Farm Day cometh

While I'm off work two weeks Don and I have the leisure of gradually getting tasks done before Farm Day.

The deck rail and skirt need painting.

















The porch steps needed painting last year, it never got done.

Yesterday I painted them! It took maybe an hour and a half. The wood is wolmanized, and no matter how much good primer I use, the paint peels off. I've painted them every year - except 2007 - since we've lived here. This time I didn't prime. Wouldn't help anyway.
















Don's been straightening the barn.

We have too much stuff. Well some of it is our kids' stuff. You can see Lesley's Barbie car. Do you think she and her boyfriend might play with it when they're home this week?

Oh, hey, Anet and Sharon (and Loring)! There's an ugly Vail mug.

While working in the barn Don fixed up this old wall, adding the door, hanging the old Coleman lanterns and tools, and also the 1939 sign, which he found in the barn. I wonder who 'W.B.' was. Our farm was built around the turn of the 20th century, 1904 I think. I wonder if W.B. was the first owner.

Just a bit more tidying inside and outside before Lesley and Brian come tomorrow night.

Maybe I ought to toss these decayed hydrangea blossoms. Believe me, they look better in this photo than they do in person.

Saturday 30-40 wonderful people from my family - my siblings, their spouses, their kids and grandkids - will descend on the farm and just hang out. It's our big event of the year. And while Don and I are not very social 95% of the time (maybe because we are both helping students ALL DAY in our jobs), this is one time we make up for it.

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blackberries

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Happy First Year DROWSEY MONKEY!

Dear Drowsey Monkey,

Congratulations on your first full year of blogging today!

In these honeysuckle flowers I hope you'll see yourself. In them I see a wild shrub that becomes as tall as a tree. (Are you tall?) And it smells very good. (You do smell good, don't you?) I see shapes unique among flowers. (Um, I mean . . .) I see a lightness that stands out from the rest. In this pitcher arrangement I see homeyness, a link to the past. I see each blossom as one of your outrageous stories.

Keep telling your stories. We need to smile more. And fall on the floor laughing.

Here's to another year!

love,
Ruth (aka your adopted mother)

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night out

I used to love camping. Once when I was a college student I camped out solo -without a tent - in the Cascade mountains in Oregon, woke up to a view of Mt. Shasta in northern California. It was splendid.

Don and I actually used to camp a fair amount, and when we lived in the city, we thought, hey - maybe we need to live in the country. So we bought the farm (so to speak) in November 2003. It really does feel like a little campground or park.

So, finally, after intending to do this since we moved to the farm in 2003, I slept out a few nights ago, in Lesley's little single person tent.

And this is why I love sleeping outside:

• rustling of poplars, like breathing
• fireflies
• no walls (tent walls don't count) full of plaster, electrical wires, lath between me and Nature
• no clock, TV, refrigerator hum, furniture
• the moon
• cool night air and the damp

I could probably come up with more. My sister Dee Dee says as long as there are 3-star hotels in the world, she doesn't plan on camping. I wonder what you prefer, clean white sheets and room service, or a sleeping bag in the great outdoors?

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blueberry kuchen

Blueberry Kuchen (or for peach kuchen use 8-10 peach halves)

Serves 6 (or two piggy types for a couple of sittings)

Preheat oven to 400°.

Combine in bowl:
1 1/3 c. sifted flour
1/4 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
2 T. sugar

Cut in:

1/3 c. butter

Pat mixture over bottom and sides of a 9" pie pan or skillet.

Arrange in pastry:
3 c. blueberries (? I'm guessing)

Sprinkle over:
1/4 c. sugar

Bake 15 minutes.

Combine:

1 egg, beaten (or 4 quail eggs)
1 c. sour cream, sour milk, plain yogurt, or combination (I used yogurt)

Pour over blueberries (or peaches) and bake 30 minutes longer.

I'm off work for two weeks!

(Recipe from the Mennonite More with Less cookbook; don't know what year, the book is so old and worn I don't have the copyright page.)

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interlude

I needed some blue for clarity and focus, and magenta for peace and harmony.


I got them from the morning glories and the hollyhock.

(If you click on the morning glory photo, you can see the tiny circle of moon above the leaf at top.)

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the story of stuff

If it's the last thing you do this week, even at midnight Saturday night, promise me you will watch the 20-minute video in this link to the Story of Stuff. And make your kids watch it.

Thank you, rauf, for bringing it to my attention.

Annie Leonard is easy to listen to, and the 20 minutes will be over before you realize it, and you're sitting there dumbstruck, ready to watch it again.

STUFF. We've been conditioned to buy, consume, dispose. Can we re-condition ourselves? Annie Leonard tells us for every bag of garbage taken to the curb, there are 70 bags of garbage created from what we consumed resulting in that one bag. And, the average life of a product is 6 months. 6 months!

IDEA. I'd like to start a clothing exchange. An easy way to 'shop' for clothes that exist out there that someone else doesn't want. Something online, and not consignment. Free, maybe cover the cost of shipping. Could be a local exchange, like freecyle, which Don interacts with frequently. But I want it to be more user friendly and focused on clothes (to start), so you could plug in: size 8 pants, and go from there. Any suggestions?

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