Meander Salamander

This afternoon when I opened the door there was a salamander waiting at the steps! I don't know for sure what possessed him to cross the great expanse of patio pavers to the steps, but I suspected he was looking for a good place to hunker down for the winter.

About 15 years ago when Sara was in 2nd grade, a boy in her class found a big tiger salamander and brought it to school in a bucket. Sara convinced him to give it to her and brought it home . She named it Sally and we kept her in a terrarium all winter, then let her go the next summer. We were all very fond of Sally.

I really wanted to take this salamander in for the winter. I decided if I found a nice terrarium at a thrift store for not very much money, it was destined to be. I put him in a large bucket with garden soil in the bottom while I went to town to do my errands. At Savers I found the perfect terrarium for $ 7! I also found a funky shallow, green dish for a little pool.

When I stopped at the library for resources about keeping a pet salamander there was precious little information on the topic, but both books stated that tiger salamanders adapt well to captivity and enjoy being hand-fed.

I've decided to keep his terrarium (or, more properly, "vivarium") on my desk so I can monitor whether he seems to be settling in or I need to let him go. I'm calling him "Meander." He's pretty small, about 7 inches from head to tip of tail and perhaps an inch in diameter at his thickest part. He's got that goofy salmander grin.

Just now I looked up the symbolism of the salamander. Some of the salamander's symbolic attributes include Vision, Energy, Growth, Renewal, Transition, Awareness and Resourcefulness -- an auspicious animal for starting a farm!

Golden Autumn Morning

Early morning must be my favorite time on this farm, especially this time of year when the sunrises are orange-hued. The sunrise streams in through the dining room windows
infuses the room with golden light and creates wide shadows on the opposite wall.

A few pumpkins leftover from our farmwarming party glow red in the sunrise.
The red Willys Jeep also takes on a glow. We haven't got it running yet, but the new customized license plates came in the mail. ("Squashblossom" wouldn't fit so we settled for "Squash.")
The blueberry bushes, planted two and a half weeks ago, seemed to turn bright red overnight.
This morning there was light frost on the garden plots.
Red-winged blackbirds gather in the top of this tree in the front yard every morning and sing. Robins have been singing, too! They must all be gathering their motivation for the big trip south, but it sounds almost like spring.

Squash Blossom Bash

Yesterday a bunch of great friends came to our Squash Blossom Bash farm-warming party. It was the first major test of our pizza oven--Rog baked 14 small (and scrumptious!)pizzas during the party. On the left is Norm, whose scout troop planted many of the tall pines on our land 30 years ago!
Our dear former neighbors, Chris, Mara and Carol attended. We really miss them!
Stephanie and Sue. Unfortunately, I was pretty busy assembling pizzas, and didn't get a chance to take very many photos. I especially wish I had gotten photos of the pumpkin carving; a dozen artful jack-o-lanterns were created by kids and adults.

John brought his darling new springer spaniel puppy, Dot, who was the life of the party! Vera and Earl brought their dog, Chloe, too. Together with Nutmeg and Cocoa, we had some real party animals.
Even Kelly and Sam came--they are the new residents of our old house! Sam brought his guitar.
Some of Rog's HGA colleagues joined us, including Jennifer and her husband Matt and darling daughter Lydia.
Dawn recovered sufficiently from hosting the previous night's Barn Blast to party with us again! Jennifer was invaluable cutting up pizza ingredients.
Mike and Phil, probably sharing an inscrutable joke.
In the background, Doug is trying to convince his wife Kathy that they should build an earthen oven in their back yard.

Thanks, dear friends, for helping us celebrate our new adventure, for bringing wonderful food and drink, and for all your good wishes.

Norskes!

On Monday I drove up to the Minneapolis airport to pick up some special guests - Bjorne and Johanna -- relatives from Bergen, Norway. We had never met before, although they know my parents and knew my grandma well. Johanna speaks English fluently and Bjorne understand more than he speaks, so we had no communication gap. After showing them around our farm we went into town and I led them on a walking tour of my favorite Rochester attractions(Barnes and Noble, Gonda Building, Plummer Building, Mayo pediatrics floor and our former house.)

Bjorne plays fiddle and mandolin in a band in Norway. After supper, he and Rog jammed together. I dredged up memory remnants of Norwegian folk songs I had learned at Norwegian Camp when I was 12 and 13 years old, and we all sang them. (I am sure my lyrics were totally wrong and very funny, but they kindly didn't laugh at my singing.) My mandolin has never had such a good workout before!

Tuesday we drove back to the cities to visit my Moms's cousin Glendon and then they flew home. We enjoyed Bjorne and Johanna's visit so much -- I hope they return soon, and that next time their children and grandchildren come, too.

Johanna og Bjorne: Tusen takk for sjokolade. Det smaker!!

Sunday: Sore, Satisfied and Sleepy

Weekends are simply not long enough! We are not entirely unpacked yet, but while the weather is still nice we are focusing our efforts outdoors. We completed our pizza oven yesterday. It's built upon the cable spool, so it looks sort of like a huge mushroom (We'll do more with the base in the future.) Rog celebrated with a glass of merlot.

This pizza oven is very simple; it has a short chimney and a row of iridescent tesserae to decorate the opening. This afternoon Rog built a fire to dry the oven from the inside out. It reached almost 600 degrees F while still feeling cool and damp on the exterior (the walls are 9 inches thick, made from clay, sand, sawdust and straw.) When the fire burned out we popped a squash and a few potatoes in and an hour later had a tasty autumn supper.

Yesterday I started mulching the smaller west garden plot. First I dug up wheelbarrow loads of aged horse manure from a pile by the loafing shed and spread it on top of a layer of newspapers (which had been read, then used to pack our dishes for the move, then saved for this noble purpose.) Next I swept all the old, DUSTY, loose hay from the loft of the barn and hauled it in wheelbarrow-loads to layer on top of the newspaper and manure, about 6 inches deep. There was enough hay up there to cover about half of this garden plot, but there is more in the middle room of the barn so I may have enough hay for this entire plot, but not both plots.(For the record, I am holding Rog's celebratory wine while he takes this photo, not imbibing while I mulch.)

Realizing I would need much more mulch, I had walked down the road to meet our dairy farmer neighbor and inquire whether they might have some old or spoiled hay they would sell me. I met the son, Mark, who was very kind and promised me all the cow manure I ever want! They have no spoiled hay and will need all the good hay they have to feed their 150 cows this winter, but he said he'd be happy to give me some of the shredded corn stover they use for bedding. Today Mark drove over two buckets of the stuff. We had him dump the first load over the fence, and we carted it into the garden in many rickety wheelbarrow trips.

Then we got a bit smarter and had him dump the next scoop into our little trailer, which we could push to the edge of the garden to unload. I think we will need 4 more buckets to cover the entire garden 6 inches deep. I plan to pay Mark significantly more for the next 4 loads - so far his only remuneration has been a loaf of homemade cardamom bread, hot out of the oven.

Ruth Stout says all you need for her permaculture gardening strategy is a deep layer of whatever organic material you can find locally- shredded corn husks are fine. I will probably add fallen leaves, too. Our soil looks very rich and healthy to start with, but it will be interesting to compare the results off the garden mulched in hay/newspaper/manure with the one mulched in corn stover.

Wonderful Weekend's Work

gaWe had delightful visitors last weekend. Our daughter Sara drove up from Chicago to check out the new farm. She brought her boyfriend, Mike (a very sweet guy), for us to meet, and we put them to work. It was a perfect fall weekend and we accomplished a lot, ate some fabulous meals, and had a great time with them.

Rog's focus was building our second earthen pizza oven upon the wooden cable spool we got the previous weekend. This improved oven is a bit larger than our first and has much thicker walls for insulation, a brick arch opening and a chimney for better air flow. Sara and Mike dug many wheelbarrow loads of clay mud from the west pasture, which we all constructed into the oven wall. This photo shows the outer layer of straw and mulch insulation - which will be covered by another more beautiful layer.

We all took an exploratory walk on our land. Rog and I hadn't really walked much of the west 5 acres before. It is mostly bordered by large trees, and in the center is an overgrown field with lots of wildflowers and sumac. Also some huge buckthorn trees to be dealt with! We met a few impressive spiders, too. This one was about 3 inches in diameter and was missing one leg.

I disassembled a few of the garish 1970's lamps I have been collecting for their colored glass parts. I intended to use the glass orbs in future garden sculptures but it occured to me that if I set them on top of the fence posts they would look sort of like pumpkins. I inserted the PV solar lights into two of them and they glow in the dark. They really light up in the morning sun, too!

Of all the books on permaculture gardening I've been reading, the most inspiring one so far is Ruth Stout's No Work Garden Book (out of print, but I ordered it on-line). She says this kind of gardening is great for people who are busy, indolent, old or have bad backs--perfect for me! I also like this heavy-mulching, no-till approach because it follows nature's strategy of growing things and it continuously enriches the soil. Supposedly you don't even have to till established sod--you can just mulch over it-- but it takes a year or so for the sod to totally break down, so I decided to till this fall to give my garden a head start. I called up a fellow a couple miles down the road who had a sign in his yard that advertised "Garden Plowing." He turned out to be a really nice fellow with the appropriate name of Ward Field. Last night I staked out my garden plots and he rototilled them. The earth smelled so wonderful! Now I will mulch the gardens with layers of newspaper, manure and old hay for the winter. The plots don't look that large to me, but Rog assures me they are plenty ambitious.

Once Upon a Mattress

We needed to purchase a box spring for the bed in our guest bedroom. We have a nice mattress, which Cadence used on her loft in our previous house, but the boxspring made the loft claustrophobically close to the ceiling, so I had given it to the Salvation Army. If I had known how much box springs cost I might have stored it.

Today I bought a brand new box spring. Because of liability issues -and now I know why- they won't help tie it down on your car, but they provided me with twine. Actually, I think it was jute macrame' cord. It didn't seem especially strong, so I used lots of it, tying across in several places and front to back twice. I decided to not take the highway and to drive slowly.

All was going well. I pulled over on West River Road and got out to check that it was still tied on tightly, and it was fine.

I was on 75th Street (a rural 2-lane road through rolling farmland) and could see our farm in the distance as I crested the hill, when I heard a quiet snap and the twine went suddenly slack. I couldn't see the boxspring in my rearview mirror, so I thought it must still be on the car roof. I slowed down smoothly to a stop and got out. It WASN't on the roof. Nor on the road. Nor in the ditch! What the heck!? I got in the car and drove back a little way to turn around and drive slowly along the ditch until I found it. But I couldn't find it! I pulled to the side, got out and walked along the road for half a mile and still couldn't find it. Baffling! I mean, a full-sized mattress has to make a pretty big rectangle-shaped flat spot in the tall grass. And it was wrapped in shiny plastic, so it should reflect the light.

A car pulled over and two women asked if I had run out of gas. I said no, and told the about losing my new boxspring. They laughed and offered to help me recover it. They also surmised, "it has to be where the grass is flattened in a rectangle shape." They said to hop in, so I did and we drove up and down a half-mile section of road, looking on both sides in case it somehow sailed across the oncoming traffic lane into that ditch. No luck. Then we all got out and walked up and down the edges of the road --no sign of a mattress.

The two women must have begun thinking that I had made up the entire story. Eventually they said they had to go, wished me luck, and I began bushwhacking my way through the bottom of the unmowed ditch. This time when I passed the farm with the large-looking and ferocious-sounding Doberman (for about the sixth time) he seemed especially crabby.

Finally, I found the boxspring. It had sailed past the tall grass, probably about 30 feet, into a shallow depression at the edge of a soy-bean field. Amazingly, it wasn't even slightly damaged.

I walked the half mile back to my car, drove home, hitched up the trailer, drove back and pulled over alongside the ditch. I muscled the boxspring up the embankment and flipped it into the trailer, and secured it tightly with bungee cords. I drove home laughing out loud, even though I was the only one in the car.

I suppose I should feel kind of embarrassed to share this ridiculous story--but I actually I feel a sort of perverse pride in handling this mini-catastrophe all by myself. Somehow it gave me confidence that I will make it as a farmer.