Food Preservation Haiku

Jalepeno relish and tired boy

Bumper hot peppers
Fingers burn with canning heat
Winter warmth in jars

And Just Like That (snap fingers now)

August 5, 2010 Harvesting Wheat in Big Stone County

It hardly seems like summer has begun and now the crops are being harvested. The neighbors are bringing in the wheat and I stopped to watch and wave on the way home. The countryside is lovely green, with golden wheat, and blue skies.

When I got home the phone rang. "Hey neighbor- that was you pulled over- right? Well drop your buckets off and we'll get you that wheat you've been wanting. 15% protein this year. Almost as good a yield as last year. And last year was really good."

I said- "Excellent. Then I'll grind some flour and make you really fresh homemade bread.:
"Deal."
The gift of good family farmers and neighbors.
(Note to self: remember to bring buckets to Trevor).

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Painting by RJ Silletti- Meadow Larks

Uncle Mick came for dinner over the weekend and the conversation turned to the birds that once were on this land and now are gone. Mick even knew which page to tell me to look at in the Birds of North America guide.
Here's what once was and now is no more on this prairie:

Kingbirds- Western
Kingbirds- Eastern
Bobolinks
Bobwhite Quail
Whippoorwills
Purple Martins
Prairie Chickens
Meadowlarks

Once the ducks were so thick, that as a boy he fired one shot and bagged 10 ducks that were in a row. At times the skies had been black with ducks- thousands that would land in the field while they picked corn. Someone commented that the waterfowl flyway had shifted away from here. But the truth is they are diminished.

There is a new normal. My kids have never seen any of those birds in the landscape. Unless someone tells them, they will never know they are missing. I never really knew they were missing. I look at all the relative abundance of wildlife we have here and can't see what I didn't know was once here.
Meadowlarks would be unusual- not a part of the ecosystem I've experienced. And Big Stone County is a birders paradise.

Soon after moving here Mike and I agreed on one goal for our farm -- to have some meadowlarks return.

Deconstruction- building sweat equity

Taking down the Quonset

I probably make life on the farm seem rather, well, pastoral. But it is a lot of hard work- mostly for Mike. He and Travis, a neighbor who just graduate from high school, took down our old crushed quonset in preparation for putting up a "new" one.

We really need a standing building to house our tractor, combine, and to have a workshop, potential grain storage and maybe even house some cattle if needed.

Through some of the hottest days of the year- with heat indexes over 100- these guys deconstructed an entire building- and left the ends standing. Now that is truly sweat equity.