Saturday, July 24, 2021

A Hot Dry Run: The Farm Report 07-25-2021

 A Hot Dry Run

The Farm Report
07-25-2021



July summers in Iowa are not known to be cool and comfortable. This year for sure, Iowa has lived up to it's reputation, in spades! Meridith Wilson knew Iowans - after all, he WAS one - and as he knew and told us in song, We're so By-God Stubborn.... Well, at least that's my excuse for staying here when it is so miserable outside. What I lack being smart, I make up for being stubborn! Annie and I keep on gardening in spite of it. Cooler weather will come. I put up a little hill with Henry Ford the other day, and we planted it with whatever seeds popped up from the seed box. Mostly, it is birdhouse gourds and late squash. I think there might have been some musk melons in the mix, too. I just stuck the seed packs in my pocket and walked down the row dropping them in. No signs, no measure, no logic, no real expectations. Just something to watch grow - if it wants to.



And you know, things DO want to grow. I've already got some birdhouse gourds coming up. But oh my! Is it ever hot and dry this year?!



Here is what I see when it is Front Porch Coffee Time at Oakdale Farm. That is Annie out there on the lawn. You can't see him, but Annie is 'supervising' O.J. down the hill to your right. He is hunting breakfast down in the orchard. He really doesn't need a supervisor, but try telling that to Annie Oakley. Dogs fascinate me, and herding/shepherd dogs especially. Annie, like Lucky and Ben before her, is always perched where she can see me and her 'flock.' Instincts!

Well, we were all trying to just mind our own business and get ready for the day when...ZZZZZOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!! Up from the valley came the flying tractor spraying the crops across the road. We use 'Air Tractors' out here more all the time it seems. GPS, onboard computer maps, and a guy in the seat who doesn't seem to worry one bit about ever collecting his Social Security money. Wow!



Here's a quick little video I made for you so you can have the same experience I had. If you REALLY want the same experience, turn your volume all the way up, and have somebody click this video for you when you aren't ready for it. If you compare the plane to the light pole you'll get a pretty good idea of how high off the ground he ISN'T. If you look carefully, you can see the corn tassels wiggle from the air flow. And, yes!, he was flying that low over my electric service wires. 




We have one tree down in the orchard that has always been my favorite summer apple. It is a Yellow Transparent - an old Russian variety that is a survivor. The ultimate for apple sauce, according to the orchard guides. It ripens right around my birthday, which probably has something to do with my liking it. These apples make the best pie you've ever had. Gotta pick 'em quick though - they go from tart sweet crisp to blahhhh mushy nothin' in a matter of days. You'll never see them in the stores for this very reason. 

I use my little cheapie 'refractometer' to check on the sugar level in the apples. You could just take a bite and spit, but I like tools and gadgets, and these are cheap, so....


All you have to do to use it is squeeze a little juice and drop it on the blue sight glass. Then you put the 'lid' on and look through the eye piece.


Not this. I had to get new glasses and they gave me this gizmo so I could tell how far apart my pupils are. Do beady eyed guys have to pay more or less for their specs? Anyway, you look into the instrument and it will tell you how much sugar is in the juice. 



It looks like this inside, and it works with a physics light trick. The line between the white and blue is the sugar reading. The higher up goes the blue, the sweeter the juice. Scientists figured this out. I trust 'em to know what they're doing but I don't need to know all the particulars. After all, I just want to know if my juice is getting sweeter or not - or if we have maxed out for these apples. Close counts.




Well, we decided that we had achieved maximum success with this year's crop. I've never made apple cider with these Yellow Transparents before. Why not? So we hauled out the gear and made a batch.


This little one-armed cider press is the go-to grinder for me. A five-gallon bucket of apples will make a good strong gallon or more of cider. The cider was good. Not the best we can expect from the fall apples - or from a MIX of different kinds of fall apples. Nevertheless, it was good juice.


Clean up is always Annie's favorite part. It involves water! You can tell by her tongue, it was a very hot day. We got 'er done and in the fridge though. 


I grow potatoes for the fun of it mostly. Mostly. I also grow them for the 'new' potatoes we get to eat. The row on your right is not quite ready. Annie seems to know. The row on the left has already begun to mature. That's where we'll start digging.



Bingo! New spuds. You can buy a bag of ordinary potatoes at Wally World for a couple of bucks all year round, but you can't buy these!



The 'big' ones are OK. It is those little ones that are the prize! According to my reading, the bigger and older the spud gets, the more the meat of the 'tater has begun to convert from sugar to starch. Those little 'uns is pretty much 'tater sugar. Mix 'em with some peas, or just steam them and put on a little butter - and maybe a shake of dill weed - and you're in heaven. I much prefer them steamed.



One thing about a dog, they never give up. One thing about a cat, they're amazed that the dog never gives up. Like Groundhog Day, it is the same story about every morning here at Oakdale Manor. Annie doesn't like Blue Ball, but she really really really would like to be friends with O.J.



You can tell by O.J.'s ears that he don't do friends very much. He tolerates Annie, but only to a certain point.


A quick strategic extension of Mr. Whoopper Paw, and Annie got the hint and moved back like a flash.



"I'll just be over here where it's safe, Tim," was Annie's reaction. She knows what was coming, after all. Another thing about a cat is how unbelievably smug they can be. "You stupid dog," was O.J.'s thought bubble.


The garden this year isn't a total loss, but it has been a learning experience - once again. The tarp garden is fantastic, and I'll probably never garden without one again. But this HOT DRY year, there has not been enough subsoil moisture to feed the 'maters and things on their own. I had - HAD - intended to put in a better drip irrigation system. HAD. Didn't get it done. So, second best is some five gallon buckets with drip tubes stuck into tight fitting holes near the bottom. I'm getting 4 drip lines per bucket here. I fill the buckets once each morning and once each evening. It is helping, but this year will not be a bumper tomato crop year.


See the little black drip lines? I've put in a floating piece of wood into each bucket now. The little honey bees were going in for water and not getting enough air lift to take off from the water and get up and out of the bottom of the buckets. The floating board will be their honey heli-port so they can have a dry lift-off.


Every morning while I'm shaving, Annie takes over my bed. I know, I know - I should make my bed when I get up. But really - who wants to make a bed when they can barely maneuver and have not had coffee yet. And, I know, I know - Joyce would be having a fit at my color coordination and selection of bedding materials. I sleep fine though. Annie would like to sleep there, too. Actually, by this time of the day, she is more interested - WAY! - more interested in a good old fashioned belly rub than a snooze.


This is a blurry pic, so don't adjust your set. It is the best one I could click that shows Annie's cheesy, "I know I'm not supposed to be up here, but could you give me a belly rub anyway, Tim. Pleeeeze. Pleeeeze with sugar on it."



"I'm ready whenever you are!" 

Well, this last pic will have to serve two purposes. One is to make you smile about Annie wanting her morning belly rub, and the other to let you know this is just how I feel in the hot Iowa summers. I'll be laying it out until the temps come down - and no, I don't have anybody to give me a belly rub. Sorry.

Other than that, all is well at Oakdale Farm.




8 comments:

  1. Even in this area with its hills and tall trees we occasionally see crop dusters, but nothing like what they had in the flat panhandle of Texas. Two of the dads in our small church there were crop-duster pilots; one of them hit a irrigation stand-pipe and dried in the crash, leaving four little kids I went to school with in our one-room church school. Sorry; sad story.

    I haven't had much experience growing potatoes, nor much success. The short row I planted from the sprouters our neighbors gave us look okay, but not nearly as lush as yours; one plant is blooming a little. How do I know when to harvest?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How to know when to harvest? Cheat!!! Dig around the base of the plant with your pointy garden finger. You'll find what you're looking for pretty quickly - or not. The new potatoes are near the stem and not far below ground level. Potatoes never grow down - they grow out and up along the stem, if you hill the potatoes as the plant grows.

      Sky pilot losses are not uncommon here. We lost one last summer, and another the summer before. It is very dangerous work. At their speed and low altitude, there is just about zero time for corrections in the event of trouble.

      Back to the spuds: My opinion is that a potato is a potato, unless it is a baby 'new' one. I raid the patch for the little new potatoes as soon as I can, and then buy regular spuds from the store in the winter. That is, unless I get a good batch dug and stored from my own!

      Cheers

      Delete
  2. Such interesting posts you share. Love your idea of just "dropping" some various seeds to see what grows. I have an empty bed or two and may just do that for the heck of it. Although with our short season, anything that makes it to maturity will be amazing. We left our beautiful place in Illinois because of the spray planes turning right over our property. All the wells in the area were becoming polluted from the toxins. My husband would cry if he saw the picture of your cider press. We sold ours when we moved from our first place here in Minnesota to this one and he's regretted it ever since. Holy potatoes! You grow enough spuds to feed half of Iowa. It's easy to tell your Annie is quite the character. Does she know what a good life she has? (Well, maybe except for the cat with the killer claws.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. On one side of me, I have sky tractors overhead. On the back side of the farm, I have Air Force Big Boys turning and doing their thing. My farm is about 45 miles straight off the end of one of the major runways at Offut AFB in Bellevue, NE. They make their turns to line up with the runway right over me. I get sky fun all the time out here.

    So far, we have wonderful water from deep underground flows, and the ag folks have really cleaned up their act as far as pollution goes. They are actually spraying fungicide right now to prevent corn rust/blight. One of the better side effects of low ag profits and high ag chem prices is that they don't waste a drop! With GPS and production rate monitoring, some spray rigs even 'proportion' the chems by the square meter over the fields. Good areas don't get much if any, bad areas get a little more. Farming is a 'whole new game.'

    My little cider press was a 'freebie.' It was advertised as a 'come get it or we'll burn it' offer. It had been allowed to sit outside an old implement shed for years. The wood had all but rotted off, and there were trees growing up through the metal castings and parts. We had to use a chainsaw to release it from the growth, and heaped it onto a trailer to bring it home. We had just enough rotted wood to measure and pattern with. The screw was rusted tight. But now, after a lot of hours invested by two highly qualified professional cabinetmakers (me and my Dad) I have a 'free' cider press in good working order. I wouldn't want to be without one.

    Keep planting!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mama Pea: I got off on a tangent and forgot an important part of what I wanted to tell you - about my spuds. For a long time, I have raised enough to be able to give them to friends and family who want and or need them. I don't have tons of cash to contribute, but I am able to grow food for somebody who might like it. So that's my motivation. That huge garden is also a tricky way of keeping the herbicide applicators back away from my fruit trees!

      And yes, Annie is indeed a character. She's a happy dog, likes everybody, but she's a smart, pushy Heeler/Aussie mix. I have no place in my world for a grouchy dog. I'm grouchy enough on my own. Thanks for reading!

      Delete
  4. When I needed to know my interpupillary distance to order glasses online, I poked pinholes in cardboard and measured the distance between the pair of holes that I could look through and see the same field of view in each eye. I then measured the distance between that pair with a micrometer. It worked great.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Growing produce of any kind has challenges yet you seem to have devised practices that get great results. This year my two pear trees are producing for the first time and I am overjoyed. Gifting the pears will work nicely. Annie is a character and she has personality plus.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pears! I'm envious. I have several young pear trees planted in my orchard. So far, no fruit. They can take awhile before they decide to produce. I do have an old Kieffer on my grandfather's farm that is the world's best canning pear. That tree was a mature one when I was a kindergartener. It is also the tree my grangmother sent us to when we were told to 'go to the orchard and bring me back a switch....' The fear of that trip was all it took. She never did actually use it on us. We probably did deserve it though! Annie says Hi.

      Delete

I love getting your feedback. Please leave me a note or ask a question.