spring freeze coming

I planted some jumbo tulips I found in town last week.  I got them in the ground just in time to have freezing temps come in the next few days. Guess I should have waited a bit longer :) I'll have to make sure to cover them as we have frost warnings.  We did put a space heater in the greenhouse as I did not want to lose all the plants in there, so hopefully it works.

We have had a wet spring, though not overly wet but wet enough to cause flooding in areas and the Wisconsin River is higher that I've seen in a few years.  We passed this truck on our way to the chiropractor; he apparently did not heed the road conditions as he was coming around the curve.  He was pretty stuck that was for sure.  Glad he wasn't hurt; this is not the first truck that either went into the field or overturned the truck carrying a load of corn heading to the granary which happened last year, though I did not get a photo of that, and no one was hurt in that accident either.

On our way to Jim's treatment in La Crosse, we drive though a really pretty valley and usually when it's very cold out this valley seems to be the coldest in the surrounding area.  The fog in the valley was so pretty we had to stop so I could take a picture.  The creek doesn't usually have this much water in it and it was flowing pretty good.

I know spring is here, but it just doesn't quite feel like it yet.

some flooding

I could have posted about a dozen photos of the flooding we had about 10 days ago but decided on only two ;)

We are still having rain here; our grass is turning so green and I should get out to mow but the ground is so wet and saturated.   

Hubby did get out one day to plow the garden and plant a row of leeks, but the ground was just way too wet to plant anything other than the leeks.

Since my husband's diagnosis we have really changed our diet, cutting out sugar and processed white flour.  We have ground our own flour for years, but fresh ground flour is hard to use.  We found a company Sunrise Four Mill that is housed in Minnesota, and we bought a few bags of flour to try and I absolutely love it.  This is my plug for this wonderful flour, and I was not asked to do this LOL. :)  It is a bit spendy but so worth it, and my sourdough starter worked wonderfully with the wheat flour.

How is it in your area? Are you having a lot of rain?

catching up

Wow, Wow, Wow!!  Has it really been almost 4 months since I've posted last?  It's so hard to believe.  I really had no intention of staying away so long, but on my last post we were on our way to Texas for our granddaughter's graduation, and when we left for home, she came back with us and stayed for a couple of months before heading back to Texas to get ready for college.  In that time, we had 3 other grandchildren come to stay for a week with us as well.  We were busy, busy, busy.  Just as I was trying to catch my breath after everyone was gone, canning season started.

Our granddaughter thrived here on our farm, having lived in the city her whole life.  Though being around animals, large or small, she really took to it.  She is very calm around them and respects them.

Here she is helping to move the calves to another pasture.

We decided this year not to cut our own hay.  Hay is pretty cheap right now here in our area and seems to be everyone wants to sell hay, so that's the route we took.  One evening we unloaded the hay wagon and filled our hay mow with the bales.

While hubby did all the lifting of the bales, I sat and waited and enjoyed the view until my help was needed ;)

I didn't take a lot of photos this summer, it was just too busy and when I did remember to the moment was gone.

The strawberries were ripe when the grands were here, so strawberry rhubarb pie filling was made.

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I still have a few more things to put up, such as potatoes, beets and making sauerkraut.  

Hope your summer has been good as ours sure was, even though I didn't get any blogging done, I couldn't give up the time spent with grandchildren here on our farm.

happy Mother’s Day

 

I’d like to wish all mothers a Happy Mother’s Day!

hay wagon trip

We picked up a used hay wagon and though it was a 2 1/2-hour trip there, it was about a 4 to 5-hour trip home.  We couldn't really go over 40 mph and so we took back roads to get home.  Here are some random shots along the way.  I finally pulled out my Nikon camera again, I have been using my cell phone to take pictures, so it was fun doing drive-by shots, just point and shoot.

Despite the long time it took us to get home, we had a nice drive through the country and sorry for the photo overload.

elephant rock

 

I went to a quilt retreat last weekend and the route I took went past the Elephant Rock.  Living in the Driftless Area you will see a lot of rock formations that still remain after the glaciers came through.

The Driftless area is also called Ocooch Mountains where it's very hilly and rugged, this is the part where I live in, up on a ridge.

late winter storm

We had a late winter snowstorm; what we call a sugar snow, but we didn't go gather any sap that ran, we are done. 

Last Wednesday we ventured out in the storm to visit with our Amish Friends.  I think we were the only ones on the road, and we got to the area where the snow really drifts over the road. It wasn't too bad when we drove through it but at one point before I pulled out my phone to take a photo it was starting to clear up.

Now we are onto the cleaning up and onto planting the gardens.

spring is in the air

Busy life here on our farm, new babies arrived, sap is starting to run, quilt retreats attended.  It's nice to see the subzero temps in the rearview mirror, and warmer weather in front of us.

Now the really busy work starts, gathering and cooking the sap down.  We have been tapping trees for 14 years and have changes over those years.  We don't use buckets anymore we use wine bags that we buy at an Amish maple syrup supply store.  We also don't tap as many trees and have cut down on the amount of taps we put in.  This year we tapped trees that we haven't tapped before and didn't tap trees that were not really good sap producers.

We love this time of year, going outside and taking a deep breath in smelling that fresh air and to me that is the first sign that spring is on its way.

winter sunrise

There is nothing like winter sunrises or even sunsets.  I took this shot last week as we were leaving our farm to go to town.  Everything looked hazy though it wasn't.  I think there was moisture in the air, and it was very cold that caused it to look hazy. 

It's been cold but finally starting to warm up, which is wonderful, no sub-zero temps hopefully for a while.

year in review 2024

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

This year started with a bang so far, quilting and finishing 5 quilts and countless more tops that need to be done.  Today we woke up to -21 degrees, and the perfect day to stay in to continue working on those quilt tops.

over and back

Leaving Manitowoc Wisconsin.

Arriving in Ludington Michigan.

Leaving Ludington Michigan.

Arriving back at Manitowoc Michigan.

Sorry for the photo overload.  

We took the SS Badger across Lake Michigan from Manitowoc Wisconsin to Ludington Michigan to pick up two of our grandsons to bring them back to our farm for a week's vacation.  We absolutely love being on the water, I unfortunately got a bit queasy from the rolling water on the way over, but on the trip back it wasn't too bad.  We stayed the night in Ludington Mi with our son and his family. 

They came the following weekend to pick up the boys.  We had a wonderful week and weekend spending time with family.