Flowers and more on a Bernese farm

Hello again

I promised a post about my friend's 80th birthday -- well, some photos that highlight the lovely setting and beautiful flowers at Staehli's Rustica in 3144 Gasel, Switzerland. For details, see http://www.rundumbern.ch/gaumen/gaumen.htm. It's an absolutely lovely setting well away from the noise and bustle of the city. Most importantly, the Staehlis are extremely friendly people and great cooks/hosts.
They keep bees, a very friendly, very lazy dog, Rico, ... ... chickens, goats, and provide for children out of doors (indoors, there's a playroom, as well, which doubles up as a bar and/or store-room for instruments when guests bring their own band -- I even saw a drum kit!).
Some wild sage not usable in the kitchen, but great for bumblebees and butterflies.
Here's chef preparing the fire: I didn't count the logs he tossed into his big self-built fireplace, but if you want to feed fifty people, your fire and griddle have to be generous.
Not a great photo, but it shows the ingenious counterweight to the heavy steel plate of the griddle -- a big, round rock Mr. Staehli found in the hillside above his farm.
Here he is prepping the griddle, a simple, rimmed steel plate about 1.20 x 1.20 m, a few minutes before he started to grill sausages made by a neighbouring farmer and steaks from neighbouring farm animals. They tasted fantastic. He had a good blaze going at that time.
We were very lucky with the weather. The gathering storm held off until we were well into our meal and safely indoors.
A very warm welcome arranged by the lady of the house, Mrs Staehli. She had her eyes and hands everywhere.
About an hour before we were ready to leave, the skies did open and it poured:A fair amount of water came rushing down at the far edge of the terrace. We were keeping fingers crossed the rain wouldn't bring another wheelbarrow-load of muck, like it did the night before.
Luckily, the indoor space is lovely and spacious and well-lit.Yes, the piano was in tune, and we had some exquisite music during the party.
My friend's very own florist brought a dozen of these lovely flower and fruit arrangements all the way from Basel. They looked gorgeous.
We were happy enough, especially as chef served up an amazing ice-torte he had made himself the previous night:He had at least five different types of ice-cream in there, and the outside was decorated with meringues, frozen raspberries, Kambly Bretzeli and other delicacies. He was generous in the pouring out of brandies and liqueurs, too, to help digest what was not exactly a light dessert. Yummy, though!