Category Archives: gardening

animals, Family, Farming Update, gardening, Nature, Uncategorized

Lilacs & Farming & Parts, Oh My!

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

Oh, the lilacs! What a wonderful smell. It’s one of my favorite things about springtime.  

The neighbors who got corn planted before the rains, that corn is up. My oats is up and looking good. 
 
Every week I say what a crazy busy week the previous week has been. Same again. Life. It’s just relentless…  

I mentioned how Saturday I got most of my corn planted.

It makes a huge difference having the coop spread fertilizer before I plant. I do pay a little more for them to apply it, and it’s broadcast over the entire field, rather than when using the planter, it’s applied right in the row, but it also saves me refilling the planter every 7 acres. Seed I can plant 26 acres before refilling.  
 
I hooked onto the chisel plow one day.  I had one field that was soybeans last year, and never got harvested because the soybean crop was so poor due to the drought, and this field had weed pressure, so it needed to be plowed up this spring. It’s interesting the different weed pressure two fields right next to each other can have. Here’s the one that was beans last year:

And next to it is this field covered in lambsquarter.

Down the road, there is a guy who has a food plot for deer and turkey hunting, and since it’s next to a field I plant anyway, I work that field for him. And because he wants it to stand over winter, I have to make an extra trip back in the spring to chop up the corn stalks or plow up the stubble. He covers my cost, and it’s just and extra hour or two.

 Both those fields worked up really nicely. I was afraid they’d be a little wet yet, but it worked exceptionally well.  Then I switch back to the soil finisher to level off all the chisel plowed corn stalks, so the coop can spread fertilizer for soybeans. The plowing leaves the fields rough, and if they applied fertilizer on that ground, it would get buried too deep after being worked smooth. Now that it’s smooth, I’ll just work it a couple inches deep to incorporate the fertilizer. I have two corn fields to plant yet. They were a little wet when I planted the others.  

 A hydraulic hose blew out while digging. That hose lifted one wing of the digger. I was able to keep going, and finish what I wanted to finish, there was just a sag on one end when I lifted it to turn on the ends.  I took the hose off, and also replaced a broken shank that night.

The shovel on the new shank is worn a bit. When new, they have a much sharper point. But this one is good enough for another season. Seems like lately it’s been 9PM before I get in the house at night. Kelly is stage managing a show and has rehearsal every night, so we have a late supper together. Wednesday morning, the dogs and I made a trip to Plainview for parts. It was busy at the parts counter. The guy helping me answered the phone: “Jack, swamped! Five deep at the counter. Call you back!”   

Hydraulic hose is expensive. This was 1/2″  hose and it’s almost $9 / foot. I needed 10′, they cut it to length and crimp on the needed ends, $120. I also picked up some bolts for the gear box on the brush mower, some extra clips for the shovels on the soil finisher shanks (for when I lose the next one), an oil filter for the lawn mower and gator, plus cab filters for both tractors, engine oil, fuel, and air for the tractors, and some grease, and it was $998. The air filters are $100 each. Good thing they last for 3 years. 

I added 104 gallons of diesel fuel to the tractor, added 2.5 gallons of hydraulic oil that was lost due to the broken hose, and finished working up the corn stalk stubble. Course I had my two tractor buddies.

Luna doesn’t whine in the tractor, and once in a while she sits on Bailey. But otherwise, she just stands the whole time.  

I appreciate my tractors so much. I think I wrote once about not wanting junk, and that’s part of what I appreciate about the tractors so much. I enjoy being out in the field and driving them and when I get home and get out, I pat them on the hood. They make me happy, and I feel lucky to have them. 
 
Thursday the coop applied fertilizer.

End of the school year and I’m trying to spend down my budget. I do a lot of scenic painting using a hand pump sprayer. This yellow one has been here since I started here in 2006. I’ve used a lot of cheap ones, and this year I bought two new ones. They’re German, and they’re $90 each, but they are good! Spezial-Druckspruher! “Special Pressure Sprayer” indeed!

I have the Rochester Montessori School bringing ‘Annie Jr’ into the college theater, so I’ll be working here a few days. 
 
Mom turns 98 Sunday. More on her next week.  

FAVORITE FOREIGN ITEM?  

2024, Family, Food, gardening, home, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

The Power Of Tarragon

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Last summer Husband bought four tarragon plants to put in the big front garden bed. We had never grown tarragon before, and I hadn’t cooked with it that much. We found it a delightful addition to the garden and to our cooking. I was sad to see Autumn come and the plants die in the first freezes. I also thought the same thing about the spinach, a late season Italian variety called Gigante d’inverno, that we plant once the peas are done in August. It is a dark green, highly savoyed spinach with large leaves. It is pretty fast growing and cold hardy. It doesn’t like heat, but likes it cool, even if it gets snowed on.

Much to our surprise, all four tarragon plants survived the winter and are growing nicely. The same is true for the few stray spinach plants we didn’t harvest last year. I never realized that a tender herb like tarragon was hardy to Zone 4, and that if well mulched, the spinach can winter over even in North Dakota. I find that amazing.

Husband plans to have lots of herbs in the garden this summer. It is also a basil summer, as we are getting low on pesto in the freezer. Can you tell I am excited about getting into the garden?

What herbs do you like to grow? What do you like to use tarragon for? How are your garden plans coming?

2024, Family, gardening, Music

70s Sing Along

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The last two days have been gardening days chez nous.  When you have massive numbers of flowers (instead of grass), spring clean-up is a bear.  Monday we did a few hours in the front and yesterday we spent in the backyard so Guinevere could be outside with us. (Still LOTS to do… but that’s for another day). 

As we were getting going yesterday, YA brought out what I thought was a sunglasses case.  I’ve seen this around, usually when she’s getting packed up for a trip.  Turns out it’s actually a little bluetooth speaker that she got on a client trip.  I wasn’t too excited about this as our choices of music don’t usually sync up but the first song was something I recognized and then the second and the third.   I asked her if it was a specific station or if she had asked it “to play old stuff my mom would like”.  She responded that she had asked for music from the 70s. 

I graduated from high school in 1974 so I guess you could say I came of age musically in the 70s.  Abba, Kansas, Fleetwood Mac, Simon & Garfunkel, Moody Blues, Heart, Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Diamond.  I was fond of many folk singers in the late 60s as well but I got my first radio of my own when I was in 10th grade.  (I never did have a record player of my own until I got married!)  I suppose a lot of nostalgia is wrapped up in that music for me. 

As the gardening went on, more and more songs that I recognize played on.  I don’t know the name of many of those tunes or even the artists, but I know a lot of the lyrics.  YA did suggest at one point that I didn’t have to sing along quite so loudly.

I did eventually thank her for playing “old mom music”.

If you can stand the 70s rock stuff, do you have a particular tune you like?

2024, animals, education, Farming Update, gardening, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

Barn Swallows

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

The worms sure did come out after the all-day rain on Thursday. I even had some inside the doors at the theater. 

And the Barn Swallows are back! Kelly saw some on Tuesday and they immediately started hauling grass to the nest on top of the wind chimes by our front door. Pretty cool they come back and reuse the old nesting spots. We sure do enjoy hearing them chatter.

No fieldwork done in the last week since it’s been raining. I worked in the shop a bit, and I’ve been doing a lot of prep work for college Commencement next Wednesday. 

Here’s my ‘patch’ for the lighting; the document in the lighting controller that says how each light is addressed so the lighting console knows which light it’s talking to, and so I know which light is which.

 The number in the first column is how I refer to the light. The 5th column is the actual ‘patch’. Those first fixtures are 21 channels each. A channel is a parameter, for example pan, tilt, red, green, blue, intensity, zoom, strobe, ect. and a universe can handle 512 channels. Some lights are only 6 channels. Intensity, red, green, blue, white, amber. All the lights are in universe 1. The first light is address 1. (1:1) It uses 21 channels, so the next lights is also universe 1, address 22. (1:22) Repeat until all the lights are patched. If I have more than 512, I go to the next universe. This Hog console can do 4 universes. Bigger events might have dozens of universes of lighting.

Thursday I was over in the sports center hanging the lights over the stage (which I can’t get too once the stage is in place) and doing a little other prep work.

I meant to get a better picture of the lights, but the genie lift I was using wouldn’t go back up in the air. Huh. Thanks to the training I had back in Seattle in March, I knew enough to check the batteries. Three of the four were low on water. And I heard it’s had some other issues lately. Thank Goodness somebody in charge agreed we better rent another lift just in case. Both the video guys and I will be using lifts for commencement and not having one will be a problem. 

While working on lighting, I heard there was water coming into a back room. The sump pump was working, but water was coming through the floor or something. It wasn’t my concern. 

Friday, I picked up the other rental lights, and it was quiet in the sports center, the batteries have been topped up with water and recharged, and I was able to finish hanging my stuff. It should make Monday an easier day for me. I have more lights on the ground to install, but I can’t do that until the stage is set.

The overheard door to the sports Center has been broken and is scheduled to be replaced Monday. The same day EVERYTHING loads in for commencement; chairs, band equipment, food, staging, ramps, ect. And it all goes back out that door Wednesday night. 

Sounds pretty exciting doesn’t it. Or a cluster. One of the two… 

I sold some straw to the Rochester Fire Department. They add a bale to their practice fires because it makes a good amount of smoke.

Had a good talk as the two of us loaded the trailer. He said some of their ‘turn out’ gear (the typical fireman’s hat, coat, pants, and boots) need to be replaced as it’s nearing end of life. $8000 for one outfit. And the guys have a second pair to wear while the first outfit is being washed and dried after a fire. Takes 8 hours to dry, and they can’t wear if wet as they could get steam burns. The things you learn! 

Creative Writing at the college is almost over. I’ve submitted my poetry project and now the last thing dues is the final portfolio, which are revised versions of things we’ve submitted earlier in the year. When things get slow I’ll just recycle some of them here. 🙂

The chicks are doing good. They’re not afraid of an open door anymore so I have to pay attention while I’m in there filling their water and feed. The dogs are right at the door, so they’re paying attention for me.

I had 55 dozen eggs in April! Zoiks!

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE CONSTELLATION OR CELESTIAL EVENT?

2024, education, gardening, Gatherings, holidays, Uncategorized

Puff

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Well, our bell choir played for the PEO sisterhood on Saturday. It all went fine, although dragging the tables, bell cases, and all the equipment we need from church was a lot of work. We played in a huge facility the public school district purchased from the Haliburton Oil company for middle school and high school technical education. Culinary arts students prepared the meal. They also teach building trades, health sciences, all sorts of practical technology training, large equipment operating, business methods and marketing, and agriculture training. The complex is almost brand new and is enormous, with multiple buildings. The facility and the training are amazing. It is located on the outskirts of town on the major road north to the oil fields.

We played in the lunchroom. Everyone was very appreciative, and we played well. I couldn’t help thinking, though, how silly Puff The Magic Dragon is. I thought it was silly when I was a child, too. To make the situation even sillier, Saturday was 4/20, National Marijuana day. Here we were, middle aged and older people playing a song long associated with marijuana use for a bunch of very prim and proper middle aged and older women. No one else in the bell choir realized the symbolism or association of the song with the day, and we all got a good laugh out of it when I reminded them after the performance. There is a push to legalize recreational cannabis use in our state. Who knows, maybe they will add training at the technical institute on how to grow and market recreational pot!

What was technical training like when you were in high school? What is the most ludicrous performance or presentation you ever were involved in?

2024, Family, Farming Update, gardening, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Almost Farming

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Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

We’ve had some nice rainfall, and I’ve got the show open, and I’m trying to stay home and get ready to farm. Yet, every day seems to be interrupted by minutiae and farming has not become the priority it should be. Yet.

My brain cleared enough I found the three things I couldn’t find last week. Kelly pointed out to me the extra chicken waterers behind the house. Yep, that’s exactly where I put them last fall when that chicken hatched those eggs under the deck. And I found the rain gauge in the garage right where I thought it should have been last week. And it turns out the dog’s tick medication is good for 12 weeks, not four, so I had only bought one dose. And that’s why I couldn’t find more. There’s usually a rational explanation, isn’t there.

Over the weekend Kelly and I got 2/3 of the seed wagon cleaned off. (The “shed remodeling tool storage wagon”) so at least I have room for oats and corn seed and the oats will be gone before I pick up the soybean seed and then that can go on there. Daughter and all three dogs and I picked up oat seed on Monday. I also picked up another ton of the layer ration for the chickens. One ton, in 50 pound bags, equals 40 bags, so they are good for about eight months.

On Friday I got the tractor hooked to the soil finisher. If you park something in a field over winter, you need to put a board under the jackstand, otherwise it will sink into the dirt and the hitch of the implement will not line up with the tractor drawbar. I had a board under the jackstand when I unhooked it back in October, but the implement shifted and the jackstand slipped off the board. And then Friday it was 8” down in the dirt. I took a regular jack out to lift up the tongue to get it hooked to the tractor and that jack pushed down into the dirt as well. I had a board to put under the jack, but it was stuck under the hitch at first. Eventually I got that out and under the jack, and was able to raise it up, get the hydraulic lines hooked to the tractor, and attach the tractor and implement. See? I’m making progress!

I moved the chicks out of their first, smaller tank, and into the larger pen. They are about robin sized now.

The spring play at the college will close this Saturday afternoon and next week is a band and choir concert. We need to be out of the theater by about 5:30PM on Saturday, so we don’t have much time to dismantle the set. I hope to get things off the bookshelves on the set, and the small grand piano (it’s an electronic keyboard) off the stage. I’m hoping to get three or four strong young kids to carry it up the steps rather than tipping it on its side, taking off two legs, and trying to get it through a doorway sideways, like it came in. Goals.

I started delivering some straw this week.

Speaking of Straw, I was talking with a family friend about the hayrides that we used to do with 4-H or church groups. It used to be a very popular thing to take a tractor and wagon, make a pile of loose straw on the wagon, and then at night, in the dark, 15 or 20 kids would pile on the wagon and you’d go out in a field and drive around and push each other off, and by the time you got home again there was no straw left on the wagon. We don’t do that anymore. Can you imagine? What could go wrong?

I don’t know how come nobody got seriously hurt. My folks did it for the church youth groups for a lot of years. The only accident I remember is when one kid jumped off a wagon early and was going to cut across a corner of the driveway to catch a second wagon, and he ran into a barbwire fence. After that, the kids were told to stay on the wagon until they got to the field.

There is a story in my grandmother’s diaries of a 4-H hayride mid 1950’s, when the tractor slipped into a ditch. The wagon tipped over and several kids were hurt – none seriously by some miracle, but my uncle, who was driving the tractor, had several cracked ribs.

When our kids were young, the daycare would visit the farm and we used a hayrack with the tall sides, and they sat on bales, and we went in the daytime, and it was just a wagon ride. Not a hayride in my sense of the word.

I googled “hayride” to see if I could find examples of our type of hayride. Wikipedia says it’s a traditional activity consisting of a recreation ride which has been loaded with hay or straw for “comfortable seating”. They say it harkens back to farmhands or kids riding the load of hay back to the barn for unloading. And has since become a tourism gimmick to generate income for the farmer. I guess that’s one way to do it.

READERS CHOICE!

Family, Fantasy, Food, gardening, Nature, Weather

Dreaming of Summer

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As I’m driving in the snow the other night, this quote came up on the CD I’m listening in the car, compliments of  Susan Albert-Wittig:

“It’ll be like eating summer out of a jar”

Now I’m not complaining AT ALL about the snow and rain.  After the dry dry winter, I’m glad to have the moisture and I’m sure my gardens will be happier for it when spring/summer rolls around.  But hearing the phrase about eating summer out of a jar reminded me of one of our old favorites:

The only canning I do these days is jam: strawberry and raspberry every year and then blueberry every couple of years.  Normally I enjoy my jam all year round but I’ve never spent much time thinking about it.  Hopefully I’ll try to think of it as summer in a jar in the weeks to come!

Do you have any foods that you think of as “summer” foods?

2024, animals, Fantasy, gardening, home, Nature, pets

The Terrarium

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I love house plants.  Unfortunately so does Nimue.  In the first few years after she joined the household, she has decimated ALL the plants.  Nothing was safe from her.  I can’t even start seedings.

As I realized she was laying waste to my house plants, I was able to train her to stay off the bookcase in my bedroom.  YA’s fish, Sheldon has come to live in my room and I hoped that maybe a couple of plants could survive there.  I pulled out all the books and them stacked them sideways at all different angles.  When Nimue tried to climb up (as she had done many times before), her weight would shift the books and down they came, cat and all.  it took about a month before she gave up; Sheldon and my two plants had found a safe haven.

Then about six years ago, I found an inexpensive coat rack at a garage sale.  Just plain black metal but the arms stick out from the rack about 10 inches so it’s made a fabulous plant rack.  I found some inexpensive macrame pot holders so they hang very prettily.  Sheldon has since gone to that great fishbowl in the sky and a couple of succulents have taken his place on the bookshelf.  In all these years since her catastrophic attempts to scale the books, Nimue has left the bookcase completely alone.

So when I saw class at Gertens for making a terrarium I thought that might make a nice addition to my small greenery collection.  It was a Saturday morning – one of the only really cold mornings this year – and about 40 hardy souls had ventured out.  They supplied everything: a little fish bowl, rocks, charcoal, soil, piece of screen and itty bitty plants.  The two folks running the class walked us through the various layers and then let us loose to chose which plants we wanted, which rock, etc.  I actually took notes – in case I wanted to make any more on my own.  This turned out to be very helpful and most of the folks at stations around me took a peek at my notes while we were making our layers.  The class was only about an hour but I really enjoyed it.

The gal doing most of the teaching also mentioned that if we wanted any little critters or fairies or gnomes, we should check out the fairy garden section of Gertens.  I hope she got a commission as I think ALL of us stopped by there.  I got little bunnies and a crystal sphere on a tree stump (it just spoke to me). 

I don’t know if I’ll make more… I’ll have to research how to get the very small amounts of some of the layers (rocks, charcoal) without buying whole bags of the stuff.  And, of course, I’ll have to find a spot where it will be safe from the Plant Ravager!

Tell me about your houseplants (if you have any)!

2024, Food, gardening, home, Uncategorized

Just Double The Garlic

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The garlic bulbs that we get in our local grocery stores typically have very small cloves. I have taken to automatically doubling the number of garlic cloves that recipes call for. I never know what size clove the recipe author means, but I always assume that the cloves we have are much smaller than the ones where the food authors live. We love garlic, so even if I add more than was intended, it turns out fine. I refuse to grow garlic, as it is an awful lot of work, and what do you do to keep dozens of garlic cloves good until you can use them.

I am liking more and more recipes that come with weights for ingredients as well as volume. A cup of flour may differ depending on the brand of measuring cup, the humidity, and the condition of the flour. Knowing how many grams or ounces as well as the volume is sure helpful. Our kitchen scale measures in both grams and ounces. We use it all the time. Both Husband and I are left brained cooks, needing to measure instead of going by instinct. I haven’t gone so far as to compare the relative volumes of the two sets of dry measuring cups that we have, but I have sometimes been tempted. They just don’t look the same size!

Are you a left or right brained cook? Use a kitchen scale very much? How do you feel about garlic?

2023, gardening, home, Uncategorized, Weather, work

Surprise!

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Two fairly major surprises happened here this week. One involved tomatoes. The other involved wind.

Before the first killing frost a couple of weeks ago, Husband and I picked about 80 lbs of green tomatoes. I had little faith they would ripen given their immaturity, but they did, thankfully not all at once. I just piled them in laundry baskets and cardboard boxes and set them in a warm room all covered up. I haven’t had good luck in the past ripening green tomatoes. As of yesterday we had only about 10 lbs left. Most went to the Food Pantry. I canned another five quarts of sauce with some. The remainders will get taken to work.

The other surprise was less pleasant. On Tuesday I drove home from work at a little before 5:00. I drive west and then north to get home. I live about 2 miles from my work. It was sunny with a dark cloud bank on the western horizon. It got quickly and increasingly darker as I drove west, and when I was halfway home I saw a huge wall of dust barreling towards me from the west, obscuring everything behind it. It was the very edge of a fast moving cold front. As I turned north to get to my house the wind and dust hit the van. Leaves were flying off the trees and swirling madly in small funnels. Small branches and grit hit the side of the van, and then it started to rain. The wind was clocked at 70 mph. The temperature dropped by 15°. I have never seen a cold front move in that quickly, nor have I ever been at the utter forefront of one.

What surprising things happened to you this week? How do you ripen green tomatoes?