A Sad, Sad Day

I came home this afternoon to discover that my laundry line had broken. It's my fault, I hung a wet and rather heavy blanket this morning even though I had seen the line was starting to weaken. I guess I will have to make do with the two remaining lines... But I have sheets to wash tomorrow and they take up a lot of room. Feel bad for me; My life is a hard one.

Another Project Finished....A Million More to go

Many of my posts are about what we've been doing on the farm (hence the title of the blog) so I thought I would shake things up a bit and share what Art has been doing. A friend of ours, Josh Crist (not to be confused with 'Christ') is an electrician and has been asking Art to help him on a job for the last few weeks. The job was to install an LED sign at a bar in Cedar Rapids and, since Josh doesn't know how to weld very well, he employed Art for the day to fabricate and weld the sign into place.

Art's amazing bracket fabrication skills

The finished product

Home Again, Home Again

I am home from Arizona! Though I was bitter about having a business meeting over the holiday weekend, the weather (upper 90's all week) and seeing family made it bearable. I was able to see my cousins Claudia and Steve (whom I still want to call B.J....) and Steve's wife Mandy and their 3 year old son Nolan. Let me tell you, Nolan is by far the sweetest and most adorable child I have ever seen (this coming from someone who doesn't like kids). Believe me, you haven't seen cute until you've heard Nolan belting out Kelly Clarkson's "Since You've Been Gone" or rapping along with Flo-Rida's "Apple Bottom Jeans Boots With the Fur" (It must have been his Aunt Bess that would teach him such a song...). There are some parts he can't sing, parts that have naughty words so he just stays silent on these parts but picks the song up again with even more enthusiasm.
I got to take a ride in the 'fun car'- Mandy's new mustang convertible (so much fun!) and I was able to get a little sun while I was there. All in all I had a really nice time but am glad to be home. I do wish it were 98 degrees instead of 75, though...

Happy Memorial Day...?

I'm headed to Phoenix tomorrow for a meeting until Wednesday. Why, yes it is over Memorial Day weekend and, no, I'm not happy about it. Not only are they making me spend my long weekend in a conference room, but they are forcing me to spend outrageous amounts of money in order fly and stay in a hotel over a holiday weekend (well, in all fairness, we did find a different hotel for $40 a night, but still...) I should be spending time at home, remembering those worth remembering (or at least having a BBQ and enjoying the weather) The one bright spot is that I will be seeing my cousins whom I haven't seen in years. It's supposed to be an average of 100 degrees- I've never experienced 'dry' heat and much prefer the humidity, but 100 degrees, whether dry or humid, is pretty hot.
I hope everyone enjoys their long weekend (well, not the Canadians, you had yours already)!!

The Gnats are Swarming...

How is it that such a useless insect, impervious to any and all bug sprays, can have such an uncanny ability to find any open orifice on the human body and infiltrate said orifice?? I have gnats in my ears, nose, mouth and, most annoying, stuck between my eyes and my glasses. What's worse, our particular gnats are biters. They don't just leave a small, slightly itchy bug bite, they leave a welt the size of a dime. I hate them.

It was another weekend in the garden. Every year I promise myself that I will be better at keeping ahead of the weeds, and every year I disappoint myself. I think if I didn't have a full time job I would be better at weeding... that's what I tell myself, anyway. This year I bought a role of that black felt that you can use to keep the weeds down in flower beds and gardens so I laid that between the rows. It's really light stuff, though, so I put some old hay over top of it. It's not pretty but I think it will do the job (at least, I hope it does the job) You will notice I did not do the middle section of the garden and that is because I can't remember if I planted anything there yet or not.... the spinach may or may not be there... I guess we'll find out soon enough.

On a different note, Art opened up the South barn doors today and there was a bat hanging there. He took it off and put it up in the hay loft- a much better place for sleeping (or whatever it is bats do) The picture is kind of out of focus, sorry about that.

Refinanced

Yesterday we (finally) closed on the refinancing of our home (after four months) It was pretty nerve-wracking, what with all the papers to sign and money to hand over. Art was nervous about the cost of refinancing, even though we are saving loads by doing so (and our payment went down every month so that's nice, too). He just hates spending money (unless it's for a new tractor...or truck...or any farm equipment, really). We dropped down to 4.25% interest rate and it was very heartening to hear the title lady say that she has been extremely busy with loan closings and she has never seen a rate that low. Yay for us!

Chicken Run

Art left the dining room door (which opens on to our deck) open to let the warmer air in. I came in the house to get something and there were chickens in my kitchen. Apparently they were tired of searching for whatever it is they search for and decided to check out the house. Fortunately they didn't poop everywhere, just a couple of places...

Blooming

I love this time of year because everything thing is blooming: the flowers in the garden, the cherry and apple trees, the dandelions and violets. I took what Art calls "artsy" pictures of stuff around the house so here they are:

Lawn Care

We mowed our lawn for the first time this weekend (I realize that most people have mowed their lawns several times by now, but with 3+/- acres of lawn to mow it's quite an undertaking that requires at least half a day) We finally bought a riding lawn mower last year and that has really saved us time, but we also have a lot of small trees (Art's determination to control the wind) and we still have to take the push mower around each and every one (I used to mow around them with the riding mower, but since I have mowed or run over several of the small trees, I am no longer allowed to do so). A part of me hates the first lawn cutting because our yard is filled with dandelions and violets (much to the dismay of our Round-Up-Ready neighbors) and it's just so pretty I hate to mow them all down.

Here's a picture of Art mowing:

If you've never read or even heard of "Bogtrotter: Notes From a North Country Cabin" by Richard A. Coffey, I'm not surprised. It was first published in 1982 and reprinted in 1996 but has since been out of print. Copies are easily obtained on the Internet (I bought my on half.com for $1.50 but amazon has copies for $.01)

'In March 1980, Richard and Jeanne Coffey set aside their professional careers in the Twin Cities, sold their downtown condominium and most of their material possessions, and went to live near a tamarack swamp in northern Minnesota. The Coffey's.. found their serenity in the woods. Their purpose in life that year, they concluded, was to live simply and watch life on their bog.' --book jacket

If you interested in living off the land or you just like to be outdoors a lot, you would cetainly enjoy this book. It's funny and sad and introspective; I couldn't put it down. I have read many back-to-the-land stories and it always seems as though the people I'm reading about are the extreme; angry at everyone (God and the government included) and their only escape is to some backwood land where they learn to live off wild berries and tree bark while making a tent from their pants (oops, that was an episode of 'The Office'). The Coffey's are regular, midwest people who just want to learn to appreciate and better understand the world around them. Through all of the ups and downs and adventures they always keep an open mind and a positive outlook on what they are trying to do without pushing their lifestyle on to anyone else. They have their doubts at times and it is amazing to see how two 'normal' people can completely change their effect on the earth and be completely at peace while doing it.

You know how sometimes you wake up for one reason, but then remain awake because of another reason? Last night I woke up to the sounds of coyotes yipping and it was very eerie because they sounded very close to the house. It was then that I realized how blessed hot it was in our room, even with the windows opened. I changed our sheets this weekend and was planning on bringing out the cotten set, but Art begged me to put the fleece back on because he 'sleeps so well' on them. At 1:30am I regretted this decision (Art did not believe me that it was the fleece that kept us overly warm last night...I reminded him that clothing companies make millions every winter selling fleece everything because of its heat retention) Art laid there for awhile, kicking off blankets, sighing heavily and opening the window wider (but with no breeze it didn't really do anything) I asked him, "why don't you get the fan out of the closet?" "Oh, I'm fine", he says. After a few more minutes of listening to him toss and turn, I finally got up, got the fan out of the closet and put it in the window (Art's kind of useless once he's in bed); it was lovely.

I asked Art how he slept last night and he said "Great, after we turned the fan on." I'm sure he meant, "thank you for turning on the fan, oh Great-and-Wise One"

Calf Breakin' Time!

Today we decided it was time to break the calves. Well, the time had come a couple of months ago and we are just now getting around to it. Art had put a halter on Helen a few days ago and everyday he would tie her up to a post and let her fight, kick, and just get used to it. This process sounds mean but we do it in order to make the cows a little more tame. Today we tied the end of the halter on to the tractor and walked her around; Helen was not pleased. Art was complaining about how stubborn she was and I told him that since we lost them for three weeks (yes, lost them) and they ran around wild, perhaps we missed out on some developmental stage and now we were paying for it in her adolescence. We walked (well, more like dragged) her to a fenced in area near the corn crib to let her eat the grass. It was then that Helen, having pulled and fought the entire 1000 feet walk from barn to corn crib and slowly stretching the halter, slipped out of the halter all together. It was certainly not a crisis, we just left her there for awhile. She's a sneaky one so Art and I set up our lawn chairs to watch and make sure she settled in. Helen had kind of a wild look in her eye (just the one, the other one doesn't work) and kept running towards the fence thinking she could get out. Meanwhile, Keller is in the barn opposite her bawling because he's lonely, which only makes Helen more determined to get out. Rather than risk chasing down a 500 pound deranged cow, we decided to take her back to the barn. After much cajoling, name calling (of Helen) and threatening, we got Helen back to the barn and tied up on the post (only for awhile). On a funny note, Keller was so excited to have Helen back that he tried to mount her several times. It was pretty funny considering he lacks the necessary equipment to perform such an act and also because Helen, having been dragged around a lot today, was having none of it and kept kicking him off of her.

I was also busy in the garden this weekend. I planted beets, spinach, beans, cucumbers, pie pumpkins and tomatoes. That, along with the potatoes, onions, strawberries and raspberries, should give us quite a crop. I have to transplant the green pepper plants in a few weeks and plant the watermelon seeds I've started. I'm still waiting on my sweet potato slips to come in, and we still have Brussels sprouts to plant towards the end of May. As I'm writing this I'm realizing that I won't have enough room in the garden for all that's left to plant...hmmm.... We won't be able to eat/preserve everything, so we will have quite a lot to contribute to various food banks and shelters- don't forget to Plant a Row for the Hungry!