Archive for May, 2005
May 19, 2005 – Foggy Morn
We haven’t had a foggy morning for a long time. In fact the weather has been pretty awful the last few weeks, between downpours, off and on drizzle, or 35 mph or more winds, it hasn’t been pleasant. This morning was refreshing to awake to weather calm and foggy. The view of a neighbor’s place at 6 am.
Our timeless barn also benefited slightly from the morning fog and sun.
It was a hard day to be in work as it was in the 80′s and pleasant. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
May 18, 2005 – Coop Renovations!
We have almost completed renovations on the chicken coop. All that remains is to replace one more set of doors. Here is the coop before renovations:
Here is the coop after renovations:
It’s good to reflect on things that have been completed. The coop was re-roofed, re-stained, new doors, all the junk hauled out of one side, all new windows and walls straightened.
The chickens are in exploring their new turf. There are two sides to the coop – one is about 1/4 of the space, the other 3/4. All the junk was in the big side and that’s where the chickens moved.
I made serious progress in the kitchen today – probably about 75% complete putting up trim around doors and baseboard. Ran out of wood and time, but had a good run at it.
May 17, 2005 – What I’ve Been Fretting About Lately
Thanks to Burnmeister Steve for sending me this article “The End of Oil. “The premise is that we have reached the peak of oil production, but the demand is rising and the gap is going to produce all kinds of problems. There are all kinds of web sites exploring this phenonemon, including the Oil Crisis site.
From the perspective of a small Iowa farm, this seems remote, but could have dramatic impacts for those systems (energy, food, manufacturing) which may become, by necessity, local or prohibitively expensive. So if you’re adept teaching your children to grow food without oil (big tractors, manufactured fertilizer and herbicides), adept at building useful contraptions that currently cannot compete with cheap plastic items and fiberboard items of all descriptions at Wal-Mart, then there may be a happy future.
I need to start researching what has happened to past cultures when fundamental changes in economy and infrastructure take place. We are often so arrogant to think that lessons from history no longer apply to us…
May 16, 2005 – The Leaning Goat of Melbourne
We have recently started miling Paullina, our Nubian goat. We have a nice milking stanchion courtesy of some neighbors. All we had to do to use it was to add a feeding tray so Paullina could eat while she was being milked.
The milking begins traditionally enough, with Linda pulling one squirt at a time.
Soon however, this must become tiresome for Paullina, so she begins to lean on Linda, gently at first and as she continues, leaning more and more.
This reminds me of a band playing in Austin, TX at the end of the month (I was checking out the music listings for when we visit at the end of the month). I’m guessing there is not a steel guitar or mandolin in “Super Heavy Goat A#$” (last two letters of band not faithfully rendered).
I think Paullina may be leaning because whe is a) ready to be done b) wants to have the other side milked, or c) want to see her kids which have been separated from her all night.
May 15, 2005 – A Little Bit Better
Today the weather was a bit better. We got a little gardening in and I got the boards to finish the trim in the kitchen (I hope). It’s still too cold to stain outside and the floor should still not have much traffic. I’m reminded about the displacement remodeling brings – limited access to kitchen, refrigerator parked in dining room, and things basically waiting for a curing before too much walking in kitchen.
It was nice to see the partly cloudy skies today – here is the stand of white pine trees that made this farm seem like home when we first saw it. The pines we planted to the north 7 years ago are now visible from the blacktop about a mile away if you look real hard. It’s good they are growing as the older ones are starting to fall (literally)
May 14, 2005 – Kitchen Floor
Today was windy and cold – got up to about 50 and then dropped and wind advisory all afternoon. Linda and Joanne planted/gardened for a while, but it was too hard with the wind to last all day. 
Starting after lunch, grandma Jo took Emma and Martin to her house for the afternoon/night, so we could work on putting in the new cork kitchen floor. We just finished getting it in and the first coat of sealer on it (10:30) In 2-3 hours, we need to put another coat on it. It will be a late night.
May 13, 2005 – Cleanup
Today we wrapped up a lot of the cleanup – got the apple tree and gas tank cleaned up and got the big tree that was caught in another tree down “without incident.” Without incident is a good way. I was able to get it on the ground without getting the chainsaw stuck, and was able to pull it with a chain and the truck to get it down to the ground.
The hay wagon was good to haul the debris. We found out our neighbors to the north lost part of their house roof, some shed doors, and bowed out part of a barn.
As part of the cleanup, we had a big surprise, when this buck came charging down our driveway!
May 12, 2005 – Storms!
Readers take note – the extraordinary circumstances from today required two separte entries for today! The second follows this one.
Today the rain continued – haven’t been out to the rain gauge yet after work. Evidently, there was a big gust around noon that helps me figure out what to do tomorrow afternoon after the rain is supposed to stop. Reminds me of rainy days at summer camp and the refrain “So God said to Noah, there’s going to be a floody, floody.”
Here’s our gas tank. 
This ruins the long-running argument whether the gas tank above the rhubarb patch helped or hindered the rhubarb growth. I was pro; Linda was con. Fortunately the tank was almost empty – it was something we had purchased at an auction long ago for pennies, but it never quite worked out – it seemed to lose a lot to evaporation and even with a filter, put out crummy gas. I guess I’ll think of a new use for the stand and bring the tank to get recycled somewhere.
One of the big apple trees lost one of its three trunks. 
Again, the trees are old, and we don’t have the heart to cut them down, even though two of them have lousy tasting apples (tastes like red delicious).
Finally (as far as I know without surveying the property) another one of the big pines north of the house looks like it needs to come down.
I’m not as ambivalent about this as the other two as we are starting to run out of these trees (in the darkness another tree next to it looks like it is leaning). Good thing we had the power company take out a row of old trees next to the wires, since this east wind may have knocked some over the lines.
May 12, 2005 – Useless Advice from Useless Guys
Today I was honored on the site where useless men offer advice to others of their kind. My question about car radio tuning was selected as question of the day. Go to question #29 (May 12) to see my quandary and the advice of other useless men. I thank the good people at Sugar Creek Farm for the blink (web link) to this site.
May 11, 2005 – Hot Chicks (at least we hope so)
Chicks arrived yesterday. We ordered 75 broilers, 25 mixed breed layers, and 10 bronze-breasted turkeys. One thing is certain, whenever we order chicks, the weather takes a turn to cold. Not a problem unless you need 90 degrees to survive. I went out to check them this mid-morning and the brooders and heat lamps were all off. A check of the wiring found that the old-fashioned round fuse in the building they live in was loose – I just had to tighten it.
Here are the chicks all huddled under the light after the power was restored. 
Here’s Martin showing off his favorite! 
The turkeys are in a separate area – you can see a few sticking their heads out in this photograph.
 
Last night we finally got a soaking rain – about 2 inches – the first good rain since the trees were planted. It was a wet, blustery day, so Martin and I spent most of the day cleaning out the laundry room, doing laundry, and the biggest time-sucker of all – going through all his clothes in drawers, boxes, and bags and sorting to the right season, stack for future, stack for Goodwill, and stack for resale. Martin was a trouper, trying on clothes for a good part of the afternoon.
May 10, 2005 – Ye Olde Trailer II (steel and musical)
Here’s the trailer with all the old wood ripped off. Looks mighty fine, don’t ya think? 
Today’s paper has a segue from my trailer to musical trailers – a big story about Trailer Records. Trailer Records is a small indie (started in a mobile home) record label producing Iowa artists – Greg Brown, Bo Ramsey, Brother Trucker, etc. It’s interesting that the commodification and lack of diversity in farming is also present in the commodification of music – as Dave Zollo explains in the story.
I loved his discussion of keeping the “Iowa Sound” alive – a sound Zollo describes as “a sound that arose from Iowa’s proximity to the Mississippi River and its status as a gateway to the West, with different socio-cultural crossroads. You’ve got country music, blues and folk music, all with long and rich histories here.” Although Iowa may be most famous musically now for metal-mongering, chart-topping Slipknot, there’s something to be said for the mix of blues, folk, and country that somehow defies categorization (and therefore no play on Clear Channel).
For a heap of good music that defies Clear Channel, visit Miles of Music and make sure to scroll down and listen to some of the samples.
May 9, 2005 – Two Steps Forward, One Back
Today was one of those days that was full of activity, but it seems at the end of the day, nothing changed. Maybe it’s just that time of the month for me. Yesterday a wind gust moved through with a series of storms, but didn’t bring rain, but did blow things around a bit, including one of the rows of my raspberry “terra-forming” – most of the paper and hay was lifted up and tossed aside. The wind also blew one of the windows out of the chicken coop, but on a happy note, I did manage to get 7 bags of cement mixed up to fill in the holes between the foundation and the floor. Soon it will be ready for chickens.
This morning Martin and I got 40 brassicas planted (cauliflower, broccoli, chinese cabbage and brussels sprouts). We also loaded up all the old wood from the trailer and hauled it to the burn pile. We set up the chick brooder, got the food, rewired one of the non-functioning heat lamps as well.
Today marks the beginning of a new intermittent feature highlighting a web site that speaks for itself. I stumbled across Nathan Bush’s tribute, of sorts, to KMart, Pamida, and Fareway stores. I’ve linked to the tour of the Audubon, IA Pamida store, but the other tours are well worth the click! It’s a great insight to a mind very unlike my own.
May 8, 2005 – Pine Lake II
Half the day was at the lake. Wonderful sand castles were built…
canoeing on the lake…
and boys hanging on the beach… 
The coolest thing in dad’s eyes was a snake suspended on a branch of a sunken tree out in the lake.
 
It was a good weekend with lots of talk about the future of sustainable agriculture and ecology as attendees at this week-end’s getaway are highly engaged in the discussion at large.
Dana Jackson, Associate Director of the Land Stewardship Project gave the keynote address at the Upper Midwest Organic Conference this year.
Dana and Laura are co-authors of The Farm as Natural Habitat: Reconnecting Food Systems to Ecosystems a book that supports progressive farming practices as providing great environmental benefits.
Laura’s husband Kamyar Enshayen works on local food initiates in Iowa, including leading the Buy Fresh, Buy Local campaign in Black Hawk County.
James Pritchard, environmental historian, author of A Green and Permanent Land: Ecology and Agriculture in the 20th Century and along with his wife, Diane Debinski wrote a field guide to Butterflies of the Yellowstone region.
Matt Liebman studies crop/livestock/soil interactions.
His wife, Laura Merrick works on historical forest and land use projects and is one of America’s finest squash breeders!
As for us, we’ve got this blog, a few acres, and a few animals.
May 7, 2005 – At the Cabin
This little oasis is only about 35 miles away. Emma and Claire pull all our stuff in carts “over the river and through the woods to cabin #2.”
 
The cabins were old CCC projects built using native stone. 
Emma relaxes before dinner.
 
Martin and Hyden were buddies all weekend, here is Martin sharing a book with Hayden. 
