Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
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A big part of ending a gardening season is clearing out those items that are done for this summer. All my cornstalks have been dug up and hauled away. While doing that, I found enough small ears to make another half-batch of frozen corn. (I'll correct my mis-info from last week: the recipe is from Helen Blankers, who was a cousin of my mother-in-law. I discussed this with Aunt Nina this past week, and have made a note on my recipe card.) Also, while clearing the corn, I found evidence that there...
The wheat harvest has been on hold for the past week. We'd had rain on the Monday of Labor Day weekend, which prevented our continued laboring. (We slept most of that day, catching up.) It rained again the next weekend, further delaying our returning to labor with a combine. The rain delays did not stop the harvesting in my garden. It did cause several of my cherry tomatoes to burst open upon picking, such that they had to be discarded. The ones that hadn't burst open were taken to the banquet...
Editor's Note: This column was submitted for the week of Aug. 30. I’d mentioned a while ago that my multiple summer trips had left my lawn rather parched, with multiple brownish patches. I’ve now stayed home long enough to have kept the sprinkler going. Combine that with those few cooler days, with some natural rain and even fog up here, and the lawn is again green and fairly lush. Granted, it’s not springtime lush, when the snow is newly melted and we’ve enjoyed the spring rains. But for this time of year, I’m pretty happy with it. Dennis got...
Whose bright idea was it to schedule the holiday to honor the laborer right during farmers’ (our local laborers) busiest time of year? While everyone else gets a long weekend to celebrate, us farmers are laboring over our harvest. If you haven’t thought about it (or listened to farmers’ conversations), let me point out that this is our yearly paycheck time! We don’t get bi-weekly or monthly paychecks, this is all or nothing for the entire year until next harvest. We aren’t about to let the crops set in the fields an extra day (or three) in...
It seems to me as though once the kids are heading back to school Mother Nature decides it’s time for cooler weather. I guess that makes the kids appreciate their new warm school clothing. That cooler weather only lasts a few days, though. The early mornings will be cool, but afternoons still get quite warm. This results in lots of jackets and sweatshirts being left behind, to the dismay of moms everywhere. This change in the weather has me thinking about all the houseplants I have parked outside and how I’m really going to cut down on the num...
Or maybe it's more of a rut? I guess that depends on your perspective (or in how you choose to regard your life). In any case, I'm home and the garden is progressing into the over-productive phase. There aren't so many weeds to pull since what I've planted is now big enough to edge out any weeds that have the temerity to attempt to eke out their own little space in the sun. It's raining as I write this (Saturday evening - we don't do demolition derbies as all three daughters managed to demolish...
Lollygag: to spend time aimlessly, idle; to dawdle I’m not sure this most recent very short vacation counts as lollygagging, but that’s what I’m going with. I did spend some slow-moving time (dawdling) in the sun, enough that I came home a bit sunburnt. The purpose of this trip was to accompany the grandchildren home. Our granddaughter peeled off in Denver to return to Chicagoland, while the boys and I went on to Tampa. Naturally, after a trip of that distance, I wasn’t going to return home immediately. We packed a lot into those few days. F...
I’ve discovered that growing a vegetable garden and taking summer vacations doesn’t work out too well. There’s always something that needs harvesting at the same time a fun trip could be had. I may decide to not plant so many veggies next summer. I hope I’ll still be able to have the fun trips next summer. Naturally the raspberries decided to come on a bit earlier than usual this summer, so they were going strong during the time I was away. I enjoyed watching the grandsons competing in a roller hockey tournament in Fort Wayne, Ind., much mo...
The raspberries have really come on strong in the past couple of weeks. I can easily spend three hours in the cooler air of the early mornings picking them. Then they need to be rinsed, drained, and frozen. I’ll vacuum-seal them in pints the next day. Of course I keep a lot of them out to eat immediately. I know I’ve said this before, but even though I also eat a lot of them whilst picking, I never get tired of having more. While a lot of my time each summer is spent on gardening chores, I still need to prep foods and cook meals. You pro...
I’m tendering apologies. I completely forgot to write a column last week! I can offer several excuses: I’m old; I was busy doing other things (can’t remember what - see previous excuse); I was lazy; I didn’t feel like it; I honestly thought I had sent in a column. I think all of them could apply. You can pick whichever one you like. Anyway, I’m sorry. There really have been things going on up here. I finally got around to running the weed whacker in all the nooks and crannies and corners the riding mower doesn’t reach. Then there was enough...
I’m sure not many noticed the lack of a Green Spaces column the past two weeks. If you are one who did, you could blame my sisters (with their husbands in tow) for coming from southeastern Missouri to see us. The first few days here were spent getting reacquainted with northeastern Montana. These two sisters also attended school here in Opheim way back when. They much prefer the dryer atmosphere here over the mugginess of a Missouri summer. We attended the Fort Peck Theatre production of Murder on the Orient Express, and then had ribs at E...
Mother Nature seems to be stuck in a wash cycle that features way too many rinses and repeats. The rains just keep on coming. We’re definitely not complaining about the abundant moisture after the past few years of drought. Personally, I’m loving seeing all the green up here. The pastures are rebounding and the waterholes are staying fairly full. There’s one small nitpick, though: perhaps She could space out the four inches of rain over two days instead of two hours? We like having the roads and railways in good operator-friendly condi...
A lot more has been accomplished up here beyond the Middle of Nowhere, but the end is nowhere in sight. I repeat: there’s always more to be done, especially weeding and mowing. No complaining about the rain is to be tolerated, however. It’s wonderful to see the country so green. It does make for more work, but it’s work I enjoy. We took a half-day off to attend the Memorial Day program in Opheim. Upon our return home, he went back to seeding wheat, while I mowed the lawn. Then I thinned more catmint and tiger lilies. A lot of rhubarb was pulle...
There's been a lot more work completed up here this past week, some in the garden and some in the house. And, of course, as mentioned last week, there's still more to be done. The goldfinches are voracious. I'm having to refill the feeders almost daily. We have eight set up around the place, but three of those don't see much action. The birdbaths (four) get rinsed out and refilled almost as often. As soon as I washed windows and installed our two air conditioners, it started a cycle of rains....
As I once remarked to my mother-in-law, there is always, always, ALWAYS more work to be done. I also once asked the in-laws, "Why are we working? Simply to work? Or is it in order to be able to go and do things and to enjoy this life?" So, anyway, I've done some work. I've been able to do some things and I've been enjoying some life. On Tuesday, we re-started seeding the wheat crop. I'd helped get things moved to the field and then helped fill the air seeder. Then I headed to town: the women's g...
Mother Nature gets confused when she heads north. Our April showers are arriving in May. (April brought us lots of winter snows. Boo! Hiss!) We are still managing to get some May flowers, though, so I guess I'll forgive Mother Nature. As if she cares about me and my forgiveness. She'll continue to do as she wishes. There's not a thing I can do to stop her. Last Monday afternoon (a week ago) was very productive for me. Many seeds were planted, starting with my three types of peas: regular, sugar...
Dare I hope spring is finally really here? Am I dooming us to more icky weather by uttering the word spring? To that second question, I certainly hope not! I’m pretty sure I don’t possess the power to jinx all of northeastern Montana. If I had power over the weather, I’m sure I’d have been misusing it. A lot has been accomplished up here at Honrud, Montana, since last I wrote. The garden space has been tilled. Does anything smell as nice as freshly turned soil? Okay, maybe the air after a nice rain does. The drip system is staked in place s...
I watched a reel on Facebook last week by a Canadian man. He talked aboot the four seasons they enjoy: first is summer, when you can wear shorts and flip-flops. (I'm paraphrasing since I don't remember the build-up so much, but the punchline resonates with me). Then there's fall, when the leaves change color and you can wear your nice sweaters. Winter brings snow and enjoying cocoa in front of a cozy fire. And then there's the season of betrayal! We've had way too many betrayals, haven't we? (I...
I feel like we're trapped in a Groundhog's Day movie scenario: the last couple of Wednesdays and Thursdays have dumped another six inches of never-ending winter on us. A couple of weeks ago we had two nice days in a row. I'd thought we were Free At Last, but I was wrong. So wrong. Because of the new, heavy, wet snow, I haven't yet returned the freshly cleaned bird feeders to their stations. But not to fear, the ones I left outside were filled and are being constantly visited by the little...
Spring is still late. Mostly it's missing, perhaps playing hookie. I feel like a broken record. Seriously, more snow?? We had another 6" of cold white yuck last Thursday night. The highway was solid ice Friday morning. And there's more of that nastiness coming according to my cheerful mate who keeps checking the forecasts. My sympathies go out to everyone living in flood zones. At least we can hope that the majority of the grasshoppers eggs got washed away. I did get out to my storage shed last...
Finally! We're getting some spring weather. The snow is melting. There's mud everywhere. Of course, as deep as the drifts are up here north of the middle of nowhere, we're going to be looking at and working around mud for a while yet. But there's hope of gardening budding in my heart. The seeds I've started are still growing. More of them are sprouting as well. Some are slow starters (looking at you, seed onions!). The snow has receded from my storage shed, so perhaps this week I'll retrieve at...
Here we are, suffering through yet another winter event even though the calendar tells us it’s spring. It’s so depressing to see more snow blowing sideways through the yard. Yesterday the highway up here was bare. Today we’re back to a total mess: patches of wet, flowed by slush, followed by snow-pack, followed by slushy drifts, soon to be followed by ice. There are long sections where none of the dividing lines on the road are visible because of the build-up of snow/slush. The fog isn’t helping at all. I have finally put some seeds into so...
The official meaning of hiatus is "a pause or gap in a sequence, series, or process." I've been on an extended hiatus from gardening. Perhaps there's a word for this extension (forced vacation? jail sentence?), which I need, since I'd say this winter has been much more than a pause or gap. It's a yawning chasm, not a gap! Right now I'm doing my best to ignore all the snow outside my door. Those big drifts have compacted downwards quite a bit. The scratching noise from the lilac tree outside our...
Here I am, complaining about the weather again. But I feel like I'm in good company on that front: who isn't sick of winter by now? Could we please have at least a full week of no snow, sunny skies, and very little wind? I'm sure all the road crews agree with me. But I guess that's been too much to ask for this past month. We've made too many trips to and from Glasgow on snow-packed, icy, and/or slushy roads. Our highway has been treacherous. (I'm aware through second-hand reports that it isn't...
This latest blast from Mother Nature has certainly dampened my enthusiasm for gardening out of doors. My plans to start some seeds are on hold, although they probably shouldn't be. I know onions started from seed take forever (a few months wouldn't be too long) to grow large enough to be transplantable. But I can be a lazy gardener and starting seeds is definitely a time and effort commitment. Those baby seedlings need almost daily waterings. Whatever you use to start those seeds (peat pots,...
