Stories from the Farm - Little Visitors

It's a cool morning three days past mid-August. There is no need to run fans, night or day, and the windows remain wide open even though an intermittently cloudy sky has been spitting rain. Through the windows floats a cool breeze and the almost constant crescendo and diminuendo of the cicadas' chorus, drowning out other songs of summer. The school buses have started running their routes again. In stores and nurseries all over town, the traditional stock of summer plants has disappeared almost overnight, replaced by Mums and pumpkins. Even though the bean and gold-tipped corn fields are still green and yards are awash in blooms, there's a feeling of fall in the air, signaled perhaps by the scent of summer growth maturing and seeding out, the aging light of a sun sitting lower in the sky, and by a slight change of pace as the traffic-flow starts to increase. The days are getting noticeably shorter.

Hello, World. Perchance send a gnat or a mosquito my way?

Welcome to  my world!

Signs of encroaching fall aside, however, it is still mid-August. The tomatoes are red-ripe on the vine and the vegetables are fresh from the garden. There is still plenty of summer left to enjoy!  

One morning last week, a slight movement on a leaf of one of my cleomes drew my eye to this little baby tree frog outside my kitchen window. By the time I got outside with my camera and found him again, he was clinging to the cleome's seed pods - he's only about an inch long with his little spindly legs and suction-cup toes tucked around him - so tiny! Made me think of all the little tadpoles that occupied our flooded ditch this wet, wet summer and wonder if he had been one of them.

Tussock Moth Caterpillar

And WOO HOO! I finally have Monarch caterpillars on my Milkweed plants! The Milkweed plants I came by a few years ago at the Master Gardeners' Garden Expo. I always look forward to this annual spring event at the fairgrounds because the Master Gardeners dig and sell plants from their own yards and gardens. It's a great way to get inexpensive starts of plants that are resilient in this area of the country. Various vendors also participate and the Master Gardeners offer educational lectures as well. This particular year, I stopped at the booth of a lady who was advocating to save the Monarch butterfly.  I made a donation and she sold me a Milkweed plant. Milkweed plants have been happily thriving in my garden ever since. I had never really noticed any Monarch larvae on them, however. (Probably because I didn't know what Monarch larvae looked like, lol.) Then this summer I spotted five or six of the creatures shown above right crawling around on my Milkweed Plants. I was so excited! I assumed they were Monarch larvae. False alarm. They are actually Tussock moth larvae.

Monarch Caterpillar chewing away on a Milkweed leaf

So I was somewhat disappointed - and humbled because I had uploaded a photo on Facebook and told all my friends it was of a Monarch caterpillar. But a few days later, along comes the real deal (as show to the left)! I have spotted three of these on my Milkweed plants so far.

So, enjoy the rest of your summer, and keep your fingers crossed along with me or send up a prayer that my little visitors survive to have long, happy, and productive lives!

JuneBug

Mysterious pupa on my Milkweed

Another Monarch caterpillar grazes behind a pupa

Introducing a New Photo Exhibit: the Tippecanoe-County-Fair Antique-Tractor Parades and Exhibit 2015!

Greetings, everyone who happens upon these pages! A few months ago I wrote a blog post introducing readers to my "Scrappy" photo gallery site. Today, I am announcing the website has just gotten its new "summer look" with new feature photos and one new exhibit:

Tippecanoe County Fair Antique Tractor Parades and Exhibit 2015

Ben pulling a wagon with the Allis Chalmers D  in Sunday's parade at the fair

Ben always exhibits his old Allis Chalmers D and Ford Series 2000 tractors at the County Fair Antique Tractor Exhibit and he and his son Steven drive them in the three tractor parades that take place during fair week. This year I tried to get a picture of all the entries at each parade. I didn't succeed 100% but I got most!

If you like county fairs and enjoy old tractors, drop by my photography site and have a look! While you're there, check out my other feature exhibits:

• Workers' Rally at the Statehouse March 2011
• Lafayette Columbian Park 2014
• Tippecanoe County Extension Community Gardens (*new additions for 2015*)
• Prophetstown State Park 2007
• Indianapolis Fairgrounds Flower and Patio Show 2015
• This Old Farmhouse Tour 2009

To find out more about these exhibits, read below or better yet drop by for a visit!

Stories from the Farm - Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

I wrote this post almost a couple of weeks ago at the end of July, so if the seasonal information seems dated, that's why. Today is a misty, cool August morning; the sun is not yet up and the ground is drenched with dew as are the spiderwebs. I hear the coo of the mourning dove at dawn. Then a honking sound alerts and I look up to see a flock of low-flying geese cloaked in mist making their way over our barn and I wish I'd had my camera at the ready.

Spiderweb in the morning mist

I'm always a little sad to see my ditch lilies go away at the end of July or early August. Actually it's kind of like that with every seasonal flower, starting with the forsythia, pussy willow, crocuses, daffodils, and hyacinths of early spring, then progressing to the tulips, lilacs and all the blooming trees and bushes of May, and as we approach Memorial Day, of course the peonies. Then there are the roses and hollyhocks of June. Watching these favorites fade away gives me a feeling a wistfulness mixed with hope - like how it must feel standing on a shore watching a ship-load of your friends sail away on a year-long voyage and wondering if you'll live to see them all again.

But it's especially like that with the ditch lilies - I suppose because they accompany me most of the summer not only in my flower beds but in my house.

Stories from the Farm - Riding Katie

Three little friends on their first mule ride

In the country the pace of summer usually picks up in July, right after Independence Day celebrations. The county fair is two weeks away and there are projects and entries to ready for the Home Show and 4H exhibits. There's pre-registration. Then there's getting these items to the Fair. And then there's the week of the fair, By then the weather usually turns blistering hot and the vegetable garden starts producing. There are summer family reunions to attend, the usual home chores to complete, the yard to mow, and the garden and flowers to water (but not this year). People start to meet themselves coming and going. 

Ben and I really enjoyed the week of the fair this summer. Ben participated in three tractor parades and one night I brought my ninety-year-old mother, so we were there almost everyday for one reason or another. We usually ate dinner at the pork and cattlemen's tent and visited with friends and neighbors we hadn't seen in a while. Ben also loves the stand that sells roast'n ears (corn on the cob). The Extension Homemakers run a Country Kitchen that is air-conditioned. They serve breakfast and family style meals in the evenings - we usually eat there at least once with our friend Lowell Oesterling. And then there's the carnival. We get ice cream cones and lemon and orange shake-ups from the carnival vendors - and ever since I discovered funnel cakes at the State Fair a few years ago,  I am always sorely tempted to buy one. YUM!

Ben pulling the surrey in Monday's Antique Tractor Parade

Ben defied the unusally rainy weather and drove his Ford and Allis-Chalmers tractors in for the Antique Tractor Exhibit the Friday before the fair, the Allis in the morning and the Ford after lunch. He pulled a little surrey with a fringe on top behind the Ford for the grand-kids to ride behind the tractor in the parades. I drove behind him on that second trip to town. Our half of the sky was sunny most of the way but all the while a vast black sky loomed before us. I could tell by the water tower that it had swallowed the fairgrounds. The rain cut loose a few blocks before we reached Teal Road. Ben pulled over and made a dash for the car but still got absolutely soaked. Good thing I thought to bring along a change of clothes, just in case! 

Dairy Tent

The grand-kids worked in the dairy booth and showed dairy calves this year as well as participating in the rabbit and chicken exhibit. The rabbits and poultry are usually housed in the same building at the fairgrounds - one of my favorite exhibits, but this year sadly 4H participants couldn't bring their chickens, ducks, and geese in because of the avian flu. Instead the cages had photos in them - and I think the actual  judging took place at people's homes and farms. We missed seeing all the beautiful and sometimes exotic poultry.

Double-page Scrapbooking Layout for the Fair

For my part, I usually bring entries for the Home Show's photography and scrapbooking exhibits. Every year I say it's going to be my last time, but every year I seem to end up with a few photos earmarked for the fair.

But today's farm story, while it occurred during fair week, actually took place at our farm - as a sort of respite from all the commotion and activities of a rather muddy fair. (Coming home to our old farmhouse in the country always seems so peaceful after being at the fair.) Tuesday of fair week, some former neighbors called and asked if they could bring their new neighbors out to see Kate and Annie, Ben's draft mules.

Stories from the Farm - Saga of the Sunflower Seeds

This little farm story starts with a Christmas gift a few years ago:

One Christmas I got a cute sunflower-seed bird-feeder in the shape of a snowman from my daughter. I hung it on a tree by the driveway to feed the winter birds.

That next summer, up pops a magnificent volunteer sunflower in my horse-hitch flower bed, close to where the bird feeder hung

One day after the sunflower matured and went to seed (sometime in July),  I noticed a little goldfinch absorbed in eating the sunflower's seeds. I was able to get close enough to take this photo. 

A few weeks later, the seeds were all gone!

So fast forward to this summer of 2015:

Stories from the Farm - Operation Tadpole Rescue!

A portion of our yard between the road and our peony bed has been under water for at least two months because of the heavy rains in the mid-west this year (20 to 28 inches in a two-month period, according to different sources). Part of this area of the yard is actually intended to be a drainage ditch, but the rain water backed up over our driveway and into our row of peonies and stayed there, so a portion of our row of peonies as well as the surrounding lawn has gone aquatic. Ben thinks the pipe under the road is clogged, so yesterday, he got out the old sump pump, some blue discharge hosing, and a very long extension cord and proceeded to pump the water to another area of our yard where it could drain. When he was through, he commented that he had seen lots of tadpoles in the ditch.

Stories from the Farm - A Very Rainy Summer!

In 2005 Ben and I packed up and moved to our present location just one (country-size) block down the road and a 100 years back in time. This was because we purchased the old yellow 1900's farmhouse with the two tall pine trees at the next intersection - after having lived in a modest 1950's ranch-style home since the early '80's. My husband being a country boy, both properties had some acreage - the one where we live now having 2.77 acres; so in 2009, just a few years after heart-valve replacement surgery, Ben bought a team of draft mules, Kate and Annie. That same summer we added chickens. And of course, the dog and cats go without saying, as most people who live in the country know (country folk don't have to buy their pets - their pets just show up on the door step). So we feel like we live on a little hobby farm, but I never thought to tell some of those country-living stories until I came across an interesting and attractive blog Fresh Eggs Daily.  Lisa, the author of the blog, talks about raising chickens and ducks and using herbs in the nesting areas. She also sends out a weekly email entitled "The Week in Farm Photos."

So I thought, "Hey, there's an idea! Why not add yet another topic to this already over-crowded blog of mine and tell some of our own hobby-farm stories? LOL!

My readers in the Midwest will know how strange this summer has been. Almost like clockwork, everything seemed to go haywire after I turned 65 this spring. I strained my knee doing yard work and experienced complications going off some maintenance meds (luckily at age 65 I also became eligible for Medicare and can now afford medical services!) and the weirdness just went on from there. We have received anywhere from 18 to 28 inches of rain in May, June, and July, according to various sources. =:o This alone did a pretty effective job in keeping me off my leg and out of the yard not to mention keeping the farmers out of the fields to do their spraying and what-have-you. The rivers and creeks have overflowed their banks and remain unusually high for this time of year. And the vegetable gardens have been particularly hard hit by all the rain and lack of sunshine. Personally, I think this all started back in the winter of 2014. The infamous polar vortex of 2014 never quite went away, and as happened last year, summer and winter fought it out til the bitter end to see which would prevail - resulting in two cooler summers (I wore my flannels to bed in July both years) - as well as a very wet one this year with a bumper crop of mosquitoes and flies!

July started off, of course, with the 4th, which seemed unusally quiet this year. Practically right on its heels - or so it seemed, anyway - came the county fair with the Home Show and the Antique Tractor Show and the grand kids showing in 4-H. After that came the Alward-Davis Reunion. Now that's all past and we can focus on the rest of the summer - which seems strangely empty without fruits and vegetables to pick and cook and put up. Some of my flowers have been pretty happy with all the rain, especially the lilies. It's been a great year for transplanting and for planting new flowers - clear up til August! Everything I've stuck in the ground this summer has been generously watered-in by Mother Nature. However, I have never seen such a poor yield from the vegetable garden as we've had this year - and many of our neighbors tell the same story. Fruit and vegetables are sparse and small - our cabbages were about the size of small grapefruits. Our squash, zucchini, and cucumber vines all bear beautiful blossoms, but nary a fruit. Our tomatoes are small and not too abundant - but they do taste great! Even the apples are small - little bite-sized treats for Kate and Annie. We're thankful for the rare neighbors whose gardens somehow managed to prosper in spite of the rain and who took pity on our scraggly little garden and brought us green beans, cucumbers, and corn!

The crops are looking really good in the surrounding fields, however (except for the low spots). As a friend pointed out on Facebook recently, the corn truly is "as high as an elephant's eye!" I worried that the farmers would never be able to get into the fields and get the hay baled - and in that case how would we feed Kate and Annie this winter? But today Ben brought home six large bales and our supplier (a neighboring farmer) anticipates another cutting in September or October. The last few days of the fair and since have been absolutely gorgeous so maybe summer and sunshine have finally won out. Almost. I do like these temperate sunny days in the seventies and low eighties and the cooler nights - many of  which we haven't had to even run a fan, let alone the air conditioner!

Anyway, this post is my way of introducing the topic - so stay tuned for the occasional Story from the Farm!

JuneBug