It's Spring

Spring time. That means two things, winter is over, and summer is coming. Spring is the time to look over the site to see how everything weathered the snow and cold, and thieves!

Broken doors in the RV and travel trailer that we use for living quarters while building. Batteries from both as well as induction cook tops, heaters, and other domestic equipment. The doors in the shed were too solid to break open, so they went through the window. They managed to unlock it and get in without breaking the glass, just the screen. Then they sprayed the door with black paint--Why? Who knows.

Thousands of dollars worth of theft and damage! Not the proper way to meet spring.

Summer is coming and is looking a bit more promising. A crew and a consultant will arrive shortly to put the domes together. The plan is to start on Monday, 28 April--I won't be there until later, but it will be nice to pull in and see the assembly well under way. We had hoped to start earlier in April, but Mother Nature didn't cooperate. It is northern Minnesota, after all, so we hoped, but didn't really expect to start earlier.

I have been promised pictures which I will post as I receive them.

Tamaracks!

While it's true that we completely failed to take any pictures of the construction at the end of this season, I do have some excuse: I had just discovered that we have a stand of tamaracks on the farm, located just north of the building site. They are, hands down, my favorite tree.

I love their name, from the Algonquian for "wood used for snowshoes." (Their other name, larch, is nowhere near as evocative. Practically meaningless, in fact.)

 

How can you not love a conifer that looks like an evergreen until it deciduous-ly drops its needles in the fall after a stunning display of dark gold color? They are pretty fine looking in the spring and summer, too, with their whimsically curving branches.

Somehow, all my previous visits were timed such that I missed their spectacular fall show, and so I never knew they were there until this year. You can see them from quite a distance as you drive towards our property, making them a temporary fall landmark. Although, as my daughter pointed out after over-reliance on traffic cones, your landmarks in a new place should never be orange.

~t

SNOW!

An hour ago, I was enjoying the big beautiful moon. Now it is snowing!

Actually it is a rain/snow mix, the kind of snow we used to call 'corn snow'--tiny, white pellets. The weather folks say we will receive showers throughout the night and will have no accumulation.

This is what "no accumulation" looks like:

Sheetrock 1

Sheetrock? We don't even have the basement fully sealed up, why sheetrock now?

I will need the electrician in as soon as possible so I can have some light and possibly some power for heat. The main electrical boxes will be fastened to the wall, but by code, the foam on the wall will need to be covered. So, sheetrock it is...


...except for the area where the electrical panels will be; that gets plywood.

Only the wall with the electrical works gets covered now. The rest will have to wait.

It's a Ladybug

A reason to not be anywhere near a soybean field after harvest: Ladybugs !

Some around here refer to it as the Asian Beetle, which is actually close. After all, these ladybugs are beetles and they are from Asia. They like my white trailer, especially the screen door when the solid door is open. That won't happen again until after the next hard frost when they go somwhere (hopefully not my trailer) to chill out for the winter.

We will find a way to deal with them.  Or, we will go visiting during soybean harvest.

No pictures. Somethings one just doesn't want to have memories haunting one's every waking (and sleeping) moment.

A Moose for Gram

Yup! A female moose, just strolling along across the road. "So you think you have a big blue truck. Huh! I squash them for sport."

"I love it when a second truck almost smashes the first one."

"My grammoose has always wanted to see a truck."

So, Nephew L arrives in town (um, farm). We head into town to do a bit of grocery shopping and get a bite to eat. Of course, being a good uncle, I start to explain that one needs to be alert because deer often cross the road at this time of the evening, especially in the fall.  At that point, I notice something about the blackness in the ditch. It seemed to change shades, or move like something out of Startrek. I began to apply my brakes, as did the truck behind me, probably not knowing why.

Then the strange blackness came up onto the road into the headlights of my now quickly-stopping truck. Again, the truck behind me quickly copied my actions, and again, probably not knowing why.

The strange blackness turned out to be a full-grown female moose.

I commented how lucky I was to have noticed the movement in the ditch. L pointed out that my senses were alert at that moment because I was talking about deer making surprise appearances when I noticed the moose.

Yes, Gram, there really are moose.

Coffee in the Open-Air Dining Room

Coffee break, anyone? I have a table ready in the dining room. Just let me fetch another chair and cup with some milk and sugar.

Enjoy the view out the window. Don't worry, you don't need iPod, iPad, Windows, Google Chrome, Firefox, Ding, Kindle, or any other electronic gadget or program. This is pure nature in the buff with only a little bit of human landscaping in the foreground. 

The swampy area on the left across the road is home to a number of Sand Hill Crane. They make some of the most non-tweety-bird sounds I have ever heard. Compared to them, geese could perform the Sound of Music.