I HAVE BEEN GONE TOO LONG!!! OUR FARM,CLASSES AND FLOWERS ARE ALIVE AND WELL

What can I say, it has been just way too long since I have posted anything on my blog.  I was looking at another flower website the other day and it had a link to a "blog", I got excited and clicked on it hoping to see and learn something new. When I got there, the last one posted by that person was December, 2017.  I was so bummed, I thought why have a link if you don't post.  Then I had a guilt moment that I haven't posted either and  just as bad. Where does the time go.

So here I am, from our small farm, Windmill Farm in the beautiful northern California town called Gridley, in case you forgot.  We have our soil tested every other year and it keeps coming up, the most perfect, the soils that everyone trys to have, we have it right here, where you put something in the ground and it just takes off.  Unfortunately, the weeds love the soil too.

 Busy flower season August and September.  Here are some highlights:

We had a few fun and different classes here at the farm too.  Frank made re-cycled pallet wood into round clock faces.  We had a class where the participants painted their own clock face, stenciled the numbers, installed the clock workings and went home with their own personalized wooden clock.

I completed a few knitting and crocheting projects along the way.

 And our fall pumpkin selling season started while I was away from my blog readers.

We had some school kids visit the farm but way too many photos already here, so promise to come back sooner next time to show you that fun day.  Please check us out on our Instagram account, I post every day there: windmillfarmofgridley.  And of course, Facebook-Paula Carli and also Windmill Farm.

The weather has been perfect, in the high 70s to low 80s with no rain in site. We do need the rain, but this helps us to get the fields cleaned up and our sheds cleaned and tractors ready for their winter rests.

Talk to you soon!!!

MSS ANNIE ON GATOR PATROL

MSS BELLA ON NAP DUTY

CATCH UP-FLOWERS, NEW BARN DOORS, Bad Stone Fruit Year

Can't believe it has been so long since we have talked. I kept meaning to let you know what is happening here at Windmill Farm but just didn't get it together.

So in the month of June and July, we have been planting, weeding, watering, mowing.  All that is for sure but then, the heat started up and has not let up at all.

Good News is that Frank built me some new barn doors for my sorting shed/flower design building.  It was open on 2 sides for good ventilation, but some days the wind stopped me from working out there.  So we came up with a design and he built them.  I painted them and Frank installed them.  They are 10 Feet by 8 feet, pretty big doors. They work perfectly!!!.

Bad news is that we had high hopes for a good stone fruit year, but it didn't happen.  We can only surmise that the blooms were there, but because of late rains and heavy winds and then high heats, the buds produced very limited numbers of good fruit.  We still have a few peach trees that may give us some cases of peaches, but cherries, nectarines and apricots were a bust.

Thank goodness my flowers have been happy in the heat.  Getting the seeds and plugs in the ground was a chore though as the ground was either too wet, to windy or then, the heat.  But the dahlias have just been my best investment in time and costs of the tubers.

This year I dug up some space next to the green house that I used to grow zinnias and planted rows of dahlias, by color. 

I knew what the flowers were supposed to look like when I ordered them, but when they actually bloom, that is when the joy of gardening happens.

The flower end of our farming business continues to grow as more and more locals know that I have fresh flowers; the word gets out; and the most important business actions-social media.  I feel our flower farming business has a "style", which I describe to people as country garden flowers. 

The arrangements are natural looking; interesting in shapes and sizes of flowers; and the final touches I put on the finished vases are unique and special-and personal to the people who order them. 

I have been doing more and more mini videos on social media, which is hard to do here on blogger, so I will show some photos below of some of finished products that went out in the last few months:

Here are a few more special occation arrangements grown, picked and arranged right here at our Windmill Farm.

And our adorable grand kids came and visited us a bit this summer and helped me pick some glads.  I sure hope not to be gone so long in the future.