Rain! Rain! Go Away!!!

Oooh!  With a bold title like that, I probably just cursed our farm with another several weeks of rain!

The rain has been nearly non-stop this season and it has created several challenges in the orchard!  We've not been able to get out and spray when we need to and as a result we have some pretty serious disease out there.  It looks like we've lost the majority of our Gala, Jonagold and Braeburn crops this year.  The one that hurts the most is the Galas.  They are our biggest producer.  Time will tell, but right now, it isn't very promising.

When the Apple Farmer went out for his last spray, he commented the next morning that he hadn't ever tried to spray in so much water.  He left ruts in places we've never had ruts!

Now, in California, when the earth moves, we all rock and roll!  In Missouri, when the earth moves, it literally picks up and leaves!  Thats exactly what has happened to our drive way, as well as other areas of erosion!  But just down the highway a couple of miles, some neighbors of ours have lost a good percentage of their farm.  This land has gone the way of this little fork of the Grand River!  This picture was taken just a couple of days after they burned the house down.  It'd sure be a problem for our little bridge if the house decided to up and leave too!

You might be able to see in this photo, but the farm was planted in beans and a good portion of those have gone away too!

The Orange pipes are the phone lines since the poles headed south a couple of weeks earlier.  The porch to the house is only a couple of feet from the river's edge now.  Used to be 30-40 feet away.  Used to be lots and lots of tall trees, but you can already guess where they went about a month ago!

We've had quite a bit of dammage along our ditches and seasonal creeks.  Sometime last week this tree went down and as we went to check it out we noticed a half a dozen live trees that had been blown over by the winds when the ground became super saturated!

Problem is, we really need rain since we have no means of irrigating in the orchard, so its hard to be ungrateful after our first three years of sparse rain and dinky little apples in the fall!

We Went Hunting!

The Lilacs are open!

The May Apples are poppin' up all over!

The toilet is dripping with condensation!

(No pictures of that one! I hate sweaty toilets - its a humidity thing!)

Yes! It is that time of the year again!

Time to go mushroom huntin'! And man was it ever a fun hunt this year! The Apple Farmer got to join us this time. Does that count as a date?

Welcome to our ditch!

Hunting isn't for the feeble hearted!
Shlop! Shlop! Shlop!
Its a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it!


One of the first sightings!
And after this, you could hear calls of sightings fairly consistently the rest of the time we hunted!

Time to dig up a new recipe that doesn't call for cracker crumbs!

And time to go home and clean up - lots of poison ivy in our happy little ditch!

Don't my boys look so excited? They ought to be! They accompanied me to a ladies' social club this afternoon!

I'll bet you already see that there is a story behind this!

There is! Hopefully I am remembering it correctly! At one time, the county extentions had women's clubs that met monthly. They met and socialized and discussed mainly matters of the home and community. They shared ideas, how-tos and learned new things. Eventually, many years ago, the county extentions stopped this program. But one little club never stopped meeting! What a lovely group of ladies! And so it was a great honor to be invited to join them this afternoon! We were asked to tell about our orchard and our family. So the boys and I told our story!

It was so fun to listen to the minutes from the previous meeting and to hear a thank-you letter read for the service they provided making bibs for hospitalized patients.

It was fun to hear the ladies talk about how their Hostas had just poked up out of the ground - they went on a field trip to a greenhouse that specializes in Hostas and each planted several last year. It was so exciting to learn that Marcella had just had her 90th birthday and had received 123 birthday cards!! And out of the 123, there were only 2 duplicates - they were lovely butterfly cards!

It was great to find out I was not the only one who caved and planted corn and beans! They all told me that I would need to watch for a cold snap around May 6th, but that if the frost got my beans I could always replant! One lady, I think she was a Mrs. Brown, always grows sweet potatoes in her garden.
We played Bingo! I won a geranium plant!!

And we all sang happy birthday to Marcella and enjoyed eating the beautiful birthday cake! And as a thankyou gift, they presented me with a beautiful geranium covered in pink blossoms!!

It was a wonderful afternoon. The boys came home bragging about three compliments they were paid for their good behavior, which means I owe them each suprises multiplied by three... I wish people would stop paying them compliments!! Its getting pretty expensive at our house to have well behaved children!

Lettuce, Peas, Beans and Corn - Oh My!

While I was playing and having the time of my life in Colorado, I took the President down the water slide with me at the rec. center that Doug and Teresa are members at. He wasn't planning on going down this great big slide. Leave it to his mother to have other ideas! He needed to try it once and then he could tell me "No" after that. So down we went. He may have had his fingers pinching his nose before we even finished rounding the first corner!

In retrospect. He loved the slide. He really hated landing in the water. I can't understand why. What is so bad about getting a little water splashed in your face? Well, apparently lots - I just have seemed to have forgotten that little tidbit as I've grown older. On a side note, his little sister went down four times and loved it! I, on the other hand, really didn't like hitting the water either. For me, it wasn't the water splashing in my face. It was all about how my feet hit the bottom of the pool and the ensuing pain as the rest of the day progressed. I don't seem to have good luck with water parks and slides. I broke my tail bone sliding down a kiddie slide with Human Resources in Roseville, CA, when the President was a little baby. At least nothing was broken this time. My knee gave me trouble at first and after the pain went away there, I realized that I still had some minor nagging pain left in my ankle. No biggie! So I decide to run on it. Except yesterday, my ankle really wasn't very happy about that! Ended up at the chiropractor yesterday evening and am feel a bit better today. Instead of running, I spent the day in the garden, man handling a beast of a tiller. I consider that a workout! I've worked up a new garden plot for the third and final time! I wish we would have tilled up this spot our first year here! The soil is beautiful! No more gardening in sticky clay! Wow, I'm so lucky!

The Attorney and Human Resources planting Sweet Sugar snow peas and Strike green beans. The green beans were my naughty for the day. I can't seem to manage to get through the day without doing SOMETHING naughty, and this is it. Our last day of frost for our growing zone is Mother's Day. I'm supposed to plant these after all danger of frost... but I didn't. Because I didn't, we likely will end up with a snow storm and a hard freeze and I can pretty much kiss our apple crop goodbye! I guess this beautiful warm weather got the best of me! We shall see, in a few weeks, how my gamble with the elements turns out.

This picture gives a pretty good idea what size the plot is. I fully intended to use the square foot garden method from here on out. And I am! In some of my other smaller beds near the front door. But I was needing soil and it was going to be too tedious to try and get the 4 foot by whatever foot beds all figured into my slightly slanted and uneven lawn! So the plot won out.

The President and Ms. Princess are playing with Lizzy, our sweet Araucana Hen. She lays green eggs. Seriously!

I had to add this one. Fitting because we finished planting our seed for the day and so we watered. But check out his expression! Sooo cute!!

A New Season and the First Spray!

Kinda makes one a little nervous when the farm equipment like the tractor and the spray tank start right up after sitting through winter! That hasn't EVER happened to us before, until now! There is always one form of drama or another!! So this year's first spray was as simple as turning on the tractor, rinsing the spray heads, filling up the tank, and taking a video clip! Isn't it a beautiful morning?!?! It is just amazing how quickly things have greened up in the last two days! And as thrilled as we are about that, we are hopeful that bloom is still a little ways off - it is still a bit too early for bloom!

The 5K Puzzle

I'm starting to experience a running burn-out! I've been feeling it coming on for a couple of weeks now, and because I really want to meet my 5K goal this coming September, my burn-out concern has been in the fore-front of the peanut in my noggin. So, while at the grocery the other evening, when the Runners Times magazine reached out to me and beckoned, I followed its call. I really try to avoid purchases like these because they are not on the grocery list! So I thumbed through it looking for an excuse to ignore the temptations and put it back on the rack! I didn't put it back on the rack...

It has been a very educational and fabulous read! I've tried to order books on interlibrary loan on the topic of running, including one very highly recommended by my sister-in-law, Teresa, the "Chi of Running," and the books have been unavailable. So this read was perfect timing!

A fabulous article, called The 5K Puzzle, has me all charged up again with a whole new perspective. After reading the article for the fourth time, I am certain that my burnout has everything to do with working too hard! Too hard? Yup! Too hard! I'm a tough coach when it comes to coaching myself to run! LOL I drive myself for improvement and focus on mileage for the training log! But I'm a changed self coach and will refer to this article all the way up to race time! It has reminded me that the reason we run is for fun.... duh! I kinda forgot that part! It is full of guidelines for improvement without over doing and ruining the efforts made to improve pace, endurance, stride, efficiency and even recovery!

So there it is! Goodbye burnout! Hello fun! And today was fun!! Tuesday was a medium run, which, as a beginner, the short, medium and long runs will not vary greatly yet. So I decided this means that my long run is likely my hilly road run - I can accomplish it in around 40 minutes. My short run is likely about a mile and a half, roughly 15 minutes (a tad over that because I'm really slow!)- I can run that and still have plenty "gas in the tank," so my medium run is going to be somewhere in between and so I aimed for a 30 minute run (note the focus on time, not distance - see, the article is already working for me!). I tried to aim for more level terrain - it was a beautiful morning!! Found some, but still, not much!

Going Up! Up! Up!

Running through one of our hayfields towards Joe's house - isn't the Amish Saltbox Style architecture so neat?
My running buddy - she can't run on the highway with me, but she can run around the farm with me!!

Much better! Level ground! But check out all of the pruning that still needs to happen!

Running up through the hayfield to the north side of the orchard - up! up! up!

Ah - level for a teensy bit with a lovely lift in a short bit!

I can handle this one!! Down! We call this The Fairway - I'd be lying if I said we've never considered a driving a golf ball down that direction!

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

- a chinese proverb

Simple Pleasures!

There are many things that I can really feel cranky about, but that kind of an attitude doesn't help matters and frankly, its a waste of energy. I can't change the things that are out of my control, and so I have really been trying hard to change my attitude, because that IS something that I can control. This morning I had joy in finding simple pleasures while I worked out in the yard. I thought I would share some of them with you!

She isn't tormenting the critters in the chicken pen, she is just loving them!

A good summer read next to the freshly weeded kitchen garden.

Yum! Yum! Yum! Can't change the fact that my berries decided to ripen right in the middle of the Girl's Camp preparations, but we are going to enjoy a big fresh strawberry pie this evening!

A visit from a feline who enjoys playing with my dirty toes.



Irises, peonies, holly hocks and lilies in various stages of growth!

The Apple Farmer's First Spray of the Year

The Apple Farmer has been extremely busy with work and his church calling as Branch President. He is soooo behind on orchard chores! But it is OK because we KNOW that if we put the Lord first, he will make sure everything works out OK for us. This has always been the results in countless situations. This is the best kind of insurance you can get, in my personal opinion, but this post isn't about my personal opinion so on with the story! The apple farmer finally had the opportunity to do his first spray of the season. Everything seemed to go wrong in trying to accomplish this simple task! The pump on the Berthoud wouldn't work so he had to dismantle it between trips out of town and he happened to get it working last Monday evening at about the same time the winds died down. Perfect for spraying!

He got well into his spray and started having trouble with the alternator and losing his lights and power. He explained to me and what I understood the problem to be was, "bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla. So I bla, bla blabbed and bla bla bla, fa la la la la, la la la la." I told him that it was great he figured out the problem. Then he runs out again to finish the spray. I go to bed with the peace of mind that he bla blabbed his tractor.

Next morning, the conversation went something like this:

me: stirring in my sleep

him: I didn't finish spraying last night because my tractor caught on fire.

me: stirring some more in my sleep trying to figure out why someone was trying to wake me up and why they are saying "fire."

Me: What?

Him: My tractor caught on fire.

Me: Fire?! (pictures of tractor ashes racing through my mind). I thought you bla blabbed the bla bla!

Him: I did and when I got to the lower part of the orchard and was really starting to enjoy the cool of the night I notice a bunch of flames leaping out of my tractor between my knees.

Me: What did you do?

Him: I watched it burn itself out.

Me: Oh - OK. Thats kinda wierd. Does it still work?

Him: Yup, I waited til morning so I could bla bla the bla bla of the bla bla when it was light. It was impossible to bla bla in the dark and get it right.

Me: OK - can I take pictures of you bla bla-ing for the blog for the family to enjoy?

Him: sure.

Here is the Bla-Bla

Here is the Apple Farmer Bla-bla-ing the bla bla.

Here is the Apple Farmer after he bla-blabed his tractor and suited up.

And away he goes!

Double Bow

We got a quick rainstorm yesterday evening which watered all of our little garden seeds we planted on Thursday!

A Hunting We Will Go.....

Mushroom Hunting season is now open!

Everyone is talking about their great hunting expeditions to their wooded hillsides and creek beds! The morrels are selling for $20.00 a gallon. We've hunted, but have never actually eaten any. I'm not a huge fan of eating fungus, but this year is the year that I will actually eat one and find out what the excitement is all about!

The Attorney and Human Resources accompany me. They are my protectors from any uninvited critters! The Attorney asks why we are going hunting without any guns...

I explain that I don't anticipate any hostile fungus while we are out in the deep woods of the Great and Shaded Ditch.

We encounter a colony of friendly fungus.

We visit a bit and then bid farewell as we continue on our great hunt.

We travel onward, braving branches of the dreadful poisonous ivy and cautiously making our way around the prickly wild goosberry bushes. We stop to rest (this is hard work you know!) and as we modify our hunting strategy we spy our first Morrel!

The Attorney picks it. His adrenalin is coursing through his body and he proclaims, "Wow! This is so much like fishing!" He gently places it into his walmart bag and within seconds another morrel, and then another and several more are found! We triumphantly march out of the woods with our treasures in our bags and make our way up to the castle - I mean house- to clean and cook them up!

As we exit the great woods we find that the rumbling we had been hearing wasn't a fierce fire belching dragon after all, it was thunder!

We race to the house and are greeted by the Apple Farmer who informs us that we need to go down into the cellar house because the clouds are rotating over top of the house. We run from the house and into the cellar house and down the stairs to the awful dungeon - our only defense against a tornado.

The dungeon is equiped with its very own welcoming committee! A toad.

"Can we come up now?"

Nothing came out of our really creepy cloud movements. We went back to the house after while, and cooked up our morrels which we ate with our chicken and noodles.

I prepared the morrels how the locals all love to prepare them - egg wash and cracker crumbs - fry in a bit of oil and butter. They taste a lot like...

...Cracker Crumbs.