More weather

 So my last post, the first in a really long time, was about weather and it seems that weather is still having a big impact.  My part of Minnesota is in a drought.  Last week there was an inch and three tenths of rain at the farm.  My sister 15 miles to the east had two and one-half inches and my mom, 15 miles to the west had an amazing four inches.  That rain was my only measurable rainfall this summer.  The field crops around the farm
are struggling.  I haven't seen anyone plowing them under but it is unknown yet if there will be much of a crop.  

My fruit trees were full of blossoms this spring but did not set fruit.  My grape vines are the exception.  They seem to be liking this heat.  The purple grapes are done.  I have been using a steam juicer to make grape juice.  Right now the juice is sitting in my freezer.  At some point I hope to make jelly or try to make wine from that juice.  The white grapes are a little later but seem close.  I ordered a refractometer which should arrive tomorrow.  Then I will have a more accurate measure of when the grapes are ready to be picked. 

My lawn is dormant so the time that I am not spending mowing I am spending watering.  We have had an unusually warm summer, second warmest on record for June.  Between the heat and the drought It is hard keeping plants from getting crispy.  Early this summer I purchased quite a few perennial and annual flowers which means even more watering.  

I have been having a pretty good summer.  I am not doing the farmers market this summer which is allowing me more time to do more things in my yard.  Some of my family was home in May for Mother's Day and we worked on rehabbing my neglected potager garden.  My big garden is idle this year.  I will be working on making it smaller, tarping it to kill the abundant weeds and fixing the deer fencing.  The snow has done a lot of damage to the end closest to the trees where the big drifts form.  I am planning to take down that end of the fencing and let the area return to grass.

I have been adding some round raised beds made from grain bin rings.  When done I will have seven of them.  So far I have four assembled and three are partially filled and growing stuff,  When the crops come out I will top them off, filling them to the top.  They are quite tall so they hold a lot of fill.  I have done some with a hugelkulture method putting branches and wood in the bottom then a wood chip layer and a layer of leaves.  The top layer is a mix of composted manure, peat moss and perlite.  I am doing some with a wire tube in the center and I am adding kitchen scraps to that for composting.  I am hoping it will be broken down by worms in the bed adding nutrition through their castings over the years.  The leaves and wood chips will break down over time so I expect a lot of settling.

 I will have to get some pictures and post them.  

 Lorri

When All Else Fails Talk about the Weather

 It has been just over a year since I last posted my thoughts on this blog but even before I was posting only intermittently.  A lot went on in 2020 and it seems to be carrying over into 2021.  It was not my plan to rehash that dumpster fire when I sat down to type.  

So maybe I will talk about the weather.  The weather throughout the country has been horrible.  Here inn Minnesota the winter of 20-21 followed a cold spring and weird summer.  The fall had a couple of bigger snowstorms which melted.  Much of the year seemed to be more windy than normal.  In rural areas the wind can be a significant factor.  It contributes to wind chill dangers and it moves stuff around.  This winter one of our snowstorms created snirt (snow + dirt)  The wind picked up topsoil from the surrounding fields, mixed it with the blowing snow and packed it into hard drifts.  The snow was so dirty it completely changed the texture of the snow causing it to be sand-like.  Eventually we got another snow that covered it up with a new white layer but for awhile it was pretty ugly.  

And then there has been the cold.  I think it has been cold everywhere.  Minnesota is one of the upper Midwestern states known for the cold winters and this year we made it through January with only an occasional night that got a little below zero.  It seemed on a whole to be a pretty mild winter.  That changed a few days ago.  Yesterday after five days where the temperatures did not get above zero degrees and three nights in a row where it was -24 it was finally again above zero.  Today it is already a balmy 9 degrees and may get as high as 15.  Next week it may even get above freezing.   I will finish up with some pictures of snirt.

This is what many windows in the house looked like.  This was taken from the inside.  I needed to open the door and look out in order to see what was happening during the blizzard.

This is the side of a path.  The snow here is about 15 inches deep and the bottom half is snirt.  The entire yard was like this.

Some of it was darker, dirtier.

Another photo that I took while shoveling.  There were places in the yard where the drifts were so hard the snowblower would ride over them rather than through them.  This is the path I shoveled to the greenhouse.

This photo is taken from the same path looking through the fence to the pasture. 

This was in January.  We have had a few small snows since then so this has been covered with new pristine white snow.  Keeping all who are struggling with the ice, snow and cold in my thoughts and prayers.    

Stay safe,

Lorri