And Then I Fell in Love

The farm of my dreams.

Please click on each picture to make it larger, it's worth it!

This beautiful place was my first stop on the Kaw Valley Farm Tour yesterday.  The Henry Farm, it is home to a family who has a greenhouse business and are serious gardeners, as you can see.  It was aboslutely glorious, on a fine morning, to walk around their property and take pictures of the display gardens.

I tried to post these last night, but could not get Blogger to load anything.  This morning, only one picture has loaded as regularly does, and the rest will not re-size.  They also loaded themselves wherever they wanted, and not where I wanted them!     I'm just grateful they are in.

As well as plantsmen, the Henrys are also animal caretakers, and many of their pets have come to them from others who have bought a baby, and then were thunderstruck when it grew up.  This is one of them:

They also have four alpacas, a herd of sheep, a team of grey percherons for which they have a collection of beautiful old wagons and surreys... an emu, a riding horse, and two mini horses re-homed from those who could not care for them.  Couple this with a well-fenced poultry yard with geese, ducks and chickens... rabbit hutches.... a good old dog.... and a collection of cats of every color and size, it was just a lovely place to visit.  They  had a bunch of these:

I fell in total love with this farm.  The family has been there 40 years, and run the nursery business for nearly thirty of those years.  They are good stewards of their land and animals, and plantsmen from whom I hope to buy some good plants next spring.  I was glad to discover them, and to know that the grand old farms (the house was built in the 1880s) are being cared for so well.  What a privelege!

I got out of my car and looked up the lane... and wished I could see this every night.

 Still having problems at the end of this post... cannot enlargen the pictures at all.  I think it must be Blogger.

I have many other pictures of the great plantings at this farm, but will leave you with one of their line-up of Mums in front of the greenhouses.  I overheard the owner say that they normally started 1200 mums for fall sales, but this year started only 400, because of the severe summer weather.

Here are some of them, and yes, I bought a gorgeous orange one called "Hannah" in honor of my little doll.

          More pictures from other tour stops coming later today.  I am helping Roxanne at Screamin' Oaks this afternoon... she had so  many people come for the tour at her stop that she ran out of parking several times!