Thin Air

      

     Have you ever eaten farm fresh eggs?  I mean really fresh eggs- less than 24 hour old? 

    The yolk is firm – not runny like the ones you buy in the store, which typically are at least a week or two old by the time you get them.  Fresh yolks are a bright orange.   Fresh eggs are  one of the simple pleasures and perks of living in the country….so imagine my frustration when my eggs started disappearing a month ago.  We only have three laying hens.   I would see an egg in the nest when I went outside to do the chores, go back a couple of hours later to check  if there were any more and the original egg would be missing.   

     On a good day, I should find three eggs- Golden Comet chickens  are  a dual purpose bird- great layers and good eating.    At first I thought maybe because the days were getting shorter,  they’d stopped laying for the season, but then I’d find one or two. 

        to be continued….

  

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Creeper- Low

     I remember my  dad picking ear corn when we first moved to the farm in 1967 with  a two-row John Deere picker.  The picker was  mounted on a John Deere model  70 tractor.   Our farm was relatively flat, although there were a few hill sides you had to be careful on.  Once in a while, the corn would  go down before  he was done harvesting  and it would become a tangled mass of stalks.    You  just couldn’t pick at the same pace,  The engine couldn’t handle it.  Fortunately, John Deere had designed the transmission in these tractors  with a super low gear called “creeper low”  The tractor would continue to move ahead for you  but at a snails pace.   

      Tonight I found myself shifting gears mentally into  creeper low. I do that on occasion. 

    Sometimes life feels like a tangled mass of downed corn.  There are still ears on the stalks- responsibilities that won’t go away.  I’m not able to handle everything in my life  at the same pace I normally do.  My engine starts to overheat, my clutch starts slipping, unless I downshift,  I run the risk of an engine fire or things just cease up and coming  to a grinding halt.  There’s no shame in shifting gears.

 

Stocking Up For Winter

      Tuesday my wife was putting laundry away and came across a pair of underwear- (I won’t tell you whose they were)   filled with small seeds.   “It’s a mouse“  I said- “Looks like you’ve found his   stash.”      The little bugger had been running back and forth from the kitchen counter to the laundry room carrying seeds.  I thought to myself-

A.-  That took a lot of trips and

B.- That took a lot of self control carrying all those seeds  in  his cheeks- I would have eaten  most of them doing the work.

     Here’s a picture I took of that mouse trying to get some of my Swiss cheese:

       There must be a little mouse in me because I’ve been having this urge to store up for Winter as well.

  On Monday, Denny said  he was taking 2 beef to the locker  and wanted to know if I’d be interested in a 1/2 a beef-  at $2.00 a pound.    I asked my wife if that was a good deal- she said  “When 93% hamburger sells for $1.98 that’s a good price….So we spoke for a  quarter of  beef.

(side note- Renee, when you read this- I decided I just couldn’t swap you Winston for 1/2 of a beef)

      We have 6 free range pigs currently plus our resident hog  Winston.   They go through a lot of food in a week, I’m having to buy corn   because they’ve  rooted up most of the pasture-  So as I stood there Tuesday night  giving the pigs pieces of pumpkins we grew this year, I wondered  if the pumpkin patch South of town has any extra pumpkins they’d give away- Halloween is over and maybe , just maybe  they’re just going to throw them away.   So I stopped  Wednesday  night, talked briefly with Virgil….he wasn’t sure- you never know.  Thursday morning our phone rang-  It was the pumpkin farmer-  ”Was I the guy who stopped and asked about the pumpkins?”  Well, he’d thought about it and said there was a shed full of pumpkins he was going to have to throw away and it would help him out, if I came and got them.   Friday afternoon I hauled home almost 2 pick up loads of pumpkin. 

    We still have  about 40 bushels of Super Chief, Sun Crisp and Liberty apples for sale from this years apple harvest.

    There’s a fine line between having faith  the Almighty will provide and  personal responsibility.  I’m taking my que from the mouse-  if they think it’s a good idea to stock up for winter then I do too.

Free Range Pork in Eastern Iowa

       Picture of me holding our first free range piglet in May of 2008. 

      Imagine a pig raised on apples, mulberries, clover, shelled corn and pasture, without a bunch of chemicals…. That would make  a tasty pig

        Pigs are foragers by nature.  They love to  turn up the soil with their snouts   digging for roots,  and grubs.  It’s called  the ‘free range” approach to pork production.  Nobody does it for lots of reasons- they take forever to get to market weight, it takes a lot more space per pig and even then, they will tear up a field unless you put rings in their noses, which prevents them from digging.

       I was working on a hog confinement set up this past June.  The farmer offered to give me  all of his runt pigs  for nothing.   He raises 5000 head a year and his buyers aren’t interested in the runts-  because they won’t grow as fast.  

      In my mind, a free pig is a free pig, plus we have an acre of pasture behind our barn just sitting there so   I sent an e-mail out to several  people asking if they’d be interested in me raising  a free range pig for them.   I told them right up front, they might only get to 120 to 150 pounds by the time  we needed to butcher.   I still had 20 people tell me “Yes! Count me in!!!!” 

         It’s four months later and time for an update.    We’re closing in our the time to butcher.    Our local newspaper is putting together  their  annual “pork”  edition and e-mailed me this week to see if I’d sit down with them and talk about  our free range pigs.  I had to laugh because  in my mind the jury is still out on the economic viability of this approach.

         Here’s some of what I told the reporter- 

      The whole things is  an experiment -I did grow up on a farm, we did raise pigs  but never like  this.

      The next time (if there is a next time)  here’s what I would do different: 

      #1  I would start out with healthy, normal baby  pigs instead of “free” runts.  The runts just do not convert their feed to body mass as quickly and you end up dumping more feed in them as a result.

      #2  I would give them more supplemental  feed each week.    I was trying to do this  without sticking a bunch of $ in them, but in the end, they just weren’t growing so I did start supplementing their  diet with shelled corn and now they have finally started putting on some size.

      #3  I would need to charge a lot more $ to make this financially worth my while.

      # 4 Instead of trying to raise 7 pigs on an acre of  pasture I would only do 4.  It didn’t take long for these 7  pigs to dig up that  acre of ground.

      #5  I would ask for more money up front from whomever was interested.  I ended up having to purchase a watering tank ($150)  2 sections of electric woven fence (another $ 200) and  $250 worth of corn. and it’s not over yet.

      I would say, if you stumble across this blog post, and you’re serious about getting some free range pork in 2010 drop me an e-mail. I’ll probably do 3 of them.   A  150 pound pig (live weight) will run you about $300- $400 depending on  the cost of feed.  Thoughts, comments, questions?

Footnote- for those of you that are regulars..no I am not planning to eat Winston.

    Photo of our 400 pound free range gilt- nothing tiny about her is there

A Step Back In Time….

      Here’s a picture of me all decked out in my new green lederhosen  visiting Oma and Opa on the farm. 

        I remember riding in the  wooden  corn wagon, hanging on  for dear life .

        Here’s a clip off  utube that will give you a little idea:

      Aunt Annie  came for a visit from Germany.  She  wanted  a picture of  Doggie  (me)  in the wagon.  I felt important that  the old lady with the strange accent and big camera  had taken an interest in me.   Her past was shrouded in mystery. -   There’s definitely a skeleton in the family  closet on this one but since I have no idea whose going to end up reading this, I’m going to leave well enough alone.

    There’s a saying in these parts, “You can take the boy off the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the boy.” 

    Growing up on a real farm is a  precious gift.    I didn’t appreciate it  until years later when I had children of my own.  We were living  on the corner of 6th and Gill, across from Carpenter School, our oldest was 15th.  It was getting harder to keep tabs on everyone…finally our 2nd oldest ran away for a couple of days. (We knew where she was)       It was @ this point my wife looked at me and said “I want to find a farm house- even if we have to rent.”  and the rest is history…

    We found an old acreage that needed some TLC- they’re still to be had if you keep your ears open- I know of one that’s coming up for sale  you could probably pick up for under $50,000.00- it needs a new well and septic.  My brother has a beautiful 5 acre place for sale for around $175,000.00- that includes  several out buildings, a 2 story farm house, a commercial asparagus patch, and peace and quiet.  I’m so glad  Iowa is often times stereotyped as backwards, flat and boring.  I”ll let you in on a little secret…it’s a myth the locals like to perpetuate.  If you’d like to know what it’s really like around here ..read this

   Well, it’s way past my bed time, so I’m going to wrap this up. As always, thanks for reading my stuff- g-nite- DM

A Pirate Story

     ” When my friend  and his wife were sailing in the Mediterranean , they  found themselves  being circled by 3 pirate boats- the pirates  didn’t know who they were messing with.  He had served in Viet Nam so when he   outfitted his yacht, he had installed enough firepower to defend against this very thing…..he didn’t have to fire a shot- the pirates would not have had a chance….”   excerpt of a conversation at our Bed and Breakfast

     The Summer of 2008 we had 3 different couples  make reservations to stay with us over the same weekend-  one couple ran their own B and B- the other two were related.    The older couple was from   from Florida but spent most of their time on a  yacht.   I’ll call the older man Al.

     I sensed they were pretty well to do.  The next morning at breakfast, all three couples were sitting around our long harvest table sharing stories as my wife and I served breakfast.  Al  had never stayed in a B and B before-he   could not wrap his mind around the idea of allowing complete strangers come into your home and spending the night- “Aren’t you afraid someone will steal something?” he said to all of us.

      “Why? asked one of the other guests- “Do we need to keep an eye on you?      That brought a big chuckle. 

     Al told us yachting stories-  My favorite was one about his buddy who  had been bushwacked by pirates-    the thing was, the story left me hanging-  How much fire power would you have to have to singlehandedly defend against 3 pirate boats????

        If you’re reading this and you think you might know the answer to that question- leave a comment OK?   Al mentioned his buddy had written a book about his adventures sailing the 7 seas,  I would love to get a copy of the book- if only I knew the name of it 

      The word “Hospitality” literally means “lover of strangers”-  Both my wife and I love to entertain and meet new people, so having a small B and B is a perfect fit for the two of us @ this season in our lives-  plus we get to experience  the world literally coming to our door-  We’ve had people visit from as far away as New Zealand, England,  India ,Washington State, New York State, North Carolina, California, Arizona, Texas, New Jersey, Utah, Colorado, Kansas…etc.   

     If you  ever come for a visit, make sure you bring your cook book and some stories to share-  As always, thanks for reading my stuff. DM

Albert and Alice: An Old-Fashioned Ballad

 

Albert and Alice

An Old-fashioned Ballad

Albert was a hired man

The moon was dark and new.

He hurried through chores that night

While snowy flurries flew.

 

Albert milked the cows by hand

He fed them grist and hay.

He shut tight the big barn-door

To keep the storm at bay.

 

He was musing of Alice’s dancing-

Her eyes were bright and blue.

He fussed and dressed in his Sunday best,

His shirt was white and new.

 

He put on boots and overcoat.

And snapped his earlaps down;

And started off across the lake

To see his girl in town.

 

The lake was wide and white and flat.

But he didn’t know

There was a hot spring in the lake,

Hidden by the snow.

 

Melodious waltzes amused the crowd

As Alice watched the door

For Albert’s arrival at the ball,

his steps upon the floor

 

She feared that he’d forgotten her;

Her youthful hopes were dimmed.

The blizzard screamed

across the lake

The spring hole boiled and brimmed.

 

It’s water roiled up from the deep

It teamed with frightened fishes

Who gasped and gulped the winter air-

A thousand useless wishes.

 

Yet Alice waited for her beau;

She held him in her heart.

The violin started the terminal waltz,

She watched her friends depart.

 

While the women wound

their scarves and wraps,

the lads sang Good-night Ladies

A cold hand reached

and shook poor Alice

She cried, The spring from Hades!

And Alice lived a long time more

Although she never had,

When snowstorms howled

across the lake,

The comfort from her lad.

 

Now it’s said that each year brings

A pair of swan who raise

Among the reeds a nest of cygnet

Who swim within the haze.

 

Pink in the summery dawn,

Such delight their being brings

That when they rise from the lake

The world waltzes and sings.

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      We have had guests stay in our Bed and Breakfast from literally  all around the world.   Last week, we hosted two retired college professors.   We had a delightful time.  One of them sent us a book of his poems after  they left.   This poem   comes from that  collection.    He said our place  reminded him of his grandparent’s farm house when he grew up.

      As we were serving  breakfast on  the second morning of their stay, Bill, the   other guest, told us about his time in England staying in a B and B.  He said  B and B’s are  run completely different in England.  The host would stand at attention quietly  behind the guest and wait on them  “There is definitely a class distinction  between the guest and the host.”  Bill said.

      (At this point I  just happened to be in the kitchen in my bare feet getting a cup of coffee)…I quipped, “Well, we don’t have any class around here.”  We all laughed.   Anyway, that’s  a little peek into what you might expect if you ever decide to visit.  I’ve been known to let the guests cook us a meal if  I can get away with it   (think Tom Sawyer) 

     Here is a photo of one of our recent  B and B guests cooking us  a vegan supper:

 As always, thanks for reading my stuff! DM

The Colonel may be coming to town

Photo of our rooster….. ”The Colonel“ 

     It was l dark as I  loaded  the back of my truck  with the  40 pound  crates of apples this morning . I kept thinking to myself…”Why am I doing this again? ???

It  can’t be for the money.    If that was the case, I would be way ahead to work a half a day on my regular job. 

      But as I took off for town, through the patchy fog,  I had this deep sense of satisfaction.   Not everybody gets to sell their wares and  have a booth at a farmers market.   

     Mid morning  a couple stopped to check out our Royal Court’s: (a strain of cortlands)

We started to talk about the Farmers Market in Dubuque.  I’ve never been there but have heard rave reviews on more than one occasion, so I asked the wife..”So tell me, what makes the Farmers Market in Dubuque so special? What’s the draw?”

     She said they close off some of the down town area, it’s like a carnival atmosphere.  Vendors selling fresh brewed coffee, (smell)  kids playing violins on the corners  with their music cases in front of them for tipping. (music)   Bumping into people  having spur of the moment conversations (social), not to mention, lots of fresh produce and baked goods (taste). 

        I came away from the conversation thinking to myself, I could see a small coffee shack- especially as it gets into Fall. 

     I did take our CD player with us this morning.  We  had  Alison Kraus as background music @ our booth which added to my enjoyment this morning.

      My wife, Judy (another vendor) and I carried a table to the other end of the  market this morning to help Joyce (another vendor)  get reset up.  Somebody said something about feeling like we were in a parade.  I suggested we needed to get some fruit and vegetable costumes :

-have someone parade up and down in front of the farmers market   Can’t hurt right?    So it was with these sort of random ideas  rolling around in my head that I had this thought….

Our chickens are starting to lay:

 My daughter has more farm fresh eggs than she knows what to do with.

Why not try and sell eggs at our booth for the next few weeks? 

      I told my wife, I would really like to take the Colonel (our family rooster) to the farmers market. 

Put him in a cage with a sign that says “Do not touch”

.  If you come to our booth next Saturday you may get to meet  the Colonel.

 Maybe he’ll even crow. 

          

We were vendors at the Farmer’s Market

 

“I had rather be on my farm than be emperor of the world”  

                                                                                       George Washington

        Today was a good day. 

      5:45 this morning, while it was still dark I was outside loading  wooden crates of Ginger Gold and Royal Court  apples to sell @ the  farmers market.  

     I woke up the rooster.  Normally he doesn’t start crowing until about 6 AM.  I know because normally my wife and I hear him start making noise while we’re sitting in bed sipping on our morning coffee.

      I took the camera with me to get some action photos….

 

Photo of daughter and wife setting up our table.  The sun is just coming up.

Close up of our booth.   We are members of  “Buy Fresh Buy Local”

photo of daughter and me at break time.

Sister Kim called mid morning- wanted to know if we had anymore Honey crisp.  She’d bought 10 pounds from us last week but they were all gone.  I sold her some Gingergold’s which in my humble opinion are just as tasty.

Close up of our  2009 Ginger Gold crop

Closeup of our 2009 Honey crisp

Wife making a sale

     This was our first experience being vendors @ a farmers market, and there were several highlights.  One of them was passing out apple  samples on paper plates with   carmel dip.   A little freckle faced girl about 9 or 10 stopped by with her mom-  My wife gave her a paper plate with 3 or 4 apple wedges and some caramel dip-  I’ll remember  her smile the rest of the season.

       Another highlight was meeting the other vendors at the market.  Judy was on our left:

 And Joyce was on our right:

Both of them were so helpful.   A farmer’s market is as much about community as it is buying good things to eat. 

      When we got home we were in for another surprise….our chickens have started laying eggs:

Jonathan Carr petting his first chicken earlier this Summer.  He and his mom were  from California and  were our guests in our B and B last month.

Picture of our first eggs from our Golden Comet hens.

Well, it’s time for bed.  It’s been a long day. Thanks for leaving comments! DM

We’re Headed for the Farmer’s Market

       Apple trivia:  Did you know that an apple will ripen 10 times faster at room temperature than in a frigerator?

      We have a bumper crop of apples this season.  Last night my son and I picked two cortland trees, each yielding about 7 crates of apples :

     Tonight I noticed the Suncrisp apples were starting to drop- sure enough they needed picking too.  I drove my Toyota Tacoma over to that area of the orchard and filled another 5 1/2 crates.   With the addition of our new walk in cooler, we can finally begin to  do a better job marketing and selling our apple crop.  In the past, since we didn’t have any way to keep this many apples cool, once they were picked we had just a couple of weeks to attempt to sell them or end up giving them away.  This cooler opens up lots of new opportunities for selling our crop. 

     I had someone job shadowing me today for my construction business.  I told him at 3:30 that since he was shadowing me, then to be accurate, he needed to go with me to the farmers market, because not only am I a carpenter, I’m also an Orchardist  and needed to to talk to someone  at the farmers market about selling apples on Saturday.

      Last year, I had met  Judy, one of the vendors who  had agreed to sell  our apples , rather than me setting up a booth.  I personally don’t have time to sit there for (4) hours on a Saturday morning.    Well, when we talked this afternoon, with my job shadow in tow,  she  informed  me she probably couldn’t sell for me because of some rule that she had to sell at least 51% of her own stuff at her booth.

      “How much does it cost to have a booth?” I asked her. 

     “Just $3.00 per day.” 

“Well, then I need to find someone who would be willing to man our table.” I replied

    She also told me  as of right now, no one else has apples for sale (out of 17 or 18 vendors)..so baby, it looks like we might have the market cornered on apples, at least for now.  whoo- hoo

      I called my daugher Rebekah and asked her if she was up to selling apples this  week.

    She replied “You bet!!!”, so that’s our plan.

Here’s a picture of her bagging apples yesterday  in our new clear, vented apple bags:

     I’ll let you know how it goes.   

    Side note-  the past month, ever since I started teaching part time @ the local college, I have been on a dead run.  It feels like I have 3 jobs.  Between all of this responsibility, we’ve  also hosted 2 more concerts and  and like I said, begun to harvest our apples.  I just have not had time to post much on either one of our blogs.  There have been several highlights this past month, one being a visit from another blogger…Kristina and her family.  They were able to stay the better part of 4 days with us.  I worked all of their keesters  off setting up for Apple jam (our annual music festival)   We made lots of memories, had lots of laughs.  I intend to do a blog post just about her visit, as well as Applejam…stay tuned.

Grace Comes to our Orchard

Grace: 

 An unexpected and undeserved

 act of kindness. 

Picture of our 2009 Honeycrisp crop

Picture of our 2009 Gingergold crop.

      We planted our first 40 apple trees in 2002.  In 2003 we planted 60 more.  Depending on the age and variety of the tree, typically it takes from 5 to 7 years for the trees to begin to really start bearing.  As I’ve sprayed and worked in our orchard this year,  I have repeated thought to myself…it’s going to be a bumper crop!,  I wish there was a way we could store some of these apples.”

     Most of you already know this, but you can extend the shelf life of an apple by literally months if you refrigerate it.  Depending on the variety and temperature you store the apple.  The idea temperature is right around 32 to 33 degrees under humid conditions. 

      We had a walk in cooler box given to us 2 or 3 years ago (with out the refrigeration unit), it has been sitting in our barn un- assembled until this Spring when I had the time and inclination to at least get the box put together.  Here are some photos of that process:

 

 picture of us assembling an end wall of the cooler

Picture of us pouring a pad to sit the cooler on

      Long story short, I’ve watched this beautiful bumper 2009 apple crop mature, secretly wishing we had the funds to get a refrigerator unit for it.  They are not cheap, if you go the traditional route of compressor, etc. I”ve been doing some research, I came across a device called a coolbot  that uses a household airconditioner  to cool for a fraction of the cost, both in terms of electricity and cooler parts.

       I got an e-mail about 3 weeks ago from someone asking about the cooler situation.  I told them it wasn’t going to happen this year due to funding.  They wrote back, offering to help with funding, because they felt a spiritual nudge (prompting) to do so….and the rest is history:

closeup of the cool bot control

picture of the electrician hooking up the sub-panel

    picture of the ginger-gold apples I picked last night and put in the cooler.

A  friend and  electrician offered to help me hook up the wiring to the breaker panel.  He was able to pick up  175 foot of #6 UF wire for us at a contractor’s supply store..  This is the type of wire you can bury in the ground long term…it is not cheap.  When I asked him for the invoice he simply said, it was on him (as well as his time hooking things up)…so that made two people who felt prompted to help us out with the cooler this Summer…talk about grace…..

     Finally, here’s a photo from this springs apple tree planting party I love:

Kind of reminds me of Wilson from Home Improvement.