Backyard Farmgals

Early morning berry patch A view of the mountains from the berry patch The raspberry patch is one of my favorite places on the Research Farm.  It is peaceful there.  I have spent several mornings there working away, watching the sun rise, usually listening to opera or some other beautiful piece of music.  It smells glorious, and it tastes even better, but don't tell anyone because I am not supposed to eat the berries, just count and weigh them! Harvesting with new harvesting crates Part of my job is learning about raspberry harvest here at the farm.  When I first heard about it, I thought to myself that it couldn't be that hard.  First wrong thought.  Harvesting raspberries consumes more time here than anything else that I have seen.  Peach harvest is a close second.  It's not just harvesting raspberries, it's also taking data (sugar percentage, counting, and weighing), packaging, sorting, and selling the berries. My fir...

Because tomorrow is Valentine's Day, I thought I should share this totally un-farmy project.  It's so cute, I can't resist.  My oldest farmhand and I worked on it all weekend while the rest of our house was sick (then I got deathly ill Sunday night - joys of being the mom - you always end up with what they bring home...).  Feeling much better today, and I am excited about tomorrow.  I always make a big deal of Valentine's with my kids.  We decorate the house, make Valentine's, and they always wake up to something really special on Valentine's morning... because their mama LOVES them!!! This is what is so stinking cute... The Valentine's box my oldest and I made.  There is a contest, and he really hopes to win.  He has been studying Ancient Egypt in school, and he is really into pyramids and mummified pharaohs, so we decided to kick it up a notch and make a pyramid Valentine's box, complete with lovable mummy, hieroglyphs, and hearts. ...

We had a great Halloween, and hope the same for all of you out there.  We hope you found that Halloween spirit and ran with it, because we ran a Marathon with our Halloween spirit this week.  I love Halloween, and I have since I was a kid.  My mom always made it so much fun.  We had pizza parties at the Rancher's house next door and carved out our creations on pumpkins all night long, we won face painting contests, costume contests, pumpkin contests, you name it, we won it.  We had the most creative costumes... one year I was a mailbox with a mail door that opened to my face.  It was always the best holiday.  Now as a mom, I am trying to bring that same love to my children, and I hope that it rubs off!   This year, we did a lot of carving just as a family... no huge party (which was relaxing and easy...).  It was refreshing to spend time just the four of us carving away, just like how we used to before we had kids.  However, t...