Update From the Garden - 07/08/09

Have we mentioned that we love poppies? This blossom just opened this morning.

Have we mentioned that we also love bee balm? It's just beautiful. We love the name, too.

Daisies, daisies, daisies---incredibly cheerful with their yellow faces and bright white petals.

The peppers are coming along very well---it won't be long before we're enjoying them!
. . . and the tomatoes are coming along quite nicely as well. So far, lots of Stupice and Mexico Midgets.

Friday Fotos :-)

A few new pictures to post. . .

The new little fellow at 3 days old . . . too cute for words! Still nameless, but we're working on it. :-)

There are other babies around the farm, too. . . including this tiny baby Thirteen-Lined Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus tridecemlineatus, in case you're wondering), munching on a dandelion leaf. She's only about an inch wide. :-)

The peonies are blooming! Such beautiful flowers and such a deep pink!

A brand new Miracle!

We're happy to announce the arrival of a Miracle here at Fox Hill Farm....our lovely Heritage Halls The Cat's Meow (Marey) went two weeks early as usual for her and delivered a strapping buckskin Welsh Mountain Pony colt at around 10:00 last night. Sire is Mt. Ridge Yellow Jacket (*Vardra Secret x *Lippens Queen Bee). Marey is a wonderful mother, this fellow is her seventh foal and she turns 14 this year.

At any rate, this boy also has a very pretty blaze and four tall stockings, very similar to Miracle Jack Bee Quick who is now a yearling. I've attached a sleepy baby shot of the new boy taken this morning at 12 hours old.

More photos soon! :-) We're delighted with him!

Rainy Monday. . .

It's a damp and drizzly day in Wisconsin, but rain is exactly what the garden needs, so we're happy to have it. Since the wet weather is keeping us from working outdoors today, it seemed like a good opportunity to post a few pictures from the weekend. . .








Sweepin' up the barn . . .














Daisies against the sky . . .

















Playing with ponies. . .

Blossoming pepper plants!

Spilling the Beans. . .

Well, not exactly "spilling" the beans . . . More like planting them. :-)

In addition to our trusty Empress beans, we also planted four additional varieties of heirloom beans this year, and each bean is so unique that we can't resist sharing pictures of them.














These are "Lazy Housewife." This variety was originally developed in the early 1800s.














These are "Painted Pony," which I (Samantha) selected because of their adorable name, and also because they are the cutest beans I've ever seen. They are speckled like a chestnut pony with the sabino coat pattern, so I'm calling them my "sa-bean-o" beans. ;-)















These are "Pencil Pod Golden Wax" beans; also very unique. We also planted "Royalty Purple Pod" but apparently we didn't get any photos of those beans before we planted them. Oops!

More bean photos as the season progresses!

Updates from the farm

Well . . . quite obviously the busy-ness of summertime has caught up with us, judging by the lack of blog updates around here! However, we've been taking photos of everything we've been doing, so without further ado, here's a visual journey of the last few weeks at Fox Hill Farm . . .



First, the seedlings arrived from Seed Savers Exchange; boxes of heirloom tomatoes and peppers.

As usual, the seedlings were beautiful; healthy and strong.
Unpacking the seedlings took quite a while. . . .

. . . planting them all took even longer. :-)

The strawberries are nearly ready!! We've built hardware-cloth covers for the strawberries beds and have successfully saved them from the ground squirrels. . . so far, anyway. . .

We've planted three different varieties of peas this year; here are the "Golden Sweet" peas. . . this was taken about 10 days ago; they are about three times that size now.

The tomatoes are doing quite well so far; the Stupice and Mexico Midgets have blossoms already. You should see the abundance of chives in the garden this year!


The bees are doing very well; all of the hives are thriving and we have been seeing the "girls" out on the dandelions, in the apple blossoms, and in the chives. In the vegetable garden we also planted zinnias and marigolds to continue attracting the bees up to the garden.

Checking another hive. . .

The bunnies are enjoying the summer weather, too---fun times in their exercise pen and fresh greens to eat every night---what more could a bunny ask for?

We photographed the yearlings last week; here is Miracle Jack Bee Quick (Mt. Ridge Yellow Jacket x Severn Ribbons 'N Lace), buckskin Welsh Mt. Pony colt at 12 months old:

and here is Miracle Minute Maid (Mt. Ridge Yellow Jacket x Miracle Maid to Order), bay Welsh Mt. Pony filly:

. . . we have lots of additional photos to post, but those will have to come in a separate post. . . this one is already quite long. :-)

Calling All Bluebirds!

It's bluebird weekend here at the farm . . . we assembled five brand new cedar bluebird houses for our favorite feathered friends.


We followed the instructions carefully . . .


. . . and carried them out to be affixed to the fence posts.


Everyone pitched in to hang the bird houses. . .


and now we have room for five additional bluebird families. :-)

Fiona the pony had to supervise the project. :-)

Things are "Buzzing" at Fox Hill Farm

This is an exciting weekend at the farm---a package of new bees arrived to join our apiary!

Here they are in their cage upon arrival:

This is the Minnesota Hygienic Queen in her private quarters. This container is blocked with a cork on one end, which is removed and replaced with a small marshmallow. The queen's container is placed in the hive, and the worker bees proceed to eat the marshmallow and release the queen.

Adding the bees to their new hive. . .

. . .a few reluctant bees refused to follow the rules.

Into their new English Garden hive with their feeder. . .

Ready for spring and the first flowers!!!