We had our deer hunting season after Thanksgiving. I’m not a hunter, but we let some friends hunt on the farm as a way of controlling the influx of strangers who often trespass during the season. We are usually offered some meat in exchange if they have success. Our Amish friend Daniel got an 8 … Read more
Some time ago I was asked (about my beard) “how long are you going to let that thing grow?” I replied that I thought it had about maxed out, which it seems to do after 3 or 4 months. I immediately think of a constrained random walk model for beard growth and forget about it. … Read more
With the dairy barn, we inherited a big mess,including 2 or 3 hundred bales of straw that had long since been eroded into piles rather than stacks. Apparently mice like to munch the string, so most bales had broken. And ground hogs had burrows all through them. We wanted to recover the space in the … Read more
Planted some garlic last night, in time for vampire season. 3 inches deep about 6 inches apart, in nice rotted manure. Startled a big old toad who thought he had the place to himself.
This ash tree volunteered from an old burn pile. I was hoping it would develop into a nice shade tree, but I’m afraid it is not to be. This is the first real sign of infestation I’ve seen in our neighborhood. We have a few other ash trees in the yard, and I would hate … Read more
She has a little problem with her aim…
Jean sold 20 bales of straw to an Amish lady who runs a small cannery. She gave an address and vague directions and asked, “do you have gps? It’s easy if you have gps.” So we set off looking for an address on Koopert Rd in Bellville. Of course that didn’t come up in the … Read more
We’ve had a bit of rain, and it produced a fine puffball back in the apple trees. I had part of it with a steak, fried with garlic and butter. It had a very delicate flavor and a surprisingly light texture like mousse.
Here’s what the soybeans are looking like. I think they are going to be ok this year. This plant is near the edge of the field and is a bit greener than further in; also it’s showing about 5% leaf damage, probably from pesky bean leaf beetles.
We did get an inch-and-a-half of rain and the landscape is greener. During the storm, I tried out the video feature of the Canon 60Da because we were getting quite a lightshow. The camera was running at 59.94 fps. The CMOS sensor reads out from top to bottom, so it records only partial frames of … Read more