May 7th, 2010
Spring here in Rickreall is wild with birds. We spend many mornings and evenings just marveling at the birds that come to visit us here. We have had literally hundreds of red wing blackbirds all winter. The Western Meadowlark serenades us in the morning. The Rufous hummingbird, Anna hummingbird and the black-chinned hummer are all here fighting over the feeders and doing acrobatics. Evenings on the porch are quite entertaining as we watch dozens of them competing for food and flowers. The yellow headed blackbirds have been quite entertaining with their strange prehistoric cracking koo-koo calls and they are so beautiful! We have clouds of brilliant American goldfinches and today we saw the first black headed gross beak and Western Tanager of the season. Rufous sided Towhees, fat robins, rose finches and white crowned sparrows are all abundant here too.
We also have our flock of 26 very productive egg layers and 20 new baby chicks. We are surrounded by our feathered friends and the days are filled with the songs of all these birds as we work outside with the plants and make our skin care products in the yurt.
Each product is literally infused with bird songs…hence the name of our farm.
Tags: black-chinned hummingbird, NW skin care, winged vibration farm
Posted in Farm Tales
April 15th, 2010
We got a call from Glen today from Applegate excavating in Dallas wanting to come out tomorrow and start moving dirt. He was our amazingly fast and efficient earth mover for the yurt project and we have asked him to help us with our greenhouse project. Ha! As I sit here and write, the rain is pouring loudly on our metal roof and smattering hard against the windows. There is still standing water on our place heading to the “back 40″.
Water is the biggest challenge for us here at Winged Vibration Farm. We have either too much or too little. Planting happens late around here and perennials struggle with all the water. Then when the heat comes we run out of water. The greenhouse will greatly assist in creating another ecosystem that will give us a jump start (and refuge) when the spring rains continue to pour.
Glen will have to hold his horses. It could be another month before we can really get this project going! The greenhouse is here and waiting to be constructed. We are trying hard to be patient.
Tags: greenhouse, planting, rain, seeds, winged vibration farm
Posted in Farm Tales
January 26th, 2010
My friend and neighbor, Karen Farmer stopped by to get some eggs and brought me a miniature bouquet of fresh-picked violets. What a gift! She said that her place has violets running wild in the grass-I had always thought of them as a forest dweller, preferring shady, rich soils. These purple beauties are potent! The whole room is infused with the sweet scent of violets. Violets always remind me of my Grandmother-the scent she chose to wear, her favorite color, and her dainty hand-painted tea cups with violet flowers on them. They are strong and sweet at the same time. I adore their little faces and their heart-shaped leaves.
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Tags: breast cancer, grandmother, violet, violet flower cough syrup
Posted in Plant Speak
January 22nd, 2010
Saturday was such a gorgeous day! We spent most of the day outside-planning where to plant this year’s addition of fruit trees. Last fall we finally got our dream cider press, made locally by Correll Cider Presses. We ordered the flagship model and waited over a year for the hand made beauty to be ready to pick up. Unfortunately, 2009 was a terrible year for apples in our little hamlet-maybe it was too wet and cold in the spring for bees-or maybe just an alternate year. Nevertheless, we had a press and not many apples. We juiced our Asian pears and our grapes and dreamed of next year. We are adding 5 more apple trees to the line up, along with 3 European pears, 3 mulberries, more blueberries, currants, serviceberries and some NW natives-all from Burnt Ridge Nursery. We love the choices that they offer, they are certified organic, and their trees are vigorous and very reasonably priced. Plus, I spent 3 years as an intern there-so they have a soft spot in my heart.
While pruning grapes, we saw the first male black-chinned hummingbird of the season! He didn’t seem phased by us a bit and allowed us to get a really close look at his beautiful gorgette while chirping loudly. I also noticed that our resident American goldfinches are starting to turn more golden. Could it be true? It would seem that birds are telling us that spring is right around the corner! Yippee!
Tags: apples, black-chinned hummingbird, burnt ridge nursery, correll cider press
Posted in Farm Tales
