as expected.............

.......vacations never start off easy!

This past Wednesday we had our cat, Chip fixed and de-clawed. We brought him home on Friday and all was well. Was.

This morning he was spooked by one of our kids and jumped off of the couch. 9:30 That would be fine normally, except for the fact that his paw began to bleed. He ran over to me and jumped on my lap. He then jumped down and ran upstairs. As he was running away, he left a nice trail of blood behind. At this point I shouted "stop the cat, he's bleeding!!!" Now my wife was on his tail (so to speak) He stopped at his crate so C could check him out. Now for the bloody trail to clean up.

11:00 Chip was going to stay home for the week, with a friend of mine checking up on and feeding him. Change of plans. I had to rush 25 minutes away to Arens house. Chip is now staying their for a few days of observation.

11:45 My mother in law is coming to Myrtle Beach with us again. She lands at 12:30. The airport is 55 minutes away. Aren and his wife just had a baby girl 15 days ago. I haven't met her yet. Can't leave before I do. Chips crate has some blood spatter on the inside. Gotta clean that before I go.

Call C. "Sorry, just leaving for home now, I guess you have to pick up your mom with the kids"

12:00 I get home and start organizing all things packed. Re-arrange some bags and get things ready to go in the van. No van. C has it to pick up her mom. She was supposed to take the put-put so I could load up the van.

1:45 Grammas here!!!! The kids are pumped, I'm ready, Grammas setting things aside for the beach, and C is double checking stuff. I think we can leave by 3:00.......... maybe.

new new-range pictures

As promised, I have updated our greenhouse construction project. Unfortunately at time of posting, these pictures are outdated. This weekend I plan on getting some more snapshots. In my spare time......






looking south in the new header house













looking south-west in the new range









looking west in house 7&8











looking north-east at house 10 sidewall and gable











looking north east from the letter blocks

house 7-10

These houses (#7-10) are where we do our winter grafting work. I feel the new range will be a real advantage for the new grafts. Especially with uniform temperatures, we can really dictate the final outcome!!

And yes, I had the joy of partaking in the tear-down of the old hoop-houses! House 7 was the most interesting to work on. Check out the "framework" in the 3rd picture!




looking south east

the tall gutter-house (house 7) is being saved

house 8,9,10 in the background







looking north east

from house 10 to house 7








inside house 7 looking west











inside the header-house looking south

( note house 2,3,4,5,6 are staying)









looking north from where house 10 was,
towards house 7










looking north in the header-house













I will definitely add new pictures real soon, seeing as the main construction of the new range is nearly done! All that's left as of today is basically the interior.

Grass Leaves?.......

I think not! There's a reason they're called BLADES!!!

Our big push at work right now is shipping a nice assortment of ornamental grasses. As much as I enjoy the looks of these different beasts, handling them is a different story all together! The serration on the outside of the leaves is so fine, the blades will always win. Instead of just nicks on my hands and arms, it's cuts IN scrapes IN nicks.

On another note, we have started to get some of our crops into assigned houses for winter. The more we can have finished ahead of time the better, seeing as there is still lots to go. There's not much going on in prop right now, so I've been keeping busy with the rest of it all!!

'till next time, ('cause you'll never know when that will be)

Pete!

flowers of ours

21 buds on this asiatic lily stem.













the mass of orange









astilbe, lamium, scabiosa, erysimum

hemerocallis

gypsophylia

the orange salute for Canada Day!

the lettuce

INTRODUCING.......................

C H I P ! !

still shipping.....

..... to the main farm, that is! We have finished shipping out all of our grafts and whips for tree standards. Now it's time for our liners. Hundreds of 'em. Thousands of 'em! Most trays are 50 packs, with a few 36's for certain plants. These liners are for one gallon production. Boxwood, cedar, spruce, euonymus, spirea, potentilla, hydrangea, and so on. So far I believe we have shipped 7 tractor trailers over. We should be all done by Wednesday. We hope! 'Cause when it's all over there, WE don't have to worry about it!!!!

Propagation

Now at work I am referred to as "Propagation Pete". In the prop group, that is. I guess I am technically assistant propagator Pete, alongside Lindsay the other assistant and our fearless leader, Propagator Paul.

June 25th was really my first day. So far my tasks have been sticking cuttings, moving cuttings, and prepping plants for potting. We root a lot of our own plants, for our home farm, as well as the Main farm. This means that if the other farm is ready for planting, we have to prep all the cuttings, put them on racks, and send them over to the other farm. This coming week we will be sending over all of the grafts that we grafted this past winter to main farm. A few 53' trailers and all the grafted under stock will be there. Then our flowering shrub cuttings will be next. It looks like I keep moving into the faster paced parts of the nursery, even as the pace picks up! What a rush! Fortunately my Spanglish is also improving!

three years ago...

..H1 was born. I can't believe he has grown up this fast. Three years seems like a short time unless looking with a parents perspective. What is three years to an adult? For some children it's more than a lifetime!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BOOTS!!!!!!

Lake to Lake Classic 2007

I did it!! Not near the front, way ahead of the back, right in the middle! I finished my 50km race in about 3 hours. Nothing to brag about, just a great personal accomplishment. I registered 5 nursery staff, myself included, plus one more that registered the day before. (there were only 5 slots left)
1050 people were at the starting line at 11:00am, and started arriving at the finish in under two hours later! Only 850 people crossed the finish line. The others had flats with no spare, spills, cramps, bike issues, etc. One of "our" guys had problems with his derailleur, thus not making it quite to the 1/3 mark.

Results:


After all is said and done, we are all already looking forward to next year!


*PICTURE ADDED JULY 20'07*


Finally, made it!

when the cats away..

...mice will play. But not in my case. It seems since C & the kids went out west, I've had no time to really relax. Thankfully. Otherwise I'd be pretty upset that they are not home with me.

Tuesday: to the airport, followed closely by house work
Wednesday: work until 6:00, go home and do more house work, mow the yard
Thursday: work until 5:00, go to the local pub for a friends birthday (just a quick one)
Friday: work until 5:00, go biking to get ready for Sundays race
Saturday: work until noon, yard work, visit mom who just got back from China
Sunday: Lake to Lake Classic bike race with 4 co-workers. (others are placing bets as to who will not finish) I'm not on that bet
Monday: work until ___
Tuesday: work until ___, mow the yard
Wednesday: work until 10:00, pick up my family from the airport, possibly head back to work depending on how busy we are.

and that is my week in a nutshell!
So much for playing!!

Driver Sales

I guess you do learn something new every day. Today I learned that in our area of Niagara region, nurseries are starting to try out "driver sales". This whole idea is not new to me, I used to do driver sales into New York State. Namely Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse. The idea behind it is simple. Load your truck full with flowers (or perennials) and drive from door to door and sell your plants. I have experience with cut flower sales, not potted perennials. Today our company is getting ready to try this out. We are trying to do the "buy this whole cart of plants and receive a discount" approach. On my end in the nursery, I had to help set up the whole cart display. I was given some plant suggestions to pull from the nursery, but the final say was mine. I could change to whatever plant I thought would be the nicest. We brought some patio planters over from the main farm as well, but most of the product was our own 2 gallon and 1 gallon plants. Tomorrow morning, 2 co-workers and myself have to finish it up. Tagging and such is all that needs to be done. The straight truck that we have can fit 14 carts. Each cart has 2 layers of one gallon 6-packs, (8 six packs per layer = 42 pots) and either 2 layers of patio pots, or 1 layer of 2 gallon plants.After all is said and done, I have to admit the carts look great. Not only my own opinion, but co-workers as well. We will see on Monday how the first run works out, and if it's all good, we keep on doing it!!

Home Alone :(

This afternoon I drove my wife and kids to the airport. They are on their way to visit grampa and gramma in Saskatchewan. Grampa and gramma are ecstatic about the visit, phone calls and pictures are only so good. Even uncle Lance and Catherine are planning to meet up on the weekend. Now for some great one-on-one time at their reunion! C. is also excited to head west. She is a natural born prairie girl, and always talks of the land of living skies.

This is the first time that I wasn't there on the plane to help with the kids. I can only hope that they are well behaved for her. A three year old and 18 month old can be a handful in the backyard, let alone a confined aircraft. On the plus side, our children are usually very well mannered, polite and obedient. Of course the phrase "monkey see, monkey do" comes to mind. If H1 can do it, so can H2. That being said, I hope H1 listens to mom so H2 can follow suit.

I, on the other hand, am staying to watch the home front. And working. Oh ya, and biking!! I have had numerous invites from co-workers and family to keep myself occupied. And of course the daily phone calls from the kids will help pass the time.

I now have a very mild taste of what my Mexican com padres must feel when they come up here for months on end.

back on earth

Well, no, I didn't fall from the face of the earth, just crazy busy.

We are near the end of our busiest shipping days. Kind of. In a couple of weeks, most of the perennials we planted this spring will be ready to ship. At least we will have some students in to help. As much as possible, the Hombres (Mexicans) have been doing nursery work. This entails things like: pruning what needs it, spacing what needs it, condensing other blocks that have been decimated by shipping, moving to free up more houses, and of course potting new crops.

I have also been promoted to Assistant Propagator. A new challenge is always welcome for me, as this means more hands-on experience. I have done other propagation in greenhouses, (geranium, chrysanthemum, poinsettia etc.) but never in the nursery. Yet. I will now get to learn perennial, flowering shrub, and hard-wood/softwood rooting and maintenance. And of course grafting in the winter. Coincidentally I seem to have worked up the ladder in an odd fashion. Things seem to have gotten lighter! First I was on the Main Farm, shipping and learning nursery work. (the smallest pot-size was a one gallon, all the way up to a twenty five gallon container.) Mid-summer I was transferred to the Home Farm where I am now. Most of our containers are one gallon, but no more than a three gallon, ornamental grasses in a five gallon excepted. Now I will be handling trays of 18 pack, and jiffy trays.




I will post new pictures soon.
Till next time, cause you never know when that may be!




(pictures added June 12'07)

When I'm not at work...

......you'll know where to find me! Preferably with my three other helpers!

Shipping, shipping, shipping.......

What a couple of weeks this has been. Each day has been run, run, run, with little time for anything but work. I was fortunate enough to have my wife and kids stop by work for lunch the other day. What a treat that was. It was raining, so a little sunshine mid-day sure helps. The puddles were a sure magnet for the kids, how can they all be avoided? At least we finish at 5:00 on Fridays and 3:00 on Saturdays.

There hasn't been a day that I've been home before 9:00. (Friday and Saturday excepted) Not bad so far. There will be more nights that I won't be home until 12:00. It's all part of spring shipping. Our Mexican co-workers are doing great as shippers. Some better than others, but overall it is going great.


There are so many things to watch for:

proper plants/ varieties
proper picture tags and or pre pricing
pot size
plant maturity: older crop or fresh potted
shipped on carts, racks, skids, or wooden racks

We also have our own pot-washing station. Almost all of our product goes through a conveyor system where it is pot-washed and six-packed or pre priced. I will post about that at another time!

Happy Easter

This morning we did our own little Easter egg hunt in the house for our kids. They really enjoyed it, especially the treats inside the eggs. C had them stuffed with assorted treats, like fruit loops, and small cookies. We don't like to over sweeten our kids, so more healthy snacks are implemented.


Later this afternoon, while H2 was sleeping, the rest of us decorated a cake. The directions were a bit tricky to follow, but the finished product had great reviews!





FYI: H1 likes to watch Tree House on TV, and this is one of his better shows. Thus the boat for Easter!!

Picture Comparisons

A visual comparison one month can make.
On the left are pictures from March 9'07, and on the right side from April 8'07. As much tagging as possible is finished, and regular crop maintenance is whats left, besides shipping, of course.

The top left picture is from house 29 looking west, and the top right picture is from the same house from the west looking east.

The bottom two pictures of one gallon vines show a drastic improvement of plant size and maturity. You can also see the new growth in the grasses overhead. The last picture is a nice double white Clematis.

Another Week

Every day of every week is different.

This past week, we started out with a fair amount of shipping. Enough that we could help train the Mexicans how to pull orders. Fortunately they know a minimum amount of English, and we know as much Spanish. We all seem to manage quite well.

Since our weather turned sour late in the week, shipping has halted. We can not ship product that is just starting to send out soft new growth, when temps are below freezing. Most product is pulled from poly houses in the nursery, and were starting to flush new growth. By the time we had our wagons full of orders and into the yard, we had frost damage on more sensitive vines.

We are currently going over the nursery from one end to the other, cleaning off dead leaves, pruning back as needed, spacing, culling for dead pots, weeding and any other crop maintenance we can do right now. As soon as the weather cooperates, we will be into some serious shipping to make up for lost time!

As soon as I can get my camera batteries charged, I will add new pictures for comparison from here to here.

Warm Ups

Last night I called my brother to see if I could borrow his bike trailer. We only had a front mounted child carrier, so we couldn't go biking as a family. He said sure, so first thing this morning H1 and I ran over. Conveniently he lives in a subdivision right behind our house, 3 minutes at H1's speed. He wanted to run. It was a brisk walk for me. H1 liked the short ride back, and was very excited. That was all we used my brothers trailer.



About three hours later, we went shopping. After shopping, we had lunch, followed by a nap for C, H1 and H2. While they were sleeping, I put together our new bike trailer. After everyone was awake and had a snack, we hit the road. I can foresee a lot of bike rides this year!! And great practice for the Lake to Lake.

In Our Gardens....

I've started edging a bit, with some help. H1 had his shovel right beside me, being the biggest helper ever. Of course I had to re-dig in spots, we had fun! I love this time of year with the bulbs starting to emerge.


(1) Rudbeckia "Indian Summer"

(2) just behind the deck





(3) Tulip in the Viburnum

(4) Pink purple & white Hyacinths

Another Week

This week at work was a nice warm up of things to come. A little bit of shipping, planting, pruning, spacing and tagging.

Our last crew of Mexicans landed Wednesday morning early, and started work on Friday. We are now at decent staff, so efficiency is up. For instance, on Monday, we would plant 1 gallon pots until our wagons were full.(just over 200 pots per wagon) With four sets of three wagons and tractors. Once the wagons were full, we would take them out to the nursery. Now with a full crew, we only stop for breaks. There is enough people to unload as fast as we can plant so it is a very smooth rotation.

We also shipped out about three 53' trailers throughout the week. Next week looks to be picking up already, with one trailer for sure so far on Monday. I've heard sales look good for this year, so we will be re-planting as fast as we can ship.


I'm just happy I live close enough to work that I can see my family at lunch! It may be the only time for the next while, except for family day Sunday!

Lake to Lake

Two years ago, a friend of mine and I decided to go on a little bike trip. It was a great experience, and I learned a few things.

1) you need a GOOD bicycle
2) eye protection for the bugs, brush and branches
3) water
4) spare tubes and pump

In 2005, I had three out of four. Not bad. I didn't have #4. I almost finished, but approximately 49 kilometers into the race, I blew my front tire. This year I will be ready!

Fresh Pictures

I took a few snapshots today while doing pick-ups with my brother. He is pushing more potted plants than he has working for my other brother. There is a huge selection of potted plants from local greenhouses, and his clientele are very happy. They love their fresh Canadian product, cut flowers and potted. Just think, delivered straight from the greenhouses to their door, in sometimes less than 24 hours. Now THAT'S FRESH!













Pictures from top left to right:

6" Pink Hydrangea
Hydroponic Tulips (Different from here)
Asiatic Lilies for cut flowers
6" Blue Hydrangea
4.5" Gerbera
6" Cyclamen






I plan on talking to each of the growers from these greenhouses as well as others, so I can post more details about each.