As of yesterday afternoon, the biggest part of my gardening year is over. Clean-up from the fall, spring weeding, mulching, flower baskets planted and veggies planted in the bales. Phew!
It took way longer this year than usual. Part of this was the weather. We had spectacular weekends but then I wasn’t following through because Monday – Friday was too cool. I do not like to garden when I’m cold and I certainly don’t want to wear a coat out there either! Then the mess from the fall was much bigger than usual. And all my fault. A triple whammy, in fact.
My gardening season came to an abrupt end the day after my birthday last August, when I blew out my first knee. Then right about the time I might have gotten to some fall clean up, the other knee went. That meant that apart from some watering (most of which YA took care of), I didn’t do ANY fall clean up. No dead-heading the late summer flowers, no cutting back peony stalks, no raking (although YA is a little bitty bit).
The second problem was last year’s mulch. For reasons that pass understanding, I chose big chunky wood chips last year. As we were spreading them about last spring, I was thinking I’d made a mistake, but it didn’t become clear how obnoxious these wood chips were until we were cleaning up this spring. They didn’t seem to have broken down at all and were a mess to work around/with.
Then there was the Creeping Charlie fail. Normally I do a great job of weeding the Creeping Charlie menace but last summer, I was busy in July, thinking I would just do a big push in August. But, then…. well, you know. My nemesis ground cover didn’t give a fig about my knees so there was way more weeding needed this year on that front before the mulch could go down.
I’m feeling quite relieved… there will, of course, be plenty of gardening going forward, but not the three/four hours a day grind we’ve been going through. Time to enjoy!
When was the last time you “shot yourself in the foot”?
For quite some time, I avoided Hudson & Rex, a Canadian tv show about a cop and his partner, a beautiful German Shepherd Dog. But I’ve gotten hooked; it shows on a couple of different cable stations so when I find it showing, I’m all in.
I noticed a couple of weeks ago that one of those two stations plays a few ads A LOT. One of those is about a power washer. You know the kind where some guy says “after using this, I threw out my old power washer”. Blah blah blah. I mute it a fair amount.
Imagine my surprise when a box was delivered yesterday and I came downstairs to find YA assembling a little power washer. It isn’t the power washer from tv (thank goodness); she bought it with award credits from the merchandise side of her company’s business. No money actually changed hands.
She had it out yesterday afternoon, doing the side of the garage and the driveway where we had all the mulch piled up for the last couple of weeks. I guess it works pretty well; she informed me of a couple of other projects she is thinking about.
I’m glad she likes to take on these kinds of projects because it would never have occurred to me but I am a little spooked that the tv seemed to predict the power washer entering our lives.
Our initial plan for heading to St. Louis after Nonny’s passing was to take the dog and leave the cat at home with our fabulous neighbors coming over to feed her and take care of her box. Then the dog passed and I knew immediately that I simply could not leave the cat at home. I have a very bad history of pets passing while I’m gone (it’s happened twice). We did think about boarding Nimue but even that was giving me anxiety.
I bought a brand-new kitty carrier – bigger than the one we use for the block-and-a-half transport to the vet – and a new harness. The plan was to let her out every 100 miles or so and I even brought an aluminum cake pan for a litter box and put some litter in it for traveling. All of this turned out to be pointless. Nimue had no interest in how comfortable we were trying to make her. She didn’t make any noise, but the getting out of the carrier on a harness was not on her list of things to get done that day. The first time we took her out, she sniffed around a bit, but more puffed up than we’ve ever seen her. She wouldn’t eat a treat, wouldn’t drink any water, certainly didn’t do any business. Crickets.
We tried two more times with the same result. After that we quit trying. When we arrived at Nonny’s condo, she headed straight underneath Nonny’s bed. I was pretty sure it would be time to go home before she came out. For the next three days, we had to keep Nimue in her carrier for most of the day – with people coming in and out, boxing up stuff, tossing stuff – there was no way to keep her safe except in her carrier. And when we were gone from the condo, we also kept her in the carrier. Both my sisters, my niece and nephew all had keys and I didn’t want to run the risk that they might stop by for some reason and accidently let her out.
All of this made me feel terribly guilty – after all, we were torturing her because of my anxiety. She would probably have been happier at The Cat’s Meow than with us. So, it was with a bit of joy that I came into Nonny’s bathroom late on Wednesday afternoon to find Nimue ensconced in the sink looking like butter would melt in her mouth.
On Friday, when we headed home, we put Nimue in the kitty carrier with a few treats, put her on the backseat and drove off. We talked to her quite a bit during the day but never attempted to take her out – 9+ hours. Within minutes of getting home, she had eaten, done some business and settled down on her kitty bed in my room. Like nothing had ever happened. Apparently no kitty ptsd here!
Prologue. Before YA and I went to St. Louis for my mom’s service and to clean out her condo, my middle sister mentioned that we should keep an eye out for Nonny’s wedding ring. She had stopped wearing it a few years back (due to her arthritis) and apparently it was now missing. When we arrived and stopped at my sister’s house, she talked about it again. Over the course of the next 24 hours, it was clear that she has also told everyone else in the family about the ring being missing.
Everybody looked all over the “normal” places and one of the funnier parts of the week was all of us, one by one, discovering the plastic bag in the closet labeled “Wedding Ring”. Unfortunately we all had our hopes dashed one at a time as it was discovered over and over again that it was an old quilt in the wedding ring pattern. Shoot.
On Tuesday, in the back corner of a closet, we found “the box”. It was a security box – a little surprising since it probably cost more than we figured Nonny would spend. We were pretty sure we had all of Nonny’s important papers so were a little perplexed as to why she had a high-level security box. It took us quite a while to find the keys as we had made quite a mess of her condo, emptying out drawers and closets to start sorting into piles of “toss, keep, donate”, and in that time, we had a whole lot of wild speculation going. Were we all adopted and the papers were in there? Witness protection proof? Secret bank accounts? All most all of us (there were ten of us in the condo at that point) were thinking we would find her wedding ring.
This is what we found when we opened the box:
As a non-believer, I was a little hesitant to unseal this envelope so my nephew pulled it out of the box. He was a little wary as well. There was one piece of paper in the envelope:
What? Wars, Vaccumn (sic), David Surgery, Dorothy, Sunday School. What? Two hours of discussion. The list was obviously made two and a half years ago. That’s when David’s first surgery happened and was when Dorothy, her neighbor across the hall passed away; we think that wars, David and Dorothy were ideal candidates for God to keep an eye on. But vacuum and the Sunday School class? And why this single sheet in this single envelope labeled God and locked by itself in a very secure box? I mean, Nonny was an inveterate list-maker. We found several of them while we were cleaning but none of the others made the box.
During our talks, we came up with more wild ideas about why, why, why. I won’t go into all of them here but I’ll tell you mine, simply because it got the most laughs.
Sometime in the future, 10 people (all strangers) will be staying at a fancy spa on a little island in the Caribbean. Beginning the first night of their stay, two of these folks have envelopes delivered to their room. In each envelope is a notecard with the word “wars”. At breakfast, they all scratch their heads about it, but then later in the day, both folks are found murdered. And of course, the only boat has been disabled and no one’s phones can get a connection off the island. Too far to swim to the nearest island. One the second night, two more folks get an envelope with a card waying “vacuum”. You guessed it… both those folks are found dead during the next day. The remaining six folks have one day to figure out the clues before the next deaths….
Any better thoughts? Do you have a lock-box? Will it be a mystery to your heirs?
Yesterday was very busy for us. I had a Dorcas Circle bible study meeting at 7:00 AM ( I still can’t get over what a funny name that is), and then we had a tree service arrive to do some trimming at 8:30. At 10:15 we left for Sioux Falls to get both dogs groomed. While we waited we made a trip to Costco and HyVee grocery. We don’t plan to revisit Sioux Falls for 6 weeks or so.
At my bible study, a woman who I had not met before wanted to know who I was. I explained we had moved here from North Dakota. The other women interjected that I had grown up here. I explained that I was a Boomgaarden. She looked very closely at me and said “Of course you are! You look just like your mother!” More conversation revealed we had the same Grade 3 teacher, but in different years.
Husband wrote a cheque to the tree trimmers when they finished at 10:00. The service is owned by a husband/wife team who both do the trimming. When the wife saw my name on the cheque she asked if I had any relatives in Hawarden, Iowa. (That is a small town south of us in northwest Iowa. My father’s family is from northwest Iowa.) She said that she grew up in Hawarden, and as a little girl would take May baskets to an elderly woman named Dorothy Boomgaarden, who would always yodel for her. My grandfather had 11 brothers and sisters, and anyone around this area with that name is probably a relative. Sure enough, when I looked up Dorothy’s obituary she turned out to be the wife of one of my father’s numerous first cousins. In her obituary it stated that her passion for yodeling couldn’t be forgotten.
I continue to revel in the interconnectedness I feel here. I wish I knew the story behind the yodeling. What a great thing to put in her obituary.
What funny things would you like in your obituary? Ever tried to yodel? What interesting things could your relatives do?
Yesterday Husband and I heard Ravel’s Bolero on MPR. Husband commented, somewhat in jest “Friends don’t make friends listen to Bolero“. I understand that many people find the piece irritating. I recently learned that Ravel was inspired to write the piece after hearing the weaving machines in one of his father’s factories. His father was an engineer and manufacturer, and I can hear the rhythym of the machines in the music. I find that interesting, and the piece has become far more pleasant for me to listen to.
I played bass clarinet one season in the Fargo Moorhead Symphony when I was in college, and we played Bolero. Our music was rented from a national music rental company that rented music to orchestras all over the country. There are interminable sections of rests in the piece, and written into my score in pencil on about the third page of the piece were the words “Nudge Walt”. I asked the clarinet player next to me about it, and he said it was probably in reference to a bassoon player in the Philadelphia Orchestra for the bass clarinet player to alert him that his part was starting. I guess that many orchestra players have written into their contracts that they don’t have to perform Bolero.
I find most classical music wonderful, except perhaps that of Anton Bruckner, who I find ponderous and boring, and Phillip Glass, who I don’t understand at all. I also find I appreciate music the more I know about the composer. My favorite composers right now are Bartok, Sibelius, and Janacek.
Who are your favorite and least favorite composers? What kind of music do you listen to the most?
Our lives since moving to Minnesota have been pretty noneventful aside from our trip to Kansas City in March. We have spent our time getting to know the community and getting our home to our liking. Not much has been unpleasant, but nothing has been that exciting either. The weather hasn’t been very conducive for outdoor activities.
A couple of weeks ago I ordered three Savoy cabbages through Melissa’s Produce. We grew Savoys in our ND garden. They are lovely cabbage but not available in our local grocery stores.
The ones I ordered were very nice when they arrived, and we refrigerated them right away. This made for an interesting challenge, though, of using up three cabbages in short order.
We cook most everything from scratch as a rule, so cooking a lot of cabbage wasn’t that unusual. I noticed, though, that the recipes we had chosen were really fun to make. Not just pleasant, but fun. I made a huge pot of minestrone. I made a central European pasta dish with cabbage and bratwurst. I made a cabbage, potato, asparagus. and fennel bulb hash. Husband made cabbage and mushrooms, (as well as oatcake biscuits). I love to cook, but I recognized how much fun I was having putting these dishes together, even more fun than usual!
I don’t plan to buy any more Savoy cabbage in the near future. I am kind of cabbaged-out. It reinforced for me, though, the pleasure one can derive from even the most simple activities if you pay attention. Yesterday I made Cuban black beans. Later this week I am making Danish meatloaf (it is made from veal and pork and wrapped in bacon). I expect to have a fun week despite all the rain and staying home. A simple life can be a good life.
What fun activities have you done lately? What are the most fun and least fun things for you to cook? Thoughts about cabbage?
It was a year ago on the 25th that mom died. Here’s to mom.
This weeks Farming Update from Ben:
It was April of 2021 I started writing these farm updates.
This week I learned if I use the diesel pump for semi’s at the gas station, they pump fast. Like really REALLY fast! Twenty two gallons in about a minute! It’s awesome. I’m gonna make a habit of filling the truck with them when available.
I thought Padawan should have his own set of chainsaw chaps. (We have big plans for summer! He may not know this part of them yet…) I have pretty good chaps from Stihl, a very reputable name. When Kelly bought them for me – I think it was a Fathers Day Present- she said if I was going to have some, they better be good ones. Yep. I’d agree. And now I’m looking at them for P and I’m not sure how much we’ll really need them and good ones are $150+, so I look at cheaper ones and then I think, I’m going to skimp on something that could save his life?? I pictured myself at the ER. “Well, Doc, I thought they’d be good enough.”
I bought him a good Stihl pair.
It’s a little crazy around the farm. I went from late nights in rehearsal to late nights in the tractor. Life is still relentless! Daughter asks me why I’m out in the field. Well, because. Work to be done! I just keep thinking, what if I was still milking cows?? Add another four hours into my day.
Padawan is going to be able to go full time for me this summer. That will be huge. I was listening to a podcast in the tractor the other night and they talked about jobs and how people have ‘soft skills’ and ‘hard skills’. The hard skills can be taught. It’s the soft skills he needs help with. That can be our goal this summer. He’s got some of them, he’s a really nice young man, but he’s 19 and they’re not his focus right now. Just gotta bring them back to the surface.
I had him doing fieldwork. A hard skill.
Get off the phone… a soft skill…
Sold some more straw to the Fire Department. They add it to their practice fires to make smoke. They tell me it’s the least toxic way to make smoke.
The oats is all planted.
Used the new Track Wacker! Or ‘Track Eraser’ as I learned the company calls this machine. It took a little finagling to get it adjusted and folding properly, but it worked great!
Folded and ready to go.
In field position.
Whacking a tire track!
After the first 100 yards I stopped to check and be sure everything was working on the grain drill. That’s when I made a terrible mistake. I backed up with the drill in the ground. The drill uses two disc’s, in a V shape, to get the seed into the ground. The front is the point and makes the seed trench. The back is open. And when I backed up, I filled that open V with dirt. I knew it felt wrong as I backed up and it took driving ahead another 20 yards before I saw it plugging up and knew what I had done. Crap. It’s tough cleaning them out. I had to go back home and get a long screw driver and vice grips and I got all but one cleaned out. The last one I had to take one disc off to get it cleaned. NOTE TO SELF: Don’t do that again.
Wednesday I hooked up the new drag — the new to me drag– and went over all the oat fields. It worked pretty slick!
Got the corn planter out and greased and ready to go. Paddie did that and hauled out deck furniture while I was using the drag. I gotta get a list of jobs for him when I’m doing something else. He needs more self motivation. Is that a hard or soft skill?
I headed out to the corn fields Thursday afternoon. With my buddy.
The chicks and chickens are doing well and they love a field of freshly tilled dirt.
Fresh Dirt!
I thought, what should I listen to as I begin? I chose a ‘favorites’ playlist on shuffle mode and the first song was Mingo Saldivar playing ‘Rueda De Fuego’.
Tex-Mex Ring of fire. Haha- perfect!
Got a good start; enough to check seed depth, placement, and be sure everything was working on the corn planter. Then it rained a bit and I had time to go home and take a nap before coming back for another college show.
Friday was a road trip (me and the dogs) to Byron for a 275 gallon water tote to water the trees. Then to Plainview for parts, then to Wabasha for another 100 trees. Back through Plainview, picked up stump killer for Kelly in her pursuit of buckthorn, and finally home. It was a nice drive.
I planted another 40 tree’s. 60 to go! And it was Arbor Day to boot!
I have balked at turning on the air conditioning during our recent hot weather, and we have coped well using the ceiling fans in the living room and bedrooms.
We ran the fans a lot yesterday. About 8:00 last night, Husband went to our room to turn in, and came out rather concerned about a definite burning smell in the bedroom. He turned off the fan, which had been running all day. Best Friend is visiting, and said it smelled like burning wood. I dithered for a bit, then called 911.
The fire department showed up in full force with three trucks and a sheriff’s deputy. The fire chief said it definitely smelled like burning, and thought it was the motor for the ceiling fan/light. They checked the temperature of the ceiling and fan and nothing was unusually hot. They thought that the motor was just burning out. As a precaution they decided to go up into the attic to make sure nothing was burning up there. I should add that once the fan was turned off, the smoke detector I’m the bedroom went off and the smoke seemed to increase.
Just as they were about to ascend to the attic, a young firefighter in the bedroom exclaimed “Wow, that is hot!” in reference to a folding halogen reading light (installed by the previous owners) attached to the wall above the bed. It is very flexible. Husband had turned it on about 30 minutes before he started getting ready for bed. He didn’t see that the light had flipped right onto the cherry wood headboard. It scorched a 3×4 patch on it. Of course it smelled like burning wood! It wasn’t the fan at all! It was charring cherry! We had been so concerned about the ceiling fan we hadn’t looked for other possible causes of the smoke. By 10:30 pm the smoke had dissipated but it still smelled like burnt wood.
What a dumb thing to have happen. I am sure it is the talk of the neighborhood. We are having those lights replaced as soon as possible.
When have you had to phone the fire department? What are your favorite Tony Curtis or Jack Lemmon movies?
Gravity, the 5-second rule, Murphys Law, chocolate is a food group, the toast will always land buttered-side down, oatmeal raisin cookies masquerading as chocolate chip cookies are sent by evil entities to usurp happiness. These are givens. In addition YA doesn’t like farm eggs and YA doesn’t like my recipe for deviled eggs.
Farm eggs. I adore Ben’s farm eggs. Rich, full flavor and then there are those deep golden yolks. Bring them on! Unfortunately YA isn’t always sure about “new” things and the farm eggs fall into this category. She hasn’t said exactly but I think it’s the color of the yolks.
Deviled eggs. While in theory YA likes deviled eggs, she doesn’t like my preferred recipe. I’ve mentioned before that I am a Miracle Whip gal. YA has grown up into a mayonnaise gal. It I make the eggs with some Miracle Whip and some mayonnaise and give it a good dose of mustard, she will sometimes have one, but not always.
So after Ben delivered eggs on Sunday, I immediately boiled up a few and made deviled eggs. When I asked YA if she was interested, she said no, so I made them my favorite way – Miracle Whip, mustard, pickle relish, salt, pepper. And because they were farm eggs, they were stunning looking – more golden and orangish even than the header photo. I ate some immediately, had some for breakfast on Monday (they were marvelous on toast with strawberry jam) and was looking forward to the last of the batch of breakfast yesterday.
Lo and behold – when I came downstairs, the container that had held the remaining four halves was empty and sitting in the sink. SHE ATE MY DEVILED EGGS! Even though I had made her least favorite version.
So now what? I feel like I need to re-write all my life expectations. What’s next… will the toast fall butter side up?
Trail Baboon 