LOVE IS IN THE AIR

MEN AT WORK

We LOVE our guys!!!  Thank you to Evan, Anthony, Nick, and of course my awesome husband, Michael.  One day and look what motivated men can do.  Of course behind every motivated man is a woman with a whip!

Nick. Nuff said.  You can see what his job was.

Evan and Anthony supervising!  No Really!!  They DID work as hard as Nick.  See all those sandbags and plastic mulch.  That was their job. 

Michael was the general on the job.  He made sure everything was straight, helped set the end posts, and cooked the brats for lunch!

  There are four more rows to go if anyone is interested in repeating the process!

At the end of the day even Amber was tired!  I think from keeping all 'her' company lined out.  Nick brought along Maddy, the regal great dane, and Charlie, the fast husky.  Then of course Daisy Mae is always work for Amber to keep in line.

Thank you SO much for taking time from your busy schedules and helping on the farm!!!  We truly appreciate your efforts.

JANUARY 31 2011

It's snowing in Minnesota today but that's what it does here.  We are thankful for the snow because it will provide the replenishing moisture when spring comes.  Along with the snow we are blessed with cold temperatures.  The 18 degrees today actually felt balmy and it was easy to keep the house at 70 degrees with the wood stove.

We have bluebirds that live here in the winter, along our little Wells Creek.  Typically four or five of them will follow us along the river bank and this morning a bald eagle gave us the eye as he flew off down stream.  He was sitting high above the creek near open water.  Watching for breakfast would be my guess and we unknowingly interrupted him.  We being Amber Jo and Daisy Mae as we took a jaunt to the snow covered beach before our day got involved with computer work and ongoing spring planning.

Daisy Mae is growing like a weed and she takes every opportunity she can to let Amber Jo know it.   She's still not quite sure of herself around the fertilizer team who have been taking their job very seriously this winter.

I believe from the robust cover over their backs their ability to convert feed to fat is very efficient.  As the prove lies on the ground composting away to be applied to fields this fall.  Gross huh? 

That's a cold, snowy winter day at Sol 'N Tyne.  Thanks for reading.

NOBLE

OPPORTUNITY

Every once in awhile opportunities come along worth taking a more in depth look at.  This little opportunity is only eight weeks old and been here less than 24 hours and has succesfully wormed her way onto our bed and couch, much to Amber Jo's chagrin. 

 We welcome the newest addition to the Sol 'N Tyne crew - our list of names are too many to pick the absolutely right one, but she could potentially be Daisy Mae.



Belly deep, but it's that kind of day!



 This little charmer comes from mixed heritage.  Her momma, Annie, is a 75 pound purebred Black Lab was just too sweet for her daddy, Hank, a 150 pound purebred Bernese Mountain Dog, to resist.



Cuz she arrived on the biggest snow of the season,
she begged Michael for a ride.

 But we get to take advantage of this little mishap because we love labs and Bernese, aka Berners, were bred to farm dogs. They take care of dairy cattle, kids, and pull carts.

Amber Jo taking advantage while she can!

 Now how can a person go wrong with that combination!  We want to thank Rusty and Kelly for the opportuity to welcome this little (soon to be bigger) wonder of doggy love.

MAJESTY

WEEKEND ACTIVITIES

We have been busy, but not necessarily with the garden, but in particular the farm, our home, and our families. 

Yes, we do keep pecking away at season end to do lists, such as spreading that nice decomposed fertilizer from our fertilizer team, cleaning and packing away tools, cleaning out fields, final harvest of dried beans, CSA membership details, covering garlic, covering carrots for in ground storage, all this as time permits.

Our most pressing task on our list, at this time, continues to be finalizing the details for the 2011 CSA memberships.  We did update the Local Harvest website today and we apologize to our potential members for not having this done in October as we had anticipated.  We will do an email mailing this week with details.  Watch your inbox!

We managed to get some wood cut for our wood furnace in our 115-year-old house.  We had help too.  That pesky fertizlier team are like a bunch of kids in their curiosity.  Amber tried to keep them in line, but she failed miserably. 

Over the weekend I was, again, amazed at the tenacity of a lone violet.  November 7th and one, tiny bloom buried in the brown of the fall leaves.  Hmmmm, is there a lesson here? 

Hope all is well in everyone's world and we would like to mention how with deep regret we watched my daughter, Tona, and son-in-law Alberto, and our three granddaughter's - Isabella, Amaya, and Noelia bury their father and grandfather this past week.  Doug was 55 and lost a battle with cancer, at Tona and Alberto's home, with his family around him.  He is missed.

IN FLIGHT

Feeding and take off.

Coming in for a landing.

THE FERTILIZER TEAM

Annie, Tugboat, Dani, Col, and Olive.

STREETTCCCHHHHHH

Do you see what Amber sees?  Me neither!  She was occupied for a lengthy amount of time and she had me doing it too trying to figure out what was so intriguing about a fence post!  I was expecting something, but noooooooo. 

Then today she came across a bird's nest, yes just a bird's nest, an empty bird's nest.

TRELLISING

First two rows done.  Amber, the inspector, kept tabs on us. 

There is a LOT of fruit!  This is just a sample. 

TENSE MOMENT

Last night was the very, very first night in about three months that Michael and I decided to take the night off from the farm and go for a bike ride.  Actually our first bike ride in about that same amount of time.  It was beautiful last night, just like it is this morning.  On my way home, I drive past our pasture, I noticed one of the horses stretched out flat on their side and the other four standing together swatting flys.  I made a mental note to double check when we rode the bikes by to see if she was still laying down.  It's not unusual for one of them to be sunning themselves, in fact I have seen all five of them stretched flat out, looking ominous.

We dressed and headed down the road on our bikes and I searched the pasture for Dani. She was standing up but holding her right hind leg in the air.  I could tell from her body language and the fact she kept neighing to the other horses something was very, very wrong.  So back to the house, changed clothes, and rushed out to the pasture.  By 10:30 last night the vet had been and gone and our lives the next several weeks will be a little bit different.  She has a laceration to her right hind pastern about 5cm long and 1.5 cm deep.  Deep but praise the lord not so deep there is damage to the tendon even though Dr. Lombardo could see the tendon sheath.  Now the healing process begins and bandage changes every other day. 

Thank you to Dr. Lombardo (http://www.equusdvm.com/).  He was awesome.  He was at our farm in less than 30 mintues and he kept Dani calm and her owner.  Life at the farm can be tense.


Here's Dani this morning, resting better and sporting her new pantyhose.

SWEET FINDS

A huge thanks to Bella and Amaya for helping get ready for Sol 'N Tynes first "THURSDAYS ON FIRST" in Rochester.  Michael and I truly appreciate the help they provided and also a big thanks to their mom, Tona, for letting them come and stay.  They ended up staying an extra day because their Grandpa Doug is battling cancer and had to go to the hospital.  So please send out prayers of healing for him.

On a brighter note, Bella and Amaya, left their two new friends Sophie and Hannah to stay with us while they go to Cass Lake on vacation.  Please meet the new guests at Sol 'N Tyne.

Bella and Sophie

Amaya and Hannah

Have fun at Cass Lake Alberto, Tona, Bella, Amaya, and Noelia!!!!

LESTER HAS A GIRLFRIEND

Soooo I am busy in the the umpteenth tomato row today when Michael decided he needed something from the house.   Within minutes he is walking toward me in the row with a weird look on his face and proceeds to tell me that Lester is by the back door of the house.  "Ahh what do you mean, by the back door."  "He's hiding behind the shelving unit under the deck."  Well that is way too close to where I sleep at night for my comfort level.  I don't care if I sleep on the second floor, the fact that Lester was invading the perimeter of the house was too much for me.

Michael went to get his gloves and I went to grab the camera.  As soon as I saw him hiding behind the shelving unit under the back steps, I knew it wasn't Lester.  Way too small for Lester, had to be a girlfriend and she wasn't happy!

Her tail was just a rattling and when Michael reached into pick her up she went for him.  Of course that pushed her out of her hiding place and I couldn't back up fast enough to get out of her way.  I'm glad my husband is fast, cuz he had her by the tail before she got to me.  Whew!!!  Erma.

We made an executive decision to take her far, far away.

A final glimpse of Erma before Michael takes her across the river.

Now I don't know if Erma is really a girl, or if Lester is really a boy and I am probably never going to know.  But I sure hope that is the last of the snake sitings for the summer. 

MORNING HELPER - LESTER

Do you remember a couple of posts ago regarding the garden helper?  The one that is beneficial but not well liked?

Yep, he was back and yep he had the element of surprise, especially because he wasn't where I saw him last.  His last sighting was about 200 feet from where I bumped into him this morning, or I'm sure he was thinking - where I disrupted his morning sun.  Because it was obvious from the rattling noise he made he wasn't happy about the close proximity he and I had.  I couldn't quite figure out why the robins where making such a racket in the corn crib. Well hindsight would seem to indicate it's because Lester was about.


Meet Lester - first impressions are lasting.

After the initial adrenal wore off I was able to get to know Lester better through the camera.  At least I felt safer behind the lens.

He eventually worked his way down the corncrib to the north and headed to the inside again.  These are the last shots of him slithering over some cable inside the crib. 

To all of you snake lovers, I honestly do not know where he went.  Sooooo when you're walking through the corn crib over the weekend, do like I've done all day - step carefully and remember to look all around, up and down. Cuz Lester wasn't on the ground when I met him - he was eye to eye.