured everything would be blown on the ground.  Luckily,, only one row of dahlia plants were slumped over, which I can re-prop back up for at least another couple of weeks until the flower season is completely over.

Maybe it is me, but I have been feeling like baking lately.  I am trying out some recipes to make home made pretzels and hopefully I will be teaching a class sometime in late November or possibly after the 1st of the year.

The best news is, I am wearing a sweat shirt today.  Why is that good news you ask?  Because since June, our area has had the hottest weather anyone can remember.  No day was cooler than in the middle 80 degrees and mostly all summer long it was in the 90s.  I am just happy that it is cool enough to even think about wearing something warmer and not be sweating just walking across the room.  Fall has arrived!!!