No rain and five months later, this is our big brown sky. (And my very cute Mamasan capturing our dry dirt on film.)
We are currently interviewing for rain dancers if anyone is interested.
A vineyard, an antique tractor and 640 acres of magical land
Friday, July 1, 2011
The difference a drought makes
This was our big blue sky when we first arrived at the vineyard.
No rain and five months later, this is our big brown sky. (And my very cute Mamasan capturing our dry dirt on film.)
No rain and five months later, this is our big brown sky. (And my very cute Mamasan capturing our dry dirt on film.)
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Home
I broke my own record of solo driving to pick up this beauty: 46.5 hours. I'm hoping to retire my jersey now.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Spotted from an Illinois interstate
The face of agriculture today: A decades-old weathered barn surrounded by a field of bio-diesel corn and fifty million dollars in cutting-edge wind technology.
Monday, June 27, 2011
On the road again
Surprise road trip. Twenty-four hundred miles. Boom and cheaters in tow.
Coming to collect an antique cultivator near you.
Coming to collect an antique cultivator near you.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Home, home on the range
The electrical poles went up this week for our forthcoming house on the vineyard.
It's been a year since our last house sold. To say we are eager to finally be settled in our own four walls again is a riotous understatement.
It's been a year since our last house sold. To say we are eager to finally be settled in our own four walls again is a riotous understatement.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Day 137 of my rural education
Received my first lesson last night in mechanized milking. Buttercup was a great sport about my photographing her hindquarters.
The thing that's given me most pause about having our own milking cow is the twelve-hour tether. Buttercup has to be milked every twelve hours whether you want to go to town for dinner or leave for a three-day jaunt to the mountains.
It's one thing to board a dog. It's an entirely different matter to find a babysitter for your cow.
Buttercup's fine family found a great solution. They share milking responsibilities between more than one family. So each person only milks about twice a week: once at 6am and once at 6pm.
For this to work for us, we're apparently gonna have to give birth to quintuplets.
Editor's note: It has come to my attention that I was terribly unclear regarding Buttercup's fine family. We do not belong to her or any other cow. For now.
The thing that's given me most pause about having our own milking cow is the twelve-hour tether. Buttercup has to be milked every twelve hours whether you want to go to town for dinner or leave for a three-day jaunt to the mountains.
It's one thing to board a dog. It's an entirely different matter to find a babysitter for your cow.
Buttercup's fine family found a great solution. They share milking responsibilities between more than one family. So each person only milks about twice a week: once at 6am and once at 6pm.
For this to work for us, we're apparently gonna have to give birth to quintuplets.
Editor's note: It has come to my attention that I was terribly unclear regarding Buttercup's fine family. We do not belong to her or any other cow. For now.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Wrestling the wind
Nathan is wrestling the wind right now in the peanut field. There is a technique called pitching out whereby you drive a particular implement through the field and it hills up dirt on either side of your rows. Those hills help protect the baby plants from being flung to the netherlands when the wind picks up. And the wind is mostly always picked up these days.
This first picture shows how the wind has already filled in the furrows with additional sand. That's why "wrestling the wind" is a present-tense verb. Just about the time he finishes pitching out the field, Nathan gets to start all over. He'll repeat this process until the peanut plants are strong enough to fend for themselves against the wind.
Grow peanuts grow.
This first picture shows how the wind has already filled in the furrows with additional sand. That's why "wrestling the wind" is a present-tense verb. Just about the time he finishes pitching out the field, Nathan gets to start all over. He'll repeat this process until the peanut plants are strong enough to fend for themselves against the wind.
Grow peanuts grow.
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