The ducklings are hatching! Reports from the incubator: out of 9 eggs, one wasn't viable, one has a pinhole and may not hatch, 4 have hatched and seem to be active and healthy, 3 to go! Plus of course the one lonely egg that Mama duck is still actually sitting on...if it hatches, it will be in the next day or 2.
The Scottsville Farmer's Market Tomato Festival was yesterday - what fun! Over 600 people attended, we had 16 tomato varieties to taste, and several demonstrations - including canning and Fried Green Tomatoes...yum! (late summer may find crispy, cornmeal-crusted fried green tomatoes on breakfast plates - if you are a fan, be sure to ask and I will make them for you!)
Also in Scottsville - coming up on August 9th, the 'Honey Dewdrops' return to Victory Hall. If you are planning a visit, include that show on your itinerary. They won the 'Prairie Home Companion' young artists competition this past year - and they live here!
If you are hoping to come in the fall - October 11 is our Fall Herb Festival, and the Saturday before that is Old Farm Days at Pleasant Grove...about a 15 minute drive, and a great way to spend a fall Saturday.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Well, you wouldn't know it from this - but there is actually a pond for ducks at the edge of the yard in the woods....yet they seem to like being around the chickens and us, too. Mama is the one splashing in the tub...Papa is the brown and white one on guard. It is interesting - we started with a flock of 10 - they dwindled over the summer (there was a fox around for a while) to just these 3. Both females take time on the nest, they both sit at night and the mama gets a turn off her sitting duty a couple times a day. They have laid probably 5 nests - so many would get up to 7 or 8 eggs, and then something would eate every egg in one night. The girls would find another spot, again and again...til finally, they began REALLY sitting on this nest of 7 eggs. In the beginning of this nesting, the ducks would lay an egg, and then visit the nest several hours a day to check and turn the eggs. They would return to the pond or coop at night, after carefully covering the eggs with hay and grass. After witnessing their first several failed attempts, and knowing we had oppossum and skunks around, we decided to collect the eggs when the ducks went in for the evening, and put them back in the morning before the mama's came back to lay again. In this way, we collected 10 fertile eggs that we planned on incubating, and the ducks ended up with 7 to sit on. Well, of our 10, there are 9 that are growing and viable...and the mama ducks have ended up with 2 shiny, hard big beautiful eggs that we hope will hatch for them. (the other 5 were discarded by the mama's over the past 2 weeks) With a little (ok, a lot of) luck, we think the incubated eggs will hatch within a day or so of the other 2, so maybe we will be able to give the duckings to a mama!
Garden, vineyard, baby ducks and baby chicks!
Too much time has passed since I wrote last!! The garden has exploded, the vineyard is FULL and beautiful, and we have ducklings being hatched. What to talk about first??
The garden...We have harvested beautiful romaine, leaf lettuce, beets, kale, collard greens, purple and white onions, garlic!, basil, strawberries, zucchini, yellow squash, snow peas, sugar snap peas, and now we are down to okra, and green beans. We just planted another batch of beets - oh, I forgot the corn! - and carrots, and we have tomatoes (lots of interesting varieties, including brown and white tomatoes), peppers and pumpkins still growing. The garlic is great - our neighbors at Best of What's Around grew LOTS of garlic....Matthew Holt said this is his 7th year I think for this garlic...this is just our first crop here. Every year, if you save and plant the garlic again and again, the bulbs will develop a distinct flavor unique to your yard, garden and soil type...no one else will have exactly the same flavor as their you! We are still of course attending the Scottsville Farmers Market every Saturday morning - this past week was just loaded with great stuff - including a very tasty granola made by a couple of young entrepeneurs...their free samples help their sales I am sure. :)
The vineyard...a little over an acre of Pinot Noir - not the best grape to grow inVirginia to be sure, but the original owners of the inn planted it over 20 years ago, and it still grows strong. We have the pleasure of Gabrielle Rausse as the man to tend the grapes and make our wine - who could ask for better?? The vineyard is gorgeous to stroll in the early morning, and late afternoon, and even in winter it is beautiful. We are planning to take out a few cedars beside the vines that, although they create a beautiful allee', house way too many birds and cast too many shadows. What began as a simple hedgerow 25 years ago is now a border of 30 foot trees - and it is time to remove some. I dream of paths between big hydrangeas and lilacs, that we can clip for flowers to keep in line.
I will post a few pitures in a week or so of our new little baby ducks and chicks -
Come see the glory of summer!
Monday, May 12, 2008
Scottsville Center for Arts and Nature
Almost forgot...the Honey Dewdrops played a benefit for the Scottsville Center for Arts and Nature...WOW! They won the latest 'Prairie Home Companion' competition for musicians...and they were amazing. So were the dancers and friends who performed with them...
The Center is being built on property nearly neighboring ours...trails connecting us are not out of the question - check them out at http://www.scottsvilleartsnature.org
The Center is being built on property nearly neighboring ours...trails connecting us are not out of the question - check them out at http://www.scottsvilleartsnature.org
May flowers already!!
What a glorious spring so far!! Except of course for the tornadoes and nickel-sized hail all round us last week...luckily for our peonies and iris, we didn't see any hail! The grass is growing so fast you can almost watch it...and everything is so GREEN.
Our little town had a meeting of more than a dozen people interested in 'local foodways'. There is a big idea circulating in Charlottesville about a multi-point need for our local food producers...a distribution center, processing/butchering/curing center, educational facilities/community kitchen, etc. We wanted to start to think about how Scottsville - with it's amazing history of agriculture and commerce, and current wealth of empty buildings - could play a role in this 'big picture'. For starters, our new Saturday Farmer's Market is going like mad! 2 weeks open, and it is already VERY strong. LOVE IT! Scottsville has acquired a $100k grant for a permanent farmer's market facility, and has the property set aside (exactly where the current THursday/saturday market is held under the tent). So, some of the discussion participants posed some bigger questions like - 'what is it that we WANT out of the market building?', and 'what role can we play?' We have a couple of great sites that could house 'satellite' distribution centers, or a retail space, or a community kitchen...and LOTS of great people to get involved with this. I would really like to see this happen - and my 'big idea' for High Meadows, as a non-profit garden/market/farm animal educational property as well as inn - could still fit right into this.
Since our gardens are so great, and we DO have a creek that flows into the James and the Chesapeake eventually - maybe our focus could be on JUST the water side of all this...could we show how to have gardens luch and pretty without chemical fertilizers, pesticides, etc. Can we show how to collect and use rainwater efficiently? What about wind/solar power for water pumps, etc. That side of responsible living, in addition to the chickens, goats, and other useful farm animals might make for a very interesting inn, and from Wednesdays through Fridays, maybe useful to local schools. Again, thoughts are still just floating around - nothing has come together yet as a formal 'mission statement' though I am getting closer!
For now, the ducks are happy, we are happy - and getting busier. Our guests continue to be interesting, well-read, informed and well-traveled people...just this weekend we had a couple get engaged in our gazebo, several others attending a wedding at Spring Hill (a 'commune' of sorts...I love the co-housing concept...Cobb Hill in Vermont!), and a couple who were making me drool with envy at their description of their trip to Portugal, in the wine country there and of the views of twinkling town lights over the vineyards that stretched as far as the eye could see in the river valley they were visiting. Which also happened to be in the port region, which I am sure made for some very nice wine drinking....but our conversation still kept bringing my thoughts back to little Scottsville - and the importance of local foods. The most memorable parts of their visit to Portugal was the food - local farmers, local foods, local cheeses and meats - the freshness was totally new for them, and very well-appreciated. Made me remember the beautiful cream from our friend's cow...and that if everyone did just a LITTLE bit to keep the food on their table as close to home as possible, it would make a difference in the big picture. I will continue to enjoy my mangoes in Virginia, of course - but no more store bought chicken eggs, thank goodness!
Our little town had a meeting of more than a dozen people interested in 'local foodways'. There is a big idea circulating in Charlottesville about a multi-point need for our local food producers...a distribution center, processing/butchering/curing center, educational facilities/community kitchen, etc. We wanted to start to think about how Scottsville - with it's amazing history of agriculture and commerce, and current wealth of empty buildings - could play a role in this 'big picture'. For starters, our new Saturday Farmer's Market is going like mad! 2 weeks open, and it is already VERY strong. LOVE IT! Scottsville has acquired a $100k grant for a permanent farmer's market facility, and has the property set aside (exactly where the current THursday/saturday market is held under the tent). So, some of the discussion participants posed some bigger questions like - 'what is it that we WANT out of the market building?', and 'what role can we play?' We have a couple of great sites that could house 'satellite' distribution centers, or a retail space, or a community kitchen...and LOTS of great people to get involved with this. I would really like to see this happen - and my 'big idea' for High Meadows, as a non-profit garden/market/farm animal educational property as well as inn - could still fit right into this.
Since our gardens are so great, and we DO have a creek that flows into the James and the Chesapeake eventually - maybe our focus could be on JUST the water side of all this...could we show how to have gardens luch and pretty without chemical fertilizers, pesticides, etc. Can we show how to collect and use rainwater efficiently? What about wind/solar power for water pumps, etc. That side of responsible living, in addition to the chickens, goats, and other useful farm animals might make for a very interesting inn, and from Wednesdays through Fridays, maybe useful to local schools. Again, thoughts are still just floating around - nothing has come together yet as a formal 'mission statement' though I am getting closer!
For now, the ducks are happy, we are happy - and getting busier. Our guests continue to be interesting, well-read, informed and well-traveled people...just this weekend we had a couple get engaged in our gazebo, several others attending a wedding at Spring Hill (a 'commune' of sorts...I love the co-housing concept...Cobb Hill in Vermont!), and a couple who were making me drool with envy at their description of their trip to Portugal, in the wine country there and of the views of twinkling town lights over the vineyards that stretched as far as the eye could see in the river valley they were visiting. Which also happened to be in the port region, which I am sure made for some very nice wine drinking....but our conversation still kept bringing my thoughts back to little Scottsville - and the importance of local foods. The most memorable parts of their visit to Portugal was the food - local farmers, local foods, local cheeses and meats - the freshness was totally new for them, and very well-appreciated. Made me remember the beautiful cream from our friend's cow...and that if everyone did just a LITTLE bit to keep the food on their table as close to home as possible, it would make a difference in the big picture. I will continue to enjoy my mangoes in Virginia, of course - but no more store bought chicken eggs, thank goodness!
Monday, April 28, 2008
1st Herb Festival
The day could NOT have been better - for our first of what WILL be many,many more spring and fall Herb Festivals. Our vendors were terrific, we had Rowena Morrell (publicher of "In the Kitchen") do a cooking demonstration - and the weather held out until afternoon. We did close a bit early due to the HEAVY storms that came rolling in - but all in all, we had great feedback, and lots of customers. We bought a rainbarrell for the inn (today in this rain, we could use that 1500 gallon underground tank that I am dreaming of), a worm composing bin is on the way, and lots of great tomato, herb and perennial plants. Bill Bonwell (Stony Mountain Nursery) was here - he is such a great source for water gardens - and has given us LOTS of advice for our pond. My favorite goat lady was here (Gail Hobbs-Page of Caromont Farm) with lots of yummy samples, and I met several other people I know I will be running to again for plants!
A word about my current work-in-progress: I am exploring the possibilities of creating a non-profit educational farm/display gardens/exhibit space...and who knows what else...here on our property. There is such a diverse group of VERY active farmers in this area - all with incredible products, of the highest quality - yet I know they are so busy, they can scarcely take the time to give tours, speeches, and educate people like I know they yearn to be able to do. So - since we are used to having visitors, and we love it, why not take this great, central, easy-to-get-to location and use it for the community? I can see school groups coming during the week to tour the wetland area, demonstration dairy animals, chicken house, (maybe even a windmill/turbine?), I can see our inn guests on the weekends having MUCH to look at and explore, I can envision the Herb/Green festivals here on the grounds, maybe a farmstore/ u-pick berry farm, orchards - the list goes on and on. It is a big project - and I am just starting to wrap my head around the possibilities...and also to explore funding, conservation of the property, setting up a non-profit...all the things I know very little about. I think it may be a good direction to head - and it will end up giving the community of Scottsville a piece of their history preserved and taken care of forever - and available to everyone. I would hate to see this place someday just as a private home. It is so beautiful here, Peter & Jae did so much work to get listed on the National Registry of Historic Places...we want that work to be appreciated way into the future!
A word about my current work-in-progress: I am exploring the possibilities of creating a non-profit educational farm/display gardens/exhibit space...and who knows what else...here on our property. There is such a diverse group of VERY active farmers in this area - all with incredible products, of the highest quality - yet I know they are so busy, they can scarcely take the time to give tours, speeches, and educate people like I know they yearn to be able to do. So - since we are used to having visitors, and we love it, why not take this great, central, easy-to-get-to location and use it for the community? I can see school groups coming during the week to tour the wetland area, demonstration dairy animals, chicken house, (maybe even a windmill/turbine?), I can see our inn guests on the weekends having MUCH to look at and explore, I can envision the Herb/Green festivals here on the grounds, maybe a farmstore/ u-pick berry farm, orchards - the list goes on and on. It is a big project - and I am just starting to wrap my head around the possibilities...and also to explore funding, conservation of the property, setting up a non-profit...all the things I know very little about. I think it may be a good direction to head - and it will end up giving the community of Scottsville a piece of their history preserved and taken care of forever - and available to everyone. I would hate to see this place someday just as a private home. It is so beautiful here, Peter & Jae did so much work to get listed on the National Registry of Historic Places...we want that work to be appreciated way into the future!
Monday, April 21, 2008
this weekend...and more
Getting ready for this Saturday - we are having our first - of what we hope will be - annual Spring Herb Festival. So far, considering it's our first attempt at this, it seems like it will be a wonderful day! A good amount of local vendors, lots of people calling and asking for directions and information...I hope we have at least 100 people turn out...in the fall, we'll do another one, focused a bit more on herb/plant/garden crafts - dried stuff I hope, jams, etc.
Also started plans for a 'Locavore Picnic Dinner'...not sure if I should do it on the 4th of July (it is SUCH a fun, classic, small-town day complete with parade and great fireworks over the river) or a day that won't already be loaded with fun...I am an excellent grill cook, and I love to smoke brisket, ribs, etc - AND we have a couple of wonderful local grass-fed beef producers, and of course Polyface farm is close by, and I get free-range chickens starting in May from a neighbor. I am sure the menu will be good - plenty of local wine and beer too! Maybe a table with community specialties? Giovanni is always cooking something wonderful, and Meredith makes an amazing eggplant dish to eat with fresh bread...the more I think about it, the better it sounds.
Also started plans for a 'Locavore Picnic Dinner'...not sure if I should do it on the 4th of July (it is SUCH a fun, classic, small-town day complete with parade and great fireworks over the river) or a day that won't already be loaded with fun...I am an excellent grill cook, and I love to smoke brisket, ribs, etc - AND we have a couple of wonderful local grass-fed beef producers, and of course Polyface farm is close by, and I get free-range chickens starting in May from a neighbor. I am sure the menu will be good - plenty of local wine and beer too! Maybe a table with community specialties? Giovanni is always cooking something wonderful, and Meredith makes an amazing eggplant dish to eat with fresh bread...the more I think about it, the better it sounds.
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