Malcolm's Nammah Stay

In June we had a little visitor come stay at our place, accompanied by his mother, Sara's sister Erika. Malcolm Louis Swan spent several days gracing Nammah's place with his bubbling laughter and constant curiosity. 

Here Paula is looking up at the nest with mama Robin and her brood, and Malcolm is more intrigued with watching his aunt!

We had so many opportunities for making dreams come true with all the many "wish flowers" growing throughout the estate. 

Riding the "tractor" was one of the daily rituals. 

Eating strawberries fresh out of the patch was a major hit. 

Malcolm was a great helper in the garden. Loosening the soil...

Watering the plants...

Sorting through the plant containers...building blocks for garden grandeur. 

He was a busy little gardener! 

And lots of critters were discovered to befriend! Paula is not the critter I mean. Upon her finger is a squiggly caterpillar...

Some squiggly critters were just hanging from the sky. Mac loves this. Erika is not so sure. 

Eva the cat was another good friend Mac made on his visit. Here Eva starts a new trend of live garden statuary...

 All in all, a great time was had at "Nammah's Place," a new name extended beyond the garden gate to the whole place thanks to Mac's dad, Renny.  Renny--checking in daily from Mac's hometown of Austin, Texas--would always ask how things were going at "Nammah's Place."  It made perfect sense! 

It wasn't all work in the garden. There were flowers to smell...

Benches to visit...

And 4'x 8' plywood boards discovered behind the garden shed to run up and down! This was a fave activity of Mac's! 

We hope you'll visit again next year! Hannah misses her pal. And so do we!

Come again someday. That is our truest wish!!

 

Creating places to BE

"Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.” 

― Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

It's funny to me how each spring, the first thing I rush to DO is to re-establish my places to BE.  All of the chairs, hammocks, swings - outdoor locations for rest and relaxation - come out from the long winter.  We rarely see the living room in summer- choosing the screened in gazebo instead.

I even make "deals" with myself.  I will sit in each chair at least once per month this summer - turning my time for being into a to-do list.

I have been sitting in front of a computer screen all winter - my body yearns to haul water and till soil - not sit!


Still, the calling to create sacred places for respite remain. Perhaps for some of us, there is being in doing

After a long winter

It is a good thing that the larder was full this winter 2014.
We had record snow fall AND cold temps!

The new veggie drying/storage tray was most useful during the fall and early winter processing.

Instead of trekking to the studio to see what was ripe (or not) we were able to store more of the harvest in the kitchen, without the harvest taking over the kitchen!

The squash lasted until May this year, with garlic and onions still holding on. Plenty of comfort food to keep us through the long winter.








I was fortunate to scavenge some frozen citrus from a friend.  Her brother had them sent as a Christmas gift and they sat out in the freezing temps for several days.  Of course I could not stand to see her just toss them.  They deserved a chance at re-purposing.
I took them home, allowed them to thaw, and squeezed the juice into…grapefruit martinis!!  What a mid winter treat.

In February I took a Bee Keeping class at the University of MN Extension Bee Lab. I was ready to buy my bees after the first day of class.  After the second day of class, I realized this was not something I should rush into!  I DO want to keep bees.  They are amazing and brilliant collective creatures! Quotes from class: honey bees are a female based society-only 5% are male- males only purpose is to mate- "males don't work or pollinate- only eat, wait for sexual maturity and then fly out every afternoon to mate"-queens spend 1-2 afternoons mating with 10-20 males and store up all if the sperm they need for a lifetime. Amazing stuff!!! Maybe next year...

The maple syrup season was late (again) which was fortunate as March was busy with travel.  Mom moved to Duluth in November and participated in her first ever maple syruping season.  At 71 she is still going strong. She was part of each phase of the process.

We tapped 23 trees on April April 5, the day after UMD and all of the locals schools were closed with another snow day.  A record number of "closed due to snow and cold" as well!




It was a slow drip start - but a "warm" spell in mid April made for a full 40 plus gallon boil on Easter Sunday (April 20.) The sap had risen!!









The second boil Mom and Sara had to do while I was at work!  Not until May 5, record late for us.  Less syrup than a normal year but enough for us.  It really IS about the process, not the product.  Or trust me a person can buy this stuff MUCH cheaper than making it this old fashioned way!




The seeds were pulled out of the freezer on April 11. It took a couple of weeks to get the "6-8 prior to planting" seeds into pots and under grow lights.   Somewhere during the process I turned 50!! Yikes!!

Squash were planted on May 10, just as the last Red Kuri was baked and turned into a lasagna. I am grateful that my seed saving (even pulling these gems out of the compost bucket Sara!!) meant no seed purchases this year!



Now that the warm temperatures are here and I am able to get my hands into her soil (potatoes planted May 18; cold weather greens and crops May 10), I am looking back over the hard winter …




...still further back to the beautiful fall harvest... Like the earth, I am awakened once again!


Let summer 2014, and another season of blessings from Nammah, begin!

Ode to the pollinators

 As this garden blog reaches its 1 year anniversary, I am aware of the silent but beautiful and all important inhabitants - the flowers.










Without these flowers, the pollinators would be less compelled to visit, and thus make possible, the harvest that we otherwise take for granted.

I confess that before Sara, I considered flowers a waste of precious garden space. "We can't eat them - they just do nothing but look pretty!" 

Oh how wrong I was!

In and around the vegetable garden and fruit orchard - plus surrounding the house, we are graced with magnificent flowers.


Most were carefully planted and tended by our predecessors on this land.

Thank you to Dean and Nancy Lettenstrom (and for the bird bath).

Ode to the pollinators!

The hummingbirds that flock to our 5 feeders each spring are less evident as the flowers bloom.  I was irritated at their desire for the flowers instead of the sugar water I provide for them UNTIL...out of real limes, I tried lime juice in my gin and tonic.  Ah ah!! Now I understand their preference for the real thing!








The cherry tree planted as a memorial from my step-father (grandma Carson had amazing cheery trees - and pies) looks like it will produce fruit for the first time this year.  THANKS to the pollinators!










As my own sabbatical nears the end, I am trying to be more intentional (again - like the beginning) to take time to stop and smell the flowers


Reading in the hammock in the gazebo

Even spending the month of July sleeping in the tent in the back yard.



It all seems to say "summer - enjoy it!" and right in my own back yard!







Meanwhile, across the road in Nammah's garden, WE reap the benefits of THEIR labor!

Full circle - Nammah comes alive...slowly

May 24 it finally felt like summer - or at least spring - but for sure NOT winter!  The snow is gone, followed by days of rain and cool temps. The earth is turning that translucent color of green once again.

The gazebo is open for summer living and dining (5/24) and our first grilling for the year.  Usually I am in the Badlands at this time so summer feels early in some ways.  I was here when the hummingbirds returned (5/19) and am able to watch the ferns unfurl each day.  These are the little things I have missed witnessing each spring during this time.

May 15 - I finally pulled and plugged the three birch taps and finished the birch syrup (or medicine). After over 2 weeks of continuous condensing on the hot plate in the garage, we ended up with a couple of quarts of the "syrup."  My idea to mix it with the maple did not work as the birch start running about the time that the maple stops!  I wanted to try it. I don't think I need to do that again.

May 19 - Spinach planted outside - we are eating our indoor planting of greens. Sara raked leaves and hauled them over to the raspberry bed while I moved raspberries from the garage to the orchard area. A new Dolgo Crab tree was planted (with wedding money from my cousin in Iowa). A sweet gift that allowed us to expand the wedding orchard - 3 years and counting!

May 24 - 180 onion sets planted plus flowers in the two center beds on each end of the bench. We are cutting down this year to allow Nammah, and us, to rest a bit.  Last year's harvest and canning efforts are still overflowing in the pantry. We will only plant what we can eat and share - along with a few canned items that ARE running low.

May 25 - New rough cut tamarack replaced the railroad ties on the south side of the garage. All of the raspberries there were moved over to Nammah last week, leaving only rhubarb for now. Tulip bulbs from Amsterdam were planted in the circle outside the iris ring.








And a re-design of the middle bed (which was the old fence line before the expansion.)  Growing vine crops there did not work so well because it shaded other plants in the garden.  I took the fence out and we put in new timbers for a cleaner look!

It was my best year under the grow lights.  Sara's idea to run a fan to keep the air moving made a huge difference.  And I was good about not planting things too early. Just 4,6 and 8 weeks before the last frost just like the seed packets instruct!  Everything looked beautiful when it came out of the protected studio environment.

Everything (except the potatoes) were planted by June 10, but no one foresaw the June 17 frost! We discovered the damage on June 19 and were leaving town on the 21 for family reunions in Iowa.  We bought replacement peppers and squash - leaving the damaged.

It is times like this when I enter what my colleague Sandy calls my fruit fly phase! The cycles of life, and the seasons, seem more like a burden than a gift.  "Why bother?" I can think. It is an expanded version of the childhood "Why make the bed if I am just going to sleep in it again the next night!" I can take this lack of impermanence into everything I do - especially Homestead tasks when they tend to overwhelm me. And especially when months of work goes to waist via frost!

Fast forward to July - our first strawberries on the 1st!  The rest is coming along slowly but surely.And what do you know....some of the frozen peppers just might recover.  The fruit fly comes to life!