Another month has gone by....

And I'm terribly sorry that I'm so bad at updating.

Here's the gist: I started looking for a new job, and actually had some awesome leads. I wanted to tell you all about it... but (being on blogspot), I couldn't risk having my employer find out about it in an unprofessional manner.
So, if I can't tell you everything, then I just don't wanna tease...

I started my new role (basically doing the same things as before) at a different company. But blogger, why go to a new company when it is basically the same job?
I'm glad you asked.
Bigger company
Bigger clients
Bigger opportunities
WAY more support for my role, my goals, and all that jazz.
Not only that: there's actually BACK UP in case I get sick, or want to take a vacation, or have a question.

I'm just sayin' - I'm excited :D

Farm's coming along nicely. The poles have (finally) arrived [insert big story that is kinda lame here], and will be installed and rigged next week. Then - PLANTING! yes, we're a week or two late with the planting... but the first year's yield is pretty non-existent anyway, so we're not too worried about it.

The city is starting to heat up, and good times are being had by all. :D

A night without J

While J is off jettisoning across North Carolina attending Hop Classes, networking with breweries and home-brewers, and generally playing with our new farm friends, I'm at home. This doesn't bother me at all, but I will admit that I'm a little jealous. I have to work behind a desk in a suit while he gets to work in the world in jeans. Hopefully, I'll be able to join him at some point this decade.

For the past few months, he's been traveling during the day and I've been able to be involved during the evenings and weekends... but a conference officially pulled him away for an overnight trip last night. At first, I was a little grumpy(I wanna go!), but then that turned into excitement... what in the world can I do with the house all to myself for a night?! Let me tell you: absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

I got home from work, took care of the dogs, had dinner, watched LOST (my small obsession), took the dogs out again, and went to bed. That's it.

When I woke up this morning, I was a little disoriented... where the heck is my husband!?!? Hayden rolled over (she somehow managed to jump onto the bed in the middle of the night without waking me), laid her paws on my back, and seemed to tell me to just go back to sleep...

So, I had a successful night of doing absolutely nothing different. He's going away again this weekend (on a boy's trip this time), so I have another opportunity to do whatever I want. I can almost guarantee it'll be nothing but cleaning, stitching, and playing in my garden. We'll see though...


In other news - we have a website! Of course, all it does is redirect to our facebook page right now - but we're getting there. We found a great graphic designer that is giving us some crazy-good material, so hopefully the actual site will go up soon.
www.cbhopfarm.com

Since I don't have any new pics for y'all, here's a snow covered yard gnome from our last snow.
Ciao!

Happy April!

I can't believe it is April already. And so gorgeous too! I think we're at 82 degrees right now, and I hate that I'm inside the office all day... C'est la vie! At least I have tomorrow off. :)

But let's do a quick recap of March, shall we? In the past 31 days, we've had crazy rains, snows, and warm days. I can't even handle it. Not only that, we've got some great work done on the farm! Sadly, most of it was business related, so I don't have any awesome pictures to show you. BUT! We have poles and rhizomes and winches and etc all ordered and ready to go. Now, we just have to wait for delivery and then BAM! Stuff to show you!
J and I have also been busy with networking, networking, and more networking. Here's to hoping we can sell our entire first year's harvest! We made some great connections with local breweries and homebrewers, and even a few clubs in town. Cross your fingers, but I think we might be in good shape.
Also in March: Penny celebrated her first birthday! yeah, it wasn't that exciting. But still... we're looking forward to her 2nd birthday - when she's expected to stop acting like a shark. Seriously though - that dog NEVER stops moving. Unless she's sleeping, of course.

Quick Penny story:
Most nights, J will put me to bed, and I'll spend some time snuggling with Hayden. For whatever reason, I decided that I would also like to have some snuggle time with Penny. We had the windows open, so a nice breeze was coming in - it really was an ideal way to spend some time. About 2 seconds after J closed the bedroom door and headed downstairs, Penny started growling. Straight up growling. I couldn't see what she was looking at, but homegirl wasn't happy. A few barks later, she jumped up and started pacing the bedroom. Focusing on the door. Mmmmmkay - weird. I hopped up and open the door for her, expecting her to see that no one is there and be satisfied - but she jetted downstairs and started growling at the front door. I wasn't really sure what to make of it, so I decided to put her in her kennel. She went up, no problem, but growled for another few minutes.
Feeling satisfied with her being up, I headed back upstairs JUST in time to hear my phone ring. My neighbor's boyfriend was locked out...
Somehow, Penny knew something was off - and she was protecting us. I gave her an extra dog-treat for that...
/Penny Story.

Well, I hope everyone has a great Easter Weekend! I think we have a fun weekend planned with a bunch of activities - I'll try to remember to take pictures. In the meantime, here's how the farm looked yesterday... Look at all that clover!

PICTURES! Finally... (long post, sorry)

Here's a photo story type update:

First: Dogs in the snow.

Hayden



Penny running around

They loved it.

Okay, now for a few pics from the Farm


Before clearing the land


Very Tall Grasses


Items Removed...


After clearing the land - no more grasses


But we did plant a cover crop!


It WILL look like this, just not yet :)


The dogs are happy with the room to run...

The end!
More soon :)

New Post!

Hey guys.
It has almost been a month (again) since we last chatted. Not tooooo much has happened - we're just sort of chugging along.

We've been getting some good work done on the Hop Farm though. We've picked 5 of our 6 hop varieties, and should have the last one soon (deciding between 2). Once we get it figured out, I'll post it so y'all can get excited. We've also found a good number of homebrew buyers in the city who think they can buy our whole first year crop. With the varieties we've picked, we hope they'll be able it buy it all - they are heavy producing plants! If not, there's plenty of homebrew markets that will take a few pounds off our hands. Basically, we're stoked.

Babies have been born in our little world recently. None that belong to me and J (just us and the dogs). Its nice though - seeing little ones brought into the world that are healthy with 10 fingers and 10 toes. Little babies that are loved, even if the parents' world has been totally shaken to the core. Babies aren't just a miracle of science and biology. They are a miracle of emotions too. Its nice to see that.

Life has been keeping us on our toes recently. But as wild as the ride is right now: we're trying to keep it simple. There's been a lot of football watching and back-patio grilling... We're thrilled that LOST is coming back in a couple week. I love that things are simple - but I'm excited for when we get busy with the farm.

Okay! Its time to get the weekend started. Happy January everyone, and may your resolutions be easy to keep!

Sorry....

Okay, it has been over a month... I guess I should update y'all on the goings on.

The seasons are turning rapidly now. I woke up this morning to a frosty December sparkle, and the first really cold day of the season. Penny was not too terribly thrilled about the cold grass, but I think she's getting used to it. It is her first winter though - I'll give her a little adjustment time.

The clover is coming in nicely on the farmland. I'm still working on the trellis system and figuring out how everything is going to work together. Should be a great though. The deer are actually being considerate too! There's plenty to eat out there, and they're not encroaching too much on our land. Don't get me wrong, they are definitely out there in full force... walking and strolling and chasing things... but they aren't eating too much - and that's my main concern right now.

Thanksgiving was great this year. Good times with the in-laws, and good times with my parents. We're lucky to have both families so close. I'm looking forward to Christmas too. Again: nice to have families so close. J&I have a nice tradition though: Christmas Eve with his folks, Christmas morning with just the two of us (4 if you count our spoiled dogs), and Christmas evening with my folks. It has worked for us for a while now: I think it'll stick.

But what I'm REALLY looking forward to is December 11th. The next 10 days are going to be NUTTERS busy, and the 11th brings an abrupt halt to the action. It'll be nice to just focus on family, work, and rest for 3 weeks...

I think that about wraps it up for now. I'll be back soon, I hope :-)

The gorilla is off my back...

Hello everyone! I'd apologize for the 10 days between this and the last post, but why? You're over it.

I watched Marley and Me last night, but I left when things started to get bad. I know what happens and would rather not see the end. That's all.
I also watched Gosford Park when I was kicked out of work on Monday. Great movie. Helen Mirren is a genius.

I took a sick day on Friday, and was kicked out of the office on Monday (my boss didn't want to get sick). I came back to work on Tuesday to find my boss had come down with a head cold already. We're a hilarious pair this week.

The farm is coming along nicely. We've laid a clover crop on the land for the winter months to help restore the nitrogen levels in the ground, and to get things started for the spring. Basically, it is a lot easier to get crews out there for leveling, discing, tilling, and the like in September when the weather is nice than in January/February. Now that the clover is down, we just have to get our trellis system ready to be installed (February), order rhizomes (January, for March/April delivery), and put together our pulley system. That's not so bad, especially since we're starting on an acre or so. :)
We'll spend the early spring and summer months designing and building our drying system. Hops grow on bines (like vines, but with one root ball) and look like little green pine cones. Once they're picked, they need to be dried quickly and at a constant temperature... think of a kiln room. The drying and pelleting processes are going to be the hardest part of this endeavor (assuming we can keep downey mildew and crazy pests off the plants) so we're devoting the actual growing season to researching and building a phenomenal and scalable system. By the time harvest season comes around (Late August-October) we'll be ready to go. I'm sure we'll have some inefficiencies the first year or two - it'll take time to work the kinks out - but I'm okay with that. So, if you are thinking about being in the Charlotte area in the coming years during August-October... plan on coming out to the farm to help with the harvest! I'll even make apple cider and some nomzy foods to keep us going!!

We're also looking for a graphic designer to help us with logos and the like. I know a few of you out there are OMG talented, so let me know if you've got some free time and would like to do some discounted work. :) We know a few people in town who also do incredible stuff, but I'm always a fan of utilizing people in my "network." I consider it to be the same as buying local. Other than that, we're actually ahead of the game. Woohoo! Oh, and we do have a name and everything picked out. I'm waiting until we have a website up to release all that: I want to have something to show everyone!

I have to admit: I felt a huge relief when J and I decided that we're moving out to the farm area in 2011. Now, I do LOVE living in the city and being able to hop on public transit, or go to one of a million restaurants, or be a part of a place that buzzes with excitement. But I can't wait to get out of it. This town was significantly smaller when I was a kid, and I miss it. Besides, we won't be that far from CLT. And I'm only going to be 15 minutes away from a major mall and retail area. So yes: we are moving out to a cute neighborhood surrounded by pick-your-own-berries farms and cow pastures... and I can't wait. I'm tired of always being on the go and having some place that I have to be. I want to just be HOME. I want to have a real veggie garden that is actually IN the ground and that produces enough for a summer of fresh foods and canning for the winter. I realize that living out there is not going to be all peaches and daisies. And I realize that I am going to have a bit of an adjustment period. But I've been here for as long as I can remember. I'm 2 freakin' miles from my parents - just 1 zip code away. I need to spread my wings and explore and do something different. Heck, I even went to college in the same city. So, not only is this farm something I want - this move is something I can't wait for. I love my friends, but I know that we'll only be 60 minutes away. I mean, really.... 1 hour is NOT that far. So, yeah.

Sorry for the rant. I just decided that I needed to get it all out there.

I hope you all are well. I'll be back soon with some fun updates - hopefully :)

News?

Well hello!

I know, I was totally planning on hopping on the computer yesterday. I'm sorry it didn't happen.

So. J and I are starting a hop farm. I know, it is the most awesome news in the entire world, right? Yeah - it is :)
The land is about an hour outside of Charlotte, so when we do move (2011), it won't be far from where we are now. The neighborhood that we're looking at is super adorable, and with some great people living there.
We'll be starting with an acre this coming spring, and growing slowly from there. We'll probably stop growing around 20 acres, but we'll see when we get there... 20 acres will require some full time help during the growing/harvesting seasons.

That's the big news. Not that exciting to most people, but we can't wait :) More details to come. Right now, I have to nurse a little hangover.