Small Wedding Flowers; A Thank You Bouquet and WATERMELON ARE READY!!

Mostly photos today.  I was asked to put together some flowers for a wedding, a client's father who is over 70 years old with the bride being 70.  How cute is that???  The client painted her own containers to use and requested flowers to be blue, white, sunflowers and some green.  Bouquet and boutonniere.

She went on Pinterest and sent me a few example that she was thinking about but gave me full rein to do what I needed to do.  Great client!!

Cut Sunflowers, mostly Teddy Bears.  They have so much character and texture.

 Then I lined up all the jars and filled them with the colors and greenery-pre sunflowers.

The thought they looked pretty good without the sunflowers.

It always seems to me that in nature, everything matches, everything looks good together.  When I look at the flowers, it looks like they can all be blooming together in a flower bed.

The Boutonniere 

The Bouquet

Aren't they the cutest couple??? Love blooms at any age.  It was so moving to see my bouquet in this lovely picture.

The next day, I had a last minute order for 2 bouquets that were going to another client's friends

They picked them up at my self service, roadside stand out front of our house. Saved me a delivery.

And lastly, after planting, weeding, watering, weeding and weeding, the watermelon are ready!!! Crimson Sweets and Sugar Babys.  Perfect names

I hope you come back next week.  A special blog, one that is going to be live on the Field To Vase website at the same time, the flower blog that I write for quarterly.  It will be a somewhat sad one, of reflection of what is happening here in Northern California, now, of hopes and dreams of a season.

Until then.

Drying Figs and Tomatoes; July Flower Orders; Happy Blog Anniversary 6 years!!!

Thank you for coming back to my blog again.  Has been a bit of time, wish I could say we were sitting by a stream listening to the cool water bubble around rocks or fly fishing.  Didn't happen here at Windmill Farm.

The season is exploding, so many peaches on the ground, not enough time to pick all the trees; vegetables turning corner and starting to look like their production season is just about ending; so many tomatoes, I pick every time I go out to garden a case or two.  The fig trees have had lots of fruit this year but have been fighting the birds and the heat.  At least we were able to supply our CSA members with figs and had some extra to try out drying them in our dehydrator.

 I have never been a fig lover but dried, I love them.  I just couldn't figure out what the nutty taste was like when a friend, who begged me for some ate them, told me they tasted like Fig Newtons. She was right.

I had some not so perfect, tomatoes I cut up and dried in my large screen dryer that I leave out in the sun to dry, instead of the electric dehydrator.  I put a little salt and basil on top.  They are fabulous in soups, salads, any type of cooking.  One little dried piece of tomato has a huge amount of packed fresh tomato taste.

 Great thing about drying tomatoes, is I can use my Roma's, which actually are the perfect ones to use; or any size, shape or ripeness of the tomatoes.  They were dried in the sun in 2 days and I was able to sprinkle some on top of our CSA member's boxes as a treat along with the dried figs and fresh figs.

What we hate more than anything on the farm is waste.  It takes so much time and money to get to the point where our crops are producing; people want to purchase our products but sometimes; there just isn't enough time in the day to get everything that needs to be done, done.  Every time I walk or gator past the orchard and see fruit on the ground, it just kills me.  Most people wouldn't give it the time of day, no big deal.  Probably most people wouldn't even eat any fruit that hit the ground.  But I look at every one to see if some part of it can be used to either preserve, dry, or eat fresh.  I have some canner friends that feel the same as I do and are ready to accept a case or too of almost too soft; or maybe not large fruit at a very cheap price.  When you cut it up to make something out of them, it doesn't matter that they weren't the #1 fruit.

Along with our CSA delivery this week, I had several flower orders AND a small wedding flowers to do before Saturday.  Every day was get up early, pick, pack or arrange in a vase; or meet someone at the gate for eggs.  

I looked at my blog the other day and saw my first blog that I wrote was, July, 2009.  Well happy anniversary to my blog today, wow 6 years of writing about our small farm, about growing food; about remodeling our house; about craft ideas; talking about the many classes we have given; our CSA baskets.  I can't believe the time has passed and I feel pretty good about the commitment I made to people who happen to come to our site to see what we are doing; to be inspired possibly; to see what we may be doing next!!!  Happy Anniversary Windmill Farm blog!!!  I just wish more people would make comments, even to say hello.  It always feels like I am talking to myself.

Hope you come back again, and leave a comment sometime!!! Until next time.