It’s cold and gray, and winter feels especially chilly in our old farmhouse. We bundle up in sweatshirts and spend most evenings gathered around the wood stove, soaking in the warmth. I’ve also spent an impressive amount of time buying flower seeds for next spring—soooo many flower seeds. Somewhere between talking things through with Jeff…
Category: Blog Post
What a Difference a Year Makes!
We moved home in late October 2019, and the barn and farm were in rough shape. Here are some before and after pics. Before After In November we finally got the permits from the county to clear our first acre of brush, very exciting!
Welcome to Camp COVID
Spring 2020 is one we won’t soon forget. As the global pandemic brought the world to a sudden standstill, we hunkered down at home—masking up, washing our hands, and getting to know our UPS and FedEx drivers on a first-name basis. With travel paused and plans on hold, we focused our energy close to home….
The Barn Rebuild
The pics above are the barn in the “before” state in late summer 2019. We knew this old tobacco bar was in bad shape, but it was not until we were in the middle of the reconstruction we realized the vines that had grown into the wood were actually holding it up. Extensive termite damage,…
Dipping into Vermicomposting
We spent a brisk Veterans Day weekend clearing brush on the farm, putting our new power tools to good use mowing, chipping, and shredding an impressive collection of spiky, scratchy, and downright itchy branches and vines. Somewhere between the brush piles and the chipper, we decided to add “worm farmers” to the ever-growing list of…
Die Nematodes
The results are in for the nematode assay on our prospective first vineyard… we are infected with the dreaded Dagger Nematode. What are nematodes? Glad you asked. They are a parasitic non-segmented pin worm that live in soil. When present in large numbers, they attach themselves to root systems, suck the life out of the…
Assessing the Soil and the Barn
We walked the farm fields Friday afternoon with Ben Beale, our extension agent from the Univ. of Maryland and St. Mary’s County, to discuss the viability of our soil for growing grapes. Thumbs up from Ben! We have some of the best agriculture soil there is in the county, and some soggy areas as well….
Mission: Find the Dairy Barn
Jeff makes another trip from Germany to the farm following Hurricane Dorian. Some trees down, and so much clean up to do. He is also on a mission to locate the Dairy barn that we found on old satellite images. Mission accomplished! Dairy barn found collapsed in a heap inside dense brush. Hope we can…
We Have Some Work to do
Jeff makes a trip to MD in August to check on the farm and meet with Aunt Joan and the county administrators in charge of land use, also known as LUGM (more on LUGM later) Walking around the property, he finds that trees have encroached on the agriculture land, and the vines have grown into…
We Bought the Farm
There we were, living and working in Germany and enjoying an evening on the roof top with our dear friends, Kim and Kevin Reid. There was Gin involved. We had been showing the Reid’s the real estate listing for Aunt Joan’s home and adjoining farm for months… hoping we could be neighbours forever after our…