A whole week in Hilton Head Island – Tina, Jeff, Lars and Toben!! What a blast…played all day and fished all night.
 |
| Massive Storm System Approaches |
 |
| Calm After the Storm |
A Week at the Beach
Chronicles of the Long Shot Farm
Family
Tea Party!
Fiona turned three years old this week, and she had one of her birthday parties at the farm – on Valentines Day! We were all very excited – well, the ladies and princesses at least were excited – to plan a “tea party”, complete with fancy clothes, lots of necklaces and hats that we decorated during the party. We are all hoping that this is the first of many little girl’s birthday “tea parties”.
We used some of Tina’s demitasse collection for our teacups along with the small bread plates from one of the china sets. Jigglers were served in fancy containers, fruit was arranged on skewers, pretty cookies were served on platters and we had baked an assortment of tiny cupcakes which were decorated with colorful icing.
The room was decorated with streamers and balloons and Samantha turned one of the high chairs into a birthday throne with the help of a lot of satiny fabric and tulle – in shades of pink with a bit of a zebra print accent!
It was such a blast – we all played dress-up, old and young alike – and it was hard to tell who enjoyed it most:
 |
| Toben and Omi |
 |
| Rachel enjoys her tea |
 |
| Tina and Opa |
 |
| Gracie and Toben |
 |
| Adelaide models one of the decorated hats |
 |
| Fiona admires one of her presents: a tiny purse |
New Year – New Grandbaby
We are excited to welcome Freyja Rebecca Neill to our family. She was born in Boston on January 3, weighing 8.3 lbs and she was 20.5 inches long. Her parents, Anja and Duff, and her big brother Leif are very happy to greet their beautiful new daughter and sister.
.JPG)
Chambourcin Harvest – Take Two
We picked the majority of our Chambourcin two weeks after having picked the first batch (the grapes we used for the rosé wine). Luckily we had loads of helpers – big and small, and we ended up harvesting the remaining grapes in just a few hours.
 |
| Toben |
 |
| Fiona |
 |
| Leif |
They were beautifully ripe, amazingly sweet grapes that should make a great wine! We destemmed, crushed and sorted the grapes before dumping them into the fermenting tank.
This year, we were much more prepared for making wine and had all the necessary “ingredients” and lab equipment ready. We also decided to use the same type of yeast for all our wines. Check out this block of yeast:
Blueberries on the 4th of July
One great way to celebrate Independence Day is with a feast of blueberry desserts. Since we have an abundance of fresh berries right now, we came up with the following selection for the day’s picnic.
Fresh blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream:
Blueberry-sour cream custard tart:
 |
| Adding the layer of berries to the custard |
The always favorite fruit pizza, one version with a berry variety in every bite and another version of artistic flowers (both are courtesy of Sam’s skills):
