There’s always a lot of activity on the farm. Something that requires no effort on our part is the exterior painting of the house. We chose the traditional white color since that was the color farmers used back in the day. Whitewash was cheap, easy to make and had some antimicrobial properties. Colorful paint was uncommon. I read that painting buildings white is a simple way to “promote energy efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and create more sustainable and comfortable communities.” I guess my black roof negates the positive points of my white house….

The painters have been working between rain showers and they are almost done. We had an unusually rainy June which created a lot of gardening/landscaping chaos. The gardening team on the farm (that would be the two of us) does not work in the rain, or we have been traveling, or some other project has taken priority. Consequently our vegetable beds have become overgrown disaster areas. My experiment of tying up the tomatoes rather than using cages has been an overwhelming failure.

We have started harvesting tomatoes, cucumbers, blueberries, strawberries…and I have ignored the beans. I’m thinking that I will just let them become dried beans that I can use later this year.

While we are having difficulties keeping up with our current vegetable garden, we have started a new vegetable garden that is four times as large. Yes, follow the logic…Maybe I am hoping that spacing things out and starting with more organized raised beds will make vegetable gardening easier and more productive. I probably watch too many gardening tik tok videos.

The new vegetable garden is closer to the bees and chickens. We think our bees are doing well. We checked to see if the bees were filling up the honey box. Doesn’t look like they are too productive yet. We do have a lot of bees since many are hanging around the outside of the box to keep the hive temperature lower. This is called bearding. I’m always worried that it’s a bunch of bees deciding they will swarm away leaving me with an empty hive.

The ten weeks old ameracauna hens have been introduced to the flock. The fourteen weeks old hens seem happy to have younger hens they can bully. The older hens pretty much ignore all the younger hens except when they are crabby. Eventually all 23 chickens will settle into being a flock. We will not be getting any new chicks until next year. We think one of our fourteen weeks old hens is a rooster. Snow White (who might become The Huntsman) is a little larger, holds her tail vertically and once in a while we hear some immature crowing. We are not sure if our current rooster Hal will let a second rooster remain with the flock. We might need to rehome one of the roosters.

Our Japanese maple garden has been taken over by weeds. We’re working on pulling weeds and will put some more effort into the maple garden over the holiday weekend. I have nine new maples being delivered over the weekend. Tree planter will be busy. I thought about putting in a photo of the maple garden but the place really looks terrible. So here is a photo of a beautiful Japanese garden with an iconic Japanese maple that I visited about two weeks ago.

This laceleaf maple is located in the Japanese Garden, Portland, Oregon. It was not one of the original plantings and no one really knows who planted it or when it was planted. In 2011, Peter Lik took a photo of the tree and won some contest. Since then, it has become a tourist attraction for the garden. It really is a beautiful tree and someone does a very nice job of pruning it. So convenient to visit this garden in conjunction with an annual koi judges seminar I attended in Washington.

Every year the members of the koi judges association I belong to meets somewhere in the United States to discuss judging. Some years we meet during a koi show and some years we meet at a koi dealer location. This year our host was Children of the Sun (COTS) Koi / Wes Parker. Not only is Wes a US koi dealer importing lovely Japanese koi…he’s an oenologist! Wes and his wife, Michelle, produce wines under Koi Pond Cellars. I think I was more excited about wine tasting than talking koi! It was a tough decision – do I buy some wine or buy some koi while I’m on this trip? Many of the judges did both.

COTS Koi is located in Battleground, WA. There are several greenhouses of koi named after Shinkansen (Japanese bullet train) lines. It’s important for our organization to ensure we are judging consistently. Wes bowled up several koi over two days for us to complete practice judging exercises. He also gave us a closer look at some of the premium koi he currently holds at the koi farm. Over the course of practice judging exercises, some of us found some koi to purchase.

So fast forward another two weeks and a box of fun arrived from COTS Koi today. The box held a little heisei nishiki (doitsu metallic sanke) and a yellow monkey. It’s been another long day on the farm so I’ll be writing more about these koi in another post!