Summer winding down

I know summer is coming to a close when the harvest begins - Seneca (formerly Green Giant) was out harvesting the sweet corn field that surrounded my farm this last week.  The bees were happy to see it go, at least two different times they sprayed the field with a helicopter.  While they did luckily spray on non-windy days and earlier in the morning some of them were likely exposed to whatever pesticide they used.  What this will do to them is anyone's guess, but it safe to say it probably isn't helpful for them. 

Regardless it's fun to watch them chew up a field of sweet corn - it's amazing how quickly it disappears.  Especially when you think about how much corn is involved.  The average sweet corn field usually will yield about 8-10 tons per acre.  After it's husked and cut there is about 45-50% of that weight left of actual sweet corn.  So taking this particular field - 160 acres X 8 tons X 45% = 576 tons of edible sweet corn - over 1 million pounds of sweet corn.  This field was picked and canned in under 24 hours, so you get the drift of how efficient they are.

What I didn't realize until the next morning however was that they were a little too efficient - they must have been going by my field of popcorn real early in the AM and for some reason that I still have yet to decipher they picked about half of one variety of my popcorn!  I was pretty pissed off at first - even though my popcorn is just about the same height as the sweet corn, it is much different.  My field was separated by a line of weeds and is also planted with different row spacing so the driver of the combine who did this must have been sleeping.  After I cooled off (30 minutes or so) I made a few phone calls and within an hour I had a supervisor over to my house talking about what had happened.  He said they would make things right and are going to send a check for my estimate of the loss.  While I was impressed how quickly they responded I still am a bit bummed out since they destroyed half of my favorite variety.  I guess this way I won't have to work so hard this fall.

One reason that makes me forget about stupid things that happen like big companies wrecking my fields or spraying my bees with chemicals is my smiling little girl.  She has been doing very well and after all excitement she caused back in April things are getting more normal - which is nice.

Summer!

Well after a slightly busier than normal spring, summer finally arrived and with it even more fun!  After our excitement with Anna things finally settled down somewhat as we got used to having another little one to watch after.  The picture below is of my brothers and my children.  They are all pretty close in age and when they get together they have a blast.  This summer we have had lots of opportunities to visit - on the farm, at the pool and on the lake.

One would probably think that with all of this excitement, all of the extra family activities and the wet, cold spring I might have just said, "maybe I should just skip the farmer stuff this summer and give Farmer Dan a rest".  Well that didn't happen and although my crops don't look all that wonderful, this terrible heat wave that I keep hearing about in the news seemed to have caught up most things.  I guess I've never thought heat was that terrible - I don't have a full time job where I have to spend all of my time out in it, but I never let it stop me from doing things outside that need to be done.  

One thing that has come out of all of this heat has been storms and while the Stewart area has gotten by with just minor problems MN in general is looking pretty ragged in a few places.  My brother and I drove through Tyler, MN about an hour after an F-2 tornado hit and I have never seen anything like it.  We drove and drove and drove for about 60 miles through the area and the amount of trees uprooted, power lines down on the road and damage to farm sites was unreal.

As you can see on the picture below there is a rope going around my hive - I'm still thinking if this would really help, but two weeks ago a storm blew through here around 10pm.  Since the power was out I thought I would take a walk to see what things looked like after the wind calmed down and I found one of my beehives was toppled over.  I wasn't really sure what to do, but since there was more rain coming I thought it should be righted ASAP.  So I put on all my gear and went out with my flashlight.  Little did I know that the bees thought that I tipped their hive over! Saying that they were unhappy about their new horizontal position was as big as an understatement as saying that the people of Minnesota were happy their government shut down.

I thought I had seen mad bees before but this was something off the charts.  I only wish I would have been able to capture this to help reinforce my words, but since it was midnight and there was another round of storms coming I wasn't going to stop and get my camera and floodlights.  I think I was stung between 20-30 times right through all my gear!  I was covered in bees, but I managed to stick it out long enough to get things mostly righted before the rain started again.  

I've asked a few people what they thought about this and most seem to think the bees would be able to recover from this.  I'm not sure what will happen, but after a few days things calmed down and below is what you will see today - pretty normal.  Just to give some perspective - the hive as it stood that night weighed probably close to 300lbs - just imagine how much wind it would take to blow over a 300lb person.  I'm lucky that was all that happened that night - aside from a few branches being down.

Keeping bees has been one of the most rewarding things I've ever done, I've learned so many things in the last 4 years.  So far I have not repeated most of the mistakes I've made.  But just watching their organization and how they operate is amazing.  I took this picture at 9pm so it's pretty safe to stand this close.  The bees are starting to make their way home and are pretty calm.  When it's warm like it was today there are always a bunch of them sitting with their butts towards the hive and their wings at a strange angle and they just sit and fan.  With a few hundred of them doing this (you can see a few doing it in this picture), they create a draft in the hive.  Other bees are bringing drops of water which they leave at the entrance for some to blow.  Essentially they are air conditioning their home.  They do this for two main reasons - one is to help dry the honey down and the other is to keep their wax from melting. 

So I'll conclude with another sunset picture.   It seemed like for a few months I had been missing them, the last few weeks there are very few that I have missed.  Say what you will about living in the middle of now where, but I'll take my sunsets and sunrises that are as close to perfect as you can watch aside from being on an ocean.  One thing about this location is that I get to see both!  Those living on an ocean usually only get a good sunrise or sunset.  Most of the time the other is blocked by city, mountains or something else and they will never have a clear view both ways.

Anna

I have been really busy the last two weeks, my daughter was born on April 27th at 3:40am.  She wasn't due until June 9th so she was a tad bit early.   My wife went into the hospital to get checked out as she wasn't feeling quite right.  After a few phone calls I decided that it would probably be a good idea to pack a bag and as the phone calls began to get a little more worried I hit the road.  When I arrived at the hospital I was informed that a helicopter was already on the way to take her to Abbot Northwestern hospital in Minneapolis.  Since she was so early the Hutchinson hospital was not able to handle a preemie.  Although I didn't get to ride in style we made it in plenty of time and little Anna Laura was born a few hours later.

I didn't have the heart to show some of the pictures from the first day, she had some problems breathing right away and needed a little help for about 36 hours.  Since then she has been doing very well, she needs to keep breathing on her own with out any help and eating all her food on her own.  She was transferred a few days ago to Ridgeview Hospital in Waconia which is about 30 miles closer to home.  Hopefully at this time next week she will be at home and everything will be able to get to know our daughter.

If anything I have a story to tell people for the rest of my life, I'm just grateful that she has done so well so far.

Spring

Its been a pretty crazy spring around here - one day it's sunny, the snow melts, the puddles get bigger and then next day it snows.  The following two pictures were taken on the road to the south of me and the road to the west.  They were both taken on March 23rd after we had a foot of snow.  The water in the second picture is actually flowing over the road but it was still passable.  Had the weather continued to stay as warm as it was both these roads would have been flooded out and had that happened it would have meant a couple extra miles for me to get to town.  You may have to click on the pictures to see them fully since they are panoramic. 

Just to be clear - there normally is absolutely no water during a regular year here and even more amazing, all the water was gone along with the snow in about six days!

Fast forward 14 days....

The bees are flying and the crocus are blooming!  Today I sat and watched the bees work their first real flowers of the season (technically the elms and spruces are blooming right now).  I sat and watched for a while and they were just going to town on the few flowers that managed to break through the mulch.  The picture below made me laugh - the bee was working really hard to get into the flower that hadn't quite opened up yet.  It just was neat to see even the bees are fighting for spring to come, it's truly amazing how hard those bees work.  Hopefully it isn't a sign that this summer will be a tough one.

Winter is almost over (I think)

Well it's been a truly busy winter, I usually have come to think that winter time is for resting - recharging the batteries or what ever you want to call it.  Not so this winter.  Every time I think I have a nice day of rest coming it snows and I spend at least a part of my day moving snow.  I suppose it sounds like I'm complaining about the snow, but it's just that I have so many other things to do that the snow moving time is cutting into.  Things like getting my taxes done, planning for my crops, getting ready for baby #3.   I think officially we are moving into the top 8 snowiest winters on record and based on the forecast we could jump up a few more slots next week.   I took a few pictures to illustrate just how much snow we have.  The problem I run into is that taking pictures of something that is pure white is really difficult.  I've tried the morning and evening, but even with some shadows it really doesn't do any justice to the situation.  This picture is on the side of the shed.  To give some perspective - the door to the shed is all the way open and it is about 11 feet in the air when it's like that.  Also you can see two little heads poking out from the side of the drift.  The boys had a blast digging that day.

 This picture is of the dog kennel - it finally melted down some so the dogs have light during the day again, but for perspective the lower end of the shed is about 5 feet tall here.

 This was my attempt to try and capture just how much snow there is out in the open fields.  Unless you've lived out in the country for a while this picture doesn't really do any justice to our snow pack.  Usually open plowed fields have black chunks of dirt sticking up all over.  They only look nice after a fresh blanket of snow has fallen - this was taken after the wind finally calmed down and you can see it looks pretty flat.  It almost looks like an ocean with frozen waves in it.  Pictures just don't really capture the beauty of it.

 Even with my truck in the picture the giant piles of snow aren't truly appreciated.  This part of the road is totally flat - there isn't even much of a ditch here, but yet the snow plows can't push the snow back any farther and the road gets narrower and each time the wind blows harder and harder to get through until the plows go through.  The few miles around me are like this for miles - on one side of the road there are piles five to ten feet tall, at night it feels like you are driving in a tunnel.  I've even heard from people who have lived here for years that this is the worst they have seen it.  That coming from Minnesotans who always talked about how it snowed more when they were younger or it was always colder when they were little.  I get sick of hearing that complaining or bragging (not sure exactly what that is) and it's sort of refreshing to hear that this is now the worst they have seen.

 This is sort of a typical drainage ditch.  The way the wind blows out here all the snow ends up packed into these ditches.  They are usually 30-40 feet wide, this spot is more unusual since many of the ditches are completely full of snow.  I've seen these little caves hollowed out on the few days above freezing we've had this winter, part of me just wants to jump down there and explore inside one of them, but then I remember that the cave is made out of ice and the water at the bottom is probably about 33 degrees and it would probably be pretty cold.  Just looking at all of this snow and all of the ditches so full is scary - the amount of flooding we had last year with much less snow was bad enough - I think in a few weeks I will have some even more amazing pictures to post.

 So again - I'm not complaining about the snow or the cold or the winter.  It has been a long one, but I know that the end is in sight.  It's been fun for me to watch the snow I just wish these picture were more telling!  It's just spectacular to see the effects of a little frozen water and I truly marvel at just how powerful Mother Nature can be.  So even though it is frozen tundra all around me, I am thinking about much warmer weather and getting ready for it.  One thing I have been doing is painting.  I was inspired to paint my bees boxes a different color, I thought they would think yellow would be a fun color.  This is my supply of honey supers which aren't put on until late May.  These are the shorter boxes which are much easier to move around after the bees fill them up with their hard work.  As for my girls, I'm not 100% sure how they did this winter yet.  I do know that 1 of my 3 hives did not make it.  They basically starved to death, they moved to the top box which wasn't quite full enough of honey and they got stuck on a frame that wasn't completely done and died on a cold night.  The hive right next to that one is struggling for the same reason and I am hoping that they were able to make it through the recent cold snap.  The last hive is doing quite well and also made it through last winter, so I'm less worried about them.  It still amazes me how they are able to survive the bitter cold.  What's even more amazing is that right now with the outside temp at 12 degrees they have small spot on the inside of their hive warmed up to about 85-90 degrees to keep the eggs they are starting to lay warm.   I'm hoping to start writing more now that I have been doing more with my "farm."  I hope I will have good news about the bees as well.

35

It's my 35th birthday today, I'm not a big celebrater of birthdays - but it's just like a new year or something.  Time to look back and think about the future.  It's hard for me to believe at times all the crazy things I've had happen to me, some of them my own fault and others completely out of my control.  For the most part though my life has been pretty enjoyable, but for the last seven years I have always been contemplating how to make it better.  My search has lead me to do things I would have never thought possible, being a teacher, farmer, pharmacist, toxicologist, getting married, and a new father again (that's right my wife is due in June!).

I've met so many amazing people in the last seven years - an alcoholic bar owner who sold his bar so he could devote all his time to a charity which sends food to hungry people all over the world.  He is so concerned about putting as much money as possible into food, that he bought a minivan, cut it in half to make a car that would get better gas mileage.  I've met a US congressman that turned out to be one of the nicest people (I don't care a whole lot for politicians).   Another - Earnie Larson - who recently passed away due to pancreatic cancer - showed me how fulfilling helping others really can be.  I could go on for pages and pages, I'm just happy to have known these people, to get to learn something from them.  There are so many people who are so pessimistic about the future of this country and the world, I can say with some certainty that if they knew these three people like I do they would change their minds.  If the nightly news focused on the good that these people do I think that attitude wouldn't even exist, but for now the world focuses on all the bad.

Well anyway - I have to get back to celebrating, I think this year is going to be a good year.