Today was the Iowa Organic Conference in Ames. I helped man the Wholesome Harvest booth and got to talk to many producers looking for markets for their meat. I was heartened that the director of the Iowa Organic division within the state department of agriculture requested as addition of four staff positions to the staff, all were approved by the out-going Secretary of Agriculture, who now sits in the Lieutenant Governor’s office – so there is great hope that those additional positions will be filled.
Month: November 2006
November 19, 2006 – Auction Goods
The biggest (and heaviest) item we bought at the auction was this big bale spear for $55.00.
We also got a pile of hog panels for $22.00.
A group of wooden folding chairs for $6.00.
An old doghouse for $2.00 (this saved me from having to make one for Maizie this winter!)
Other buys included a stetson hat nearly new in original box with a box of 100 file folders and 50 hanging file folders for 2 bucks.
A bunch of serving bowls and dishware, including corelle, a french mill coffee press for 2 bucks.
A box of piano, flute, and other instrument books and a pile of sheet music from the 40’s for one dollar.
About two dozen wine glasses for $2.
A huge white igloo cooler for $2. There’s a few more things I can’t remember. All in all, worth spending the better part of a day.
November 18, 2006 – Auction
Today I was able to get to a farm auction. It was a complete farm auction – household and farm – they even sold the house! Since there was lots of stuff, I stayed all day, Linda most of the day, and the kids about half the day. There was a big collection of firearms, evidently auction sales don’t have to follow the same rules as retail dealers
It was a deep, cold day. You can tell it’s a cold day, since most of the farmers are actually wearing their hoods or stocking hats instead of baseball caps. We got chilled to the core, it seemed like it wasn’t until late evening that our cores got warmed.
We ended up with a lot of stuff – I’ll post pictures tomorrow. It was sobering to see some of the stuff we got that at one time had great meaning, but now that the people are gone, it’s no matter. There were boxes full of stuff, and I would only want one item and have to take the whole box of stuff I didn’t want. In the boxes were hand-stitched pillows with baby handprints inked on with greetings, presumably from a child to grandparent. There were hand-made Christmas stockings, with the names outlined in glue and glitter. There were notecards of encouragement to family members evidently going through a personal challenge.
November 17, 2006 – Fruit Tree Problems
This year, a number of our fairly new peach trees developed wounds on the south side of their trunks. While I was at the Small Farm Conference I spoke with someone from the Missouri experimental fruit station after a grafting workshop who told me to paint the south sides of the trunks white because the hot winter days followed by cold were causing the splits in the trunks. He said you don’t need fancy paint, interior latex works as well as anything.
It looks kind of strange to see all the white trunks offering striking contrast to the autumn browns.
November 16, 2006 – Thingamajig Thursday #49
Here’s this week’s “Thingamajig Thursday” entry – a real thingamajig! Also check out
last week’s answer.
As always, put your guess in a comment below.
Answer…ClampTite a tool used to clamp nearly anything together – hoses, split tool handles etc. We picked this up at the small farm show.