My little business...

 

The reasons I get up and go to work...

• To pay for my girls collage eduction
• To buy that kick-ass Dyson vacuum I have always admired
• To pay for that last trip to the dentist

Thank you to all of my faithful and loyal customers over the past season.

You came and picked produce to feed your family, share with a neighbor or impress your co-workers.

And I am grateful you picked my farm to visit!

A Little Farm Life

 I picked a few treasures in the garden the other day.

We have had a stretch of dry weather that is going into the record books.

Therefore, my garden is overwhelmed with cherry tomatoes, cucumbers and beans.

But all this dryness means it is dusty.

It has been windy too.

The wind comes from the East, right down the Columbia Gorge.

And into our island.

And this is the view from the Poodle Palace.

The youngest farmer daughter has finely moved in...

and she was offered a job else where today.

What to do... take it or stay?

And look at how our Tug has grown!

He tops the scales at 55 pounds.

He is a big boy!

He still barks at cats and eats apples off the trees.

But we love him.

The view from Mt. Hood

We recently spent the night on Mt. Hood at Silcox Hut with Mr. Farmer's family.

We were celebrating my father in laws 85th birthday.

This first photo is from Silcox Hut looking south at Mt. Jefferson.

A very smokey view as there is a forest fire to the south east of Mt. Jefferson.

 This is Mt. Hood the next morning. 

Beautiful!

Not a cloud in the sky kind of morning.

Our family hiked up to the hut and hiked down from the hut.

Part of the way down, we followed the Pacific Crest Trail.

Beautiful!

And the work continues on the Poodle Palace.

We hope the youngest farmers daughter will be moving in soon.

The house does not smell like dogs any more... yeah!

Every wall upstairs has been washed and painted,

The wood floor has been cleaned and waxed.

    And the carpets have been shampooed.

Doesn't this look wonderful!

I Have Been Quilting

This is a quilt top my mom asked me to quilt on Gene.

The pattern is called Tucson Sunset and can be found here.

My mom will be using on a bed in Arizona, so the pattern is perfect!

This is a close up of the quilting.

The pantograph is called Curly Q and can be found here

I enjoyed working on the quilt.

 I have missed Gene...we need to spend more time together.

And I did a little research into the bag of silver we found in the Poodle Palace.

It can be found on Ebay for $3000.

Do you think the previous owner misses the silver?

Doubt it!

My dad took the Seth Thomas clock we found to a friend of his who repairs clocks.

I am waiting to hear back.

Curious... is the clock valuable too?

Work on the House

A friend asked what we were going to call this house.

I didn't have to think on this too long.

The former owner raised show dogs; poodles to be exact.

And not the small ones; big ones.

So, Poodle Palace it is!

We did manage to take the truck to the dump.

3162 pounds of junk

And I removed and replaced most of the grout in the kitchen,

cleaned the oven, washed the walls, cleaned the basement,

washed the blinds and lined the cabinets with new shelf paper.

The girls have been busy painting their rooms and dreaming of moving in soon.

Mr. Farmer has been clearing the trees and brush from the property.

And he has been shipping pumpkins and squash too.

This is wagons loaded with boxes, waiting to be filled with pumpkins.

I am looking forward to Fall.

 My favorite season!

And Tug has been loving the warm, dry weather.

Here he is, working on his digging skills.

We have been very busy...

We recycled two van loads of just wine bottles.

We have made two trips to Goodwill.

And we took a van load of paper to the recyclers.

Go ahead and say 'this woman has a hoarding problem.'

I found stacks of newspapers from 1996; which is the year she moved into the house.

Mr. Farmer cleaned out the refrigerator and freezer too.

Notice he is wearing a respirator?

The fridge still had food in it and the owner moved out over five months ago!

It smelled so rancid, I could not get close enough to take a photo.

I found this in the freezer.

I know the photo is fuzzy, but the label on these chicken livers says

 'use by 09 23 98.'

WHAT?

This is what we are dealing with. Not pretty! 

We moved one of Mr. Farmer's trucks to the house, 

and we have been loading it with junk, furniture with dog odors and carpet.

Things are starting to look better.

 This is what the garage looked like the day we closed.
(She hoarded toilet tissue, among other things.)

 And this is what the garage looks like now.

All nice and clean. 

We found six dog kennels and two Oriental rugs hiding in the garage.

Plus a mama mouse and her babies.

And this treasure was in the basement.

Made of wire and Poodle hair.

Priceless!

Exterior of the New House

This is the front of the house.

Very plain, a lot of grey paint.

I don't understand people who use grey paint in our area.

People... the sky is grey 10 months out of the year... choose a different color on the color wheel.

This is the river side of the house.

I was standing on the dike looking down onto the house.

I love all the windows!

This is the huge blackberry patch that Mr. Farmer removed today.

A Few Photos of the New House

This is the corner of the living room, looking into the little office area.

The walls are covered with floor to ceiling windows that face the river.

The view is gorgeous!

But first we need to remove some trees along the dike.

Behind the wood stove is a little office area.

Here is the small kitchen with a door to the utility room and the stairs to the basement.

This is the larger of the two bedrooms.

I love the corner windows!

And you can see our farm from these windows too.

This is the smaller of the two bedrooms.

Tiny.

And one photo of the basement... Yuck!

The basement is FULL of JUNK!

Smelly junk.

The previous owner raises large show dogs and has a bit of a hoarding problem.

The basement stinks like dogs.

This is where we will do most of our work.

Starting tomorrow.

The American Dream Is Ours!

We bought a house!

The neighbors house, to be exact.

The house is river front with a view of the Columbia River and four Cascade mountains.

The house is old... like old as dirt.

The house is small... like less than 1000 square feet on the main floor.

And the former owner has a slight hoarding problem.

And we bought it; lock, stock and barrel.

Now the real work begins!

And our little Tug is growing like a weed.

He is gaining about three and a half pounds a week.

We are settling in just fine. 

Although the cats still do not like him.

Maybe because he chases them?

And I hit my foot on the bathroom door last week. 

I think I broke my baby toe.

I hurts and I can't wear shoes.

Which means I have not been on the treadmill.

I have not hoed my 2 acres of blueberries or my u-cut flower patch.

Things are looking wild here.

I hate wearing flip flops.

This is the one!

Meet Tug.

He came to live on the farm on June 21.

Mr. Farmer is happy.

So is Tug.

He is adjusting to farm life. 

And a life with three cats.

He likes to play hard and sleep hard.

And sometimes he shows off his junk.

Be still, my heart...

I think I am in LOVE... with puppies.

One of these little guys is ours!

A very generous friend is giving us a puppy.

A cute chocolate Lab puppy.

Mr. Farmer is lonesome without a dog.

Maybe this one will come live on our farm and be our constant companion.

Or maybe this one...

There are nine puppies in the litter; six males and three females.

We will be bring home a male around Fathers Day.

I can hardly wait!

Finished Quilt and a bonus

I recently finished quilting this top for my sister. 

She allowed me to practice, doing what ever I wanted.

And I did!

I developed new skills as I worked my way across this very large quilt.

Kathy was very surprised at the end result.

 I think that means she liked it.

And this last quilt was on my design wall when the youngest daughter

 was home for a break.

She liked it, so this one will live at her house as soon as I complete the binding.

Ummm... Strawberries

This big boy was very delicious.

I love strawberries. I love Oregon strawberries.

I love warm, from the sun, Oregon strawberries.

My tummy is full of strawberries.

My days of unemployment are coming to an end. Our produce market will be opening up in the next ten days and I will be crazy busy for the next two months. A good crazy busy.

Here are a few of the Farmers Wife Quilt Along blocks I have made. I have completed over 50 blocks... but I still have many more to piece. This will be one of my summer projects. I find humor in a farmer wife piecing a Farmers Wife Quilt. And with regards to the book... I don't know that I would encourage my daughters to marry a farmer. I would, however, encourage them to marry someone with which  they share a sense of humor  and someone who loves their job. VERY IMPORTANT! My Mr. Farmer loves his job! I have never heard him say that he did not want to go to work. I am glad he likes his job, and basically our life style.

It has been a while...

Things that have happened since I last blogged:

• My favorite dog, Cole, passed away

• The youngest Farmers daughter graduated from collage

 

• Completed a few quilts 
• Started a few quilts
• Attended our first University of Montana football game
• Vacationed on the Oregon coast, during that dry and sunny week in December
• Skied in Montana

• Road trip through California, Arizona and Nevada... chasing the sun

• Ate too many pieces of pie that the oldest Farmers daughter bakes  

But now it is mid- May and it is time for me to go back to work on the farm.