Double K Farms

Back in the Game

2011-11-16T11:32:00.009-06:00

Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hubby and I recently re-instituted "Date Night" and returned to our old haunt, the local Buffalo Wild Wings, to partake of their delicacies and kick butt in the trivia game held there every Tuesday evening. You see, Hubby and I complement each other quite well in our knowledge of different trivial things, so, we usually win the game. Over the course of many years of Tuesdays, we could count worthy opponents on one hand. On some nights, we played simply to better our own scores.

After a hiatus of a couple of years, we returned to the game, probably much to the chagrin of the two or three semi-good players who will inevitably be de-throned. We are actually doing a public service by forcing them to bone up if they want to have even a chance of beating us.

Last night, we won every one of the five rounds leading up to the final question. We had about 25,000 points and our nearest contender was 9,000 points behind us. On the final question, one can bet from 10% to 50% of one's accumulated score after one gets to see the category of the question and before the actual question comes up -- just like Final Jeopardy. We figured that we would win handily, even if we got the question wrong, if we bet only 10% of our points, our usual ploy.

Then the category for the final question came on the screen:

European Geography

Filled with something I would describe as hubris squared, since both of us were practically jumping out of our seats with glee, we immediately changed our wager to, of course, 50%!*

Then came the question:

Which of the following countries borders Slovakia?

A. Poland

B. Germany

C. Romania

D. Switzerland

E. Serbia

Piece of cake!!!

Romania!

NOPE!

We lost half our points. One of our 'unworthy opponents' got it right and flew by us on the leader board. (Actually, only one person in the whole joint got the right answer. Probably a lucky guess.) I suppose it's only fair to let someone else win once ~~in a while.~~

By the way, the answer was Poland. Go look it up. I did. I'm still a little in shock, but we'll be there next week. Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel!

*For those of you who may not know, I've got Western Europe pretty well wrapped up and Hubby covers Eastern Europe quite well, each of us having visited those countries over many years in the past, so, since this was in his bailiwick, the responsibility for our heinous loss is more attributable to him than to yours truly.

Call Me Anti-American

2011-08-11T12:21:00.002-05:00

Last week, our family was graced with the presence of our college-aged daughter and her Moroccan beau. She, of course, is quite accomplished, hard-working, beautiful, and loving. But since I'm her Mom, I'm "supposed to say those things", as one of my daughters once told me.

So, instead, let me tell you about her Honey.

His name is Nadir (pronounced na-DEER, not NAY-der, as the airline agent, who didn't even give it a college try, pronounced it). He is fluent in English, French and Arabic. He completed the International Baccalaureate degree in high school and is studying Film and International Security and Conflict Resolution here in the States. His goal is to work for an NGO and travel around the world exposing political injustice through documentaries. He has already done a few in his homeland.

So, he, too, is quite accomplished, talented, hard-working, beautiful and loving. And I'm not his Mom, so the compliment counts for more!

And yet, because he travels on a foreign passport and has an unusual (although lovely) name, he has to plan to spend at least a day of layover when re-entering the U.S. after going home to visit his family in Morocco because the customs people always take him to a small room and interrogate him. This surprises me only because after talking to him for just a few minutes, you can get an idea of what he's all about.

When we took him and my daughter to the airport to go back to school, I got to witness the discrimination first hand.

At every turn, she sailed though while he was detained, asked extra questions, and treated like a potential terrorist. I was amazed at the dignity with which Nadir bore it all. I guess that since he's used to it (a sad state, to be sure), he's decided to take the higher road. It was noted.

So I challenge those of you who are into "security" and "safety" to think about the ramifications of that and to try and remember what this country was founded on.

The very definition of an American is someone from somewhere else which encompasses all of us. (Except, of course the Native Americans, but don't get me started on that topic!)

In this nice family photo, you have either:

a Muslim terrorist, a Basque bomber, and Mata Hari

a future Ken Burns, a retired Grandpa, and a future ambassador to Spain.

You be the judge.

She's Ba-a-a-a-ck! (But just for a minute.)

2011-07-25T15:24:00.006-05:00

July is a crazily busy time on the farm, but we seem to be keeping on top of things. There are cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, garlic, onions, shallots, potatoes, and herbs to harvest. There are the remnants of the spring garden to clear and till in preparation for the fall garden. And, as always, there are weeds to contend with.

In addition, Hubby (God bless him) decided that we should re-stain the cabins right now.

No problem. Just call Superwoman! Oh, she's busy? Ok. I guess I'll do it.

The first veggie harvest was in last week. Here we have cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, and three kinds of beets.

Yes, because of the new garden fence (thanks, again, Honey!), we have more than three beets this year!

It's hard to tell in this photo, but the cooler is full to overflowing with beets and I only harvested about half of them! I've already put up seven jars of pickled beets, had a meal or two with fresh beets and am in the process of putting up some boiled beets so that Hubby can have borscht any time he likes in the coming months.

I'm sorry for those of you who may have wanted to purchase some of our lovely beets, but, after five years of waiting, we're keeping them all to ourselves.

However, if you need cucumbers, call me!

I Spoke Too Soon

2011-06-10T11:06:00.001-05:00

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome. Isaac Asimov

Yes, things are back to normal on the farm. I guess last week's positive perception of things was just a dream after all.

Upon arriving last weekend, we found all our lovely chickens, raised from babies, once again massacred, this time by a weasel who entered through a hole about three inches in diameter. That night, we set the trap near the cinder blocks in front of the coop. In the morning, the bait (one of the dead chickens) was gone, the trap was about 15 feet away (on the left in the green bushes in the following picture) and it had been turned on its side so that an opening was created for the dastardly critter to escape.

So, the chickens are gone.

In addition, yours truly managed to disable two mowers.

The neighbor's well-beloved German shepherd, Raza, went to her eternal rest after 20-plus years of a good life raising all the children in the area.

It was 100 degrees the day I needed to harvest perishable items for sale in the CSA in town. (They didn't look too good, needless to say.)

The Missouri river is experiencing historic flooding, closing our route to the farm (but not affecting our land -- silver lining there).

And when we got back home, Maya's new bike had been stolen.

Given all this, I'm beginning to understand why all our farmer friends are always so cheerful. You simply have to laugh to keep from crying.

Pinching Myself

2011-05-31T17:30:00.006-05:00

I'm going to dare and write a sentence that is not usually found among these pages:

Things are going quite well on the farm.

Thanks to the addition of the new fence around the garden, it looks like I might get more than three beets this year.

Here we have about six rows of radishes and four rows of lettuce (also unheard of before the new fence -- the deer have good taste).

Next we have the second round of tomatoes in addition to some peppers, on the left, all weeded and mulched and supplied with drip hoses. On the right, that large, leafy plant in the foreground is one of our signature volunteer sunflowers. Behind it are two rows of beets straddling a wide row of arugula (or "rocket" for those of you across the pond).

For dinner, we had some of said lettuce, radishes, and some of the lovely herbs that are also thriving.

In addition to the garden successes, in this same week, we sold our hay from last year. (We're one step closer to breaking even on that score!)

The rain, which has been a little too much for most people around here, has made it easier for us to weed and keeps things growing in our little microcosm.

The garlic and onions and aronia berries are all doing well.

After a couple of years of strategic abandonment, the clematis are a profusion of color.

Even the long, lost kitty, Tsarmina, returned to the fold! (While she was away, her six kittens went to that great cat box in the sky, but we'll save the negative stuff for one of the many other blog entries about the farm.)

A Wedding and Four Funerals

2011-05-16T04:36:00.008-05:00

The Wedding

Last weekend, my cousin got married in California. It was a most lavish affair. A goodly number of us cousins flew out to witness the fine nuptials.

But not all was sweetness and light.

Funeral Number One

Given the timing of the wedding, I was pressured to plant about 100 tomato plants before leaving for California on May 6th. Given that our last frost date is usually around April 24th, and last year's was actually March 30th, I figured I was safe.

Ha! (You're never safe when farming.)

There was a freak frost the first night that damaged my beautiful seedlings. It was followed a couple of days later by 97-degree heat which did them in completely. Two plants remain. No worries. I have another hundred or so that will take their places in the garden. I would have had too many tomatoes if the first batch had made it. Yeah, right. How can you have too many tomatoes?

Funeral Number Two

Time. Money. Sleep. Yes, it was one of those vacations from which one needs a vacation. I swear I won't do this ever again. The next vacation will be relaxing and fun and restful.

Funeral Number Three

My Mom looks up at her little brother in this photo taken three years ago. Since then, however, my Uncle Frank has been fading, both physically and mentally. The brother she has known for over 70 years is gone.

Funeral Number Four

The innocence of youth can be buried after this visit.

About 15 of us cousins grew up spending the summers together. But that was 40 years ago. We have all gone our separate ways and grown apart. After three days with one aunt and uncle, we realized that the ties that bound us together all those years ago do not exist anymore. It was made clear that we were not welcome. I will not see them again.

I am reminded of the old joke about the man who opens the door to his hotel room only to find the place covered in thousands of bottles of Angostura.

When he goes back to the front desk to complain about the state of his room, the concierge replies, "I'm sorry, Sir, but you have to take the bitters with the suite."

Such is life.

Woodhenge

2011-03-15T12:50:00.012-05:00

The planets were aligned for Lizzie last weekend.

But first, a little background...

I have had a big vegetable garden for the past five years. In order to keep the critters out of it, I've had a 6-foot high fence made out of netting around it. It has served me well, but it was getting a bit worn and easy for said critters to breach. Also, I was spending some of the precious time I have for working in the garden repairing the fence for the garden. One morning, two large does were breakfasting on my brand new spinaches and lettuces. They were completely non-plussed when I tried to shoo them away. Rather than pulling out the big guns, literally, Hubby offered to help me re-do the fence.

We happened onto a sale on heavy-duty, tall, chicken wire at the local farm store. A neighbor offered to find us tall fence posts. All we needed to do was dig a few holes and pop those posts into them.

A piece of cake.

Yeah, right.

Here are some things to consider (for you non-farm types):

Can we get this project done before the asparagus starts coming up in early April (because, if we can't, the deer are going to have lunch, too.)

Can we get the old steel posts dug up and the netting cleared away so that we can put in the new stuff?

Is the ground thawed enough to dig into?

Is it thawed enough but not too wet to dig into?

Is the neighbor going to bring the posts when the ground is thawed and not too wet?

Can we dig 32 holes in a weekend?

Well, yes!! (to all of it!)

We started by digging holes by hand. After about one and a half holes, Hubby jumped in the truck and went to town to rent an auger for us. (What a guy!)

The gas-powered auger made things a bit easier, but it had to be man-handled (or, at times, woman-handled) and had no self-propulsion or lightness of being to it. :( We did get a system going and managed to bang out the 32 holes. (Our muscles suffered the consequences of this system the next day.)

We say "ni hao maa" here because this hole goes all the way to China. :) Seriously, though, the holes needed to be about 2.5 feet deep.

The ten-foot (plus) hedge poles were delivered about two hours behind schedule (much closer than 98% of the goings on at the farm) and promptly popped into their holes around the garden. Each pole was weighty enough to require two people to carry it, so, it was quite fortuitous that the now mostly-grown neighbor children showed up to help. In addition, daylight savings time had just kicked in so we had an extra hour of daylight to get it all done. We'll wrap the whole thing with the chicken wire next weekend. The hard part is done.

It was warm enough.

It was dry enough.

The auger was available to rent.

We had time to do it all.

The neighbor kids helped out.

The planets were aligned for Lizzie last weekend and she was well pleased!

We may even have more than three beets this year!

Vive les Dioramas!

2011-02-18T16:04:00.008-06:00

As I've gotten older, I've become more patient with the semi-annual need for teachers to have their students do some kind of project. The latest incarnation was not quite as bad as the model of the pancreas, but it was the same short notice. (Don't children know that we Moms need more time to make a great model?)

"Mom, I need a pioneer house for school tomorrow morning!"

I used to insist that my children do these projects by themselves, stand on their own merits, be able to stand back and be proud of their accomplishments.

Well, over the years, I've seen that there are too many Moms who don't share my idealism when it comes to child-rearing. The competition is fierce! The kids know it, too. My daughter insisted that it be "perfect".

So, I helped.

After some cutting and taping of cardboard, paper, and aluminum foil, we broke out the paints and produced:

Notice the toothpick windows, the blue curtains, the opening door, and, you can't see it from this view, but, the chimney is fully functional, i.e., there is a hole in the roof. The entire roof is detachable so that you can see inside, where we have a tiny flashlight "fire", and some "buffalo skin" blankets for our cardboard people:

Bring it, Fourth Graders!

Traveling Light?

2011-01-12T12:09:00.007-06:00

Here is what my college-aged daughter needed for her two weeks at home over Christmas:

We have here two bags to check, one carry on, and many instruments of hair torture. They intrigued me, so I had my daughter explain each one:

From the left, the first item is a ceramic hair straightener. The second is a small-curl curling iron, not to be confused with the third item, which is a large-curl curling iron. And the last is a hair dryer with no handle (very curious for me, all-the-rage for my daughter).

But maybe there's something to her list of necessities. I mean, here I am, barely cognizant of the ins and outs of a basic hair dryer (although I do brush my hair daily, mind you):

And here she is, after all her careful coiffing:

Maybe it was worth the $60 in checked luggage charges and all the expensive salon equipment.

I'll let you be the judge.

Communing with Mother Nature

2010-12-13T12:11:00.003-06:00

An Exercise in Stupidity

You can take your pick after you read this entry.

Taking one for the team, I volunteered to venture out to the farm last weekend to check on the chickens and kittens and make sure all was well at the cabin. Normally, this is not noteworthy. But, this weekend, the outside temperature registered a bit low:

Look again.

That is not 38 degrees. There is a little decimal point in there.

It was THREE POINT EIGHT degrees Fahrenheit at 6:00 Sunday morning! (That's -15.6 degrees Celsius for those of you across the pond.) This is significant because we have to come up with our own heat when we're at the farm. The cabin is not insulated.

But, I survived. The wood stove and oil burning heaters did a great job of heating the cabin.

Plus, the inside temperature was balmy:

Wanna See Something Obscene? Go Ahead. It's OK.

2010-12-08T12:54:00.004-06:00

Good. You're taking the leap and reading on.

Since my children (ages 22, 19, 12, and 9) were young, I have asked my mother and other relatives (you know I mean you, GodCarol) NOT to give them so much at Christmastime. Hubby and I barely get them anything for the holiday because we know that so much is going to pour in from near and far.

Well, Grandma has tried, but she still can't bring herself to give them nothing but her presence on Christmas. GodCarol (our eldest's godmother, hence the name) has not been able to refrain either. I imagine they might have thought that I was being falsely humble.

No.

I was tired of seeing so much nice clothing go to waste.

Which brings us to the obscene part:

This is a receipt from the Goodwill where I recently dropped off 28, count 'em, 28 bags* of items for donation. And mind you, this is not the first time, and, probably not the last, that I've gathered up unused and slightly used clothing and stuffed animals for the Goodwill, but it is by far the largest number.

I admit that I may have had more since my youngest has used all the hand-me-downs that she could and has no one to hand them down to anymore (Deo gratia). And, I admit that I have been in a "get-rid-of-it" mood lately. But still, 28 bags seems obscene to me.

There are two consoling facts about this milestone, however.

One, these things will go to people who can use them. I'm glad of that.

Two, my sis-in-law, who spent the better part of a day helping me go through all of the clothing, was so overwhelmed by it all that she cried out, "I will never give your daughters any kind of clothing ever again!"

Yes! Someone understands!!!

Grandma and GodCarol, you watch out! I may have to subject you to cleaning out the girls' room when you're here!

*These bags were 30-gallon, kitchen garbage-sized bags, not the puny plastic bags one gets at the grocery store.

An Irish Blessing

2010-12-01T10:22:00.010-06:00

On November 18th, a good man left us. I know he was a good man even though I had never met him.

Arthur Bartholomew McGuire was the 14th of 16 children and he was born on January 3rd, 1926, in rural Nebraska. He married and raised a family. His first born, Erin, is my dear friend. So, when I heard about his passing, I attended his funeral.

I was struck by a number of things.

Estimating roughly, there were close to 1,000 people in attendance. The spirit of the mass was one of Irishness, faith, family, friends, humor, and love. Those Irish seem to have cornered the market on combining these qualities. Dennis, Erin's brother, gave a wonderful eulogy to his Dad. It was filled with laughter and tears, with emphasis on the laughter. "God took Dad's car keys." I learned that Artie was good, kind, funny, and loving. He'd probably agree with the following:

But I know even more about Artie than what I learned at the funeral. I know him through his daughter. She is the kindest person I know. She is a month younger than yours truly, celebrating her birthday just yesterday. In her half century on the planet, I know that she has had plenty of cause to be angry, upset, resentful. Haven't we all? But even in the face of terrible injustice, she has a way of putting a good face on things. She gives everyone the benefit of the doubt. She turns all things with a positive spin. She adds humor to the most difficult of situations. When I imagine her, I cannot picture her without a smile on her face.

Fortunately for thousands of international students over the years, Erin is a teacher. And she is usually their favorite teacher. (I used to compete with her, but haven't been a colleague of hers for some years.) I know because they say so in written evaluations, in person, on Facebook. I counted the birthday wishes on her wall yesterday...a whopping 103! (Sorry to cyberstalk you, Honey.) And I'm sure she had as many more wishes in other venues. And I'm not at all surprised. Her warmth and humor are contagious. Her sincere attention to, and interest in, everyone she meets is boundless. (No, Erin, I am NOT exaggerating.)

I just have to wonder what a different place the world would be if there were more people like Ernie in it.

Happy birthday, Dear Friend. Here's a little blessing for you, who are a blessing to so many! :)

May the road rise up to meet you,

May the wind be always at your back,

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

The rains fall soft upon your fields,

And until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

It's All How You Look At It

2010-10-18T14:37:00.003-05:00

When I was ten years old and in for an annual school physical, a nice, attentive, Japanese doctor in Seattle (where my family lived at the time) noticed a murmur when listening to my heart.

It turned out that I had a hole about the size of a half dollar coin that was making my heart pump three times harder than normal. If nothing had been done about it, they said that I would probably not live to see my 20th birthday.

The only pediatric heart surgeon in the country in 1971, Dr. Savage, happened to be a neighbor and happened to practice in Seattle and operated on me. It cost my parents the $50/month in group health insurance that they were already paying for the family.

Had it not been for this harmonic convergence in the cosmos, here is what I would have missed:

-- graduating from college

-- being a spy in Washington D.C., my first "real" job

-- spending a year in France, where I ate well, learned a lot, and made the acquaintance of my dearest, oldest friend, Jayne

-- teaching English to so many wonderful, interesting students from around the world in Europe and the US

-- the welcoming into the world of my four, beautiful girls who are turning out to be amazing women

-- enjoying marriage to a good and loving man

-- bringing new life to an old farm and enjoying the fruits of my labors

-- coming to realize that with age comes peace, wisdom, and happiness

So, it is with absolutely no embarrassment whatsoever that I admit that I have reached the half century mark...two and a half times what I was initially allotted.

With a little luck, I may get another 50.

Educating Amelia

2010-10-08T10:46:00.004-05:00

A junior in college, my daughter called me yesterday, presumably just to check in and say "Hi!". Very casually, she asks if I am going to vote in the next election. Sure, I am. "Oh, and when is that?" she asks. "The first Tuesday in November," I reply. My child is finally taking an interest in the political process. How nice! "And what do you know about the electoral college?" comes next.

The gig was up.

After lecturing a bit about electors and the popular vote and the 2000 election, I asked for the next question on the study sheet. It was a doozy. "What president was responsible for popularizing big government?"

Hmm.

Big government? Who wants that?

I counseled her to go early to the test and ask the T.A. -- the limit of my poly sci knowledge having been reached.

Our Farm Kittens

2010-10-06T17:05:00.005-05:00

Here is our latest batch of farm kittens:

They were born in the spring and are thriving. They eat almost anything we give them. Our farm cats are special in that they have to fend for themselves during the week and then get spoiled by us on the weekends.

I recently treated Hubby to some new beers after discovering the paradise of Brix* here in Omaha. Well, given the shotgun approach to choosing single beers, there was one that he didn't quite fancy. He drank a bit of it, but decided to treat the kittens to the rest of it.

It's the dark one of the three red dishes.

After a couple of hours, they still hadn't touched it.

Hubby's reasoning?

"It's probably too early in the day for them to start drinking."

*A wonderful new store that stocks wines, beers, cheeses, olives, and fresh French bread. What more could one want?

What a Day

2010-09-28T20:46:00.002-05:00

Today I received my application for AARP membership.

Yes, I am turning 50 next month...get those presents ready!

I had a few hot flashes today. They were making themselves more evident than usual.

Do they have something to do with the arrival of the mail?

Hubby took me out for an early birthday dinner.

Yum, Thai food!

He also brought me the present that I have been waiting for for months --

something that is going to be hard for me to break --

something that is going to clean up the yard at both the house and the cabin --

a Stihl weedwhacker.

Yes, I really did want that as a present.

Cows in the Corn

2010-09-22T15:36:00.003-05:00

Last Friday evening, Hubby and I were sitting on the patio at the farm on, arguably, one of the best evenings of the year. It was 72 degrees out, about 10pm, a starry sky above, and we had just finished a lovely dinner of Spanish lamb meatballs that we had prepared for ourselves. We were having a nightcap outside when I was startled by a specter blanking out the area in front of the chicken coop, some 30 yards away. We jumped up, grabbed the flashlights and, lo and behold, the neighbor's cattle appeared in the darkness. They had apparently decided to pay us a visit and drink from our swimming pool!

We called said neighbor, Tim, who responded immediately with, "I'm putting my boots on" (code for, "In order to deal with the likes of cattle, one needs foot protection" I surmised.) In addition, he mentioned that the fence they had breached had a hole in it that was "big enough to throw a cat through" (apparently a standard unit of measurement in farm circles).

Now, herding the cows back to where they needed to go was not as straightforward as one would think. You can't push them too hard or they will stampede and trample poor Tim. You can't leave them to their own devices or they will keep drinking from the pool (not the cleanest water around) and knock down the fence to the tender greens in the garden (also not desirable). You have to gently honk at them and go behind them in the truck and guide them to where they need to go. Which is exactly what we did.

Here is hubby driving the truck to corral the cows.

And here are some of the cows.

Most farmers around these parts would be pretty peeved that the cows had made themselves at home on their farms. They leave lots of "cow patties", which we happen to like and usually have to pay for; they trample crops, which we don't happen to have right now; and they knock down fences which, ok, we have to fix, but it wasn't that big a deal.

Being the naive, young farmers that we are, we experienced not annoyance but excitement at the prospect of activity in the late evening hours on a nice, late summer evening.

Thanks, Tim!

But let's not do it too often.

Russian Class

2010-08-31T21:44:00.002-05:00

We recently started Russian lessons for our two youngest daughters. We have the good fortune of having my former Russian teacher, Tatyana, from the local university, to tutor them privately. All is going extremely well. The girls are already reading in Cyrillic -- a feat that took yours truly at least six months.

The books Tatyana had us get for the girls are very Russian. I love how true to the culture they are.

One of the first things I had to explain to my older daughter was

Га-га́-рин

That's Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. OK. Yeah, she should know about him.

Then we happen upon

Моск-вич

This is a car, the Moskvich, that was produced in Russia from 1945 until 1991. OK. I guess it doesn't hurt for her to know about this common item of Russian life for over half a century.

But, I had to laugh when she sounded out

Ка-лаш-ни-ков

Especially when she perfectly pronounced "Ka-lash-ni-kov"!

What a proud Mama I was!

A Meeting of Minds

2010-08-17T18:37:00.004-05:00

Meet Joyce.

Joyce is the Food Service Director for the Clarinda school system. And she is a maverick in that she is committed to giving the children good, pure, local, organic food to eat.

Like myself, she was impressed by Jamie Oliver and his Food Revolution.

She has already transitioned into homemade chicken nuggets from real chicken breasts in the school kitchens.

She is planning to take on beef next year.

She is even plotting to improve the sacred pizza that the kids love. (She knows that this is the last bastion, though.)

I'm so glad we found each other!

Last weekend, we began our working relationship. She came to the farm and bought all that I had harvested on Saturday morning -- summer and winter squashes, seven kinds of cucumbers, sweet and hot peppers, and a few tomatoes.

We finish each other's sentences about the quality of good food.

We both remember times when our mothers and grandmothers made meals from scratch, and in season.

We are both excited about the addition of organic produce to the school lunch menu.

She is going to have a few of the unique squashes on display for the kids to touch and learn about.

She has obtained a farm-to-school grant to promote local and organic food in the schools.

She is even going toe-to-toe with the USDA!

We represent the baby steps on the road to healthy, flavorful, wonderful eating.

Summer Camp

2010-08-03T09:04:00.005-05:00

"Aim for the Stars" is the name of the Lego Robotics camp at the local university that Maya (aged 9, our fourth daughter) was excited to attend when she got the paperwork at school last May. Sunday night, before the start of the week-long camp, she was filled with dread at the prospect of actually attending it.

I hate this part of parenthood.

Do you make her go? Do you let her off the hook because she's scared? (And forfeit the non-refundable $160-payment you've made.)

It's not like I haven't had experience at this. You would think that I should be pretty well equipped to handle this stuff.

Let us review...

I spent almost a year with my eldest (now 21) when she was three years old and dying to be a ballerina, deciding whether to make her go to dance lessons. I did make her go (well, half of the time). Twenty years later, a quite accomplished ballerina, in a heartfelt moment, summing up all of her life to that point, she thanked me for making her go to dance class early on and couldn't even really imagine not having danced all her life.

I let my second daughter skip out of soccer. Not only did she not take to it, but also the other parents had the worst potty mouths! I couldn't believe my ears at most of the games. Anyway, this one ended up a ballerina, too. And a beautiful one she was.

Next we have our third daughter. She doesn't do anything she doesn't want to do. If you can make her do anything, I tip my hat to you. I've known her since she was born, and I defy anyone to cajole, bribe, threaten, or blackmail her to do anything. So, in a sense, she was easy. I don't make her do anything. It seems to work for all of us.

Then there's Maya. She's the baby. She still needs to explore things, try things, find what she likes. Hence, the camp. It promised to wed playing with toys and programming the computer. Here she is coming out on the first day:

I wished I had been the parent of the boy in front of her. (Not really.)

She hated it. It was boring. It was hard. No one helped her. There were no potential friends. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. (What movie was that from?)

So, Monday night, I called the director of the program and told her Maya's findings at the robotics camp. The director assured me that she would contact Maya's teacher and get her some extra attention and even move her to another subject, more to her liking, after trying a second day at the camp.

Ok, Maya, here's the plan. You go one more day and see how it goes.

Kicking and screaming, she goes.

I cross my fingers on Tuesday when I go to pick her up.

Same deal.

She hates it. She is bored.

So, daunted by the thought of half an hour in the car on Wednesday morning with a sobbing child, I relented and told her she didn't have to go anymore.

What stuck in my craw was that she had left a rather nice lunchbox on Tuesday. Since I was in the area on Thursday, I stopped in to pick it up. I ran into her teacher.

"Oh, is Maya alright? Is she sick?"

No, she's throwing fits so I didn't make her come.

"We miss her! She had a bit of a frustrating day on Monday, but, by Tuesday, she was helping the other girls and showed a predisposition for programming."

What a stinker. I had no idea of any of this.

The gig was up.

I made her attend Friday, the last day of the camp, and she had a really good time. Here she is with Dad, both wearing their badges.

Thank goodness she's the last one. I'm really tired of figuring this stuff out.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

2010-07-15T15:37:00.009-05:00

Our good friends, Jayne, (Liz's dear friend from ages ago), J.P. and Tiddler (Jayne's ducklings) are arriving tomorrow from Merry Old England for their annual visit to the Big "O" (Omaha) and to our farm in Iowa where Jayne and I plan to sit on resin garden chairs in the pool and visit for as long as we can stand it. Given the Brits' mad-cow scare some years back which resulted in a few years with no beef in the country, we also plan to eat lots of good ol' midwestern meat, some of it cooked over the open fire at the farm.

Yum.

So, in anticipation of their visit, I thought we should tidy up a bit.

With the help of my ducklings, I took all the seedling trays and shelves to the basement where I should have put them in, oh, say, April (when I was done with them). I also put the peat moss and seed-starting dirt in the compost bin. I hung the Girl Scouts' painting (from May) on the wall instead of leaving it where it had been -- in front of the hearth. I vacuumed. I pickled cucumbers and made pesto, i.e., I cleaned out the fridge. I swept. I did dishes.

Then, today, I asked the ducklings to get me the sheets and pillow cases from their and the guest's beds.

Maya, my nine-year-old, after seeing this flurry of activity all week, finally asked:

"So, Mom, does it take someone coming from overseas for us to clean the house?"

Having sworn to myself years ago to always be as honest as possible with my children, I answered,

"Well, yes, I suppose it does."

Here is an ancient photo of the trinity of friends in our apartment in Paris in 1984 -- from left to right: Sarah (age 21), Liz (age 24), and Jayne (age 21). It was a great year!

There Goes My Baby

2010-06-29T09:27:00.009-05:00

I am the mother of four absolutely wonderful girls. In the great cosmic roll of the dice, I got super lucky. The eldest is 21 and is a bi-lingual para-legal in Brussels, Belgium. The second is 19 and a Spanish/Psychology major at San Diego State University. The third is 12 and in the middle of middle school.

And the youngest, Maya, is 9.

Since it's summer, the rules around the house are more lax than usual, which is saying something if you know us. Maya has been spending time at her aunt's house lately and was due to come home a couple of days ago, but I got this short email:

i miss you but i don't want to come home.

AGH! My baby is growing up! The first taste of independence has struck!

As any mother reading this will understand, I felt thrilled and nostalgic at the same time. A former colleague once reminded me of an old saying that has stayed with me, "A parent's job is to give children two things -- roots and wings."

I closed my eyes and could just see my fledgling daring to eye the sky.

Given that her three predecessors had always been one step ahead of me, I was prepared for the leap into the air that she took the following day. While still at her aunt's house, she concocted a veritable grown-up plan for herself for the weekend. The only thing lacking was a little financing, hence the next email:

hey mom i love you so much can u please give me 86$ for 3 tickets to the Justin Bieber concert?

I suppose I can.

After all, how could I stand in the way of my baby bird taking flight.

Having a Field Day

2010-06-15T21:07:00.004-05:00

Two months ago, Luke Gran from the Practical Farmers of Iowa contacted me as he was making up his annual field day schedule for the state of Iowa. He thought it would be nice if I had some folks over to our farm and talked about "going organic". No sweat, I thought. There would be a $500 stipend for half a day of showing off our farm and a $200 food allowance for putting on a lunch.

Easy money.

Ha!

There's no such thing as a free lunch. (Why do we have to learn this lesson over and over? Maybe it's just me.)

Here's how things progressed:

We buy some local chicken at the Clarinda Fareway for the field day.

We buy paper plates, paper cups, and drink containers.

I order the grassroots movie "Fresh" to show.

I create the menu.

I plan the talks.

I make the schedule for the day.

I collect materials that may be of interest to farmers "going organic".

I order the natural, grass-fed beef patties for hamburgers.

Great. No problem. The Practical Farmers of Iowa will reimburse all these expenses.

I create an ad on Facebook to invite people to the event. The Practical Farmers place ads in various publications.

How many people will turn up? No idea. No problem. We'll wing it.

I put together a packet of information for people to take with them for reference. As I'm copying, the ink cartridge goes dry. I run to the store for a new one.

This is getting stressful.

As the day draws nearer, I try to locate tables. A neighbor suggests I call the local community center for them. I call and I call and I call. It seems Mike isn't always at the phone. I write a letter and Mike calls me...three days before the event. He says he has to check with the mayor and get back to me.

Are you kidding? The mayor has to "Ok" the use of the tables?

Mr. Mayor never does let me know, one way or the other, about the tables. Mike and I are both stymied. I even find the mayor's cell number and leave him a message. No response.

He won't get my vote the next time around.

Fortunately, the neighbors helped me cobble together enough chairs and tables for everyone who attended.

They've saved my butt more than once! God bless 'em.

The day before the event, I buy all the fresh ingredients we need. With help from Grandma Jan, we make salads and help Dec prepare her 15-minute talk. It takes about four hours.

Dec was supposed to either have her talk done so that she could weed today or pull it out of her butt at the appointed time so that she could weed today. Ugh!

I mow the aronia berries so that Hubby won't be embarrassed when he shows them off on the tour. I mow the expanse of field for the kids to play on. I turn to mow the heart of the compound so that it looks nice for all the visitors.

The mower seems to be sluggish. I get off to see what the problem is and find the back wheel completely shredded.

Are you kidding me?

The day arrives.

Everything is ready.

The skies open up at 5am and fire and brimstone (and two more inches of rain) descend on our lovely little patch of heaven.

Natch.

Setting up the tables outside, I suddenly hear screams coming from the house. I rush inside to find the roasting rosemary chicken on fire in the oven.

Knights, new plan!

We moved the chicken to the grill with the hamburgers, the rain abated and the sun shone for the rest of the day. We had a nice turnout of about 45 people. Lunch was tasty. The talks went well.

I didn't get to a tenth of what I wanted to say!

While winding down watching "Fresh", I started to feel a little queasy in the hot, airless cabin. I excused myself to the bathroom and proceeded to toss my cookies.

"What cookies?" Hubby asks, apparently looking for dessert.

Gotta love that Russian of mine!

We're four days out and I think I've just about recovered.

Reviews of the day were pretty good, even though the garden wasn't weeded.

But, we offered Grandma a deal. If she gives us $500 next summer when she comes to visit, we'll agree to forego the field day! Heck, we may even forego it for free.

Putting My Feet Up

2010-06-01T13:58:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, May 31st, was Memorial Day which meant an extra day off and, therefore, an extra day at the farm. And the weather couldn't have been better. On top of that, Meelie and her boyfriend, Tom, popped out to spend the afternoon with us.

Hubby grilled some perfect hamburgers. We all went for a swim. Then, there was a request to go horseback riding. (Meelie and Tom hadn't been for ages.) Our wonderful neighbor, Marlin, has horses that he likes us to ride as often as we like, to keep them from getting wild.

Well, we hadn't availed ourselves of this privilege for a long time. It's probably been about ten months since we took out a horse or two for a ride. The result of this hiatus is that the horses can get a little uppity, or lazy, or both.

I caught the sweetest of the horses, Slick, in his paddock and was leading him into the saddling area where he accidentally planted his foot onto mine (which, in violation of Marlin's hard shoe rule, was clad in only a flip-flop -- ouch, it hurts all over again).

Slick's half ton plus of horse flesh was firmly planted on my foot for a good ten seconds while I punched him in the gut yelling "side!" for him to go to the OTHER side and get off of me. Apparently, it took him that time to remember his training. He finally did move and seemed oblivious to what he had just done. He even licked me (as is his habit) as I was bridling him.

The picture doesn't do it justice. It's much worse than it looks.

The pity party can commence!

Amazingly, it hurt for the rest of the day but now is only a bit stiff, making me look like I have a peg leg when I walk.

Also amazingly, another of Marlin's horses stepped on me four years ago and the result was about the same.

I wonder how many swollen feet I'll need to go through before I start following Marlin's hard shoe rule.

The Way Not to Do Things

2010-05-20T12:25:00.007-05:00

Here is Hubby with his brand new grill for the farm!

Good thing it's not a close-up view or you would see the dents and dings.

In preparation for our Going Organic field day on June 12th*, we decided we needed a grill for the farm. Actually, it is a good excuse. Hubby has been wanting one for a while now.

So, we went into town to stock up on supplies (don't we sound so 19th century wild west?) and made three or four stops for groceries, seed, farm supplies, and, finally, the grill. Since it was the last of our stops, we had gotten kind of lazy. We wedged it into the back of the truck and failed to strap it in. (Ominous foreshadowing there.)

We headed back out to the farm along Iowa State Highway 2 and picked up speed as we left town. Just as we hit about 55 mph, an oncoming semi truck, probably going a bit too fast to enter our quiet little Clarinda, sped past us. I felt the whoosh of wind and looked in the rearview mirror to see our new grill flying into the air like Dorothy's house in the Wizard of Oz. Well, since a house wasn't too heavy to be picked up and blown away, I shouldn't have been surprised that our grill was hefted out of the truck.

Needless to say, we pulled over and set about dodging traffic to retrieve the parts of the grill that we could find. Amazingly enough, we found everything and the grill itself was only bent out of shape, kind of like Hubby at that moment. The only casualty was the automatic ignition which can be ordered as a replacement part. (Happy birthday, Honey!)

After some minutes of expletives which I will spare you, we put everything back together and Hubby swore that he was going to write to CharBroil to commend them on the fact that their grills could withstand being swept out of a truck going 55 mpg down the highway and live to grill again!

Fortunately, Hubby had recovered by the next day when one of the neighbor girls commented on the new grill and was told the story. The immediate response from this 13-year-old country girl was incredulity, "You didn't have it strapped in??"

No. No, we didn't. But it's alright.

We not only have a not-so-new grill, but also a pretty good story to share.

*Please come out and spend the afternoon with us. It's a free lunch and a lot of fun!

The Way to Do Things

2010-05-05T19:57:00.006-05:00

How about a few vignettes from the last few weeks in the country to elucidate rural protocol?

Ok.

Number One:

Puttering around the garden one sunny morning, the girls and I heard a tractor coming down the hill from the neighbor's house. We assumed it was our great friend, Marlin, until it got a bit closer and stopped at the big barn up the hill and we saw that it was Marlin's son, Tyrel, loading up our tall ladder and taking it back up to his Dad's place.

It's customary around these parts to ask before borrowing items. But, as Tyrel headed up the hill, he was conspicuously looking back, waiting for me to notice him. Once I did, I waved, and he tipped his hat to me, and all was well.

Later, I came to find out that the menfolk had arranged for this transaction. They just hadn't informed yours truly about it.

No matter.

Number Two:

Since it's a busy time of year, I decided to go to the farm for more than a weekend. While I was there by myself, one of my chores was to acquire some seed for a food plot that we have which is in need of renewal. The Pheasants Forever people provide free seed to farmers interested in putting a few of their acres into a food plot for wildlife. I had the name of a man to talk to about this -- George. Andre had talked to him earlier in the week and George knew I was going to contact him. When I called him and said that I was at the farm alone, he was stymied. Not wanting to disappoint me, he asked if I would come into town and meet him at his office (he's also a realtor -- aren't all farmers something else?) and he would take me out to his farm, about three miles away, show me where the seed was, and, when my husband arrived, we could come and get it whenever it was convenient. (Oh, George couldn't help with the sack lifting because he had a shoulder in a cast due to a recent surgical operation. He is so hoping that he'll be able to cast in June when he goes on a fishing trip to Canada.)

It never entered George's head that I could heft those 50-pound sacks of seed into my truck. (I really could have, I swear.) I played the demure female so as not to disappoint him. I toured the two barns where the seed was located and I tried to make mental notes of all the good information that George was giving me..."this one is good for tall sorghum...this one for short...this one goes well with those two to create a good nesting ground...bring a bucket because this sack has holes, etc."

It's been two weeks and we still haven't picked up the seed. But I know where it is!

Number Three:

I was emailed from one of the Practical Farmers of Iowa* and asked about our wheat from last year. Could it be used for flour for baking? Why, yes, of course it can! And we have plenty in storage with our mentor, Dan. Ok, well, send us a sample of it so we can test it and we'll maybe sell it to bakeries in Des Moines. Sure! Will do.

I called Dan and asked if he could get us a few pounds of our wheat for this test. If it panned out, he may have an outlet for his wheat, too! "No problem," says Dan. "I'll get it to you this weekend."

We waited and waited.

Finally, on Sunday afternoon, an hour or two before we were to leave for Omaha, I called him and asked if I could maybe come and get the wheat. Dan informed me that he had already left the wheat at the entrance to our property. He didn't want to chance coming the quarter mile to the cabin and risk tearing up our grass road. So thoughtful of him. Would have been nice if he had called.

No worries.

Just getting used to the way things are done out here.

*These are the same folks who are sponsoring our Field Day on June 12th! Hope you can make it. Go to this link to RSVP.

Playing the Game

2010-04-21T15:47:00.005-05:00

I've mentioned the issues with Maya, my third grader, and the way she learns. Well, I had some new insight into the way she thinks last weekend as she was playing Scrabble with her Dad and a friend.

Maya had never played Scrabble before, so she needed the basic parameters of the game explained to her. Once she got them, she started trying to expand on them, naturally.

"So, can we go diagonally?"

No.

"Can we go backwards?"

No.

"Can we put letters on top of each other?"

No.

"Can we put a word next to a word that's already there?"

No. Not unless all the crosswords make real words.

"Bummer! This game is lame!"

Right about now, I'm thinking that she could author a new and improved Scrabble. Would there be enough brains out there like hers that would appreciate it?

Some people are worried about the future of humanity. I, on the other hand, am optimistic. With the pace at which the times they are a changin', and with technology outstripping itself every few weeks, and with young people thinking "outside the box" like Maya does, I'm sure there's a recipe for success at the nexus of these things.

Which reminds me of my favorite reading about our offspring:

On Children

by Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Here's to the future and to our children!

Priorities

2010-04-12T15:55:00.020-05:00

For those of my blog fans which may not know the particulars of my family life, it is a bit schizophrenic. We live in Omaha, Nebraska, where Hubby has a great job which subsidizes our farm and supports more people than he would like to know about. (We invoke the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on that one.) But our farm is located in Southwestern Iowa, exactly 97 miles from our Omaha door. So, our farming is done largely on the weekends and in the summer. The upshot of this rubric is that we tend to pack a lot of farm work into just two days each week.

Sometimes we work so hard for the entire weekend, then sit for an hour to behold our handiwork, then Hubby comments that the place looks really nice for the noble landowners for whom we toil and who will show up during the week to enjoy the place.

But this past weekend was a bit more relaxed than usual.

Here's what was planned (it's spring and there's a lot that needs to be done):

- till the garden

- fix the holes in the netting around the garden

- plant the spring seeds (about 20 items!)

- fix the lawnmower

- fix the tractor

- fix the other tractor

- count the aronia berries

- mulch the aronia berries

- mow the 25-acre field

- plant the new roses

- water new grass seed areas

- gather up hoses from fields

Here's what we did on Saturday:

- planted new white pine and weeping cherry trees (which Liz got a great deal on at the local hardware store)

- watched Maya with her newly caught fish (She's a veritable fish-whisperer!)

- were visited by our neighbor, Marlin, who, when taking his leave of a friend of Maya's said, "Well, Dear, I'm glad you got to see me!"

- watched the kids go boating and swimming in the pond

- went into town to get a couple of things and look at the baby ducks at the farm store

- cooked hamburgers over a campfire

- listened to "A Prairie Home Companion" on the radio

- put up solar panels on Hubby's new barn -- woot woot! (Eventually) free energy!

- tinkered in the barn for a few hours

- watched the solar lights come on in the evening while sipping some wine

So, I guess life is what happens in spite of one's planning.

But, I'll have you know, somehow, everything on that planning list got done on Sunday.

Needless to say, Hubby and I were both absolutely fried on Sunday night, but it was worth it!

Too Busy to Blog

2010-04-09T14:43:00.003-05:00

Spring has sprung once again in the Heartland!

And it's been a more normal spring than the last two were (with all that rain!).

So, the upshot is that we've been out there planning and planting and enjoying...

the flowers,

the weather,

each other.

In lieu of a pertinent, pithy, poignant blog entry, how about a pretty cool pic?

Here are a couple of the crocuses, already gone, against the backdrop of the still leafless oak trees.

Now, I'm off to load the truck for the next trip to the farm!

A Good Egg

2010-04-01T15:54:00.012-05:00

My youngest daughter requested rice pudding yesterday. I was happy to oblige. It made me reminisce about the old family recipe that I got from great-grandma Carmen.

This photo is of her when she had already forgotten me and everyone else who loved her. But her rice pudding recipe lives on and has been passed down through me to her great-great-granddaughter, Julie, who makes such a good rice pudding that Carmen would be proud.

Some people think that rice pudding needs an egg, but they would be mistaken. It's very simple:

6 cups of whole milk

1 cup of rice

1/2 cup of sugar

a couple of cinnamon sticks

a teaspoon of vanilla

a few whole cloves

Simmer all the ingredients together in a pan on the stove until the rice is cooked, about 30 minutes. Pour into a bowl and sprinkle with ground cinnamon and let cool. Refrigerate and enjoy, if you get the chance. (Some little ones don't mind it warm.)

Another person who came to mind was my sister, Dec. She was with me that day in Pamplona, Spain, many years ago, when Carmen was still with us (mentally and physically) and taught us how to make rice pudding and wring out a wet towel properly. She was the second wife of my great grandfather and was a bit younger than he, so we kids ended up with an extra grandma. She was warm, loving, and funny. When we were young, she served us individual bottles of 7-Up and cookies in the cool, shaded kitchen of her Fresno, California home.

In our twenties, Dec and I had the good fortune to run around Europe studying sugar and languages, respectively. Dec used to say that she would watch the luggage while I did all the talking. We visited friends, family, sites. We got to know each other and establish that we could get along traveling with each other (no mean feat).

Here she is some years ago, but she looks the same today. Not fair. She's only a year younger than yours truly, but she has very little grey hair (I've been coloring mine for 25 years). She is my daughters' favorite person. "Aunt Dece! Aunt Dece!", they cry. She had a little blip of some weight gain, but most of her life, she's been quite thin. I, on the other hand, have been fighting with my weight all my life.

While it seems she has all the advantages, she doesn't. She's actually a little bit crazy.

Last weekend, she agreed to come out to the farm with me to help plant potatoes. In the night, she started yelling in her sleep. It turns out that this is such a regular occurrence that Dec's nieces are familiar with it and not perturbed when it happens. As she was yelling, "Get off my f#^%ing property!!!", my eight-year-old and I were both awakened. When I finally got up to go and see to her nightmare, I was surprised to find my youngest already comforting her. She looked up at me and, with the wisdom of one far beyond her years, she assured me that she was on the job and I could go back to sleep.

The vignette reminded me of yet another old joke.

Man: "Doctor, my brother thinks he's a chicken."

Doctor: "Why don't you commit him?"

Man: "I would, but I need the eggs."

So, we're all a bit crazy.

Have a Happy Easter!

Hubby

2010-03-22T11:36:00.003-05:00

One of the qualities that first attracted me to my husband was his foreignness. (He says that this was true for him about me, too. The fact that he wanted a Green Card had nothing whatsoever to do with his pursuit of me. Wink, wink.)

I loved that he was from somewhere else, that he had a history so different from my own, that he had distinct family and customs and language. As I was growing up, the Soviet Union was full of mystery and foreboding. It was the height of the Cold War. Then it was the Evil Empire. I had dated men from Western European countries in my youth, but a Russian would be the gold medal of competition foreign dating.

I went for the gold and I'm glad I did.

While he is absolutely fluent in English, every once in a while, he digs down in his memory to find a Russian saying to express something he wants to say and simply translates it into English. These are my favorites:

Once, having sneaked up on him, he said, "You're as stealthy as a puma!"

After performing my toilette and putting some fancy cream on my skin, he caressed me and noted that it was "as smooth as a whale's".

Lovely.

And, now that I've been exercising and toning up, he's noticed the reappearance of my waist and said, "you're shaped like a bowling pin". He's changed that one to hour glass, fortunately.

I know that he always means these things in the best possible way. It's a very endearing quality, among all his other wonderful qualities, and keeps life light and interesting.

Happy anniversary, Babe! I love you. Here's to another 14 years!

This Stuff Writes Itself

2010-03-19T10:21:00.004-05:00

I had the good fortune (?) to attend the semi-annual Southwest Iowa Gun Show last weekend with Hubby. After paying our $5 entry fee and having a chance to buy a raffle ticket for an NRA membership (which we passed on), we entered the rooms of a subculture of this fair country that is full of material for this blogger.

On the right as we walked in was the kitchen with wonderful homemade smells emanating from it. Posted under the menu of hot dogs, roast beef, and various side dishes, is a small sign which says, "Practice safe eating, always use condiments". This sets the tone for the afternoon.

Entering one of the side rooms of guns and war memorabilia, we pass by a seller who says, "Free to come in, a dollar to get out". Just above said seller's head is a sign that reads, "Lots of bargains, a whole bunch of BS". No kidding.

I learned the vocabulary of the day -- "Hi-Point Guns", "Black Powder Rifles", "P-90s" (just like in the Sci-Fi movies). I saw the uniform of the day -- camo-print shirts, baseball caps, denim overalls. I also felt a bit out of place since I was one of only two women following her man around. I was taking notes and knew I'd get a lot of material. The other was about 18 and obviously trying to impress her beau by taking an interest in his interests. Ah, young love!

Vendors not only display their wares, but also their advertisements, politics, and predilections.

"Dog carrier and gun storage for sale". Yes, that's one unit that serves both purposes. Makes sense, I suppose.

"Davey Crickett -- My First Rifle (22 gauge)" Get those youngins off on the right foot!

Then there was this, written on a vendor's t-shirt:

Christian

American

Heterosexual

Pro-Gun

Conservative

Any Questions?

Yeah, just one...

Why is it, Sir, that you seem to tip the scales at about 350 pounds? And why am I not surprised that you do?

I know, that was two questions.

There is also some humor.

From a Montana rancher:

"Prayer is the best way to meet the Lord.

Trespassing is faster."

At the NRA table:

"I like cats.

They taste just like chicken."

A vendor selling bumper stickers:

"Warning -- Driver only carries $20 worth of ammunition."

And a little advice for the two of us ladies that happened to pass through:

"Men are like floor tiles...

if you lay them right the first time,

you can walk all over them forever."

Honesty Pays

2010-03-11T15:59:00.003-06:00

Gather all the kids around as you read this note from Aunt Lizzie about how it pays to be honest.

Literally.

Here's what happened.

Hubby and I recently attended the Organic Farming Conference in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. What was not mentioned in the previous post was that Yours Truly attended as a mentor. With that moniker came some responsibilities and some perks. One of the perks was that the conference people were covering the hotel charges for two of the three nights we were there. Nice!

Well, when we checked out, we were surprised to find that all three nights were paid for. I asked the person at the desk about it and she looked it up and said that there was no note that we were to pay for one of the nights.

So, what would you do? Let it go? Let the conference pay for all three nights? Eh?

Well, ever since that day, many years ago, when I was probably about 10 years old and my mother refrained from giving the checkout girl at the grocery store an expired coupon and I asked her why she bothered to do that and she responded that her integrity was worth more than 25 cents, I have tended toward the honest side.

I sent an email to the conference people explaining the situation and offering to reimburse them for the night that I was supposed to pay for anyway.

Have you figured out what's coming?

Angie, the organizer of the accommodations at the conference, going the extra mile in figuring out what happened, figured out that the hotel had actually charged MY credit card for ALL THREE NIGHTS at the hotel. (I had given them a credit card for "incidentals" but hadn't incurred any. They figured out how to use it anyway.)

I would not have noticed that the charge was on my bill. I had assumed that the conference had paid for all three nights. When I did look up my account, I found that, in fact, the entire bill was on my card. Angie got with the hotel people and I am being reimbursed for the two nights that the conference was planning to pay for all along.

In this incident, honesty saved me over $200!

Let that be a lesson to all you youngins.

The Farmers in the Dell

2010-03-03T12:48:00.003-06:00

The Organic Farming Conference is held annually in La Crosse, Wisconsin, during the last week of February. A hopeful sign of the times is that attendance has grown from 90 attendees 21 years ago to a resounding 2,600 this year!

One of the fixtures of the conference is the appearance and irreverent folk songs of Sinister Dane and the Kickapoo Disco Cosmonauts. (Don't look for them online. They don't have time to put up a website. They're busy farming and playing music.) They write their own lyrics to popular songs. You can probably guess the tune to "Help me, Round-up, Help, help me Round-up". Or, how about the tribute to Patsy Cline, "Cra-zy, for feeding sheep's brains to cattle...".

All of the food at the conference was organic, of course. All that could be recycled, was. Each attendee was given a glass mug to use for the duration of the conference. (No paper or styrofoam cups.) It took some years, but there were even compost buckets for things like banana peels and apple cores. Bravo! There was more tea than coffee doled out. The conference organizers didn't even bother with vegetarians. They jumped straight to vegans and gluten-free folks.

There were farmers of all kinds -- Amish, Mennonite, Sikhs, certified organic farmers, Birkenstock-wearing students, crusty old guys in seed company caps, university researchers, even a smattering of conventional farmers (they'll be converted soon). An encouraging note was that there were many young, beginning farmers.

I've worn many hats in my life (teacher, traveler, designer, artist, spy) but I must say that that of a farmer has been the most interesting by far. If you are anything like I was before venturing into this vocation, you may have assumed that farmers were dull, unintelligent hicks. That is what society has shown us about them. And the image is further degraded by conglomerates like Monsanto which have turned farmers into little more than hired hands, caught in the genetically-engineered seed/Round-up pesticide cycle.

But the average family farmer is nothing like that.

There is an authenticity to farmers. There is a common bond among us, borne of the feeling of comrades-in-arms as we all work with, or fight with, Mother Nature. There is a true grounding, literally and figuratively, to those who work on the land. There is a leanness to life. There is an innate intelligence in figuring out any number of measurements. There is a keen sense of community, helping each other, joining forces. There is immeasurable respect among the ranks of farmers.

I am honored to be one of them.

Live and Learn

2010-02-23T11:37:00.005-06:00

Lest anyone is actually following this blog and my tips on starting plants from seed, take heed!

After two weeks of fighting mold on my seed trays, I threw them all out and had to start over. It seems they didn't get enough air circulation. So, while I had the proper potting soil, the proper lighting (on timers, no less, to have more light per day than the sun can provide right now) the proper amount of water, the proper temperature (between 70 and 80 degrees), I failed to provide the proper air circulation!

Ugh!

So, it seems that one must open up those clear, plastic lids at least once a day for about an hour to allow for air circulation and, thus, inhibit the ability of that pesky mold to grow.

But it's still early enough to get new seeds going!

Ah, the cycle of life and death, the pas de deux with Mother Nature, the rhythm of the seasons, the thrill of the harvest, all come together to create the secret of happiness!

Happy gardening!

Happy New Year!

2010-02-11T16:20:00.005-06:00

On February 10th, I spent the afternoon with my daughter's third-grade class. We wrote Valentine's poetry and the children played games and, even though I made my annual contribution of an attractive tray of fruit (which is always devoured), society still demands an obscene amount of candy. So, the children overdose on sugar. I try.

But what lends February 10th another degree of importance, at least in our neck of the woods, is that it is eight weeks before the last average frost date and, therefore, the day on which we set up the greenhouse and start our seedlings for the spring planting later on. This year, our first seedlings will be celery, cabbage, bear's garlic, and leeks. In another two weeks, we'll add peppers, tomatoes and eggplant.

(For more detailed information on how to do this yourself, see the original greenhouse blog entry from last year.)

The days are getting noticeably longer. The sun seems to be shining more brightly. The remaining snow may be fighting to hang on, but we all know it's a losing battle.

Here is the first two of what will eventually be eight shelving units taking over our living room and the table of lovingly mixed organic potting soil in the foreground:

A close-up of one of the seed trays with its own grow light:

So, while January 1st may be the official New Year, I would propose that Valentine's Day be the natural New Year. It is when life begins anew. It is when the birds return to the trees in our backyard, singing their morning songs. It is when the crocuses and tulips start thinking about popping up through the blanket of snow. It is when one's spirit is lifted out of its winter slumber to do that farming thing all over again.

Happy New Year!

The Spice of Life

2010-02-09T13:41:00.007-06:00

Since getting into cooking again recently, I, of course, had to have some new cookbooks. So, my dear new Sis-in-law, who, like me, has the good fortune to be married to a Russian, recommended the following Russian cookbook:

It is encyclopedic in its coverage of the dishes of all the former Soviet Republics. Its recipes are very true to the authentic ones and we've already enjoyed Chatchipuri (Georgian cheese pie), Chibureki (meat pies) and tonight it's Chicken Tsatsivi (chicken in a walnut and spice sauce).

Which brings me to my spice cupboard. I'm going to do you a favor by NOT showing you the"before" picture. But, since I needed about eight different spices to mix together in my new mortar and pestle (yes, also a recent purchase), I decided it was time to dig deep into the cupboard to 1. find the spices I needed and 2. clean and organize the cupboard a bit.

Well, it was like going on a treasure hunt! There were green peppercorns from Guadeloupe, ground saffron from Moscow, real saffron from Spain (thanks, Dad!), various curries and garam masala from India, organic maple butter from Canada, Japanese panko (bread crumbs), and our own dried peppers and herbs from last fall's garden. There were three versions of cilantro and two of celery seed. There was whole mace. There was Kazak soup mix.

Here's the "after" picture:

My most surprising find was the ground mustard. Apparently, I forget that I have it and purchase a new bottle of it whenever I'm making a recipe which calls for it.

No one needs seven bottles of it, I'm sure.

Love and Death

2010-02-01T14:55:00.003-06:00

Unlike the protagonist in Jose Saramago's recent novel Death with Interruptions, in which Death decides to take a vacation from Her duties, She is alive and well and making Her rounds in our neck of the woods.

She paid us a visit this morning.

Our beloved Felix, who was on the mend from recent ailments, took a sudden turn for the worse. At 9:30am, I noticed that his breathing was very labored. I called and made an appointment with the vet for 11:15am and, when I went to get him a little before 11am, he was already gone. The vet surmised that he must have aspirated something to have died so suddenly.

Here he is cuddled up on our other cat, Angel, just two days ago.

He sat and slept by Dad all day yesterday. He had been gaining weight. He seemed a little lethargic, but otherwise alright. His personal history had been much more dramatic than anything that was going on here.

After getting bitten by another cat, being duct-taped as his triage, chased off to live in the cold wilderness for six months, reappearing as skin and bones, suffering a respiratory infection, among who knows what else, it seems that he burned through his nine lives in short order. (He hadn't reached his second birthday.) At least he got to finish his days surrounded by love and warmth.

And while he may be "only a cat", and while "there will be other cats" to love, each being is unique. Felix was a lover, not a fighter. He got very attached to us, and we to him. He even maintained a peaceful coexistence with, almost an affection for, our spayed female, Angel (who is pacing around the house now wondering where he went).

As the breath of life left his fur and flesh and bones in an immobile, cool stillness, I realize that we must content ourselves with that small vestige of his spirit that remains -- memory.

Requiescat in pace, Felix.

Alice and Julia (and Lizzie and Beth)

2010-01-26T09:21:00.009-06:00

Passion for food and cooking was recently rekindled in me when a few things converged harmonically in my little corner of the universe. First, my Mom gave me two great books for Christmas.

The romantic, impractical, often eccentric, ultimately brilliant making of a food revolution:

and the lively, first person story of one of my earliest heroes, Julia Child, when she lived in France:

Both books include very vivid, detailed recipes and mouth-watering descriptions of food. In addition, it is the dead of winter in Omaha, Nebraska, so indoor activities are preferable to outdoor ones. So, it's off to create in the kitchen for Lizzie!

Yesterday, I sent out this email to select family members so that they could look forward to the luscious dinner I was preparing:

Dear Family,

Chez Panisse is not the only place that can do this!

Bifteck Sauté a la Bordelaise

(Sirloin steak in a red wine sauce)

Pommes de Terre Gratin Jurassien

(Scalloped potatoes with cream and cheese)

Salade Verte a la Vinaigrette avec de l'avocat

(Green salad with avocado and vinaigrette dressing)

Asperges Braisées avec du Beurre Biologique

(Braised asparagus in organic butter)

Pain Francaise Multigrain

(Multigrain French bread)

Vin Rouge

(Red wine)

Fruits de Bois avec de la Glace et de la Creme Fraiche

(Berries with ice cream and whipped cream)

As Julia would say, "Bon Appétit"

Liz

In solidarity with Alice and Julia, I went foraging for the best, freshest ingredients for my meal. Fortunately, I already had on hand the grass-fed, naturally-raised, beautiful sirloin steak from our mentor and neighbor in organic farming, Dan Wood. For the rest, instead of the intimate markets of Berkeley or Paris, I made do with the local grocery store -- Baker's. It was liberating to shop for just one meal, not worrying about the rest of the week...not very efficient, but liberating!

I arrived home with my ingredients, set to work about 2:00pm preparing the strawberries and blueberries and setting them aside to make their sugar, cut and dried the lettuce and wrapped it gingerly in paper towels and placed it the refrigerator, chopped shallots and parsley, greeted the children about 3:00pm, welcomed them into the kitchen to help layer slices of potatoes, butter, and cheese for the casserole and mix the vinaigrette for the salad, sautéed the sirloin and made its sauce, broiled the asparagus and baked the bread.

Hubby arrived home about 6:00pm and opened the special bottle of red wine for the occasion.

The children set the table.

The food was served.

We said grace.

The phone rang.

The youngest ran to answer the phone. She is trained to let people know if we are sitting down to dinner and tells them that we will call back. This caller would have none of it. This caller was Beth Gaynes. She is a force of nature and a woman who has had a great influence in our lives, especially the lives of our oldest two daughters who studied classical ballet with her for many, formative young years. The eldest nabbed a berth at NYU with an essay in homage to Beth. But Beth has been out of commission for about two years after the death of her husband and a bad fall at home alone. She is on the mend and wanted to re-connect.

So, while my family enjoyed the fruits of my labors, I chatted with Beth.

Beth, you are one of the few people on this earth who would have kept me from this meal. Consider it another homage to you!

Beth and Julie in better times.

I'm off to make two kinds of quiche with homemade pastry crusts, another green salad, cream of asparagus soup, among other things. Set your clocks, folks, and don't call around 6:00pm CST!

Bon appetit!

Felix Update

2010-01-18T12:41:00.002-06:00

Since I'm sure you've all been waiting impatiently to know how Felix is doing, here's what's going on.

We went to the vet today and found out that he has a pretty bad upper respiratory infection. Not to fear, though. Doctor Dave gave him a shot and gave me a vial of antibiotics to administer twice a day for the next eight days, not unlike what one would do for a human child. He also gave me a bill.

Yet more exceptions were made. Felix now has a chart at the vet. We are paying to get him better. He even slept on our bed last night.

But it's all worth it...he's perking up already, starting to eat again, hanging out with people again.

I think my Mom was right. Felix probably won't be going back to the harsh life of the farm. It's a good thing he gets along with our other house cat, Angel. Let's just hope Dad doesn't get attached to too many farm cats in the future.

Like Father, Like Son?

2010-01-14T17:10:00.005-06:00

Life at our farm revolves around the cats.

At the beginning of our exploits at the farm some four years ago, a single, female cat with two very small kittens decided to take up residence with us. She was very loyal to us and a good mother and her descendants still live with us -- well, the female ones do.

The way of nature seems to be that the male kittens, once weaned, head off for greener pastures (or, more likely, more distinct females). This has been the case for all of our male cats except one -- Felix. Hubby has made great efforts to tolerate the cats because the rest of us females love them, but, in the case of Felix, the boys bonded -- the only two males in a sea of estrogen. Felix wanted to stay around but our current head female had other plans for him. Exasperated with his advances, one day she took a bite out of him.

Having decided long ago that we weren't going to run to the vet with every ailment that beset the cats, we created our own DIY animal clinic at the farm. We iced the wound, stitched it up, and covered it with tape...the all-purpose duct kind!

Felix hung around for a few more days and then was gone. The neighbors spotted him a couple of times in the next week or two. Then, he was gone for good. We assumed he died in the woods.

That was six months ago.

Then, just before Christmas, the neighbors called to say that Felix had appeared on their doorstep! He was skin and bones and could barely walk, but he was back. Somehow, he had survived. Our neighbor mused about the stories he could tell! He immediately took to Hubby once again. Here they are napping.

After a couple of weeks of R&R back at home (an exception made for Felix is that we brought him home from the farm to recuperate), Felix is looking pretty good.

Then, a couple of days ago, he seemed to come down with a cold. Another exception will be made.

We already have a call in to the vet.

You Can Pick Your Friends...

2010-01-05T18:50:00.003-06:00

ScienceDaily (Dec. 28, 2009) — If you ever thought the stress of seeing your extended family over the holidays was slowly killing you -- bad news: a new research report in the December 2009 print issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology shows that you might be right.

I love my family. Don't get me wrong. But I didn't pick them. I do the best I can by them, but I have chosen the few friends that I have. One such friend swooped in the other day and rescued me from the morass of family drama and laughed with me, took me to work out (always needed after the holidays) and then treated me to a fine lunch. It was the perfect pick-me-up at the most needed time.

As Henry B. Adams said, One friend in a lifetime is much, two are many, three are hardly possible.

In my case, I'm up to the "many" of Adams' friends. One of my two friends is in England, so she's not as much help as the local one during the holidays. But I feel fortunate to have them both.

This blog entry goes out to my friend, Kim. (Don't be jealous, Jayne...I'll do one for you soon!)

Thanks for understanding me. Thanks for spending some time with me. Thanks for treating me like an important person in your life.

But most of all, thanks for not being related to me.

Darwin Award Runner Up

2009-12-09T09:59:00.008-06:00

My husband can't win a Darwin Award* on two accounts. First, he has already reproduced. Second, he hasn't died in a hare-brained accident.

Yet.

But that doesn't stop him from trying. And if he takes the children with him in some bizarre fiasco, he may just win the coveted (cough) award.

It's turning a bit chilly here in the Midwest. Today's high is 7 degrees Fahrenheit. (No, no digits are missing. It's really just 7.) Most of us simply turn up the heat a bit in the house. But, at the farm, we don't have that luxury. We do have a wood-burning stove, which can heat up the house in about half an hour. But, it takes the work of chopping wood, starting the fire, tending it until it's going on its own, and then keeping it going through the night at intervals of about three hours. I think it's part of the charm of the cabin, but, of course, I'm not the one doing the work.

Needless to say, Hubby is always on the lookout for a simpler, faster, cheaper way to heat the house. So, when our dear neighbor, Marlin, was down to visit last weekend, and heard that Hubby was less enamored of the rustic life than previously thought, he offered to help.

"You can take my 150,000 BTU, kerosene-run, forced air, BARN heater that I got at an auction for $5 and haven't ever tried. If you can get it to work, it's yours."

Well, a new one of these puppies goes for about $400. Marlin's was no where near new. It could have been sitting, easily, for 20 years before Marlin even bought it. But it was free! Hubby was tickled and I was happy for him...thinking he was going to have a way to heat his barn a bit now.

But no.

The barn can wait. It's the house that needs the heat! So, Hubby spent the better part of a day opening it up, cleaning it out, attaching frayed wires that looked to this novice's eye like they should be replaced, and filling it with kerosene. I had to put my foot down when he wanted to fire it up inside the 600-square-foot cabin.

He was happy to compromise. Besides, this way, the cabin got heated up!

Of course, the net gain was close to zero since the heat from the fireplace was escaping through the open door. But no matter. The heater didn't blow up! It was flaming and blowing and heating!

*Honoring those who improve the species...by accidentally removing themselves from it.

Smashing Pumpkins

2009-11-30T08:59:00.008-06:00

In our neck of the woods, there's a quaint, little custom which has been passed down through the ages by the adolescent residents of the shallower end of the gene pool. They steal pumpkins off porches and throw them into the streets, smashing them and making a mess. Oh, what fun!

At first glance, it looked like the ne'er-do-wells were at work on our porch:

But here's what I glimpsed from inside the house one morning:

So, we're helping to fatten up the squirrels for winter. It gives recycling a whole new meaning. Rather than cleaning up the pumpkins, I decided to leave them for the animals. (I've seen birds going for them, too.)

Well, it's going on a couple of weeks now and even the animals may be getting tired of pumpkin. But, wanting to see this project to the end, i.e., completely eaten pumpkins, I am reluctant to clean up the now moldy pieces of orange adorning our porch:

As we passed by them on our way into the house yesterday, Hubby had a good idea for not only humoring his darling in her misguided attempts at this new form of composting but also for speeding up the process.

"Why don't you make them a pumpkin pie?"

Hmm...not a bad idea.

Down and Dirty

2009-11-24T09:08:00.005-06:00

Having ventured into non-agricultural prose for a few entries now, I realize that it's high time to get back to what's going on at the farm, so here's an update on the aronia berries.

After getting them all in the ground, we spent the next few weekends walking the berries. We were a bit chagrined to find out that the cohabitants of our land, namely the deer, are curious creatures. They like to pull out the tiny plants and then drop them near where they were so nicely planted. They don't eat them. They don't like them. They're just mischievous little devils.

Fortunately, once replanted, the little seedlings are not much the worse for wear. The only problem is when we can't find the little seedlings. Imagine trying to find a brown stick about five inches long with a root ball about the size of a golf ball on the dirt ground among the dead weeds from the past summer. Ugh!

We estimated that we had about a 5% loss the first weekend. The next weekend, things were similar, but not as bad as the first weekend. The berries have now lost their leaves and the deer have probably had their curiosity satisfied.

So, the next big chore is to mulch between the berries to keep the weeds down next spring. We use hay from our organic fields and consider it our secret weapon in the fight against weeds. It works splendidly for the garlic because the new garlic shoots just push right up through it in the spring. With the berries, however, we have to leave the little shoot exposed to the sun and mulch around each one...a much more labor-intensive proposal. So, as Andre gathers hay bales and delivers them to the rows, I am on my hands and knees spreading hay between plants.

And guess what? You see a lot more from this position, at least when we're discussing the earth. It seems when we walked the berries, we weren't close enough to the actual plants to be sure of what we saw. As I commune with them at their level, I see a short shoot more easily than when I was standing. It turns out our estimate of 5% loss is quite high! Maybe farming isn't so hard after all. (Read: she's fooling herself again here.)

After hefting 50-pound bales of hay, breaking them apart, spreading them on the ground, doing my best inchworm imitation for a couple of hours this past weekend, I am aware of muscles I didn't know I had, only because they are burning in pain.

And only about 20% of the job is done.

Ah, but Thanksgiving is coming up and there will be offspring to help!

Yeah, right.

My Recent Trip to Girlie-Land

2009-11-16T14:06:00.010-06:00

When I was young, my Sis was the tomboy of the two of us. Then, somewhere along the way, I joined her ranks. Here is what I usually look like:

I'm a stay-at-home Mom, artist/web designer, and organic farmer. There is really no need for me to get dressed up at all. Ever. And I certainly don't have to wear high heels, put on makeup, or fix my hair. (People around here are lucky I bother to shower.)

Then came THE WEDDING!

No, not my own (although I did get cleaned up for that one 13 years ago.) Hubby's brother/cousin (it's a Russian thing) asked him to be the best man. He also asked me to stand up for him as a groomswoman (very cool, I know). Well, if I had just been invited to the wedding, I could have pulled a dress out of my closet, slapped on some flats, run a comb through my hair, and been good.

But since I was to be in the wedding party (a first for both Hubby and myself), I needed all the accoutrements: the dress, the correct shoes, some appropriate bling, two months of weight-loss exercise at the Y. The bride mused that it's pretty easy for the guys to get prepped for the occasion -- they rent a tux and look great. Done. Oh, yes, and Hubby had to shave, too. Big deal.

I think my family sensed that I would need some help pulling this off and they came to my aide. Hubby went dress-shopping with me and we got the first one we saw. It was absolutely gorgeous, the correct color and length for the wedding party, and fun to dance in (a must!). I ordered the pewter, high-heeled, shoes to go with it and spent a few evenings practicing walking in them so I wouldn't break an ankle at the wedding. I have a whole new appreciation for those Dancing With the Stars women. I think a woman should win every time, just because she has the handicap of dancing in high heels. I got my nails done. A friend accompanied me to the Y and also lent me a scarf and some rings. My 11-year-old was there, fortunately, to give me makeup advice. Even though she's a novice, she runs rings around me. Sis got me outfitted with some more jewelry. Things matched! I had different items for different outfits! It was so new and exciting! My Aunt got me to join her on the morning of the wedding to get my hair done, another first for me.

All I have to say is what fun it was! I really enjoyed looking like a girl for a weekend. It was a pretty long road from Point A (baseball-cap-sweatshirt-jeans-wearing Lizzie) to Point B (Princess Lizzie). Here I am at Point B (I'm on the far left behind my daughter):

Not bad, eh?

But I must say that I am exhausted! I really don't understand how women do this every day...or even more often than once every 13 years!

Falling for Fall

2009-11-10T13:28:00.004-06:00

Some time back, enebriated by the promise of spring, I dissed the other seasons. Well, I'm here to tell you that I'm not too proud to admit that I might have been wrong. (I did make a good case for spring being the best of the four children of Mother Nature.)

Then I went out and snapped this shot on a lovely, unusually warm, fall evening. The pond is clear, the air is clean and calm, the land is beginning its autumnal nap, getting ready for its hibernal slumber. Life on the farm is slowing down. Our cats are scoping out their favorite barn beds. The deer, in search of food, are nosing ever closer to the trees near the house. (Watch out, hunting season is just around the corner!)

So, I take back what I said about the non-spring seasons. Fall does have its charms.

Winter in this part of the world, on the other hand, is another matter.

And To Think I Was Going To Delete These

2009-11-05T10:53:00.004-06:00

After all the tedium of switching over to a new computer, it's time to see what this new puppy can do.

Well, to really explore all the bells and whistles of an application like, say, iPhoto, let your eight-year-old have a little quality time with it. Here's what mine came up with:

Hey! I didn't know you could take a picture of your eye and see it four different(?) ways! Wow!!!

Or, how about this one? Somehow she manages to get the audio/video recorder working, get the lyrics and moves up on the screen (my computer does karaoke duty) and dance around my desk, sometimes perilously close to my brand new 24" iMac. (It goes to show that you don't need to know the words to sing a song.)

(If you can't see the video, and you want to, please click here to go to the original: http://www.doublekfarms.blogspot.com...it's worth it!)

Apples to Apples (an update)

2009-10-26T17:24:00.000-05:00

Thanks to all of you who thought of me last Tuesday. Yes, it happened as predicted (for the fourth or fifth time). Apple came out with its new iMacs!

Only one problem -- no update on the 24" one that I had sitting in its box in the front hallway.

So, what to do? Here were my three choices:

1. Send back the unopened, 24" one, at my expense, in exchange for the new 21.5" one (that has the same amount of RAM) which was due to be in stock in 5-7 business days and then shipped out, maybe. A net savings on this deal would be about $130 but the time added to my already accumulated month would be another two weeks, easy.

2. Send back the 24" one, again at my expense, in exchange for the new 27" one (obscene, really) with a stocking date to be announced and a shipping date some time after that, maybe. This option would cost me about $500 extra. The time on this one would be even more than the time on the first option.

3. Open the damned box in the hallway and get back to work.

After consulting various friends and relatives who were as obsessed with the debut of the iMacs as I was, (probably due to my keeping them apprised of it day in and day out for some weeks) and finding out that, since I had originally opted for a bit more in the 24" one, even though it is old now, I wouldn't be missing out on much just keeping it and moving on.

So, you can guess what I did.

The Apple of My Eye

2009-10-20T08:01:00.000-05:00

As a part-time web designer, I, of course, work on a Mac. The iMac from about 2005 that I have (a dinosaur in computer time) died a slow and painful death about a month ago. All was backed up by Hubby on his server in the basement, once again making me really feel for people who don't have a computer genius in the house.

After combing craigslist for nearly new Macs, and with a birthday coming up, we decided I could splurge on a brand new iMac. I ordered the 24-inch screen, 4 gigs of memory (I'm a memory hog when I work), loads of other things that don't matter as much, and got a free printer thrown in with the deal. Oh, joy!

This was September 26th.

I calculated the arrival to be on September 30th. Instead of a delivery, I received the first of many phone calls from Kevin at MacMall.

"I'm sorry, but we are out of iMacs and Mac Minis because Apple is rumored to be announcing upgrades of these computers."

A bit of clarification -- unlike most companies which continue to produce an item and simply add a new item to their inventory, Apple stops manufacturing the model that it is planning to unveil in a new and improved version. Those models disappear from Apple stores and, unfortunately, from Kevin at MacMall. Then, everyone speculates about when Apple will roll out the newbies. So, I got caught up in the vortex of swirling anticipation that Steve Jobs creates every time he has a new release. After all, the new one is reported to be totally awesome and less expensive. All I have to do is be a little patient.

"Apple usually rolls out a new version of a model every 203 days. It's been 227 days for the iMac and the last upgrade didn't do much to improve, so, they must be coming out with something soon."

This is the kind of hard-hitting, reliable intel you can get from the myriad Mac Rumor sites.

"They always announce a new release on Tuesdays."

"No, this year, it's going to be on Wednesday, October 7th."

October 7th came and went very quietly.

"Now they're saying October 9th."

Also quiet.

"Well, let's go back to the Tuesday idea -- October 13th."

Nothing.

After much discussion with Kevin (who has Mac colleagues, another dependable source of information), and dovetailing with the Tuesday idea, we decide that it must be October 20th. Another reason that it's got to be this time is that Microsoft is releasing a new version of it's operating system this week and Apple wants to steal their thunder.

Guess what happened yesterday, October 19th? Our friendly UPS driver delivered an "old" iMac to my house.

Hmm...I am both excited and angry. I was waiting patiently! What are they doing sending me the computer I ordered?

I call Kevin.

Me: "How can this be? I thought there weren't any more 'old' iMacs."

Kevin: "Don't open it" he says conspiratorily. "They're going to announce tomorrow."

So, today is D-Day, or, should I say "A-Day".

Think of me when they make the announcement on the news, or don't.

Making the Grade

2009-10-14T13:19:00.000-05:00

Yesterday marked the first parent-teacher conference of the school year. My last child, Maya (eight years old, in third grade) is proving to be my most intriguing one when it comes to schoolwork. I did have a taste of things to come with my second daughter, but nothing like this. (She ended up turning into a straight-A student, just like her other two siblings.)

But not Maya.

Here is a child who has memorized her times tables up to 11 just for fun, but has trouble with one-digit addition and subtraction. (I guess multiplication is more glamorous.)

She can navigate you to our farm 100 miles away with all the twists and turns involved but can't find the hospital on a cartoon map of a generic city.

She can spell any word she's seen once, but refuses to "circle the spelling word in the following sentence" and such.

So, as you may have guessed, her grades are not too hot. The teacher (who is no fool after a quarter century of dealing with this demographic) knows that Maya knows her stuff, but recommends that she slow down and take care and review her work and go for extra points when available. All great advice. There's only one problem.

Maya doesn't care about her grades.

This morning as she cuddled up in bed with me, I asked her about her track record so far in school.

"So, Maya, what do you think about your grades?"

"I don't care. Grades are just stupid numbers."

After 20 years of teaching, myself, I had come to the same conclusion, so I really had nothing to say to her. I just laughed and gave her a big hug and hoped that, someday, she will care about what she produces. I'm pretty sure she will.

It just won't be grades.

Material Girl

2009-10-05T16:31:00.001-05:00

Thanks to all who sent out encouraging thoughts this past weekend as we conquered the planting of 1,000 little aronia berry seedlings. It must have worked because all went swimmingly! In farming, the odds for such success are usually against us.

Kim, Rick, John, and Dec all showed up to help. Thank you all! Without you, it wouldn't be done now. A nice lunch was had by all. Andre stayed late to make sure each tiny plant was watered in.

During a break in the planting, Andre had gone into town (about 10 minutes away) with Maddie. After what seemed like longer than it should have been for them to return, Maya voiced the same thing that Dec and I were thinking..."where are Dad and Maddie? They've been gone a long time."

"Hmm. I don't know. I wonder what's keeping them." I responded.

Maya replied, "Maybe they've been murdered."

"Oh, I doubt it, Honey. Don't worry." I assured her. After all, it's not hunting season quite yet.

After a pregnant pause, Maya found a silver lining to her dire scenario.

"If they're dead, I call Dad's Blackberry!"

She'll text you with the details of the funeral.

JK

Wish Us Luck

2009-10-01T12:02:00.001-05:00

When you're taking a break from your usual activities this weekend, maybe enjoying a cold beer or a glass of wine, maybe sitting through a commercial while watching a favorite TV show, take a moment to send out some positive thoughts to your old friends at Double K Farms.

This weekend, we are hoping to plant 1,000 baby aronia berry plants on our farm. If you haven't heard, aronias are the latest superfood. They are higher in polyphenols and antioxidants than blueberries and are reported to fight cancer!

In order to accomplish this somewhat monumental feat, we need the following (focus those positive thoughts):

- the cooperation of Mother Nature (right now, she's a bit rainy)

- the help of good friends and family (got it! Thanks, everyone. You're the best!)

- the tractors to work properly

- the tires on the tractors and carts to stay inflated

- the deer not to take too much interest in the little plants

- and whatever else I haven't anticipated (and I'm sure there are at least a couple of things that fit this category!)

Thanks, in advance, for your warm wishes.

May all the harmonies converge this weekend in southwestern Iowa!

The Necessities of Life

2009-09-01T19:22:00.003-05:00

I'll bet you don't know what items are indispensable for the college crowd these days.

As a parent of a teenager going off to college, I imagine your list would look something like this:

mattress pad (for the bare bones dorm bed she was assigned)
sheets, blankets, pillows (of course)
cleanser (the dorm room was dirtier than we had expected)
toilet paper (no explanation necessary)
towels
textbooks, pens, pencils, notebooks, etc. (regular back-to-school stuff)
a lamp
some hangers and storage boxes for the clothes and shoes
a bus pass
a meal plan

All the normal stuff, right? Well, if you stopped there, you'd be falling short.

On the night before leaving my future leader of the free world at San Diego State University, I was informed, somewhat urgently, that, after settling in, there were a couple of items that she still absolutely needed to be able to be fully engaged in the life of the mind:

a beach towel
perfume
ice cream

I do not make this stuff up.

Lucky Girl

2009-08-21T11:53:00.001-05:00

One friend in a lifetime is much, two are many, three are hardly possible.

Henry Adams

Here I am with my dear friend of 25 years. You may have surmised that this is not a recent photo. It is, in fact, from 25 years ago when we met in Paris as poor students. We've vowed to get back on our regimens and meet up again next year for a new shot which will, no doubt, rival this one.

So stay tuned!

And call an old friend.

Guys and Dolls

2009-07-28T14:03:00.003-05:00

One of our favorite things to do anytime of the year, but especially during these warm days and cool nights of summer, is to sit on our patio in the evening and talk, sip something, watch the passing deer, and linger until we're ready to drop into bed. Most times, the topic of conversation is pleasant but unremarkable: current farm happenings, what the kids (far and near) are up to, how the neighbors are faring, religion, politics, etc.

But last weekend, the talk turned to relationships.

In particular, our personal relationships: the one with each other and, even more interestingly, the ones in our respective pasts. Until this moment in time (Friday, July 24th, 2009), we had only cursorily dealt with prior loves (and we've been together for almost 16 years). So, it was pretty momentous.

Heady from our evening of verbal intimacy, the next day we were working on the gables of the barn. Hubby was on the ladder about 20 feet up and I chose that time to ask him a little more about our recent breakthrough convo.

"So, Honey, what did you think about last night?"

"NOT NOW, Honey! I'm on the ladder!"

Oh, gotcha. Sorry!

Here's hoping for another opportunity before 16 more years pass.

The Times They Are A-Changin' *

2009-07-20T15:13:00.003-05:00

As Hubby and I were cleaning out the garden barn, our eleven-year-old joined us and mostly sat on the lawn mower and watched. At that age, children are too cool to do anything in the barn. To her credit, though, she is a very helpful girl and assists willingly in the slightly less earthy areas of life around the house.

We had transported an old desk to the farm to put in the barn as a work table for me. We put a pallet on the dirt floor, put the desk on it, and happened to place a chair nearby. Our daughter asked Dad what Mom was going to be doing in here. He turned to her and jokingly replied that Mom could sit and write at the desk. Our girl pondered this image for a moment, a bit confused as to how one would write without a computer, and, after arriving at an idea that translated into her vernacular, in all seriousness, said, "Oh, you mean old-fashioned blogging!"

Of course, that's what he meant.

*Song title courtesy of Bob Dylan, who is even older than I am.

Some More Tao of Farming

2009-07-10T15:23:00.005-05:00

Let us gaze upon the beautiful wheat of this summer that will probably not be harvested to be used as food for people who make bread. Such are the ways of the world these days.

But wait! This is not a negative piece. I simply wanted to thank Mother Nature for producing the awesome sight seen here. Because of the current system of economics and insurance, it is more profitable for us to forsake our lovely wheat and collect the insurance for it. (For the gruesome details, see previous post.) Nevertheless, there is no cost to appreciating it for what it is -- the fruits of our labors and the bounty of Mother Earth. Also, it will not be totally forsaken as it will be baled along with the clover for hay for some very lucky cows!

If we look at this event as an instance in time along a continuum of life, the monetary rewards become stripped of their importance, to some extent. Not everything valuable is directly related to money, fortunately. So, I take a page from the fabulous writings of my daughter, Julie, and give you a list of those farming things that do put a smile on my face, time and time again:

(Here is that smile, by the way)

cooking over the open campfire in the firepit we made
watching the children run wild and grow like weeds
sitting on the patio watching the deer walk up the ridge across the pond, stopping at their salt lick, looking over at us, and heading on to the forest (maybe minus one during hunting season)
enjoying 'Denny and Alan time'* complete with matching wool pajama tops
hiking our land...yes...OUR land!
taking pride in the home and barns we built ourselves
checking on the beavers and their dams on the creek and wondering just how many trees to share with them
putzing in our respective barns
taking the raft out on the pond, disturbing the great blue heron so that she dropped her fish (sorry!)
cuddling farm kittens and enjoying their antics, watching them grow
tractoring around
napping
gardening
mowing
fishing
viewing the moon and stars without the interference of city lights
welcoming friends and family from near and far (Marlin can't wait for Jayne's visit)
basking in the friendship and protection of our beloved neighbors
reveling in the changing of the seasons and enjoying the charms of each one: planting new items in the spring, harvesting wonderful fruits in the summer, witnessing the colors of the fall, catching snowflakes in the winter
looking forward to retiring on our little slice of heaven one day.

Cheesy? Maybe.

True? Definitely.

*A reference to the good ole' boys of Boston Legal as they solved all of life's problems at the end of every show on a fancy balcony with a glass of brandy and cigars (we use wine and snacks).

The Tao of Farming

2009-07-08T17:10:00.005-05:00

Live and learn.

You win some, you lose some.

C'est la vie.

All these axioms may help us face little failures in life but I'm seriously considering putting farming in a class by itself.

Farming's axioms could include:

No matter what you do, you will fail.

Everything is for naught.

It's a zero-sum game and you'll get zero as the sum. Every time.

You get the idea.

Here is a photo of our beautiful wheat that is just about ready to be harvested. Last year, we lost most of our wheat crop to the floods and we didn't have insurance. We did manage to recuperate some of our losses as organic wheat went for $18/bushel (as compared to regular wheat that was going for about $5/bushel) and we got about 50 bushels off our land. (We should have gotten over 700 bushels.) So, we were able to pay for the combining, had a little money from the wheat, and milled some of it into flour for our CSA members and ourselves.

We re-planted wheat for this year AND took out insurance on it. (We're pretty bright.)

Well, last weekend, we traveled around our land and were thrilled that the wheat was looking very good (full heads, ripe, drying out like it should) and the clover and grass we planted this spring was coming up just as we hoped under the wheat to make hay in the late summer and fall. Of course, not all the fields were primo, but the fact that SOME were really excited us. Our farm was really coming along. It wasn't simply comprised of weed fields anymore. Our planning was working out. And, remember, we were insured.

What could go wrong?

We did what we always do. We called our mentor, Dan, to schedule the combining of our lovely wheat. He had the sad duty of informing us that organic wheat prices had fallen to $6/bushel.

WHAT???????

OK. OK. Let us recover ourselves. OK. We'll be OK. We had counted on the insurance to pay around $9/bushel. But that would only happen if the crop failed. What do we do now that we have good wheat that will only bring $6/bushel?

Do you see how unfair this all is?

So I proceeded to call the local grain dealer to find out the exact going price of organic wheat. Kevin was very happy to take my call but also had a sad duty to perform. Not only is organic wheat going for very little, it is not going AT ALL. He knew of NO ONE wanting wheat. Everyone he knows has wheat leftover from last year. He is recommending that we find a place to store our wheat (another expense) for at least two months and then, MAYBE, we'll be able to sell it. No guarantees.

Too bad we didn't have the floods this year.

All Grown Up

2009-07-01T15:38:00.011-05:00

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." Mark Twain

And a less benevolent, albeit true-at-times one,

"Mothers of teenagers know why animals eat their young." Unknown author

But I digress.

Let's stick with the Twain quote. It's much more appropriate.

My eldest daughter called me today with a question I have been waiting 20 years to field: "Tell me about my heritage." My first reaction was to laugh with recognition that yours truly was about the same age when she had the wonderful opportunity to spend some months with her own grandparents, basking in their love and picking their brains for that all-too-dwindling oral history of our family.

My response was to refer her to my initial entries about our ancestry: I Finally Got One and Coming Full Circle Times Two. Not to brag, but these do seem well-written and succinct, two qualities appreciated by the young.

Her next question was just as much fun.

"What, exactly, is meant by 'organic'?" (See recent entry about said daughter's new job.)

I love it!

So, I proceeded to give her about an hour's worth of organic farming, from the global issues of sustainability and feeding the world's population to the big, bad evil Monsanto, Syngenta and Bill Gates and their monopoly on conventional farming and their interest in the Svalbard Seed Vault to the history of farming itself to the reason organic food is here to stay to the politics of it all and everything in between.

I could feel her almost taking notes over the phone.

"Wow, Mom, you know so much! Can you jot the main points down and send them to me in an email?" So, I guess I get to take the notes. Oh, well. That's OK.

I'm just glad I was ready and had learned so much in the past seven years.

Always Listen to Your Mother

2009-06-23T17:04:00.005-05:00

Joined by our four wonderful girls, we enjoy life on the farm as often as we can.

I must come clean.

Even though this sentence can be found in the About Me part of this blog, it is not entirely true. Most weekends, we are joined by our two younger daughters -- Maddie, 11 and Maya, 8 -- over whom we still hold some sway, which is tenuous at best. (As a friend/therapist reminded us recently, our job as parents was pretty much done when they were 4 or 5 years old.)

The older two girls -- Julie, 20 and Amelia, 18 -- are off on their own now and can't be bothered with this organic farming experiment that the old folks are on.

Therein lies their mistake! (Bwah-ha-ha)

A recent case in point:

Julie, our 20-year-old, recently called me to tell me that she was being sent to a trade show in Chicago as part of her new job. She called me as she was on her way to the show. She was panicking. She felt out of her element and at a loss, lacking in background. This is the young woman who has traveled the globe, commands the respect of her peers and colleagues at Loyola University, and can talk her way out of just about any situation -- in two languages! But she never really wanted to pay attention when the subject was organic farming.

I pause to take a moment to revel in the satisfaction that rarely comes with motherhood.

Her new job, you may ask?

Representative for the the Agricultural and Fisheries Division of the Quebec Delegation in Chicago.

The trade show she was attending?

The All Things Organic international trade show.

Can you say karmic justice?

Guess Who Likes Beet Greens?

2009-06-18T15:09:00.003-05:00

When one grows one's own food, one tends to get a bit more careful about what one discards when preparing said food.

Let's take beets.

A little background...I have been trying to grow beets for three years now. Each year, I have planted at least two rows (usually four or five) of a couple of varieties of beets. Out of a cumulative 100-plus row feet of beets, mother nature blesses me (in a good year) with maybe one meal's worth of beets per season, i.e., about six beets.

This year was different. I planted only two rows in a new spot, added loads of compost, a little boron (which, I found out, beets need) and was pleasantly surprised to get a meal's worth about two weeks ago with the promise of a few more meals left in the rows for subsequent weeks.

Don't get me wrong, the rows were by no means full of beets, but they were exponentially better than in any prior year.

But back to the greens.

We brought home that beautiful, first, beet harvest. As I contemplated cutting off and discarding the greens that I had waited three years for, I felt a little silly. Why throw these beautiful greens away? So, I cleaned them up and sautéed them up with a little garlic, salt and red onion. I placed them as a bed under fresh tomatoes and herbs and grated parmesan cheese on top. Much to my surprise, everyone really liked the addition to the salad! Even my Mom commented that she really enjoyed the greens. I was thrilled.

So, you can imagine my utter dismay when, upon arriving at the farm last Tuesday evening, two large female deer were leisurely grazing INSIDE MY GARDEN. Apparently, a storm had damaged the fence and they were able to get in. Even worse, however, is that they evinced a particular fondness for the beet greens. Up and down the two rows of beets, all that remained were half-eaten beets and deer hoofprints.

Balance was maintained in the universe, I suppose. I had my one meal's worth of beets yet again this year.

Re-thinking That "Green is My Favorite Color" Entry

2009-06-09T16:00:00.008-05:00

So, I've mentioned previously that I'm hopelessly in love with Spring. Well, yes, after a winter in Nebraska and Iowa anyone would be, I suppose. But, heady with all the new life of the season, I forgot about the other green things that come with the season, namely, weeds.

But, before we tackle them, let us enjoy the memorable fishing experience that Maya had with our beloved GodCarol (yes, she is very close to the Almighty). We stocked our pond three years ago and had not fished a single item out of it, mostly because we are not fishermen. Carol happens to be an expert and shared her knowledge with Maya and actually caught a decent fish! Thanks, Carol! Now we know that our pond has fish in it. And we have Maya, the eight-year-old, to teach us what to do to repeat the event.

The problem with Spring is that many folks want to usurp it for their own purposes. It's not just the time that life returns. It is also the time when the school year ends, children graduate, (I've got one in the above picture and will have more in the years to come, as you can see), and, because of said graduations, relatives arrive to visit, dinners must be prepared, couples argue about said relatives and dinners, other couples get unnerved about the family presence itself, other members chafe at each other because they are not used to each other, other members contemplate the meaning of life and relationships and everything under the sun.

All of which brings me back to the weeds. The weeds at the farm are almost out of control. (I'll get to them eventually, don't worry.) But I am reminded of a National Geographic article I read about ten years ago. It featured an African farmer who grew a crop for grain. It was full of weeds. When some well-intentioned Westerner asked him why he allowed the weeds to grow rather than killing them with some Round-Up type of herbicide, the farmer responded that he harvested the weeds and fed them to his cattle. Given the desert conditions, he was glad to have the weeds to feed to his animals.

Another anecdote that came to mind while contemplating the omnipresent weeds was the one where the neighbors of a certain homeowner got together to comment on said homeowners lack of mowing. The response by said homeowner was that he was "growing children that year". This is our thought as we notice our grass growing at home. Mowing is not high on the priority list when you have live, little beings clamoring for your attention.

But back to tackling the weeds...just last weekend, one of said relatives, my sister, Dec, spent a couple of hours cleaning out the Brussels sprouts, cabbages, and cauliflower. They should do well now. We also mulched the tomatoes and peppers and eggplant before the weeds can take over. I still need to clean out the herb garden and the asparagus bed. And don't get me started on the potatoes and squashes! Ugh!

I guess it's the price one pays for growing things that you want amidst things that you don't want. But those things you don't want are part of the life that comes in the spring. :)

Nice Doing Business With You

2009-05-12T21:51:00.004-05:00

I must begin this entry with a shout out to Akin's Building Center of Clarinda, Iowa.

Halla!

(I'd put up link to them, but they don't see the need for a website. It probably wouldn't bring them any more business than they already have.)

As you may have read in this space, we've been building a barn on our land. We got the roof on a couple of weeks ago and it was time to order the walls. We shopped around and found that our local (Clarinda) hardware store had the best deal, so we ordered from them, by phone, one day last week.

They said they could deliver the panels of metal and skylight plastic panels (they even had them cut to our specs for no extra charge). I told them we'd be at the farm on Saturday and could they deliver it all then? (They were very upfront with us that the delivery charge would be $12.50. I thought we could stomach that and gave them the green light.) 'Round about 11am on Saturday morning, there was a knock on our cabin door. It was the guys from Akin's with our walls.

They brought the panels, corners, and screws (which we hadn't ordered, but which they knew we would need). Andre helped them unload the materials and we contemplated the next phase of building the barn. (The goal is to make it more or less waterproof so that we can install a bed so that Andre can finally get a decent nap!)

I don't usually share personal, financial information, but, in this case, I must tell you that the total for the wall panels, et al, came to over $1,500. The reason this is significant is because all of the preceding happened without any money changing hands. We hadn't been in to Akin's to pay for anything that we had ordered and yet, somehow, it all came! I guess they knew we were good for it.

We went in later that day to settle up.

It was in no way out of the ordinary for the folks at Akin's.

God bless 'em!

Yep...Green is My Favorite Color

2009-04-20T13:55:00.008-05:00

I have tried for many years to live by the following quotation: "To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring." (George Santayana) Sounds good, doesn't it? We love that fall foliage in New England, don't we? It gives us a reason to tolerate winters in Nebraska, right? But, as I get older, I am more interested in what is true than what should be true. I check my feelings and...

I confess this day -- I am hopelessly in love with SPRING!

Witness the dependable emergence of grass in mid-April (which has already been mown once! Ah, the wonderful smell of it!).

Witness the sprouting of lettuce, spinach, peas, turnips, and mustard greens in the garden.

Witness the blooming of flowers after a long, winter's sleep. (They're hard to see, but trust me, they're there!)

There are good reasons why we love spring so much -- the re-birth, without fail, of the world every year; the warm rains that bring life to the ground; the literal birth of the farm animals as if on a schedule; the voluptuousness of warmth, seedlings, and life all around us. No wonder there is a quotation that reprimands us for being so in love with spring! The other seasons probably got together and worked on it since they were so far behind in the race for human predilection.

I swear to keep working on discovering the beauty in each season, but I refuse to try to temper the fact that spring has it goin' on, by far, over all the other seasons!

Happy SPRING, everyone!

Things That Go Bump in the Night

2009-04-03T23:53:00.006-05:00

Yet another update on Musical Cars.

Dear Reader, you are simply not going to believe what I have to report this time about our car situation. But it is all too true.

At precisely 12:06am (that's just after midnight for you am/pm challenged folk) a couple of weeks ago, there was a knock at our door. Now, one teenager is in France so I didn't think it could have to do with her. The other teenager was safely tucked into her computer in her room. The younger children were long gone to slumberland. So, who could it possibly be? Should we even answer the door? Is one of our neighbors in trouble? Should we get the bat? Well, no, if it were a robber or intruder of some sort, why the knock? A polite thug? These thoughts are not coherent because they occurred in a flash, and they occurred, as I mentioned, at 12:06am.

Omaha's Finest*, it turns out, work the night shift, and the fact that the rest of us may be sleeping does not deter them from carrying out their duties.

And what was the infraction that brought this particular officer to our door, you may ask? Well, the fact that one of the cars in our driveway had Iowa license plates on it. I couldn't believe my ears. I even asked quietly if it was a joke. I was assured by the officer that it was not a joke. Uh-oh. We were busted.

A little background...we have the six cars. Three of them are licensed here in Omaha, Nebraska, and the other three, two trucks and a car, are registered in Iowa since we use the trucks on the farm (which is located in Iowa and on which we pay taxes) and the car to go back and forth delivering produce during the growing season. Right now is not the growing season and the car has been on vacation here in Nebraska. Logical, no? Well, no, as it turns out. You see, the rule is, any car that is located in the state of Nebraska for 30 days or more must be licensed in Nebraska. (Oh, did you figure out that it's a little bit cheaper to register a car in Iowa than in Nebraska? Yes, we have deep, dark motives for our anti-social behaviour!)

Our visitor was understanding and gave us some ideas about how to redeem ourselves. I spent the next half a day getting bumped back and forth among various municipal departments that handle such matters and finally was told the following: one of our neighbors must not have a life and called in the fact that a car with an Iowa plate was sitting in our driveway for more than the 30 days maximum. We were instructed to keep the car parked in a garage when not in use.

Seriously? Seriously.

It seems to me that said neighbor should be given the bill for the taxpayer dollars that were wasted in having that officer come to our house at midnight (he probably gets time and a half for working the night shift) and another bill for wasting my half a day calling around and another bill for all the time city bureaucrats spent on the other end of those calls trying to figure out what to do with us. And for good measure, let's add a penalty on top of it all for just being silly.

Ah, what a perfect world that would be!

*For those of you across the pond, police officers

Water, Water Everywhere and Nary a Drop to Drink.

2009-03-17T12:21:00.002-05:00

(a.k.a.: A second update on Musical Cars)

Those of you who follow this blog may find it hard to believe the following: I was without a car this morning. Yes, we have six cars for three drivers, but, as fate would have it in her twisted sense of humor, the planets aligned this morning to make it impossible for me to drive anywhere. You see, one vehicle is at the farm. One is the one My Honey drives to work and he left early this fine morning. One is the one our teenager drives and there's the rub. She took her car to the shop to try to figure out the cause of its dying now and then. Rather than get my big, fat, you-know-what out of bed at o-dark-hundred this morning to give her a ride, I gave her the keys to the car I usually drive, assuming that, with the plethora of cars around here, that I'd be able to take the little ones to school this morning in some sort of secondary conveyance. Ah, was I mistaken! Of the two cars remaining, one was in the garage and the other was right behind it, jacked up with a missing wheel, rendering both unusuable.

Fortunately, it was an unexpectedly warm and beautiful spring morning here in Omaha (60+ degrees) so the little ones didn't mind walking the few blocks to school. They even called a friend and made an event of it, bless their little hearts. Fortunately, also, I didn't have anything planned that necessitated a car. Fortunately, finally, the teenager felt the need to get her car back from the shop (they couldn't figure out what was wrong, by the way) at lunch time (friends were meeting at a local restaurant, after all) and, therefore, freed up my car for moi! I still didn't need to go anywhere in particular.

But, hey, order was restored in the universe.

No Greenhouse? No Problem!

2009-03-13T10:59:00.007-05:00

Here's a little DIY greenhouse for those of you, like myself, who just can't wait to get the vegetable garden going and who don't have the space or money for a fancy greenhouse outside.

Exhibit #1:

White plastic shelves are set up with grow lights and plastic sheeting over the whole thing. The plastic sheeting keeps the inside at a comfy, jungle-like atmosphere. (This creates nice humidity for the seedlings and cuts down on the need to water.) The peppers and eggplant love it! We happen to have two, large, south-facing windows which are perfect for this set-up. Don't be cheap, though...you still need the grow lights! The sun is not around enough hours of the day at this point in the year.

Exhibit #2:
A few trays of seeds planted in tried-and-true mixture of peat moss/vermiculite/Azomite are placed on empty boxes so that the seedlings will be as close as possible to the lights. Once they grow a bit, I remove the boxes.

Exhibit #3:

All shelves are filled with seedling trays. In addition to our regulars of tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant (all of which need the early start to do well in the summer here in Nebraska/Iowa), this year we are also doing some fancy cauliflower, trying Brussels sprouts (again), some cabbages, some leeks, and some artichokes.

Exhibit #4:

The beginnings of the artichokes!

So, let's itemize:

One four-tier shelving unit (Lowes) -- $25
Three grow lights ($10 each) (Walmart) -- $30
Plastic sheeting to cover (Lowes) -- $20
Six Seed trays with clear covers ($4 each) -- $24
Peat moss/vermiculite mix (Lowes) -- $10
12 organic seed packets (SeedsofChange.com) -- $40

Total: $149 (the first year...after that, it's just the seeds and dirt...$50/year for hundreds of dollars worth of fresh, organic, tasty food!)

Our set-up is six times the above, but we plant one to two thousand different plants for the gardens at the farm. With the single set-up described above, you can probably get about 240 plants started. That should keep the home gardener busy for the growing season!

Let me know how it goes!

An Update on Musical Cars

2009-03-10T09:05:00.005-05:00

As luck (ha!) would have it, all five of the vehicles were lined up just right for a nice snapshot the other day.

(Number six is at the farm.)

I have come to the sad realization that I have been complicit in the stockpiling of vehicles. It seems that there is a good reason to have each and every one. When My Honey suggested selling the Lexus, I balked. ("That's the car I usually drive, it's paid off, it's not worth as much to anyone else.") So, we move on to considering the little Toyota truck. ("Well, it gets the best gas mileage, My Honey drives it to work.") Ok. So, how about the big red truck? ("It's useful for taking loads to the farm, it has the extended cab for the girls.")

Do you see how it happens?

Much to My Mother's bemusement, we have also come to understand how we are the embodiment of a pattern established generations ago of "Guys who Accumulate Vehicles and the Women who Love Them".

So, here's to you, Grandma and Grandpa! May you rest in peace knowing the tradition survives!

Getting Goosed

2009-03-07T19:56:00.007-06:00

Way back in 2006, before ground was broken for any cabins or compost bins or barns or woodbins, we toured our newly purchased farm with our children. On that particular day in May, some geese were happily cruising around the pond. At one point, they must have finally gotten tired of our intrusion into their blissful afternoon and took off.

Maya, in the foreground, watches the geese head north from the pond. One can be seen, if you look carefully, in about the center of the photograph, just above the horizon. Andre was off to the right, unhappy that he didn't have his shotgun with him as a goose flew right over his head on its way to Canada.

We jump to 2009.

I was awakened this morning to the sounds of honking. Assuming it was either a dream or birds flying overhead and would pass quickly, I ignored the noise. After all, it was before 7am! But, the honking grew louder and more insistent. I finally got up, looked out the bedroom window, and saw four lovely Canada geese floating on our pond, evidently chatting with each other. It was enchanting to watch their movements for the better part of an hour. Then, as suddenly as they arrived, they flapped their wings and took flight.

It was worth the wait!

(Click on the photo to enlarge it and actually SEE the geese taking off!)

Musical Cars

2009-03-03T21:04:00.007-06:00

You would never know there's a recession/depression/high gas prices/any problems at all with the economy by the burgeoning fleet of vehicles in our driveway.

It seems there is a bug that infects a man who becomes a farmer. This bug drives said man to buy used cars/trucks/tractors 'til the cows come home, as it were. It has taken over My Honey for the past couple of years. (Until this bug struck, we were happily driving a 1998 Lexus, which we still have.)

First, of course, we needed a farm truck. We bought an old Ford F-150 when we bought the farm in 2006 and it is worth its weight in gold at the farm. (Four-wheel drive and all that, you know.) OK. Fine. I'm down with that. Every farm needs a farm truck.

Then, we had to have truck in which to go back and forth to the farm. (Don't ask why. There is no cogent answer here. The old Lexus could have served just fine in this capacity.) So, we bought a shiny, red truck last Valentine's Day (very a propos, no?) This truck was only a two-wheel drive, however (a fatal flaw on the farm during snowy, wet, muddy, almost any weather).

So, naturally, that leads us to "a truck that goes back and forth to the farm and has four-wheel drive". "But, of course!", you may say. Yes, of course. My Honey would agree wholeheartedly. So, the search began for a four-wheel drive, SUV-type car/truck that fit the bill. Enter 'Little Blue':

Little Blue is a 1993 Ford Explorer that needed front end work. (Oh, joy of joys!)

Look at this face. He thrives on fixing these old things.

Meanwhile, paralleling the "trucks that go to and live at the farm" My Honey came up with "I need a truck to go back and forth to work and has decent gas mileage". Meet the 1982 Toyota that gets better gas mileage than almost anything out there! (Are you keeping a running count? We're up to five vehicles now, and I haven't even mentioned that our teenage daughter has my old Nissan. That makes six!)

No, the number of drivers has not increased. We're still at three (counting the teenager).

Fortunately, all of these purchases are in the hundreds of dollars, not thousands. But still...

Here is part of the fleet in the driveway.

In the interest of efficiency, I asked My Honey if we could get rid of something. He promises that if he gets the latest vehicle working, we may be able to sell the red truck.

I'm not holding my breath.

Green Acres

2009-02-25T18:29:00.012-06:00

This entry is added by Andre Konstantinov.

Everyone at work, as soon as they find out that we own a farm, always starts: "Greeeeeeeen Acres is the place to be".....

Is it THAT unusual to own a farm?

I once worked for a small software development company in Glenwood, Iowa. It was, in fact, my first job after I married My Honey and got my Green Card (one of the many, many reasons that I married her...really!). They used to joke that if I did not behave, they would take away my "Pink Card". I did not mind. There was love and care in these jokes. They loved me and I loved the people I worked with.

At that company, it was fairly typical to take off three weeks in September to go and harvest, say, 60 acres of beans. I was a wide-eyed immigrant, graduate student at Creighton University in physics, just taking it all in. Good Lord, I didn't even know how 'John Deere' was actually spelled. Seriously.

Oh yeah, the company developed agricultural loan software.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would care about things like 'yield', 'pounds of nitrogen per acre' and 'mechanical weed control'. I grew up in a city. Food came from the grocery store, and it did NOT have dirt on it.

Twelve years after that time, having bought a farm, I find myself quite versed in the intricacies of ancient tractor makes and models. (I even own a few of them.) I watch the weather with genuine interest. I chart the rainfall. I know when the ground will freeze and thaw. I quiver with anticipation during the fall hunting season. I love that My Honey has just begun her seedlings in the makeshift greenhouse that was once our living room.

I've come a long way since the days of writing code for ag loans, and I'm glad of it!

My Better Half

2009-02-19T16:10:00.005-06:00

I've got to hand it to My Honey.

The rain barrel was finally empty of water or ice. The new spigot had been purchased (and brought to the farm this weekend). Elements had converged for the optimum time to repair the barrel. Only one problem -- six inches of freshly fallen snow had arrived in the night.

Undeterred by the weather, he slithered on the ground and climbed into the barrel to attach the new spigot.

What a trooper!

We're all ready for spring.

Thanks, Honey! You're the best!

Good luck

2009-02-16T19:25:00.005-06:00

My superstitious/traditional (not mutually exclusive here) Russian hubby decided that we needed horseshoes over each of the two doors in our cabin at the dacha*. So, we devised a plan. Our neighbor up the road, who has horses, must have a horseshoe lying around that he didn't need. Since he trusts us with his horses and gives us free rein (tee-hee) of his barn, whether we're going riding or not, we made a trip up there and, lo and behold, found a horseshoe. Picking it up and taking it with us, we were both filled with unspoken, yet utterly palpable guilt, of course.

Returning to our cabin, we face the next small dilemma -- how to hang the horseshoe, ends up or ends down. For the answer, we consulted Wikipedia:

In some traditions, any good or bad luck achieved will only occur to the owner of the horseshoe, not the person who hangs it up. Therefore, if the horseshoe was stolen, borrowed or even just found then the owner, not the person who found or stole the horseshoe will get any good or bad luck.

Makes sense. We are confirmed in our guilt. We move to Plan B.

Cut to a trip into town for supplies.

We found ourselves at the farm store where new horseshoes were readily available for a nominal price. We bought two and decided to secretly return the ill-gotten gain to our neighbor's barn as soon as humanly possible. No need for negative juju here. We're talking luck after all.

The new horseshoes are in place, granting luck to all who enter our beloved cabin. The old, liberated horseshoe, with loads of character, history, and rust IS STILL IN THE TRUCK! UGH! We can't return it until next weekend. DO NOT ENTER our cabin until then! You have been forewarned.

--------------------

*Russian compound of house/barn/gardens outside of the city wherein to grow produce for the winter and to simply have fun in the summer.

Multiple Media and Me

2009-02-13T19:39:00.013-06:00

Gone are the days when one would put pen to paper...the days of what is dismissively called "snail mail" (as if slow were bad. Hmm...I can think of some things...well, let's leave that for another entry). Gone are the days of long-awaited family missives, keenly anticipated news from long-distance friends, sweetly scented love letters, a 150-year-old journal in verse, no less, of an ancestor as she traveled around the world, alone, by ship. (True story.)

I'm sure I'm not the only 40-something that has wondered if she can keep up with the rapid pace of technological advances. I may have a leg up on things since I have children who span the gadget gamut from 1988 to 2001. My eldest Skypes and Facebooks me. (Sometimes, she even SkypeCries me...sorry Honey, but we're hoping to coin a term here. You understand.) The second daughter texts me and calls me on her cell or IMs me from her bedroom to my desk, all within the confines of our home. (My husband says I'm child-rearing by cell. What choice do I have?) The younger ones are learning the ropes of MySpace and Gmail (where I can feel like a pro, thanks to the tutelage of their older siblings).

Thirty years ago, yours truly studied abroad. The coolest innovation in communication at the time was the aerogramme. It was a blue, one-sheet letter, purchased at the post office, that could be folded in three and had self-adhesive flaps and postage (less than a traditional letter) already attached. I thought it was the bomb! (I know, anachronistic use of the term...forgive me.) It was used all around the world. I thought nothing else could make the world smaller. I had no idea what was on the horizon.

I remember spending time and thought composing. I was sure that letters I received from family and friends were given the same consideration. Each piece of mail was a treasure.

One correspondent who held a special place in my heart was my maternal Grandma. I was pretty sure she hated writing letters, but she wrote to me (all the more meaningful, don't you think?) She wrote religiously, and so did I, to her. I loved receiving her letters. They were a lifeline to my family halfway around the world.

Upon her death in 1991, 13 years after I had spent the year abroad, I went rummaging through her dresser drawers (a forbidden act for a granddaughter who had so respected her grandmother, but, hey, I was still young and curious).

The tears swell in my eyes even today when I remember the moment that I discovered, much to my surprise, neatly collected in a simple rubber band, in a top drawer behind her unmentionables, all of the letters I had sent to her from that year in my life...the time I lived incommunicado from my family, so far away, so alone. I grabbed the packet of letters and tucked them into my suitcase for the ride home. (Who else would want them?) I keep them with the letters I received from her that year...the letters I saved for all those years, as well. (Note to my children...look for these letters when I go.)

Will email be able to follow the act of snail-mail? Are we saving those emails that mean something to us? Or, do they end up in our accounts for so long that they disappear by default after 60 days?

I, for one, have printed hard copies of all those emails My Honey wrote to me when we were courting long-distance. (They total about a ream and a half of paper...note to children, look for those in the basement. You might make a nice love story book with them and make a little money!)

Let me just put this out there...if you have feelings for someone close to you, write that person a real letter. It will mean more than you know.

A Man's World

2009-02-10T20:10:00.011-06:00

So, we're building a new barn. The old one, which was actually rather new, was rolled up in a ball by a spring tornado last year along with the garden shed. Thankfully, the main two cabins were left untouched. Note to self -- get that building insurance before the coming spring.

With the help of our neighbor's son and his friend, the skeleton is in place for the new barn. The next step is the metal roofing material which can be had at any decent hardware store. The problem with the decent hardware stores in town is that they are used to dealing with men. My man, however, is busy working all day, so I thought I'd take it upon myself to get some prices on roofing material from the three or four various hardware stores in the area. Having been building things for some two and a half years now, I've learned one basic tenet...men assume I don't know what I'm doing until I "talk the talk" of construction for them, not unlike entering a password in order to gain access, or, at least, strutting by in a bikini to gain attention.

I begin by boning up on the Internet...gauge numbers, widths, linear feet prices, and such. Then, I go to the various stores and let them see that I am price shopping and sometimes get a cute young thing who has a brain in his head and sees that I actually do know what I am talking about. The more interesting conversations are on the phone with the not-so-cute older things that are sure that I don't know what I'm talking about.

Liz: Hello. I'd like to get some prices on roofing panels.

Old Guy: OK. Well, what exactly do you want? (tone = "Ha. She'll be stumped now!")

Liz: Well, I'd like to know how much you charge per linear foot for your 36-inch, 29-gauge, 13-foot, metal, ribbed, white or red...is there a price difference depending on color?...roofing metal, and I need 32 sections of it to cover 1,248 square feet of a barn roof.

Old Guy: Oh. Well, just a minute. (Obviously shaken and calling to his more knowledgeable buddy..."How much is blah blah blah?")

Other Old Guy: (His interminable coffee break rudely interrupted) It's $2.75 per linear foot.

Old Guy: It's $2.75 per linear foot.

Liz: OK. Thanks. And, I assume you don't have it in stock (since no one else did, again, the learning curve in action), so how long would it take to get it in?

Old Guy: (Showing, once again, his utter dispensability) "How long would it take to get it?"

Other Old Guy: Three weeks.

Old Guy: Three weeks.

Liz: Thanks so much! (Touché)

"Life" and "Lost"

2009-02-05T15:04:00.004-06:00

It has come time on the new blog to rant. I'm sorry, but I must!

The wasteland that we call Broadcast Television usually doesn't let me down, only because my expectations are so low. I know that there will be weeks of re-runs, other weeks of pilots that may have seemed like good ideas at the time they were proffered, and yet other weeks of inane reality shows. Same ole, same ole.

But, every once in a while, there is a show actually worth watching! A few years ago, an NPR* commentator predicted that the shows of the upcoming year would be Lost and Desperate Housewives. Well, being a loyal NPR follower, I tuned in to see what they were like and got hooked on both of them. Unlike my hero, David Letterman, I do know, "what the f$%k is going on in Lost" since I have watched it religiously from the beginning. And the Desperate Housewives never fail to satisfy.

Then, just last year, against all odds, along came another new show that had some promise...Life. It is one of those "critically acclaimed" but, I'm guessing, hardly watched shows. It centers on a detective who is given a second chance. Golden Globe nominee Damian Lewis ("Band of Brothers") plays complex, offbeat Detective Charlie Crews, who returns to the force after serving time in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Crews' new lease on life has provided him with a Zen-like outlook, peace of mind and no need for vengeance, an attitude which can be challenging to maintain when someone he cares about is threatened -- or when he is investigating the mystery surrounding the murder he was falsely accused of.

There are three plot lines going all at the same time -- Charlie does his day job of being a detective and solving crimes, he maintains a hidden room where he charts the ongoing progress of the conspiracy against him, and he works on finding the guy who did the deed that Charlie was accused of and served time for. Interesting, deep, and circuitous, no?

One other little note...I have been waiting for many weeks for the return of Life. New episodes were scheduled to start up again last night, February 4th, 2009, which they did. One small problem...the new episode was directly opposite the latest new episode of Lost! And no where around either one of them was a show anywhere near worth watching!!! Why, oh why??!! Why couldn't they have put them in different time slots for us geeks to be able to enjoy both, live? (Yes, I know one can watch online after the fact, but it just isn't the same now, is it?) Well, I was forced to choose. I chose Lost (for technical re-play reasons) and watched Life this morning on my PC...not nearly as satisfying. But what is an intelligent, demanding, television viewer to do?

Thanks for listening.

*National Public Radio - The voice of some intelligence in these matters.

Day by Day

2009-02-02T09:39:00.005-06:00

In this part of the world, we don't pay too much attention to the prognostications of Punxsutawney Phil. It doesn't really matter which way he goes, we Midwesterners always have at least six more weeks of winter at this point in the year. We're used to it, so it's alright. But, having spent some of my formative years just north of Phil's stomping grounds, I still get a little thrill when his day rolls around. Even if he predicts more winter, the fact that Phil's day has arrived means that spring can't be far off.

Even more entertaining than watching a reluctant rodent being pulled out of his cozy hole is the movie, Groundhog Day. Bill Murray stars as a sullen, sarcastic news reporter who is stuck living the same day over and over again....until he gets it right. Along the way, however, he gets to act with impunity, knowing no one will remember his actions the next day. I'm envious. Do-Overs to the max! (Yes, I know it's just a movie, but still...)

His progress in the movie is through his own learning experiences, unencumbered by the passage of time (beyond one day). It's a great movie -- full of fun stuff, serious stuff, and a moral that doesn't hit you over the head. Thoroughly enjoyable and...timeless. (Ha!) Put it on your Netflix wishlist.

One of the more subtle lessons in the film is that of judging a small town like Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania (a real place, by the way). We see through the cynic's eyes, as the story opens, that it's a non-descript, podunk town that he can't wait to leave behind. As the story unfolds, our antagonist, stuck there, begins to see the charms of the town. These charms are expressed in family ties, shared history, social cooperation, and a willingness to accept the newcomer, no questions asked.

Down on our farm, even though they call us "the crazy Russians", we know that it is said with affection, we know that we will never get a bum deal from our small town, we know that our neighbors will always watch out for us, and we know that a handshake is a deal-sealer. People around us are more interested in us succeeding than failing, they realize that we have something to offer, and they know that we're all in this together. I must admit that I used to discount small towns as insignificant. My bad. They are truly the backbone of this great nation and I count myself lucky to be someone who understands why.

Coming Full Circle, Times Two

2009-01-29T16:35:00.015-06:00

Part One

Once upon a time, in a small county, in a quiet place, a young man decided to build a farm.

*Etching of Farm of Prier Squire Wilson,
my Great-Great-Great-Grandfather.
"Out the old Eddyville Road at the First Bridge",
Ottumwa, Iowa, circa 1850.

The generations that followed him were peopled with more farmers, teachers, an engineer and inventor (my Great-Grandfather, Fred Wilson, invented a corn picker, among other things), more teachers, I'm sure (note to my children: we've more than fulfilled our quota of teachers for one family. You may all go and do other things...please!), a girl who married a traveling salesman who became a millionaire, and, eventually, a psychologist named Jan. (Stay tuned.)

Part Two

Once upon a similar time, in a small kingdom, in a faraway place, another man (actually a boy of about 14 years) decided to hop on a boat and go halfway around the world to seek his fortune in a new land. He left his hilltop village in the Pyrenees and sailed to New York with a tag around his neck saying, "Jose Serrano, Hollister, California" where he would go and tend sheep (something Basques are good at) as per his sponsor's arrangement. He later bought some dry, desert land in the Central Valley of California. Today it is the richest producing land in the world. (Just add water.) His son was a cattleman and hay farmer. His grandson got his doctorate in history (and, yes, became a teacher) and his name is Martin.

Denice and Fermin Larrey, my Grandparents,
with a prize-winning cow, circa 1940.

Martin and Jan met in high school in California and later married. Each went on to much higher education and had us five children. The only giveaway that they had come from farm families was the garden we always managed to grow, wherever we lived. Some of my earliest memories are of planting, weeding, harvesting. I also remember visiting my Grandparents' farm and climbing on haystacks, and going horseback riding, and milking cows. It all seemed so far away from what was going on in my immediate family where academics and study were so valued (not that that's a bad thing, mind you). But, as I think about it now, I remember some other things. My Mother cooked what was in season. (It's all the rage, now, but then it was just the way good cooks cooked.) We shopped at farmers' markets whenever we could. (It wasn't chic, it was the way to get the best-tasting food.) My Grandparents sent oranges and almonds from California at Christmastime, when they were at their best. What a treat! So, the rhythm of the seasons was living on in them and being passed on to me all along.

I grew up and went on wonderful adventures overseas, became a spy for a while, had some higher education myself, and, you guessed it, became a teacher. Then I met my husband, Andre, who is Russian. Russians have a very strong, vibrant tradition of having a family farm, a plot of land, a dacha. So, Andre and I spent a couple of years looking for our own piece of land. We found it near Clarinda, Iowa, about 150 miles from where my Great-Great-Great-Grandfather did the same thing over 150 years ago. What a circle!

Our dacha compound near Clarinda, Iowa.

I Finally Got One

2009-01-28T15:25:00.008-06:00

It's that time of year when farmers catch up on things non-farm, so I decided to finally get this blog up and running. I have often wanted to put more on the Double K Farms website than simply the photos that I try to update every couple of weeks but didn't want to re-vamp the entire site to fit a blog. So, following in the accomplished footsteps of a Dear Friend across the pond who writes a lovely, funny, sometimes touching blog, Picture of a Duck, and also in those of my daughter, Juju, in Nantes, France, this year who chronicles her adventures for the Chicago Examiner, I hereby join their ranks and begin my blog about life on our farm. May my blog be at least half as good as theirs!

It has been a turning point in my life and the life of my family to own and operate a farm. We bought our farm near Clarinda, in southwestern Iowa, in the spring of 2006. For the first year, we spent most of our time building cabins and outbuildings on weekends and in the summer. The second year, we had an organic corn crop to sell and some veggies for the family. The third year, we had a failed wheat crop and a somewhat successful CSA (Community Supported Agriculture, a local food co-op) in which we fed about ten families for the season (May to October). This year, our fourth, we will again try for a wheat crop (looking good so far) and forego the CSA in favor of selling at Tomato-Tomato, Omaha's Indoor Farmers' Market! So, in the words of Jason Mraz, "we win some and we learn some". The draw of the farm is powerful for me and my husband. We love the connection to the land, the sounds of nature, the loveliness of the neighbors, the rhythms of the seasons, the taste of food cooked on the campfire, the beauty of the stars at night, the attraction of pseudo-self-sustainability, and the simplicity of life.

So, that catches you up on the progress at the farm. I'm glad I've finally gotten a

For those who haven't yet gotten this old joke...it's a round to it. I've finally gotten around to it. :)