Our re-birth has begun

Part of what makes us, well us, in my opinion is that we offer roses hard to fine elsewhere. They may be old, they may be new - but many are unique. Quite a few of the newer ones are roses I found in Europe and brought back to introduce to our U.S. Rose Family. This is not something I take lightly and consider an obligation to them.

As well a great excuse to get over to Europe!

At least that's how it was before the problems began.

Last week we began our first baby step back to the past. We went to a dear friend's house who generously opened her garden to us so we could take cuttings of old and new rose friends to propagate for our customers. Michael, Trish, Myself and some of the Red Clay Day Gang propagated them and they are now in the mister.

Then today I set out upon Kubbie, Jethro's smaller brother, towing the small trailer. Loaded up with burlap for wrapping cuttings, buckets of water for putting the cuttings into, clippers, lists of roses to take cuttings of, my camera and another list of roses to take photos of, I set out on the grand tour of the old property.

I roamed all over the place taking cuttings of this and that - some old, some new. Took photos of roses I haven't visited with in a while, smelled the newly cut grass and just enjoyed the day.

About half way through my sojourn I rounded the corner and there were about 30 varieties of roses bred by the Barni Family in Italy. Beatrice sent them to me about 3 years ago and I have not had a chance to do anything with them since. Beatrice understood why, bless her heart.

They are in full bloom, healthy, clean and lovely. Very few of them are available in the U.S. at this moment. Tomorrow I'm going back to take photos, cuttings and another baby step along the path of our re-birth.

Barni Roses - coming soon to an Ashdown website near you!

Jethro and Me

Spent a good day clearing the new property. While the location is killer, the 5 acres we are leasing needs more clearing than I wanted; as you can see from the photo at left. But life is about trade offs and while it's extra work now, in the end we'll be glad we're there.

But at the moment we feel like we are in two places. Probably more for me than the others because so far I'm the only one prepping the new property. You see it's all tractor work right now and so that means I'm working over there on my own.

Which I enjoy, actually. There is a joke at the nursery that if I go climb on a tractor, fire it up and start to do something; leave me alone. It's means either I have something to think out or I just need a some time not talking to anyone. Jethro, our large Kubota, is usually the one I jump on. He's real good about just getting on with job and leaving me be. I swear when someone approaches me he raises his engine noise as if to say, back off; he doesn't want to talk to you.

Tomorrow I'm back over there, but this time with a buddy who has a skid steer with a grappler attachment. That's like a giant set of claws that can rake and pick up logs and all kinds of stuff so we'll see some real progress and not a moment too soon. We have a great group of volunteers coming in two weeks to help move roses and I've got to get the areas where they are going to be planted ready for them. I knew they were coming but the date is sneaking up on me.

Stuff at the old property is starting to be broken down. You can see in the photo at right two of the large cold frames coming apart. Since we've haven't sold the property yet I'm reluctant to take everything apart so we are starting with what we don't need. These two cold frames are huge and with the newer smaller pots we no longer use them so they can come down now.

I also spent a great day this past week throwing away all kinds of stuff that not only I don't need, but I don't even know what it is! I can't believe how much stuff we've gathered. I was looking at bits of metal with no idea what they were or what they were for. If nothing else the move is a good house cleaning!