Farm art or eye sore?

Farm art? (Click on photos to enlarge.)

Squash blossoms

Squash

Melon blossoms

There seems to be limited time to blog these days. We have had an exceptionally mild summer (one of the coolest on record) with highs some days reaching only the high 60s and lows in the 50s. It is a wonderful first summer at The Farm, the weather allowing us to work outdoors almost daily, and outdoors is where most of the work we need to accomplish is. We have even had adequate rain, never going into a draught situation...so far. Bonnie is concerned that our garden may suffer from lack of high temperatures. Kathy is planning on purchasing a Davis weather station to keep track of the micro climate in the vineyard and has some books coming to the library on the subject.

Today we are receiving a gentle rain. Kathy was out early pushing some dirt around. The dirt left over from when Denny worked on the drainage issue by the walk-out needed a new home, and Kathy has been filling low spots around the house and putting the majority of the dirt on the south side of the south retaining wall where it is needed. We really need some more soil brought in. Mike asked if we wanted him to bring us some if he had any from projects he would be working on and we told him yes.

The work Denny did seems to have resolved the standing water and mud at the walk-out. We need to bring in some gravel for the area between the retaining walls, and that should help even more.

Our weeds are serving a purpose while we wait for conditions to be right for planting grass seed. When they are cut the land does not look too bad. (The vineyard, of course, always looks good because it does have grass.) The weeds and crab grass are helping to keep mud and erosion issues down.

The sofa-bed frame and springs (see top photo) have become a standing joke around here. Denny comments about them on a regular basis. Kathy is trying to make lemonade of the situation and told Denny she considers it Farm Art. What do you think? Kathy moves them out of the burn ring when she has a large amount of items to burn, and then moves them back into the burn ring when she knows Don is going to be over to mow. We are, by the way, very pleased with what a great job Don is doing mowing the land.

We have been struggling with sewer gas odor, and it appears to be coming from the bathroom in the loft. It has been hard to pin down the source (it comes and goes) and Rex has tried several things now including a goose neck on the vent pipe and increasing the height of the pipe. Yesterday he changed the seal on the loft toilet. The seal that was on it seemed fine when we removed it, but the new seal seems to have reduced the odor (so far) to practically nothing.

Kathy finished her online wine and food pairing class and enjoyed it very much. (She was so busy that she had to have two extensions on it!) She has also been studying trellis and pruning systems and has many fine books she uses for resources. She is hoping to find an online viticulture certification program to take next.

Bonnie is still on track to retire on the 31st of this month. It will be nice to have her home for however long she chooses, to work on the various projects she feels she would like to accomplish before winter, and also because we have two older dogs, Millie and Little Bear, who need more trips outside these days.