Jumble of Activity

The past two weeks have been crazy busy, with no time to blog, but I will  post a jumble of photos and  try to catch up a bit.

Poblano is growing into a handsome little bull calf (he hasn't been transformed into a steer yet.)  I have been working to  become his friend and now that he has tasted grain, pears and cookies, he likes me considerably  more.  He  enjoys being scratched under the chin. At first he wouldn't come up to me but if I walked through the pasture he would sneak up and follow behind me. But tonight he came running to meet me!  Next, halter training.  

The most exciting news is that younger daughter Cadence is home from film school in Prague!  She will be working part- time editing a documentary for a nearby filmmaker, is seeking a second job, and is working on getting her husband here from Mexico --the visa process is daunting. She seems happy to be back on the farm--and immediately dove into harvesting, preserving, weeding, and bonding with the animals, She especially loves the turkeys.

The turkeys must like her, too. At least they were sure showing off for her.

In preparation for a big farm event, The Second annual Farm Fair and Cow Puja, we are doing some major purging and reorganizing in the barn. The past two weekends Rog has been  cleaning the loft, which was full of tons of  scrap wood, fencing, buckets, etc. Now that you can see the floor, I am thinking that with a  big window, this might  make a sweet studio space...But the plan is to move stuff currently stored on the  ground floor up to the loft so we have covered barn space for  vendors if the weather doesn't cooperate. (Please, let it be sunny!)

Being by nature last minute, of course we didn't actually start planning the Farm Fair/Puja until  5 weeks before the event - it is coming up September 30th.   I pulled together a poster design and created a farm website  so we can promote the event. We have a dozen awesome artist vendors lined up to sell their work. There will several local bands performing music all afternoon. The Trolley will bring people from downtown - which will be a festive way to get here and will reduce parking congestion.  There will be tasty food --Chef Johnny Mango will  use seasonal veggies from our farm garden.  T-shirts are in the works. So much to do still - but it is going to be so  much fun!  There is no admission fee and you are all invited!  For updated details, visit the website or the Squash Blossom Farm  FB page.

Last week we noticed the solar panels were only producing about half their usual output of electricity. At first I thought it might be  because they were dust-covered - we haven't had rain in weeks and being on a gravel road, everything is very dusty.  So, we hosed down the solar panels, but only gained minor improvement. We called up Curt, our installer and he came right out to check on the system. There is a malfunction with inverter and it has been sent to the manufacturer to be repaired. It kind of hurts to miss out on electricity generation on these perfect sunny days, but it should be repaired and hooked up again by the end of the week. 

We haven't had the time or resources to make much progress on our aquaponics system this summer, but we have been enjoying the silo pond. Remember the three goldfish we put in temporarily last spring? They must be happy, because  now we have a rather large school of baby goldfish.  There is also a leopard  frog living in the pond and this cute toad, which I often find sitting on the faux lilypads.

A friend gave me a funky retro light globe that was hanging in bedroom of the house she recently purchased.  I took it apart, inserted the workings of a  solar walkway light, and  set it onto a gazing ball stand.  I set it next to the morning-glory-covered gate (it will look  great  if those  morning glories ever decide to bloom!)

Here is a blurry handheld shot of it at night, lit up.

Speaking of recycled whimsy,  I wanted to post a  photo of the garden shed door close up - so you can see the window. It is made from a large vintage sandwich glass plate. The morning light shining through the glass is delightful.

This morning,  a lot of flies had gotten into the milking parlor. I am getting very  accomplished at fly-swatting. I think my successful kill rate  must be  over 90%. I have gotten great at spotting flies hiding in the straw on the floor, on the rim of LaFonda's feed bowl, the walls,  wood trim,  beams and celing. Those flies are tricky. Because there were more flies than usual, I also hunted them down in the hall approaching the stall Suddenly I noticed pencil writing on one of the beams!  "Otto Kohn, Jr, " and the date--maybe 1920? The barn was built in 1914, so perhaps it was the signature of one of theAmish workmen who built the barn addition.  I need to go to the history center one of these days and research this farm.  I  love living in this place with so many stories and secrets!

Just a few more days of milking and then I will dry LaFonda off.  As much as I will appreciate freeing up  that hour in the morning, I am sure going to miss our milking sessions. I think she will too- she sure seems happy when I call  her to be milked! She is the most delightful bovine--very deserving of a Puja celebrating her!

Garden Belles

About 5 years ago I created a painted garden bell from an old air tank for  a recycled art show. I loved how the bell turned out, but while hanging it from a tree for the show, my ladder fell over and I broke both bones in my right wrist and both bones in my right ankle.  I healed up just fine,  but I have never made another bell...until now!

My father obtained some air tanks from the welding supply place down the road and cut them in half for me. He brought me several when they visited last month. Rog affixed some  hardware to hang them and I painted the first one last weekend.

I decided to paint series of women and flowers --and call them "Garden Belles."  This is the Rose Belle.  I wasn't   totally satisfied with the aesthetics of the off-the-shelf hanging hardware Rog devised, but it turns out that one of his Nodding Wild Onions bandmates, Mike, is also a welder and blacksmith.  Mike offered to weld on some simple hanging loops for me. (We may collaborate on designing something more artsy in the future)

He finished the first bell yesterday--not only did he weld on a hanging loop,  he  created a nifty little hook and constructed a leather-covered mallet for striking the bell! Today I painted the second garden belle - the  Sunflower Belle.

This is how it sounds.

The Sunflower Belle bell is larger than the Rose Belle.  I hope to complete three belles in time for the Sargents Garden Party on July 12th, where I have been invited to sell my art. After that, they will be for sale in the Squash Blossom Farm Store.

The Turkeys See the Light

The irrepressibly curious turkeys inspected the cool, retro lamp I got at  the Salvation Army thrift store yesterday for $2.50.  It seemed to meet with their approval.

I have been buying this 1970's style of  lamp whenever I come across one  inexpensively since we  moved to the farm. I have acquired many similar lamps in the typical 70's  green and orange colors, but this is the first specimen with blue glass I have found.

No, our house isn't decorated with these retro lamps. I have been disassembling them for use as fence post  finials. Rog mounted them on the fence posts along our driveway and I inserted solar-powered landscape lights. They glow like glass pumpkins and  squashes at night, guiding guests in  and casting groovy light patterns on the driveway. We also stacked a couple on either side of our patio gate for a more colorful entrance.  Silly, but I get a kick out of them.

An Extravagance of Egg Cartons

With longer days, our hens are starting to lay eggs much more frequently - we are getting 9 to 12 eggs a day from our 20 hens. That is more than we can keep up with, especially since we haven't been baking for the Farmer Market this winter. We have been making yummy, rich puddings, making deviled eggs for potlucks, and gifting neighbors and friends with farm-fresh eggs in an effort to keep up.

Every dozen eggs requires on egg carton, and we totally ran out. So, I put a plea on Facebook. My FB friends came to the rescue to the tune of 76 egg cartons! That ought to last us through May. Thanks, everybody!

More Granary Grandeur

We found some wonderful oak flooring a few weeks ago on Craiglist, for sale by somebody who was remodelling. This weekend, Rog got very ambitious and installed the floor in the granary, with a little help from me, a lot of help from Cadence, and close supervision by Nutmeg.

We rented a power stapler and compressor, which probably reduced the work by three-fourths. Because the lengths of flooring had previously been sawn to somebody else's dimensions, the trickiest part was finding pieces in lengths that required minimal cutting and didn't waste much.
Last weekend Rog had taken out the wood stove and cut out the floor below the brick hearth. He re-installed the bricks so they would be nearly flush with wood floor. The granary has no heat or electricity, but we strung a very long extension cord from the barn for light and power and the little parlor stove did a great job keeping the building warm. We plan to re-chrome the decorative metal trim on the wood stove and we still need to grout the bricks and cover the fireboard behind the stove - perhaps with tile, or maybe old decorative metal ceiling tiles, if we can find some.
The finished floor! We had planned to leave the barn board walls rustic and natural, but now we are thinking they might need some sprucing up to match the elegance of the floor --and to make it not feel like you are inside a wooden crate. This building is shaping up to be pretty darn cute, and nearly every building material has been purchased on a shoestring, salvaged and recycled.

A Barn With A View

Before we even moved into this farm we bought three large double-pane windows we found on Craigslist, thinking they would be useful someday for a greenhouse.

Today Rog got all ambitious and installed them in the south wall of the barn. We have been mulling over the idea of someday transforming that corner of the barn into a greenhouse, but for now the wall of glass will provide some nice solar gain and natural light.
Sara and Cadence provided muscle power.
As soon as the windows were in, the cows gathered around to check out the improvements (they usually don't seem to like change.) Lariat was intrigued by her reflection in the window, staring for a long time and mooing at it.
Reuben and Lasso watched as Rog cleaned the inside of the windows and then smudged their wet noses against the outside he had just cleaned.

I am so amazed by Rog's handyman talents! The new windows are magical. I dragged an old overstuffed chair next to the windows - I envision it will be a good spot to settle in this winter with a mug of hot tea(probably in my warm jacket and boots), soak up a little sunshine and watch the cows in the snowy pasture.

Productive & Constructive

The summer is whizzing by way too fast! It's mid-August and it finally got hot enough that tomatoes are ripening --these, our very first garden tomatoes, were delectable with garden basil. When/If the crop ever ripens, we will be up to our eyeballs in tomatoes - the plants are so productive, loaded with fruit.

We people are being productive as well, but have MANY projects to complete before fall. Some of our recent accomplishments:
In order to make the clay pizza oven more impervious to rain, Rog decided to cover it with a mosaic. With the design assistance of the chickens, he covered the oven with beach-worn tile shards we gathered years ago on the Amalfi Coast, tile scraps from previous home improvement projects, and boxes and boxes of pretty rocks we have accumulated over the decades.
The mosaic layer seems to have done the trick--and made the oven much more beautiful. Now to build the bigger brick oven...
The small square windows on the old chicken coop were rather decrepit already, but one morning we discovered one of the windows seriously broken. Owl vandalism, perhaps? (A great-horned owl has been feasting on our free-range chickens lately!)
So, this weekend I replaced all four windows and figured out how to make them operable so the chickens can have a breeze on hot, steamy nights. The windows are now installed and primed. I still need to put in the stops and paint the finish coat. It looks so much more civilized.
The granary project is progessing slowly but surely. Cadence decided to build a loft over the future bathroom and part of the kitchen. She and Rog constructed the loft a couple weeks ago. Note the cute row of square windows we found on Craigslist--they have the same character as most of our outbuilding windows (my chicken coop!) but are very energy efficient.
Now Rog is installing tile on the granary kitchen floor (under Nutmeg's supervision). The floor will be a crazy patchwork of architectural tile samples that were discontinued and going to be discarded.
We have mountains of small branches and debris from our recent tree-felling. Rog had created a huge brush pile in the center of the campfire circle which we couldn't burn for weeks because it was too dry. The chickens preferred that brushy nest for their nightly roosting spot. Finally we got some rain and one night last week Rog decided to burn one of the piles in a big bonfire. The chickens gathered around their bonfire nest, perched on the stumps, singing something that sounded sort of like "kum-ba-yah."

The Progress of the Projects

Last week, Cadence spent a couple of extremely cold days attaching 2x4's to the granary floor to support the new subfloor. We were able to find nearly enough scrap lumber on the farm to do the job.
Nutmeg supervised.
On Friday we pulled our trusty little trailer to Minneapolis where we got salvaged particle board for $3 a sheet at the ReUse Center. We also discovered a building supply liquidation center that had a fabulous deal on insulation. Our Vibe got very crummy gas mileage pulling this un-aerodynamic load home.

Rog and Cadence got the insulation and subfloor installed over the weekend. Some of the particle board has to be screwed down yet.
In the meanwhile, I screened off the top of the partition wall in the chicken coop/potting shed (I don't know if chickens could fly over it, but better safe than sorry) and installed a door. It's a rather fancy door for a chicken coop, but it was only $4 at the ReUse Center.

Sara built some snowpigs to add an agrarian element to a our farmyard.
She assigned the curly tails to me. Hey-they were challenging!