WOOHOOO!! I'm a fan!

HURRAY!! My Baker Creek Heirloom tomato seeds sprouted!! (yes, I really am quite strange). And it only took four days! Yep, you read that right! Four days! 28 adorable little sprouts in my windowsill.... Nevermore will I flounder about with any other seed company, I'm quite happy with Baker Creek's quality. I've heard that Ed Hume's is really good, but believe it or not, I've never been able to get good results from mine. I guess Ed Humes' doesn't like me. :-/

And despite the rain and high winds we've been having, I managed to get our seed potatoes planted! :D

OH! AND, I got my herb seeds today! Can't wait to start planting those! :)

~Caitlyn

Oh Bother....

Last night we had some really high winds.

You could hear the house creaking.

I didn't dare look outside to see how my greenhouse was faring.

In the morning, I looked out my window and saw.... No Greenhouse!

A different window gave me a view that showed my poor little greenhouse 15 feet from its original spot, and completely totaled.



I have a better picture of just how bad it looks, but for some reason my computer won't let me download anymore. Grrrr. The front view is much more catastrophic looking. ;)

Pots were broken, all my plants were laying in a puddle of water outside their pots, a few of the bars that go to the greenhouse were cracked and I can no longer find the stakes that were supposed to keep it down!! :-/


Surprisingly though, I only lost one plant. I was able to gently scoop up the survivors and am working on getting them all in new pots. I am really grateful though, that I moved my remaining 30 lavender plants indoors a few days ago (and never got around to putting them back outside), so at the time, there were only 15 plants in the greenhouse.

Note to self: You get what you pay for.

~Caitlyn

They're here!!

Hurray!! Our seeds came in the mail yesterday! It is utter torture, I am dying to start planting, but I know I need to wait a few more days.... I start next Wednesday. Do you think I can make it?

~Caitlyn

I need help from my readers!

Something is wrong with two of our lavender plants and I can't find anything anywhere about what to do. within the week, the blossoms on both plants have drooped and then withered away. The plants have been looking amazing all spring, and then, boom!, they began to "ker-flop". ;)


This is a not-good-at-all picture of what the lavender looks like:


I'm sure you can tell by the poor quality of the picture, that I took it and not Emily. :-/

One plant is a four year old 'English', and the other is a one year old 'Provence'. They are no where near each other and none of our other lavender plants that are near them look droopy (yet).

Any suggestions or ideas?

~Caitlyn

The latest addition to the herb garden

I am sooo excited! Look what I found at Wilco today!

HollyHock seeds!

I've always liked these flowers but this variety is, by far, the prettiest I've ever seen. These ones are called 'Peaches 'N' Dreams' and rightly so! They are a beautiful peach color all over and tinged with the faintest blushing rose shade be'twixt their fluffy petals..... ahhh, I can't wait until they bloom... :)

And lucky for me, they are an extremely useful herb so they will be right at home in my garden. :D

~Caitlyn

I am gone into the fields....

Yep, that's the way life has been lately for me. I've been waiting and waiting for leaves to unfurl, flowers to bloom and fruits to ripen so that I can get busy harvesting, drying, preparing and storing my herbs for the year. It's been pretty overwhelming of the late; but I'm in almost constant bliss. :D

Between my chores in the house, barn chores, working in the gardens and doing other things of the sort I haven't really had time to do any blogging. But I made time today!!

So far I've got some hawthorn leaves drying, some willow bark, alder bark, rosemary, shepherd's purse, dandelion root and some Scotch broom blossoms. I'm still working on getting everything else.

All of our Nootka Roses have blossomed now; Hurray! So hopefully within the week I can begin making some rose water (yes, the exact same stuff that you pay who knows how much for at the store).

And my herb garden is officially in and sprouting! I don't have very much this year as I wasn't planning for a big garden. In all I think I have: Fennel, Lemon Balm, Catnip, Forget- me- nots, Chamomile, MarshMallow, Meadowsweet, thyme, basil, cilantro.... oooh, there are a few more things, I just can't think of what they are right now. I am also working on transplanting some herbs into the garden: Mullein, Plantain, Foxglove (just for looks!), FringeCups, Nettles.... Well, you get the point, there's a lot. ;D

Hmmm, what else has been going on.... Oh, beware to whomever may dare come onto our property for the next couple of weeks. Why you ask?

Our CottonWood tree has gone to seed.

And it is not called a "Cotton" wood tree for nothing. It might as well be snowing, for that's what it looks like outside! The seeds are encased in small fluffy bits of cotton that gets everywhere. Not fun. I wonder if you could spin it somehow..... ;)

Well, I'll end my rambling here; maybe I will think of something else to blog about later that doesn't involve so much, um, rambling. :)

~Caitlyn

I leave this notice upon my door for every passing visitor:
I am gone into the fields to see what this sweet hour yields....

Mennagerie farm is slowly coming back!

When we moved out here into the country, we dubbed our little plot of land "Mennagerie Farm", a mix between our last name and the word menagerie.

The name fit well; for the first two years we had all sorts of animals: 3 alpacas, 5-7 dairy goats, 2 horses, who knows how many chickens, 3 geese, 4 ducks, 4 guinea birds, 21 rabbits, a dog, too many cats, and there were always the odd reptiles and orphaned birds that I kept in the barn. ;D

Within the year though, we sold every animal, except for the chickens, a cat (which we are still trying to re home!) and our silly dog.

But now, as I look around, I can see that our farm is very slowly building up once more.

We just got our 33'x35' vegetable garden in and my dad surprised me the other day by tilling me a 20' herb garden!!

I have been wanting an herb garden for a while now, but I didn't think it would happen this year so I contented myself with a little pot on the back deck for this year's "herb garden". I am so excited to start putting my herbs in and caring for my little plot. :D

And next year I might get to have another garden, specifically for the animals.

As another piece of news, although I can't decide if it's good news or bad news, is that we are getting some goats sometime soon; possibly sometime this week. No dairy goats this time, instead we will just be borrowing two wethers from some friends, to keep our pasture down.

And we all still dream of having our own milk cow....Someday....

So, block by block, ever so slowly, Mennagerie farm is slowly becoming a beautiful place for friends and family.....

A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever

The title is one of my favorite sayings when it comes to gardening, and especially when it comes to my tulips.

A couple years ago I was really into gardening. My green thumb was really green, though I didn't have any taste or skill when it came to figuring out where to plant things (Not to say I have any skill now). After a year or two my interest kinda' died out, but I still grow tulips and enjoy doing it. Tulips are by far my absolute favorite flower.

This tulip here is the one I refer to as "the pride of my heart." For my birthday a year or two ago, Caity gave me a box of black tulip bulbs. They actually turned out more purple than black, but they're still gorgeous! See the detail in the pic below (sorry about the bad pics). In the tulip's center there is a white star shape on which the pistil and stamens are centered upon. Then there is a small sky blue circle around the star and a violet-ish circle around that. Next there is a larger circle of black, and then all the rest of the deep, rich purple-y petals that are streaked with dark red.

Isn't it amazing, something so small, yet so detailed and exquisite! God didn't overlook detail even in something as small and unimportant (well, unimportant to some people) as a tulip. He designed it uniquely and beautifully so that this thing of beauty truly is a joy forever!

~Megan