The Way Not to Do Things

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!