Wind Beneath his Wings

Earnest sails again!!

Wind speeds sustained over 30mph, gust over 40mph. Must be good for something.
Admit it. When the wind blows like that you just want to lean into the wind and fly away. I can in my dreams. I tried as a kid. Strapped styrofoam onto my arms and jumped off the top of the slide. Fell to earth.

Jens would have been the best of my 3 kids to fly, but refused to be strapped up to the kites. Said he would cry. So we turned to Earnest. He's game for anything. In fact, when I found the screen off his second story bedroom window this morning and resting on the porch roof, I didn't even question his brother/roommate. It was "dude! were you trying to get on the roof??!!" It seems a toy had been thrown up onto the porch roof below his window.


So Earnest got fitted with some wings and got some loft, but it didn't last long as they were shredded in seconds.

When Mike was in college at Bemidji State (before going to the U) he had a teacher who would constantly question whether he had been driven mad! mad I tell you!! by the relentless prairie wind. Just this morning Mike was telling me how the wind always blows like this when filling the silos. No matter which silo had to be filled from which direction, it was always sand blasting him in the face with corn plant materials.

The wind blasts the garden plants, drives fine dust into your pores, knocks the geese and ducks from the sky, and makes a strong, determined woman have to call home for a ride because she can't walk into the wind another mile. Poor Happy turned around 1/2 down the driveway and went back home (a first). She knew that the wind was just too much for her poor old body.

And so we may as well have some fun in that wind and turns those dreams into reality. Fly up into the sky tethered by joy and love (and madness).That, and we're getting a wind turbine. I only wish it were up today.

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly-- early spring local foods in Minnesota

The very last of the "fresh" beets... they lasted until April

The nettles are bursting out of the ground and provide a wonderful spring tonic for the blood and soul. I've cooked two great nettle meals and plan to spend the afternoon/evening 'putting up' stinging nettles by freezing and drying. I'll probably sip some nettle tea as I work wearing thick rubber gloves. Touching fresh stinging nettles hurts (hence the name) and last year I ended up with swollen fingers because I thought I had developed a 'relationship' with the nettles that would protect me from their painful pricks. Yeah... right....

Before the nettles sprouted, the local foods were getting to pretty slim pickings. We're fine for local meat- chicken, lamb, beef, pork. We still have sweet corn and squash in the freezer. But the frozen strawberries, broccoli, pea pods, green beans, spinach, basil, summer squash, etc... are long gone. We still have some potatoes sprouting in the pantry - they're delicious, but will probably become this year's seed potatoes since they stored so well.

Back to the nettle meals, I made Lamb Vindeloo which is basically a curry in which the meat is braised in vinegar, the curry added and simmered, then after 30 minutes add coconut milk to make a nice sauce. I added the raw nettle and sauteed them with the meat just before adding the coconut milk. It made a delicious saucey lamb dish that all 5 family member loved!

I have to tell you that the day after we had that nettle sauce, I felt like a new person. I swear that nettle is just the thing a person needs to get winter out of their system.

Last night I made a nettle quiche. Simple recipe: saute nettles with garlic. Wisk 12 eggs with about 2/3 C milk. Put nettles, couple handfuls of grated cheese, and egg mixture into a pie crust (I used Pillsbury- not from scratch). Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes.

A suitable meal (where's the meat?) and delicious with a side of pickled beets and fresh fruit from Bonnies Hometown Grocery Store in Clinton.

We are desperate to use eggs as our chickens are at full laying power, producing 4 dozen a day. We don't yet have the market to sell that many eggs in Big Stone County... So this evening I may be making pickled eggs as well as putting up nettles.

The soup pictured below was made from the last of the winter veggies-- carrots, beans, and potatoes and ham from Pastures a Plenty (nearby Kerkhoven, MN). This ham has a great unique smokey flavor that is heavy on cloves. Adds a special taste to the beautiful soup.


One more thing I learned from Audrey Arner, Moonstone Farms, is that it is much easier to pick what natures offers rather than (in addition to) gardening, which requires tilling, planting, weeding, harvesting throughout the season. Nettles are free and abundant and I can pick them right out my back door- even closer than my garden. And yes- I have the kind of yard where nettles grow.

Spring at last, spring at last...

It is completely and utterly spring. it was 37 degrees this morning and made it to 70 degrees this afternoon. The grass is green, the farmers are mobilizing, and there is not a moment of silence to be found on an early morning walk. Not from any mechanization, but from the natural world completely bursting forth in song and noise.

Here's an interesting exercise-- focus on just one sense at a time. This morning I walked and listened. My feet on the gravel, geese, ducks, rana pipiens (the frogs), red wing and yellow headed blackbirds. I've come to love the song of the yellow headed black bird... It has a lyrical beautiful song with a rasping croak at the end. I long to hear their call. I know just where to find them.

A couple days ago I stood facing east my toes to the edge of the water, my eyes closed, drinking in the spring. When SPLASH!! a muskrat slapped the water just 2 feet away from me. I jumped and gave a startled scream. He swam about 4 feet away and made a big splash again. Playful, territorial... whatever. I like to watch them swimming. I see them everyday.

Then Sunny comes trotting up from behind with an offering of good will and bumps the back of my leg with a freshly dead 2+ foot long member of the rodent family. A huge mink -- it's body about as thick as a huge summer sausage. Again with the screaming. But Sunny is not detoured. She runs around me in tight circles proud to offer some really fresh meat to her family. Poor thing wasn't expecting me to yell "ewwwww ewwwww ewwwwww-- get AWAY from me!"

Last sound of the morning was the lure of loud frogs in the prairie preserve. As I crossed the prairie I could hear them from just over a small ridge. I made my way there... I'd been there before. This year the grass is really slow in growing and so I can see the contours of the land so much better. There was what looked like a hollow- about 30 feet around. I made me think of a buffalo wallow- and maybe it was. This low spot had water in the bottom and it was filled with the sound of frog.

When a person focuses all their attention on just one sense it can be overwhelming. Just overwhelming to be present and mindful of what is.

In beauty may I walk...

All day long may I walk.
Through the returning seasons may I walk.

Beautifully will I possess again.
Beautifully birds . . .
Beautifully joyful birds

On the trail marked with pollen may I walk.
With grasshoppers about my feet may I walk.
With dew about my feet may I walk.

With beauty may I walk.
With beauty before me, may I walk.
With beauty behind me, may I walk.
With beauty above me, may I walk.
With beauty below me, may I walk.
With beauty all around me, may I walk.

In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk.
It is finished in beauty.
It is finished in beauty.


A Navajo Indian Prayer of the Second Day of the Night Chant (anonymous)

When Good Things Happen to Good People

Last Saturday night found Main Street Clinton, MN packed with cars and an overflow crowd at the Memorial Building. It was a community gathering in support of a steadfast neighbor who found himself with a severe health crisis.

In all honesty, it is the first of such events I've ever been to in my life. Sure, I've seen posters and even sent in an occasional check or stuck a couple bucks into the coffee cans sitting on convenience store counter tops. But I hadn't ever attended or brought food to contribute. So, it was another of life's firsts for me.

The particular gentle man for whom this event was held is, as one of the people in line for dinner said, "an old-school good guy." He didn't just offer to help everyone, even those he didn't know well, he just stepped in an lent a hand. For example, just last fall I went to Ortonville to pick up some furniture. This kind hearted "Norwegian" bachelor farmer was in the store and quietly lugged a few loads to my car with a smile on his face. I first met him in church where, week after week and year after year, he ushered the congregants in and out. He was the youngish guy with a great head of dark hair and gentle smile. Being usher, you don't exchange a lot of words, but tend to each person as they come and go from the sanctuary.

And then just like that, he's struck with cancer and goes from being a strong vital farmer to being, well, disabled. A lesson for all of us about this ephemeral life.

And so on Saturday night 500 people showed up (in a town of 400 people) to help out a quiet, solid neighbor, friend, and relative. And I think 'what a treat to know that you are beloved-- beloved by your community.' In life, you seldom see such a dramatic display of what you mean to the people around you. Generally speaking, a person has to die to have such a gathering in their memory/honor.


So I don't mean to be flippant, because a sudden and traumatic health crisis is a tragedy. But sometimes, just sometimes really good things happen to really good people.

Last Picture Snow

The last of good sledding for winter 2010-2011

Even though we woke up this morning to snow covered fields, these are the last snowy pictures I'm posting for winter 2010-2011. By all accounts, it's been a long winter. I think we're approaching 100 inches of snow, record snow days, and community fatigue with all things dark, cold and wintery.


Spring is so much later this year. All our Girl Scout cookies were eaten before there was any sign of snow melt or migrating birds. At least the birds knew enough to delay coming north this year (or so it seems). I'm afraid I missed the waterfowl migration this year. Too much traveling to other places. But I did get to see a few swans, geese and ducks as they passed through the farm. Not in as many as years past. The Pelicans are returning flock by flock. They are so dramatic and rhythmic in the sky.

Landlocked (or My Big Wet Squishy County

Road going north from our farm (note: the land on either side of the road is our normal crop land)

A few days ago the Otrey township supervisor stopped by our farm to let us know the road had been washed out to the south of our farm. Not a huge problem since we can get off our farm by going north. Then on Monday, the flood waters washed out the road to the north of us. We were landlocked.

From my point of view it is a grand adventure-- Headline: "Prairie Family Landlocked on Farm." Mike didn't find it anywhere near as invigorating as I did. In fact, it gave him nightmares. Within a day or so the water was down, the county brought in a few loads of gravel, and we were mobile once more. Hardly even an inconvenience. Since it is still April, there's still every hope that we'll be able to get crops in the field in good time.

As it turns out, one of the reasons I had to drive away from my lovely farm was to get to a meeting at the U of M's Center for Transportation Studies. The juxtaposition of having washed out township and county roads at the exact same time that I have to drive to this prestigious Center to discuss sustainable transportation over the next 25 years is priceless.

I am grateful for good roads. I am grateful for a responsive and caring township and county. I am grateful for the speed and comfort of individual car transportation. I don't take it for granted-- at least not all of the time.

But how can we as a society continue to support the extensive transportation infrastructure that we have? Oil is at $112.12 a barrel at this moment. Our asphalt roads are, simply put, concentrated hard packed oil. Besides which, I do not believe that the earth is a gooey nougat of unlimited oil. We're going to have to rethink this sooner or later. Maybe our gravel roads are easier to maintain and I am THANKFUL that they are, but really-- we are the only family living on this road. Those two flood washed out road repairs-- they will be done for us and for all practical purposes, only us.

I got into a fight on a RUPRI (Rural Policy Research Institute) call last month. It was a nationwide call to talk about the opportunities and impacts of renewable energy on rural communities. I said "hey! this is our chance to discuss how we can build communities around the sources of renewable energy. Instead of building the infrastructure to bring energy from it's source (like our windy prairie) to concentrated populations areas (big cities), we can bring people to live where the energy is." Oh boy! That started the sparks flying. And when the argument got too hot, I was accused of not understanding the Laws of Physics. How do you spell "p-shaw"? Seems to me that it is the Law of the Center Sucking from the Periphery. The flow of resources is unidirectional- to centers of power.

Enough already.

If I had my druthers, I'd build up this rural renewable energy system with a switch that says "Us First." When energy gets to be in short supply, we flick the switch and keep our own lights on. Then watch as the people start flowing out the cities and to places like Buffalo Ridge, where they can still keep up on Facebook because the juice is stilling running there.

Well, here's hoping the roads are good enough that they can still reach us. Or maybe, I'll be happy to be land locked with a nice steady turbine blowing in the breeze.


[KJD Notes: This post may be a big more vitriolic than I actually feel. I suspect I'm affected by the closing this week of Minnesota Rural Partners. We lost another great advocated for thriving rural places....]

The Best Laid Schemes of Mice and Men

Our corn waiting to be planted... May 27, 2011

Any farmer seeing this picture will know that it's not looking good for us to get that corn seed planted in 2011. Time's up folks. The window is closed on planting corn in Big Stone County. Or I should say the window is closed on getting a corn crop planted and harvested. Same difference.

Time for plan B.

But first I'll reflect on plan A. A plan that was based on, well..., a form of greed. The decision process was not unlike the familiar "Make hay while the sun shines." Instead it was "Grow corn while the commodity prices are in the stratosphere." Corn at $7.50 a bushel was just simply too promising to say "no" to. Yeah, sure, we were going with the morally superior Organic Corn, but corn all the same. And we weren't going to market it as organic, just deliver it to the elevator with all the other RoundUp Ready GMO Corn. The decision was simply a "count your chickens (or corn as the case may be) before they hatch" calculation that we could make a chunk of farm payment off those 40 acres of corn-- even a fair to middlin' crop.

The sky got progressively darker this morning until is started to rain at 10:30am. When I stepped to the door as the rain started I yelled "NOooooo!!!" It is the second time this year that we were close, really close, to getting into the field when the rain started back up.


To add insult to injury, 80% of the State's corn crop is already in the field. You may not know me personally, but I don't take kindly to being in the trailing 20% of anything (except maybe in youth and those days of being the youngest person in the room are fading fast as well). I don't mind being on the fringe, but let's make it the leading fringe please. So it's depressing as hell, frankly, to be looking at this from my farm house window.

View of our silos from my 2nd floor window

Which leads me, finally, to Plan B. Oh yeah. There is no Plan B. Plan A is bought, paid for, and sitting on pallets on our machine shed floor.

One of my rare talents is to recite Robert Burns poems in my made up 1785 Scottish accent, with strong overtones of Minnesotan and a hint of Iron Range. But since the old Scottish is indecipherable, I'll leave you with the standard English version of the great Mr. Burns' last two stanzas of his immortal "To a Mouse, on Turning Her up in Her Nest with a Plough." Oh and ask me sometime to recite this for you... although you may have to buy me a couple beer first. And frankly, that's sounding pretty good about now. As they say "it's 5pm somewhere."

But little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!


Still you are blest, compared with me!
The present only touches you:
But oh! I backward cast my eye,
On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see,
I guess and fear!