Up and Down

What’s up:
Our first two wine cap mushrooms from our tiny mushroom bed by the garden shed!

What’s down:
Half of a 50-foot tall ash tree, one of a line of ash trees that were planted for each of the Braasch children, probably in the 1970s.  They were visiting this, their childhood home, last weekend for the barn's birthday and told me that. They were saddened when I told them the ash trees are probably all doomed to the emerald ash borer in the coming years.

You can’t see the crown of the fallen portion, which  fills the space between a large red maple and the granary. This is precisely where the cows spent the previous day relaxing in the shade, but we hadn’t yet moved them to the front yard for the day. Lynette was working a short distance away in the garden when she was startled by the sudden tremendous crash.  There wasn’t even any wind. It could sort of make you lose your trust of trees when one randomly crashes to the ground near you.

An Infusion of Youthful Energy and Muscles

We had a Farm Mob on Saturday!  Ten students from RCTC and their sociology professor, Lynn Guenette,  arrived at noon and spent the afternoon getting dirt under their fingernails and helping us accomplish all sorts of farm projects.   The students had a broad range if experience and inexperience - from this young woman from New York City (she commented that she felt like she was on a movie set) to another student whose family milks over 3,000 head of dairy cattle.

Many hands make light work, and with all these hands in just 4 hours we accomplished a 40-hour work week! Sugar snap peas and Walla Wall onions got planted.

Compost piles got turned

and finished compost spread upon the garden.

A team helped Rog check and repair the fence around the pasture.

It was a workout

and  the potato bed got tilled.

A big  pile of leaf mulch got moved.

Two cherry trees got planted

and two pear trees got planted.

Stray young raspberry plants were dug up for transplanting into a new bed.

The winter's accumulation of empty feed sacks were slit open, soaked and laid down between the rows of raspberries to smother the weeds, then covered with straw.

Not to mention, the greenhouse got weeded and a big pile of brush burned!

Huge thanks to Professor Guenette for encouraging her students to farm for a day!

It was hard work, and the weather was getting cold and rainy at the end, but I think everybody had some fun.

Afterward, we made wood-fired pizza.  I don't know how those young, strong, energetic students fared, but Rog and I were totally pooped-- we took a nap after everyone left!

Thanks again. We are so appreciative of your help.  Come back any time!!

Welcome Rain

It was the second rainy day in a row - rain that we need so badly. In just a couple days the grass has turned from faded brown to brilliant green and other vivid colors are appearing.

Between rain showers, the dogs and Orange Cat and I took a little walk, while everything was dripping.  I finally got one of those shots where the world is reflected in a raindrop.  (You probably have to zoom way in to see it.)

The air was so delicious -- earthy and spicy and fresh all at once.

Walking through the white pines on the path thickly layered with wet, soft needles was even more fragrant.

Since yesterday, the bloodroot has emerged and is beginning to unfurl.

Flower buds on the lilac hedge.

Yesterday, a couple buds on the little white magnolia were just beginning to open; today it is in full bloom with yet another heady fragrance.

One bud on the yellow magnolia was beginning to open this afternoon - perhaps this tree will burst into bloom tomorrow like its cousin the white magnolia. I can't wait to see this magnolia in bloom, its first time since I planted it.


  

Ice Storm

We got freezing drizzle yesterday afternoon, so I essentially skated through chores and gave the slush-covered cows extra hay for supper and extra straw for bedding.  It rained all evening with the temperature hovering at freezing. When I let the dogs out before bed (or tried to, they refused to go out) I was dazzled by an ice-encrusted world!

Limbs that are normally way above where I can reach were bowing down to my shoulders, encased in ice. It was very windy and the branches were shaking and clattering like maracas. It was impossible to capture the beauty of the night with my camera - for one thing I was kind of afraid to go out under the trees, worried a heavy branch would crash down onto me.  I snapped this photo from the steps, lit by the yard light, branches waving furiously.

This one was taken with the flash.

I was hoping to capture the beauty this morning but most of the ice had already melted from the trees. It is still raining steadily, gray and dreary. We have some clean-up to do.

This branch is too heavy for me to move alone and the electric fence is now compromised. At least I don't think the cows will attempt leaping over the fence when it is so icy.  They have been stepping very carefully across the treacherous pasture.

Electric fence with icy barbs.

Jitterbug and a rooster sharing a bit of  grain in the rain.

The dogs are dismayed and the yard  and driveway are a slushy, muddy mess.  So much for the beauty of the ice storm. If the sun does break through the gloom later on, I will try to capture some sparkle.

Eclectic Catch -Up Post

The yard is now scattered with these. Pretty, but also kind of depressing.  Although I love the fresh, crisp air, the earthy smells and the vivid colors of autumn, I hate being reminded that winter is around the corner and seeing the days getting shorter and shorter...

But, we do intend to savor every moment.  We are packing in as much  time outdoors and with friends and doing fun things as we can.

Gayle, my best friend from high school, visited for a couple days during one of her genealogy research excursions.  We see each other so rarely, but despite the divergent paths our lives have taken over the past 30 years, we are still connected at the heart.

A double-wide hammock is a great place to  talk about philosophies,, experiences, dreams.














At least until the turkeys intrude, untying your shoes or yanking on your hair.

Our friends Jim and Carla, also novice farmers, learned that our tomato harvest was disappointing this year (too wet, split tomatoes and slugs galore.)  Jim dropped off a large box of their excess, beautiful  paste-tomatoes. I roasted many pans of tomatoes and made sauce and paste form this box of tomatoes.  Thank you, Jim and Carla!

Two weeks ago we had an incredible wind blow through, brief but destructive.  It  tilted our gazebo over, pulling the cemented anchors out from the patio,  scattered heavy lawn furniture and  branches across the yard, and snapped off a couple of the huge old silver maples along our pasture fence.   We hired a tree-company to cut down the hung-up branches and the standing trunks of the trees because they were too big for our chainsaw. A few sections of the fence still need to be rebuilt, but happily, our homeowners insurance will help reimburse the costs.

Last week when I woke up in the middle of the night because a dog was barking, I looked out the window and noticed the nearly-full moon peeking through the top of the windmill.  Somehow, when things align like that, it feels like a tiny miracle.

Many Hands, Light Work

For Labor Day, we invited a few friends over to labor.  Our goal was to  remove a couple of huge buckthorn trees in our prairie--beautiful but invasive trees that are covered with glossy black berries and drop bazillions of seeds every fall or spread them via birds  that feast on the berries.

Our tools of destruction included a weed wrench, swede saw, loppers. spade,  plus  chainsaw, gloves and mosquito repellant (not shown.)

Dave gets into it, climbing up into the tree to remove boughs that are hung up.

The cluster of stumps from one of the  buckthorns. The  heartwood is a beautiful red color--hope we can persuade a wood-turning friend to make us a set of salad bowls from it...

The dirty, sweaty buckthorn busters: Mary, Dan, Rog and Dave.

Big stump.
Only another 6 or 8 big buckthorn trees (and 6000 to 8000 little ones) to go.
Thanks to our great friends for their  hard work!

Stormy Weather

It was such an oppressively hot, sultry day yesterday that sweat ran down your body even when you were sitting still doing nothing.  The temperature was upper 90's but it was extremely humid; the heat index was 115 degrees F.  It sure felt like tornado weather, and there was a tornado watch called for all of southeastern Minnesota.

Cooler air finally breezed in that evening and clashed with the steamy air, resulting in a fierce storm.  The sky turned greenish,  then yellow, then  orange,  and finally deep reddish brown with massive dark, churning clouds.  The tree tops whipped sideways in the wind and the windmill whirred frantically. Unfortunately, I had left my camera in the barn and did not want to venture out into a potential tornado to get it, so my photos were taken after the storm had subsided significantly.

At the peak of the storm it was dark as night, but as the  clouds broke up, the sky lightened, with a hint of a sunset peeking through on the western horizon.

Clouds zipped past the windmill.

We lost a few branches, including a huge limb off the big silver maple next to the barn, but it managed to fall without causing damage to roof, fence or livestock. Although it was still raining hard and windy, the cows bounded over to munch on the leaves. They love maple leaves.

This is our week for taking off from the Farmers Market -- happily, we will have time to clean up the fallen tree branches.