Dry Times, Exciting Times, Beautiful Times

The end of the month of May and most of the first two weeks of June was a period of time in which rain was absent.  Nothing.  The air was even dry.  Mornings arrived without dew, without moisture.  Yet the blueberries were growing in size and beginning to ripen. No rain, hot weather, and sunny skies make for early ripening blueberries - but small ones. My fears of a lost crop laying heavy on my nurturing farmer's heart.

Ben and his class celebrate the completion of their Senior Project presentations.  The Mighty Mississippi flowing by. Ben, Farmer's Husband Gary and I ventured to the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana campus for Ben's registration.  The campus is beautiful and the folks there very inviting and friendly.  Certainly helped to reduce some of my mother's anxieties....

Watering, watering watering. The ground dusty.  The heat oppressive.  Tomatoes wilting.

Midway through my hauling load after load after load of water from the pond (about 25 trips in all), the water tank broke in two.  After many faithful years of service, our auction find, was irreparable.  And although I used a little transfer pump to help me water the blueberries, the task took five days 6-8 hours each day to go through the field even once.  Enormous effort. Exhausting work.

Stacy-friend told me about a big old heavy brush fire tanker for sale from one of the county's fire departments.  It holds 250 gallons, can discharge 125 to 30 gallons per minute and comes with a electric hose rewinder!  Sweet!  We bought it.  Farmer's Husband Gary placed it on our old F150, tinkered with it a bit and said, "It runs well!".  Can't wait to try it.....ah, wait a minute. I can wait.  Hopefully our four week dry period is done.

The flowers still bloom amazingly.

And the garlic sends out its flowers faithfully.  I cut hundreds and hundreds of scapes.

A gift from Stacy-friend last year.  The cluster bellflowers are lovely!

I love blue.  Scabiosa is such an airy beautiful blue.

But more than farming continues.... the farm home is starting to take shape.  Footings poured and last Friday the foundation was poured.  Huge trucks everywhere.  It was amazing.

Now that's a pumper truck!

Our guys from Morton Building scoping out the forms and preparing to set the bolts when the concrete is poured.

I kept trying to remember during all this dry time.... "Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation." (Habakkuk 3:17-18).

Today's Journey Joys: baby kittens frisky at play, gushing rain on Saturday evening - weeds easy to pull, fruit widening, black raspberries juicy, blueberries scrumptious, flowers blooming, leeks thickening, university friendly, songs from Ally-girl, conversations and encouragement from friends.

Multi-tasking

Oh! How the days are filled with wonder! Farming, planting, weeding, tending, caring, and building.... Celebrating and rejoicing.  It's been a full month around these acres. 

The barn is finished! (sans the floor)

Catching swarms!  I should have split those two strong hives this spring! At least I caught the swarms.  This one took three attempts.  They kept flying back to this branch about 12 feet in the air. Gary would lift me up on the big loader and I would either snip the branch or drop them in a bucket.  It's a little tricky with such a big swarm and being lifted up in the air.

Needed more woodenware for the new swarms.  This is the first time I've ever painted my hives the traditional white. Looks nice. 

Our baby chicks and turkeys arrived.  Alas, two weeks into their life a varmint attacked the coop and we lost about half.

The first year I actually got my tri-colored chrysanthemums in their pots by mid May! 

Poppies!  The bees seem to love them.

Preparing the new blueberry field.  Peat moss and our secret recipe acidifier applied and tilled in.  Followed by making raised beds with 20+ year durable, water permeable fabric.  I'm going to get on top of these weeds yet!

The biggest events have centered around the graduations of Ben.  He graduated first from our area's Community College with his Associates in Science and then from  high school (yes, in that order!). We are SO proud of him!  I cried so many times at his high school graduation. The closure of one chapter and the hopes of a new one, yet unread, unlived, awaiting. (For both of us!)

Ben (and his classmate majoring in aerospace engineering) will be attending University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in the Fall majoring in Biology.  He is yet unsure of whether he wants to pursue medicine with an emphasis on research or genetics or something else.  It will be an adventure seeing how his decisions and life's passions come together.

Today's Journey Joys: Growth - plants, chickens, farming and most importantly our son Ben. My heart cannot contain the love I have for this young man.  Tears of joy oozing out everywhere. 

Barn Raising

o·ver·whelmed - to be buried beneath a huge mass; to overcome completely in mind or feeling

It happens every Spring.  The long dark days of winter sequestered in the confines of our warm & small farm home result in me wondering and dreaming about growing things... through electronic media.  "Oh! That looks lovely!"  "Why, I wonder, have I not planted that before?" "Maybe a few more of this will add even more beauty to my bouquets..."  "People asked about this vegetable, (ok, only once), I should try growing it."  So I peruse catalogs, websites, Pinterest, and dream of the sweet aroma of Oriental lilies, cactus zinnias, poppies the size of dinner plates.  I order, and then order, and then order more....  Seeds, starts, and plants....  And by the time May comes I am inundated with planting and transplanting, weeding and more weeding.

Garlic growing happily in the straw.  Just-transplanted 350 snapdragons with Achillea and Columbine in the background.

Just planted zinnias, baby's breath, and cosmos

1200 one gallon pots of Bluecrop, Draper, Northland and Patriot blueberries.... ready and waiting to be planted in our new raised beds.  Just need to make those beds....

So as always, I press on.  Press on through the achy joints and stiff muscles.  Unsure of whether they are due to the work of the farm or the residual of the aromatase inhibitor I take to prevent cancer reoccurrence.  Mourning the loss of energy and expectations of pristine and weedfree rows. But rejoicing in the beauty of the new, the rebirth, the hope and the gratitude in life.

My supervisor Ally.  Enjoying the sunshine and watching me catch our first swarm of the season.

It was an "easy swarm".  Only six or seven feet from the ground in a blooming honeysuckle bush.  All I did was  backed the Gator under the limb, climbed in the back, opened the deep (a big hive box) with drawn out comb and gave the branch a good downward shake.  Most of them landed in the deep. Some of them of course landed in the back of the Gator.  I just waited for a while and then they all flew into their new home.  Happy as bees!

The barn is taking shape.  Just last Friday the piers were poured. 

Marty, Thomas and Chad - our foreman and crew from Morton Buildings.  They work SO hard.

Filling the holes.  The next morning the whole crew returned (with Steve, a fourth member not pictured).  They started putting up the walls.  And then by Monday afternoon they even had most of the windows in.

Today's Journey Joys: blueberry plants producing, strawberries in bloom, honey being made, flower planting and dreams, baby white kittens, sweet potato starts, freshly mowed grass, warm sun and wind, friends who like coffee and conversation, potatoes growing, warm showers, herb garden growing...

The Rush of Spring

Spring brings a frenetic pace around these parts.  Tilling, planting, weeding, tending, birthing, chopping, burning, digging, and sculpting the soil..... in between copious amounts of soggy cold days which chilled the soil and seemed to never let up.  As we watched the rains come down for over two weeks, the weeds grew, the grass flourished and the flowers bloomed.  Finally, the sun came sliding through the clouds warming the bones and nurturing the warmer weather crops.  Asparagus and rhubarb stretching their stems skyward.

Seven of my hives from last year survived the winter and are doing well.  So well that I double- supered them right before the cold wet weather came.  Now they are eager and "busy as bees" to capture as much nectar and pollen from the spring blooming flowers and trees as they can.  In two weeks I will harvest the delightful springtime honey - my favorite honey of all.

In the meantime, planting of the dahlias, orchid gladiolus, and ranunculus kept me busy.

Our NRCS guy Joe, sold me eight of his red star chickens... they are much more friendly than mine and seem to follow the tractor wherever it goes.  I like when they gobble up the grubs.  But could you kindly leave the worms please?

Picking tulips for the first day of Market.  It was a fantastic first day at the Farmers Market.  We brought blueberry bushes, black and red raspberry bushes, tulips (of course) and rhubarb and asparagus.  This year our placement at the Market is in an ideal area.  Much more visible. Ally decided that she would come to the Market and help every weekend.  It was great having her with us!

Spring has also been filled with end of the year adventures for Ben.  For months he and his friends at school have been rehearsing for the annual school play.  This year's play was an acting stretch for most of the students.  Ben played an erudite, elitist member of the ruling class who appeared to be caring and compassionate but later turned out to be ruthless and self serving.  There was a part in which he had to yell at the top of his voice off stage, seemingly at a young girl (who actually was in a different room).  Believe it or not, Ben rarely has risen his voice in anger.  He said it was an interesting experience. That and wearing a wig...

Gary also took advantage of the dry days between raindrops when the road to our new building site was too muddy to work, to finish burying the electric line from our well to the house.  It's been on the surface for about half a year.  What a great project to have completed.

And..... (drum roll)..... the materials for the barn arrived this morning!

I must admit - I was concerned about those massive semitrailers getting up and around the bend.  But the driveway stood strong and the ground was dry..... at least for an hour or two... then ten minutes of rain fell hard.  Turning the dry road to a slippery mess.  But the heavy tractor trailers made it down and drove away.  I'm sure that it was an adventure that they don't do every day!

The time for building has arrived!

Today's Journey Joys: Heavy trucks maneuvering through our S-shaped driveway successfully, tulips for another week, Columbine flowers in bloom, snap peas and potatoes growing, university decisions, the end of my semester, blueberry plants ready for the field and the opening of walnut leaves on trees.