Hummingbirds Visit Every Spring

A Home of Joy, Peace and Tranquility

If you don’t live in the country you probably haven’t enjoyed watching the hay grow and smelled the harvest, or the birds feed or the deer walk past the window. No stress here.  Our spring- summer hummingbird population attests to the presence of nature. Click on the link below to watch an amazing site – a “gang” of hummingbirds on our feeder — something you won’t see in the “city.” Then you will know why we love it here.  hummingbirdsonfeeder .

Deer are Frequent Visitors in the Front Yard, Garden and Fields

Our 1860’s freight wagon built in nearby Clover, VA reminds us of Halifax County’s history; and we try to sustain the historical context in our restoration efforts. Don is always building something from furniture to roads and bridges.

Matisse an Rembrandt (Remy) Like to Ride in the Gator

Matisse and Remy are our constant companions as we work and play.

Just maintaining the farm is a continuing job: tending to vines, garden and bees; mowing and weed-control; repairs and painting. And of course, we like to travel the farm to watch the deer, turkeys and other wildlife; and the vegetation.

Joanne Showing Her Tomato Vines to Our Neighbor Paul

Gardening is a continuing venture as we struggle to find the best plants and weed control for our garden area and work to overcome weather anomalies. Two seasons in a row we have fought premature spring warming followed by hard freezes that killed buds and vines.

Wild Turkeys in the Fall

Yes, wild turkeys abound, as do the deer and our friendly black bear caught on our game camera.

Our Neighborhood Bear

What’s New for 2020
COVID-19 kept us at home a lot and so we jumped on a bunch of summer -fall projects. Among them:

An over-sized garden so we could furnish the community with produce: squash, zucchini, okra, melons, peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes — lots of tomatoes (over 2 tons).

A new porch for the woodshop to make it easier to work outside in the summer sun and when its raining; and upgrades to Joanne’s bee room and craft shop, along with a new deck for leisure at the bee room. And three new bridges for the forest trails.

Plum and apple trees produced a bounty this year and Joanne canned over 200 jars of fruits and vegetables, and the Shiitake mushrooms started producing.

Joanne learned to groom Matisse and Remy (too much work).

And of course there was an overwhelming amount of mowing, bush hogging, weed whacking and fence repair.

Nephew Daniel spent some time with us and fell in love with road building with the Bobcat so we have almost a half-mile of new groomed trail.

And its only September – many more projects before winter.