Monday, August 31, 2020

8.21




Much to my amazement I have arrived at the end of my month of blogging daily graces. Considering all that has been pulling my attention elsewhere, 21 out of 31 posts isn't too bad. 
Now that I've taken the time to pay attention, I can see that whenever I need it grace surrounds me. The air I breathe, the sunshine I feel on my skin, the song of the chickadee, the fragrance of the hydrangeas just outside the window. The warm juices of a just plucked tomato. The yolks of our hens' eggs that rival the hues of the setting sun. Just to wake in the morning and put my head down on my pillow at the close of day, privileges beyond so many on this God's earth. 
Beyond all this, my deepest grace can be seen in the faces of these dear, dear ones. 

Sunday, August 30, 2020

8.20




 Who is that masked man?



Went to watch the FLW weigh in at the Mississippi yesterday. The first we were able to attend this season. Good thing too, as Phil placed 12 out of 102! In typical Phil fashion, he focused his facebook post this morning on his coangler John who came in 3rd as a coangler and had his best finish ever. Oh, by the way, John is 74!

Weigh to go, fellas!

Friday, August 28, 2020

8.19

10 years ago today.




Home is the nicest word there is.

L. I. Wilder

 (photo by Matthias)

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

8.18

My next car would be purchased new. It would have to last a very long time. All of a sudden it wasn't a dream but a necessity. Fortunately I knew just what I wanted.

May 1, 2009. Had to choose from what was available on the lot. No fancies. 

A love affair that's still going strong, even if she needs to remain in the garage nearly all of the time in current circumstances. She never fails to cheer. 




Took photos everywhere we went that spring, summer, fall. Here she is at a serendipitous stop for dinner while on an explore in Genessee Depot, Wisconsin. I miss that little place.




Saturday, August 22, 2020

8.17


house in chaos?

what shall we do about dinner?

garden producing?

ahhh!

courtesy of our super spiffy grill.

thanks kiddos.



Thursday, August 20, 2020

8.16







At times like this it's comforting to be in the hands of three wise men.


Wednesday, August 19, 2020

8.15



 Years ago I bought my first suction cup mini vase. Keeping one on my bathroom mirror, with a tiny bouquet of whatever I can find, brings a smile. Side benefit, I'm not as likely to gaze at my reflection every time I wash my hands.

Little things. They mean a lot.

Sunday, August 16, 2020

8.14

Do you have a favorite time of day? Late day is mine.
The last of the day's sun.




Sunset.


Moon rise.



Dusk.


Twilight.
It's at this time of day I am able to find grace most readily. Can absorb it through my skin. Breathe it in with air that's suddenly gone still. Hear it settling down as I close the chicken house to sounds of roosted hens softly humming lullabies to one another.
"All is well. Safely rest. God is nigh."







Saturday, August 15, 2020

8.13



I uncovered my computer desk this morning. It's been shrouded for a couple of days because of our renovation work. Being Saturday, today the house belongs to Jerome and the cats and me. Such a journey we're on. 

My garden has been providing escape and surprises. While pruning my currant bush I found this little fellow resting beneath the leaves. Texting Anne from the garden with a photo she advised caution. 

Despite its reputed danger, it provided an unanticipated lift to the spirit as the echoing of hammers and saws rang out across the ridgetop. 



Thursday, August 13, 2020

8.12

Today is the 10th anniversary of our closing on our ridge meadow farm. It was Friday the 13th in 2010.

Today is day 4 of our long awaited renovation of this century old farmhouse. 

The team is the best. The weather sublime. Interesting and challenging surprises already. 

to be continued....

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

8.11

three graces

In no apparent order, this month of graces has flowed on its own.

until today

This morning I read Rachel Wolf's instagram post and knew today would be the day to introduce you to 3 young women of the driftless region I call home and whose lives fill mine with grace. For those who cannot see instagram, Rachel Wolf/Clean is her blog site. So much can be said about Rachel,  she says it all so clearly that you should go and meet her for yourself. Local business: LuSa Organics.

The second, Kathryn Ashley-Wright, owns our local wool shop, Ewetopia. She also owns and runs a wool mill in a nearby town, closer to her farm where she raises sheep and beautiful children. During one of our recent historic floods,  her entire mill was under water. Think machinery, think fiber, think heartbreak.Totally restored now, I visited it last year with my fiber arts buddies and was in awe of the "sheep to shelf" processes that go on there. 

The third, has to include a nod to my daughter, Anne. Mygiantstrawberry is the window to her world. I cannot say enough about the joy this beautiful woman brings to my life. But so much more amazing is the ever expanding joy she brings to the world.

There is much to grieve today. These women are reason to celebrate and believe in our future. 





8.10

they  are here

it is happening

is it true?




won't be doing this anymore!



Monday, August 10, 2020

8.9



Spent a relaxing Sunday afternoon in Anne and Matthias' back yard eden, eating lunch carefully prepared with plenty of goodies from their garden, burgers of locally raised beef, and home brewed beer. Sitting under a  perfectly sized table umbrella, the few sprinkles that fell didn't bother us one bit. And then as if by magic, blue skies!

While a female hummingbird spent her afternoon with us drawing our attention to her favorite blossoms, we were also entertained by juvenile blue jays encouraging each other to sip from Anne's birdbath and butterflies floating among more blooms than one can count. Using my phone, Anne took this photo of one of them resting on her kale.

We spend very little time in the company of others right now. Being with a couple of our favorite people out in the open air, just being together, is surely the fullest  measure of grace.



Saturday, August 8, 2020

8.8



Cats!

have been a part of my life for 50 years now.

Happy 3rd anniversary of your rescue, Jolie.

We tried not to love her. Impossible.

Three years later, her big sisters have each adjusted in their own ways.

Dovey is always interested and tolerant of everyone as long as she feels she's in charge of the situation.

Mya, shy and reclusive but the fiercest when provoked or on the hunt, keeps Jolie in her place with a low rumble in her throat or a wave of a paw. Direct but not excessive.

Jolie never gave up her quest to become part of our family. And now we wonder what life was like before she arrived on our doorstep.


Friday, August 7, 2020

8.7


Chickens!

In keeping chickens, you get more than you give. Not in financial terms, as anyone who keeps chickens will tell you those eggs aren't free.

Chickens are easy to keep if you're willing to be home to close them up every single day at dusk. Too many evening and night predators out there.

Their eggs are super nutritious if you give them the best organic feed, lots of offerings from the garden, allow them a large, fenced area to forage. Where we live a good high fence is for their safety during the day and also keeps them from helping themselves to our fruits and vegetable beds.

Each one is an individual and they're all characters. Interacting with them every day allows you to know the state of their health, yes, but also keeps them friendly. A what's funnier than a chicken, really?

I've posted about the chickens a few times in the past. If you need a chicken fix you can check these out.

chicken house 

chickens and ducklings

newbie news

sun sets for Phoebie

of roosters and chickens

big guy

But to really get your chicken fix you need to get the real thing. Murray McMurray is who I recommend.

Thursday, August 6, 2020

8.6



Putting my foot down on the accelerator of this baby takes me off the coronacoaster for sure. 

Wednesday, August 5, 2020

8.5

Day 5 sharing the graces: daylilies!
Here are a few varieties that keep me company.










Though each bloom lasts but a day, most stems have many multiple buds and if I resist cutting them to bring indoors, each will open in time and the display will last a good long while. 
Daylilies...another name for summer.

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

8.4

Do you like to paper piece?
People either do or they don't. 
I DO!











This one stretched me a bit. 
What do you think?
 
The two previously paper pieced birds I sewed had only two sections that needed joining. They are made from the same pattern but the first one is only 2 1/2 inches square.






Monday, August 3, 2020

8.3




solidago 
When you're retired, it's easy to blissfully move through the days of summer without being conscious of the calendar. Then all of a sudden something catches your eye in the garden and you realize time is rolling out ahead of you.
As if waking from a sleepwalk through June and July, I've shaken off the mental fog and with the arrival of August have renewed my habit of daily property walk-abouts so as not to miss anything. So much out here is fleeting.

What is that bit of yellow over there? 
The very first of the goldenrod blooms are calling. Easy to ignore just because they are so common. 
Standing tall in the chicken yard, 
nodding in our preserved wild meadow, along the roadside, and occasionally in the south border. 
Once noticed they all at once seem to be everywhere. 
With their arrival my heart knows the oppressiveness of summer is losing its grip. 

Even before their pyramidal flowers morph from green to yellow I must have them indoors. Their joyous yellows will add dimension to every bouquet from now til September.
Did I mention how much I love these??
She carries with her medicinal benefits and the ability to transfer her sunny hues. But just keeping me company is enough.



Sunday, August 2, 2020

8.2



Asclepias tuberosa, aka butterfly weed. 

There is a living history museum in southeastern Wisconsin called Old World Wisconsin. Spend the day observing folks in period dress farming, blacksmithing, cooking, weaving, you get the idea. I didn't know it at the time, but during some of our visits there a woman named Kathleen Ernest was on staff. She would eventually write a series of books about a fictional character named Chloe Ellefson. Chloe is based on Kathleen's experiences as curator. The first book of the series is titled Old World Murder. But I digress.
In the garden of one of the historic sites there was a lovely flower blooming. Unfortunately, it was not identified and no one working on the site seemed to know its name.
Not far from OWW is another favorite place to visit, Boerner Botanical Garden. Here I discovered not only the name, but that this congenial sweetie is a wildflower native to our region. 
I had fallen in love. 
A hardy perennial, it is not difficult to grow from seed and will bloom in your garden the first year. It has a long cigar like root which does not appreciated disturbance, so transplanting is not recommended. 
Naturally when I began to work the gardens here I would have her join me. Now, in full bloom, she brings a full smile and gladness to the heart.
Slow to emerge in spring, note well where she is planted so as not to disturb her.

Saturday, August 1, 2020

8.1



Lam·mas
/ˈlaməs,ˈläməs/
noun
  1. the first day of August, formerly observed in Britain as a harvest festival, during which bread baked from the first crop of wheat was blessed.

In thinking about just where to begin this month of grace, I thought I might share with you our journey with bringing grain from the land. Our loaded bales just pulled out of here yesterday and so our tale is ready to tell.

Let me back up a bit.
We took over the stewardship of these few acres 10 years ago this month with no real preconceived plans for the land itself. Yes, gardens. How could I live without them? Chickens? A dream that could now come true.
But the rest? 
There are a few acres of what at some time was used for grazing, growing tobacco and more now just fallow ground. Bees and butterflies, to be sure. Weeds and grapevine and more invasives every year especially the horrific wild parsnip. We mowed walking paths which grew to become tractor rides paths as the tractors began showing up in our newly built poll barn. But couldn't we do something better?
Last summer a neighbor asked if he could cut and bale what was growing there and if he donated his time and equipment, would we donate the bales. We readily agreed. The yield was about 75 bales of rather poor straw that would end up mostly as bedding. 
Then...
he suggested we consider renovating the pastureland, which we had been calling a meadow because of the wildflowers. What would it involve?
Work, new experiences with old equipment, a learning curve whose arc and aches we never could have estimated.

1. sweeten the soil with lime. 
This required hiring a professional.


2. bust the sod. 
With a borrowed quack digger and our trusty John Deere 1947B, we began. What we couldn't have foreseen was the nightmare of wild grapevine roots that  would snarl and snag the digger every 50 feet or so, requiring us to manually untangle the digger. I began thinking of it as Devil's Snare.


Grapevine roots couldn't be left on the field to settle back into the ground. Ugh, ok. We can do that. Pulled, dug, collected, carted off the field and added to our mounting burn pile, the process took days and the enlisting of a few hearty souls who gave us a few hours each and who went running in haste once sated with drink. And another borrowed bit of equipment, a wagon. My memory of that particular job may have been sent to the deep files, but I do think we filled it at least 3 times.


3. discing
borrowed from yet another neighbor, this giant multiple pizza cutter breaks down the clods and many roots remaining near the surface.




Truth be told, both tractor and farmer were enjoying themselves at this point.

4. planting
Once again our neighbor Alan came to our aid. His ancient planter is the most interesting piece of machinery we'd used so far. And since he has a lifetime of planting experience, he calculated the amounts and types of seed we should use and the rate at which his planter dispersed them. Jerome road along to be sure the hoppers didn't clog or run out in the field.
 


The pasture mix included many munchie desirables with important addition. Annual oats. The oats germinate and grow quickly to act as protection for the slower growing perennial seed. 

5. dragging
Once the seed is broadcast it needs to be helped to make contact with the soil. And so there is another old piece of equipment  called a drag.


We were blessed with good deep rains just as we needed them. The field went from dusty brown to green in just a few days. The oats were up!


a little bit


                                                                                  then a lot!  
if you look very closely you can see the tiny seedlings near the ground between and below the oats.

6. cutting
With each old piece of equipment, totally new to us, we learn. People used to do this work by hand! with hand tools! even with the help of horses or oxen and then eventually with must have felt like wealth, machinery!  And then there were no guarantees of the outcome. Faith. Courage. Strength of spirit. Heartbreak. Joy. 

When our oats were cut they lay upon the field looking trampled, diminished. Sad. Here they would dry until the next step of the process.
Seeing the oats laying there turning brown on top of the lush green of the pasture mix they had been shielding since early May, they didn't look like much. And each day of drying they shrank a bit more. Will they amount to anything?

7. raking into windrows
I think Jerome enjoyed this bit too, especially since he was able to use our John Deere 1949B. The rake required no hydraulics, operating by the action of being pulled across the field. He'd been using the '47 up til now because hydraulics were needed to raise and lower those pieces of equipment. Adjustments are made to the rakes in terms of width of rows and depth of grab. Hydraulics are not required. Our '49 was now again a working tractor.!! Up til now it had mostly been used as my tractor of choice for "recreational" use (aka joy riding!) or for hauling.
Having the cut oat straw in rows will help in the baling process and exposes the cut oats to the sun and the air for drying. Windrows need to be turned to expose the underside so the fields need to be raked a second time. If Mother Nature cooperates, that will be enough raking before baling.




8. baling
This is what requires real experience. If the oats are baled too soon they will be hot bales which lead to decomposition and possible spontaneous combustion in storage. And even if they don't get hot enough to burn, the interior will be spoiled. Too dry and they lose their nutritional value.
All the other equipment was fascinating, but the baler has to be the most amazing piece of all. Collecting the row of straw, chopping it a bit for easier compaction, packing the straw into uniform blocks, wrapping them with twine, knotting and cutting the twine, dropping them as from a pez dispenser onto the field. 
If the air is humid, or the straw a bit too dry or a bit too moist the baler will balk or stop altogether. The twine might snap or refuse to knot, The bales might not pass through blocking the chute. Old equipment can be quirky on the best of days. And this piece of equipment, like all the others that have been doing this job, is over a half century old. Many much older than that. (like their operators!)
Not to worry. 


 

9. stacking the bales



It takes some skill to stack bales on a flat bed wagon. The load must be able to move over uneven ground and on the road up and down hills to where it will be stored without tipping or spilling. For this job Jerome got the long straw, if you can forgive my pun, and got the easy job, driving the tractor. Alan did the stacking and two local Amish boys did the gathering and throwing onto the wagon.  I took this video from a distance to be respectful of the boys' identity and age. But can you imagine many 9 and 12 year old English kids doing this job without a pause, doing it well and no complaints??



And here is the prize. Our first harvest. Oat straw. Horses will love this as bedding since they can find nuzzle for the oats in the mix. If we can cut the field again later this season when the pasture mix is up, the result will be bales of hay, not straw. Hay is feed, and ours should be good feed indeed.

Oat straw. Not exactly wheat for man's bread as I began this tale in honor of the day. The process of oat straw harvesting and wheat harvesting is similar in many respects. In fact, with wheat the hay still needs to be threshed which requires even more amazing machinery. 

If you've read this tale through to the finish, I ask you this... buttering your toast tomorrow, pause just a wee while and contemplate what went into bringing that bread to your table. 

Today's post, a tale of two 70 something city kids on our ridge meadow farm enjoying a good life.