It’s a wonderful time of year

Color amid showers

It’s the most colorful time of the year… (think that Christmas song ‘the most wonderful time of the year’ tune, its what rolls across my mind when I survey the prairies). Emerald green waves drift across the prairies while brilliant, rich yellow pops here and there. The rare periwinkle blue shyly blooms and winks amid the waves.

The canola is such a rich and brilliant yellow; my eyes forget the intensity of the color till the next year rolls around. Soybeans, corn, wheat, edibles and potatoes wave and nod sleepily in the afternoon sun as birds execute soaring swoops and daring dives. While the flax pops the soft blue and then melts back into the green of the emerald waves.

Scattered rain showers stealthily steal a march over the prairies, dousing some fields and leaving others with only tantalizing drops of rain. Farmers play tag with the rain clouds as they try to finish the last rounds of spraying. Hubs is out right now sneaking into the opening of gentle breezes and temporarily cloud-free skies.

I spy a fox in the edibles

I turn around and weeds have sprouted even bigger than before from my last weeding and hoeing. Finally, my garden looks less “I just planted this in the middle of June” and more like a real, potentially veggie-producing garden. Yay. A garden that I now remember to close the gate behind so Scooter doesn’t charge in and damage my plants with his clumsy paws.

Not too shabby looking eh? Ignore the weeds lol

When I bought my plants (my house starters didn’t make it or it was a 90% fail rate, lol) I encouraged hubs to pick one out. Yes, hubs took me flower/veggie shopping. He wheeled that giant flatbed cart like a pro around the greenhouses (he took me to more than one!). An interesting plant called a cola plant caught his eye. It smells faintly like the pop and if you snip the new, tender shoots you can use it in marinades to flavor meat. Maybe even as a dry rub. Who knows? We’ll test it this weekend. 😊 But it’s the first plant that hubs checks to make sure its still alive and growing in the garden. For some reason the squash plant doesn’t interest him as much. Go figure.

Gotta keep the water-loving farm dog happy and cool

My farm/in the field duties have been relatively light in the three weeks that I’ve been back in the Canuckland. Unfortunately mowing, trimming and general roundup spraying around bins waits for no one. And we invested in a lot of perennial flowers which take more time to plant than it took to buy them (this includes mulling over the exact plant – and how many - to put on the cart, after I’ve discerned which type of flower – hubs did very well through all this). 

I’m thankful for the time to catch up on that but now that leaves me with ‘free’ time. Which is just waiting to be filled with bookwork and follow-up phone calls to straighten out the inevitable error here and there on statements. Wiiiiiiiiiiin… or not. I suppose it’s a good reason to stay out of the heat and bask in the arctic cold of the basement that comes with the ac being on, right? And drink cold coffee while the obviously over-worked and busy farm dog snores on the cold floor. 

It's like he knows I'm going to take a photo

I shall procrastinate on posting a photo of my ‘now completed’ horse pasture because the wire isn’t up yet. Somehow spraying trumps that, ha. At least when I post a photo next week, the grass blend for the salt spot will finally be up and looking more like a grass pasture and less like forgotten field.

 May your week be full of time with friends, bbq’ing and iced coffee.

But hey, apple trees :)

Skip spring, turn right for summer

A perfect evening for drilling soybeans

Somehow the entire month of May eluded me, well, from the blogging side of life. Overlooking the constant, almost scheduled-like rains planting did occur with a few forays into a coffeehouse here and there. And Scooter had a great time with Boomer.

While hubs toiled away in the dry soil (that later turned to worrisome dry powder-like, soil-resembling stuff that was supposed to grow plants) I darted between rain showers with Dad finishing the last of the planter prep. A late April blizzard will do things like that; freeze field and planter prep right where they stand. This snowballs into a whole variety of things like late seed delivery, any field tillage is now ‘late’, and the list goes on.

A look at the weather forecast showed mud-like weather – cold, damp and potentially windy. I packed accordingly with a couple of t-shirts thrown in last minute over the long-sleeved t-shirts and hoodie. Yeah, that lasted all of five days. 

Then I was sweltering in the standard farmer work gear: jeans, t-shirt, ballcap and boots. Half of my duffle bag (Yes, it’s hot pink. Why? Because it’s color. It’s not denim blue or ball cap black.) I think the thermometer got confused when it went from the chipper cool damp to blazin’ hot and humid summer, its-time-to-bbq weather.

What no one remembers is when it’s that hot out farmers are still working. Working because they love the job aka life and working to feed the world. Yes, tractors nowadays have ac but when the temps are outrageously hot the ac doesn’t work at full blast. Low or medium fan speed ensures it will last the day with you but a sauna-like atmosphere does develop. Non-insulated water bottles very quickly turn warm. I may have experienced this phenomenon myself and warm water does not feel hydrating (or tempting to drink).

While I did have the questionable pleasure of warm drinking water it did occur because I was out drilling soy beans. I left my seat customized to Dad’s height because it was easier (maybe a tad lazy?!) and it’s planting time, there’s no time to mess around with lowering or raising the seat. Just drive. And plant.

Anyways, it took me all of two rounds that maybe I had been a tad short-sighted in not adjusting the seat. I’m average height-ish and my Dad is a whole lot taller (6’6”). So when I’m making the lovely keyhole turns with my little train I have one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the levers to raise the drill. 

Haven't quite mastered the whole 'selfie with air drill' thing

Clearly, I had forgotten that it can be a bit rough as I cross the headlands, going against the grain, so to speak. On a good run my toes will attempt to stick like glue to the floor but any other time I’m literally on an air-ride seat.

It’s a disconcerting feeling. Honestly, I could’ve fixed that problem but I wouldn’t have had the patience to raise it back for Dad when he commandeered the rig from me. It’s an interesting view from that high up; plus, I can see over the hood to where I’m going (and maybe drill a straight line, a worthy endeavor as a little meandering tends to occur as I enjoy the scenery).

With cold water, ac on low and sunscreen (fair skin needs love) it was planting season on the rolling prairies. My trusty farm pup entertained the senior farm dog in the cool breeze of the ac inside the house. Life was great, if a bit too hot.

May your week be full of summer breezes, BBQ’s and iced coffees.

A classy farm pup who likes his flowers

Time flies

Wintry prairie view

Before you know it, it’s Monday and the weekend turned into the week. Throw in a holiday and it feels more like a Wednesday than the first day of the week. Of course, it’s Cyber Monday and sadly I didn’t spend my day shopping. Instead, I attempted to conquer the chaos of post-holiday travel and accumulated bookwork. Yeah, the bookwork didn’t get too far because, well, it’s Monday. And who wants to do bookwork right after a holiday? (Hand not raised.)

Thanksgiving was fun in a whirlwind let’s-clean-everything-and-bake-everything-eat-wash-too-many-dishes and then finally collapse. The fun part was probably due more to an out-of-town cousin joining the festivities and all of us cousins playing a card game, Ligretto. If you don’t have good eye-hand coordination resign yourself to having a negative score (cards leftover in your deck count double, in the negative). Surprisingly, because hey a migraine wanted in on the fun too, I managed to win. No, no applause, really I mean it. A lot of laughter was shared over our mutual inability to pick up cards quickly as the tablecloth invariably came with the card.

Somehow, Thanksgiving speedily came and went; now the calendar is informing me that it’s hubs’ and my second anniversary tomorrow. Wow, does time fly. It feels like it was July just a week ago and harvest a couple days ago. I have to say I’m getting the hang of this thing called travel for my almost-monthly visits back home. Still, long hours of driving get dull so lucky for me I have a co-pilot for most of the road trips to SoDak.

Looking back, it was an interesting year, from the anniversary time clock, that is. I have driven through more auction lots (coincidentally on or right before an anniversary), gone on ‘dates’ to crop scout or check out potential equipment purchases. Side note, some of those equipment review ‘dates’ were booooooring because some old-school Mennonite or Hutterites will not talk to women. You might as well not even be there. Guess my opinion wasn’t needed, right? At least there was good convo and coffee before and after those sketch encounters. Ah well, hubs did well though, he randomly bought flowers (or had flowers waiting when I came home from planting/harvest) and will cook the occasional meal. I taught him well, haha. And we actually made plans for a vacation this year. T minus one month!

He really wanted a goofy photo :)

And speaking of time moving on fast forward, Christmas is the next target up. Who has their shopping done? One of my best friends had her’s done in August, it’s disgusting really, and is half done for next Christmas! I consider myself ahead of the game if I’m making an ideas list in July and saunter through the shopping process. Casual-like because Black Friday shopping is amusing to watch but insanity if you’re wading through it.

May you have survived Black Friday (your wallet too), indulged in the candy cane mochas and start December (this Friday yikes!) with gratitude for (fill in the blank). Me, gratitude for family.