Summer Fun

Good Morning Friends! It's almost that time again, time to open up shop and welcome you all into The Briar Patch. I am looking forward to seeing you again, or maybe for the very first time! If you haven't been here before, let me tell you a little bit about us. The Briar Patch is set on about 2 acres of beautiful farmland.  There is so much to see here, I can't wait for you to see us. We have the little Settlers Cabin, filled up with primitive finds. A cozy, welcoming little cabin setting on the edge of the garden, come on in and look around. Beautiful walk through gardens surrounding our resident old rust bucket "Rackety Boom", a 1940 International truck that rests among the flowers. We have so many little fun items to see. The old front porch holds perennials for you to purchase, lovely false indigo, so beautiful, bright and cheerful galardia, lovely daisys for you to take home. Whispering ornamental grasses wave in the breeze and welcome you into the gardens. Our newest shop is named The Old Homeplace and I can't wait for you to see it. Hand built by my wonderful husband Bob and I (with a little help from our friends too). Made from 90% of recycled materials we have gathered for years now. Wood and tin from an old farmstead, wonderful large windows from an old pharmacy from many, many years ago open up to show off our colorful gardens. Come on out and visit us.

2015 Folk Art Gathering at The Briar Patch June 27th

Hello friends, it's that time of year again. Time for the annual Folk Art Gathering right here at The Briar Patch. The gardens are in bloom, the vendors are ready to set up their tents and the time is right to welcome you to our party. We will have vendors of all kinds set up around the property, music will be playing and we just can't wait. La De'zert Cafe will be serving lunch all day, along with her delicious cupcakes so you won't want to miss it! June 27th is the date so don't forget, 9-3, we hope to see you here! We are one mile west of 6 & 31 in Lapaz, that is exit 233 from the by-pass, then one mile North on Oak. Call if you need better directions. 1-574-784-3533. See you then!

Welcome to The Old Homeplace at The Briar Patch

Good Morning Friends! The Briar Patch and The Old Homeplace are finally open! We are so excited! It has been a long cold winter but the sun is out today and the doors are open. Come on over to our little slice of heaven in the country and visit. We recently finished construction on The Old Homeplace out newest addition to our little "village" out here. Antiques, Primitives and Just plain old stuff, that's what we call it. Farm house furnishings to take to your own little home. We have some great old cabinets, rocking chairs, candles, just all kind of wonderful stuff. So come on out and wander around a while. Visit the walk through gardens, pick up a perennial or two and stay and visit a while. We are planning our annual Folk Art Show on June 27th this year. Lots of great vendors will be here, offering jewelry, handmades, garden items, and more.  Lunch will be served by Plymouth's own La D'zert Cafe, we'll have music and drawings too. Always free to attend, so plan to spend the day. Today (May 1) is the beginning of our Month long Shop Hop, 10 businesses are participating so stop by and pick up your punch card to be entered into a drawing for a prize valued at $100.00 with items from each of the businesses. This offer runs the whole month of May, so round op your favorite friends and plan a girls day out and visit one or two each week, you don't want to miss any of them! Help support local business by shopping local. Come on by....can't wait to meet you.

Exciting things going on at The Briar Patch, we are almost ready to open for 2015

Hello friends, time for another Briar Patch update. The Old Homeplace is almost finished! I can't wait to show you all the fun things we have been working on all winter. Here is one of my latest projects, a settee. Can't you just see it  next to the fireplace where you can warm yourself on a cold winter night. Excited about things to come this summer,  I  been gathering vendors for our Folk Art Show on June 27th here on the grounds. I have some great talent lined up. I hope you will stop by and spend a fun day in the country. We will have vendors, music, food and demonstrations. Keep checking back for updates. The Briar Patch will open for business on May 1st. Hope to see you!

Barn Quilt Trail

Hey friends, In my last post I mentioned The Barn Quilt Trail and I know that some of you might not know what that is, so I thought I would give you a little tutorial on it. Marshall County alone has more than 60 barns on the local trail, but they are gaining popularity all across the country. Determined to save not only wonderful old barns but also to celebrate the deep quilting heritage some talented folks got together and married the two to create these wonderful old barn quilts. Quilt patterns are painted on sheets of wood ranging in sizes from 4 x 4 foot to 8 x 8 foot. Time honored patterns are then painted and mounted on these massive old country barns. Many of the quilt patterns reflect the history of family honored quilts and their history. No two barn quilts are quite the same. The barn quilt trail travels over 150 miles of roadway, meandering through back roads and gentle landscape. So stop by the Marshall County Visitors Center and pick up a barn quilt map to keep in your car and enjoy a leisurely weekend searching out these wonderful quilts. Or download from their website www.VisitMarshallCounty.org. You can also pick up a map when you visit local shops (mine for example) who are fortunate enough to be a member of the trail. Our own quilt pattern is the eight sided star and sits outside of our little red cabin here at The Briar Patch. Come on by and pick one up.

Spring Plans!

Hey friends, we are making plans for spring of 2015. We will we be opening our new shop, The Old Homeplace, which is just filled to the brim with farmhouse finds. Old fireplace mantles, benches, a little bit of everything from primitives to shabby chic. I hope you will stop by and see what we have. We also would like to invite you to join us at our 7th Annual Folk Art Gathering on June 27th, here on the grounds. We will have vendors, music, food and all kind of fun things. Come on by and wander the gardens, visit with our vendors and just spend the afternoon. Someone will be here from the Marshall County Visitors center to speak to you about the Barn Quilt trail. If you haven't heard of this before, you are in for a real treat, come and learn about the trail and maybe even get a quilt for your barn. We will have free copies of the Art and Earth Trail magazine for everyone. This magazine is just full of wonderful places to visit from all of the surrounding counties, you won't want to miss it. Stephanie from La'Dezert will be here , serving lunch and offering you her tempting deserts, Mmm you must have one. So save the date: June 27th from 9-3, admission is free so come and spend the day with us. One mile west of 6 & 31 in Lapaz (exit 233), then one mile North on Oak.

Shop Update

Well friends, just wanted to give you another update on The Old Homeplace. We just finished the tin ceiling, isn't it great. I love the way it is all coming together! You would never guess that it is parts and pieces from so many places. There is a story that goes with every little bit of it. The windows came from a pharmacy that was built almost 100 years ago, the wood is from barns that were built about the same time. Just imagine that if the barn had been up for 80 or 90 years, the wood is much older than that. After all it takes about 40 or 50 years to make a tree big enough to make beams from. It just blows my mind. I have climbed over rubble and ruin to find this barn wood and it is so special to me. Every time I go into the shop I fall in love with it all over again. So at this point, we just have to finish a little bit of trim and put up the ceiling fans and Shazam, we have a shop! Yippee. Be sure to stop by the first of May when we open our doors for the first time. You can wander around the grounds and look at the gardens, choose some perennials to add to your own little cottage garden. Check out the little shop, The Settlers Cabin, complete with the old rope bed I made this winter. Can't wait for you to see all the changes going on here. We have so much going on around her, we are members of the Barn Quilt Trail, the Art and Earth Trail and new members of the Primitive Traveler. We are gearing up for our Annual Folk Art Gathering to be held here on the grounds on June 27th. Whew! Lot's going on, come on out and check it out.

It started with a dream

It all started with a dream here at The Briar Patch. My husband Bob and I built this little cabin in the back yard over 10 years ago. A perfect place to get away from the phones and just outside of the horse pasture where we can watch out horses romp, it became a favorite place to go after a long days work. There we talked about our plans and dreams as we just we starting our life together. That summer as we built our little cabin, we realized that we both had a passion for working with wood. Building and dreaming we talked about where we could go with our life. What would we do with our land? We have just about 15 acres out here and the possibilities are endless. We do raise our own hay and work about 5 acres for that, the rest is mostly pasture land. At the time we had only two horses to care for and didn't really need all that land in hay so my husband, being the dear sweet man he is, gave me about 5 acres of my own to do with whatever I wanted. All my life I had wanted to have a small business, something that would allow me to stay here on the farm. Working in the dirt is a passion of mine that I just can't seem to outgrow. So I decided to start my own business, selling perennials . I figured that I was going to be working in the garden anyway, so I might as well share the love.  So we spent a few years, building more buildings, making more gardens and growing our little business. The Briar Patch has been here for 8 years now, and many changes have gone on in our little part of the world since those early summers on that little cabin porch. Along with our 2 horses, we now have a rescued cow named Baby. Not much of a baby now, she went from a tiny 3 day old calf, to a gentle, playful cow that gives the horses a run for their money in the weight catagory.  The cabin from so long ago, is now a playhouse for our many grandchildren, 11 at last count. From the oldest at 18 to the youngest at 8 months, it has seen a lot of use. Together we have built 3 buildings on the grounds now. The latest, The Old Homeplace will be finished in early spring and open for business in May. This will be our 8th year for our annual Folk Art Gathering here on the grounds. Every year in June, we invite folks to spend a whole day here to walk through the gardens and visit with our many vendors. We have vendors from the surrounding states and counties showing and selling their wares. Garden items, birdhouses, and so much more. There are so many great things to see. So be sure and save the date, June 27th.  I hope you will stop by and visit us. We are planning  a Grand Opening in May of 2015 for the opening of The Old Homeplace. Filled with primitives and farmhouse furnishings there is always something to see here. Purposeful clutter we like to call it. You just never know what you are going to find here. Walk through our perennial gardens and just make a whole day of it. Can't wait to meet you!

Winter at The Briar Patch

Hello friends, It's winter here at The Briar Patch, but that doesn't mean it isn't pretty. Out for a walk with Gus our farm dog this morning , this caught my eye and I headed right back to the house for my camera. This was a shot I just couldn't pass up. The snow softly settled on the garden and made such a pretty show this morning. It makes even the plainest things pretty. Don't you just love this old wagon? It seems right at home in our garden..don't you think? I just love old stuff, it seems like the older it is with all it's scratches and patches, the more I love it. I guess I always have had a soft spot for the underdog, the thing that seems to be everyone else's castoffs. So the worn and worn out have a special place in my heart. This old wagon has been around here for a lot of years, moved from place to place and has finally found a comfortable spot in the garden. Guess it's here to stay, which is just fine with me. Enjoy your tour around The Briar Patch in the next few blogs, I hope you will come out and visit us in May when we open for the summer. You won't want to miss the Grand Opening of The Old Homeplace!

A Briar Patch update

Another update on my newest project. I told you girls can do things too! I am always looking for something to do, I think I mentioned my adult ADD in a previous post. Anyway, here is my latest project, a sweet little rope bed. I love nothing more than finding something to do with pieces of wood I find in my "stash". I must say, I horde wood like squirrels horde nuts. I just can't seem to burn a perfectly primitive piece of wood.  The posts are made from some old 2 X 4's we had in the barn, they are just the perfect faded gray color. The foot and headboards are wonderful old barn wood, pieces just a little too small to use for anything else. The headboard has gnawed places I teasingly told my husband looked like some child teethed on it. Actually I think I said.."hey Pa, the chilren been chewin on the bed again". (Tee Hee). Anyhow, I love the way they look. After an afternoon of routing out all the joints and measuring and re-measuring, sanding, and measuring some more, we were almost done. We stood there, admiring our work when my sweet, wonderful, always helpful husband turns to me and says"do you think we should put a couple of screws in it to help stabilize it?" WHAT???? My head swiveled around so fast it almost knocked me over and I know for a fact that my eyebrows shot straight up! No, I didn't spend all this time making this thing look as old as all this to put SCREWS in it. Silence filled the shop and I tried not to glare....Deep breath....Don't glare....ok, as I gathered myself and  tried to figure out what to do next, I thought, ok there has to be something  we can do. So we went to plan B. I always have a  plan B somewhere in the back of my mind. So straight to the basement I went to my second "stash". Now I just have to tell you, if you can't find something any place else, it's probably in my basement. As it happened I had a jar full of masonary nails that I found at Habitat. In case you don't know what those look like,  they have these great wide flat heads that look like old square headed nails. So we drilled a pilot hole (to keep the wood from splitting ) and pounded them in. They look positively primitive. I have to say, I just love the way it turned out. I'm almost sorry we're finished, but then...I can't wait to find another project! I hope you will come out for our Folk Art Gathering that we are planning for June 27th this year. I can't wait to show off my new shop and all the fun stuff we are making. Keep checking back for more updates.