FARM

The old Carter Family song reminds us to keep a sunny perspective.

“Well, there’s a dark and a troubled side of life
There’s a bright and a sunny side too
But if you meet with the darkness and strife
The sunny side we also may view”

These days you gotta take the good with the bad. I try to find a little something to be happy about each day. So I’m celebrating milestones this month, both major and minor.

Is it safe to go out yet?

It’s mid-April and we’re still in lockdown mode. We’re going nowhere…very slowly. The days are all starting to meld together. I have to check my phone to remember if it’s Friday or Saturday. Oh, never mind. It’s only Wednesday.

Interesting times we’re living through, eh?

We won’t be traveling in the RV any time soon; like most citizens we’re hunkered down at home. So this seems like a good time to sit by the fire and share some cordwood cabin stories with you.

Fallen Oak

If a tree falls in the woods … why does it always land on the neighbor’s fence?

It’s said that good fences make good neighbors. That’s because you don’t want your neighbor’s cattle herd trampling all over your soybean crop. Which happens a lot on our farm because eventually a tree limb will fall and bust open a fence line and the cows will come through the hole thinking the grass is greener on the other side. 

Some mornings I wake up to find half a dozen steers staring in my window. That means a fence is down somewhere and I’ve got to call the neighbor to come fetch his livestock again.

Cows on the lawn

Ah, the mystery of life! Especially the mysterious life cycle of the Monarch Butterfly.

Our good neighbors, Mike & Lida, have been busy raising Monarchs all summer and we were invited to be foster parents to a bunch of caterpillars.

The Monarch caterpillar is a very picky eater. They only dine on milkweed. There are many varieties of milkweed, like Whorled, Common and Swamp, and the plants like to grow in open meadows and on the margins of woods. But these are also the places that are heavily subjected to herbicides, and so there’s a severe decline in wild milkweed and hence the butterflies. Where goeth the milkweed, so goeth the Monarch. No milkweed, no Monarch.

It’s been storming for a month now. Big, rolling storms that ride in from the southwest on fast moving fronts. These late summer storms can be dangerous, spawning tornadoes and fierce winds. Makes you keep a wary eye on the sky.

Usually by now the weather has dried out a bit and we can slow down our endless mowing chores. But this year has been exceptionally wet and steamy and the grass is still growing tall, practically overnight.