Summer = Puppies and Produce

Hi all.  I apologize for not keeping more current with blog posts.  We have been busy around here!   Most relevant to this blog....we have puppies!  Our Storm delivered 8 pups on June 7th.  They just turned 3 weeks old so they have reached the really adorable stage.  The sire is a handsome fellow owned by another ryman breeder.  It was a stroke of good luck that they happen to be only 4 hours away - that's close by Kansas standards.  In August the pups will be headed to their families, scattered from Colorado and Montana to the Great Lakes and on to the coast of Maine.  I will again combine my road trip back to Vermont with delivering the pups to their families.  I look forward to visiting with friends and family there......and eating lobster and seafood!

We have been hoping that Mike will be able to join me on the trip east but this has been a challenging year for our produce operation so that is still to be determined.  The month of May brought us rain - usually a welcome thing here in Kansas but enough is enough!  We had 17" within a few weeks and the timing resulted in the delay and in some instances, the elimination, of some vegetables.   However, our strawberry crop was the early star of our gardens this year and we were kept very busy with Mike picking and me handling the advertising, sales and deliveries.  The hard work is rewarding when you see the smile on people faces as they anticipate their annual jam cooking or kids are grabbing and gobbling berries from the baskets even as their parents are carrying them to their car.  At the Farmer's Market one little girl around 3 or 4 couldn't help herself and as I was talking with her mother she was reaching up and snacking on berries from my table.  Healthy food for local folks  - that's our goal.  

The heavy and excessive spring rains do have us concerned about the local quail and pheasant hatches.  If the timing of the chilly rains was poor, then the newly hatched chicks would not have been able to survive.  But if the birds held off or perhaps have re-nested, then the chicks will benefit from the bumper crop of insects and seeds produced by the rains.  Time will tell!

This is a sketch on sandstone that we have

Cheers!