An Oscar Thunderstorm

The barn during a recent sunset.

Sunset, after a mostly calm day. This morning, as I ate my breakfast, we had thunderflurries for about a half hour. It was almost the laziest thunderstorm I've ever witnessed. Didn't see any lightning, just heard some slow thunder. I could see flurries drifting past the window, but they didn't amount to much either. And then it stopped, and the flock of blackbirds that have been hanging around the house and yard since yesterday resumed their chatter.

Last night, though, was a different story. I'm from Colorado, where we don't get thunderstorms in February, so I'm still getting used to storms this early. And storms in Colorado do not rate on the same scale as the storms here, even with all that hail. These thunderstorms are so loud, it's incredible. The thunder shaking the house, the winds shaking the house, the rain shaking the house.

Since moving here last August, every time we have scheduled a big party, there has been inclement weather. Our first party was an ice cream social and we held it on the day of the first cold blast of autumn. Next up was our Christmas cocktail party, cancelled in part because both of us, and many of our friends were sick with a bug, but that turned out to be a good thing, as anyone who would have been at our party would have been snowed in. When we rescheduled the cocktail party, we got more heavy snow. New Year's Eve, tornadoes about 15 miles south of us. Last night was the Oscars, and we held a small Viewing party. And we had thunderstorms.

I'm impressed with the way they forecast severe weather out here in the Midwest. They do not mess around or take it lightly. The weather service was saying we would get rain in the afternoon, and as the temperatures warmed up throughout the day, our risk of thunderstorms would increase, and we'd get severe weather between 7 p.m. and 4 a.m. (It also seems that almost every thunderstorm we've had since moving here as happened at night.) They were predicting mostly heavy rain, strong winds, frequent lightning, but a tornado couldn't be ruled out. The storms arrived a little late, about 8:30 or so. We'd been watching their approach first on the television screen, as a series of ever-eastward shifting severe thunderstorm warnings showed up on the map in the corner of the screen. And then by the subtle approach of lightning out the south windows of the living room. I had been worried mostly about heavy rain blocking our satellite feed, or lightning taking out our power. Both things tend to happen during storms, and thought it would suck having a party that needs both electricity and a good satellite feed (but knew our guests would at least be well-fed and able to imbibe even without power). The satellite feed did get interrupted a couple of times, but not for very long. Many of our guests, though, took to standing in the front door to watch the lightning once the storm really got going. I missed the big bolt that struck across the street (I did hear that crack of thunder, though), but there were plenty of spectacular lightning bolts to go around. Our friend, Sherry, had brought over a crepe paper velvet rope that ended up getting damaged in the storm. Rain started streaming in through the now-sealed door to what had once been a deck off the second floor, and that rain came through the ceiling and down the front door. Puddles of water in front of both doors. But that was the only damage. We didn't even miss a single award, which we all thought amazing because at one time it seemed the satellite had been out for something like ten minutes. The storms lasted until about 2 a.m. As I went to bed, I saw that Cumberland County, just about ten miles to our south, was in a tornado warning.

When I remember being a kid and whenever we had a thunderstorm, my sister and I would stop what we were doing and watch the storm, going from window to window, or (if Mom wasn't home) sitting on the back porch on swings listening to the rain on the porch roof. I recall hail popcorning in the yard, lightning bolts playing with the lines down the street, and the sound of tornado sirens. As an adult, I still tend to drop what I'm doing during a thunderstorm and watch them from window to window. Here, though, there are no sirens to warn us of impending danger, and we must rely on our weather radio... And since the storms have been hitting at night, I've been able to see the heavy rain only during lightning flashes. They're still awesome, and scary, and exhilarating, and last night it was nice to weather one with our friends.

Late February Snowfall

Last night when we went to bed, it had been raining for about five hours. The weather service was predicting 1-3" of snow overnight. But you never know, right? So we were both so pleasantly surprised to wake to a bright and sunny morning awash in freshly fallen snow. We got about four inches, and it looks like it was blowing in from the north, since all the trees were coated on the north side of their trunks. As I took these pictures, I was wearing my regular snow boots, but I was too lazy to tie the laces, so they were a little open, and I completely forgot that this snow fell on ground that was already completely saturated. So as I walked to take pictures, I kept stepping into deep puddles, hidden beneath the snow in the yard. The price I pay for art! Anyway, I hope you enjoy these pictures!

The nut trees

The woods

Happy, having a private moment

The front yard from a cornfield

Barn & Pig Pen & Compost Bin

Barn closeup

Birdfeeder Tree

It's really going to happen now!

Pinetree Seeds Order

The first seeds arrived today! Sixty (yes, 60, and this isn't even half of what I ordered. Did I overdo it?) packages arrived in two envelopes this afternoon. I was outside with the dogs when I saw the mailman pull up to the mailbox, and got excited when I saw him struggling to get everything inside. Kerouac & I trudged through the wet (it's an absolute necessity to wear knee-high muck boots when walking outside in the yard now, there is so much water) driveway and across the small river of the ditch to the mailbox, and fetched the first seeds of year (as well as a new Entertainment Weekly and a letter from my friend, Ruthie)! I spent this morning reading up on starting seeds, and realize with some dread that I am somewhat behind already: our average last freeze date here is April 14, which is six weeks away. Before then, I can have some stuff in the ground, but should have some other stuff started. So I've got to get my act together! Luckily, there's a sale at Rural King this week and I'm going to buy more seeding flats as well as the medium in which to grow these seeds in. I expect to have seeds started early in the week.

Seed Savers Order

So what arrived, you ask? Well...so many things! I got 38 packets from Pinetree, which my new friends in the Charleston Growers Association said was a good company to order from. They're located in main, and sell mostly heirloom and hard-to-find seeds from around the world. Four kinds of beans, two kinds of peas, two kinds of broccoli, beets, cabbage, two kinds of carrots, lettuce, dandelion (I know...this is a large Italian variety that I hope will be like the delicious dandelion served in Greece), purslane (another weed, and another variety for the table), lettuce, spinach, two kinds of cucumbers, four kinds of tomatoes, six kinds of peppers, squash, radish, collard, and the following herbs: chervil, thyme, savory, lavender, oregano, brown mustard,  & cilantro. (I'd sworn off growing cilantro two years ago. It always bolted before I get a chance to eat it. But last year, I tried it again, and got a few snacks from it. But this year, I'm growing a Mexican heirloom variety that is said to be slow-to-bolt, since it's primary use there is for its leaves, not its seed. I hope it works out!)

The garden this morning.

I first heard about the Seed Savers Exchange this past Saturday, from the Growers Association. They're a company based in Iowa that are preserving and selling heirloom and open-pollinated varieties of seeds, as well as working against corporate ownership of seeds. Their online catalog was gorgeous, and I had a hard time not going completely crazy ordering from them. In the end, I ordered 22 varieties from them: two kinds of tomatoes, yellow onions, one kind of bean, one kind of melon, an Italian variety of broccoli, two kinds of cabbage, okra, corn, radish, turnip, sweet pepper, lettuce, huckleberry, and the herbs: sweet mace, spearmint, basil, borage, lemon balm, and cumin. Their seeds were a little more expensive than some of the other companies I ordered from, but was told that the germination rate is very high for these high-quality seeds. I'm very excited they arrived so quickly. 

I have four more seed orders coming, as well as one more yet to place (tomorrow in the mail). The next step is to get them started, and get the garden bushhogged and tilled. I am so excited! 

One final piece of business: 100% of respondents thought Three Persimmon Farm is a good name (Thank you, Darcie!), so that looks settled! Thank you!

What's in a name?

Puddles of rain in our sodden yard.

There is light snow falling through the cold air. The snow isn't really noticeable, until you feel it's cold kiss on your cheek. The dogs, of course, are impervious to it. Really, all they seem to be concerned about anymore is the smorgasbord the yard seems to provide for them: frozen & rotten pears, apples and persimmons, and what I believe are bird droppings: the dogs treat it like brown popcorn from heaven. They can't get enough. It rained yesterday. Almost 1 and a half inches fell yesterday, falling onto already sodden ground. The ground, when not under water outright, is soggy and sticks to your boots. I spent yesterday morning reading about the local food movement around the country, and then reading about soil. I'm feeling more ready to begin tackling the garden!
Most of my seeds are ordered. The internet failed twice while ordering, so two orders didn't go through. I'll re-order those later in the week. Once they arrive, I'll be starting some of them in flats in the garage under grow lights. Rich & I are going to build a cold frame to get an early start of lettuce and onions and some other greens. I'm glad he's as excited as I am!
So this past Saturday, I headed to town and met up with the Charleston Growers Association. It's a group of six other local growers in the Charleston area, all committed to growing produce from non-genetically-modified (non-GMO) seeds and without chemical pesticides or fertilizers. (By all rights, they're organic farmers, but since the word "organic" belongs to the USDA, so many farmers say they're raising crops "naturally".) These folks were very welcoming. I'd seen three of them last year at the Farmers' Market, having bought produce from them and talked to them then. It is very exciting to get involved with the growers here in the Charleston area. They are as passionate as I am about growing good food and talking to people about it. I also got the skinny on how to get a spot at the Farmers' Market, which starts June 1, and runs every Wednesday through the end of October.

Me carrying a fallen limb to the burn pile.

The one thing that got me hung up about the Growers Association: the application. I'm going to have to finally decide what I want to call that garden out there. Since before we moved here, Rich & I have been referring to this place as Persimmon Acres. It's got persimmon trees and many acres of land, to it worked for us. Since getting here and learning more of the history of the place, I've learned that a man named John Ingram homesteaded this place in the 1820's. The url of this blog is a nod to his name: Ingram Farm. We also learned that many folks around here know this place as the Baker Farm. The Bakers are a prominent family in the area. The high school gymnasium is named after one of them who lived in our house perhaps 30 years ago. I think if we owned this place, I might be more willing to name my farming venture with a nod to the history of the place. But since we will likely be moving at some point, I want the name to be able to move with me. I'd like to think that my produce becomes a staple at the farmers' market. Were I to name my business after one singular location, only to move a few years later, what about the name then? Talking it over Saturday night with Rich & our friend, Sam, I came to realize that Persimmon Acres might just be the best name. By Sunday, I'd decided on Persimmon Acres Farm. I really like the sound of it. Yesterday I googled the name, and learned that there is already a Persimmon Acres Farm in Terre Haute, just over the border in Indiana. So that name doesn't really work. In looking around the farm for other names, I knew I wanted to stick with those persimmon trees. They're such cool-looking trees, and for me, quite exotic. Their fruit is delicious and really quite prevalent here in the yard. Were Rich & I to move to a farm of our own, we would definitely be planting persimmon trees. So I've tentatively decided on the name Three Persimmons Farm as the name of this venture. There are three persimmon trees on this farm, and to get to the garden from the house, you walk under the shade of two of them. To get to the barn from the garden, you walk under the other. And I picture a cool logo with the outline of the three trees... Readers, what do you think? Is it a name worth keeping?

Seeds!

For much of this week, I've been pouring over seed catalogs. It's been a fun and educational chore. But also a time-consuming one. From more than a dozen catalogs, I whittled it down to these six from which I will actually be ordering seeds. My process has been a long one: First I picked, in general, what I wanted to grow this summer. Then I went from catalog to catalog, picking varieties. Each time I saw a variety I was interested in represented in more than one catalog, I made a note of that. Figuring these would be 1) popular, 2) perhaps easy-to-grow, 3) easy-to-sell. With many vegetables I want to grow standard types and some that are harder-to-find.  I didn't want to order seeds from any large corporation (i.e. Monsanto), or anything treated or genetically-modified. Ideally, everything I will be growing will be either an heirloom plant or a common, open-pollinated variety, which contrast from hybrid seeds in that open-pollinated seeds are a more traditional seed source. Open-pollinated seeds are dynamic, meaning their offspring may adapt to local growing conditions, as plants have been doing for millennia. Many of the seeds I am ordering are labeled "organic" to boot. Reading these seed catalogs has been exciting for me. The folks at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, in Missouri, gather seeds from all over the world in an effort to maintain biodiversity and keep corporations from copywriting one of the basics of life: food. J.L. Hudson, based in California, is a seed bank. Their simple, black and white catalog blew me away with the depth and breadth of their seed offerings. They sell seeds for sequoia to common herbs. I loved R.H. Shumway's catalog. They're from Wisconsin and their catalog read like something from the 19th century, all the while standing firmly in the current movement toward small farms. All of these companies offer many heirloom varieties, and much garden wisdom. One of the things I learned is that mint doesn't reproduce true from seed. So, like an apple, the seeds of one plant may not necessarily make another of the same variety... talk about bio-diversity! I'm ordering some of the same varieties from more than one company to compare them in the field. For crops that I will be growing more than one variety of plant, I ordered many of the varieties from different catalogs. My labeling and mapping systems are going to have to be strong enough to make all of this worthwhile!

And although the ground hasn't been turned over, and the seeds are not yet here, I am already making plans to sell their fruits. I've been invited to attend a meeting of the Charleston Farmers' Market Growers Association, which meets this coming Saturday at Roc's, my favorite bar in town. The Farmers' Market starts June 1, which seems a long way off, but once I get going, will be just around the corner! The Growers Association is a group of local growers who pledge to sell only what they grow, and to grow using organic, or natural methods of farming. I am looking forward to seeing some of the farmers I met last fall at the market, and meeting new ones. Perhaps meeting them will allay some of my fears, especially the overwhelming sense that I'm in too deep!

Until then, I wait for the seeds to arrive, and the work to begin.

What's that in the air?

Sunset February 16

February 16 sunset from the barn.

 Yesterday morning (actually, it was noon. We went up to Champaign Tuesday night to see Swedish superstar pop star Robyn and I slept in very late!) when I stepped outside, the air amazed me. First of all, it was warm. I mean, I didn't need a jacket warm! These past few days have been the warmest so far this year. But it's not just the warmth of the air, it's the smell of the air that's different. It was humid yesterday morning, and with the sodden ground, the air smelled like mud. And there were different birds around. I'm not sure what they were. There was one that sounds just like a pterodactyl. I heard it again this morning. And the vultures slowly circling over the fields. This morning, I saw a heron flying low over the yard on its way to our pond. Ah, yes... spring is around the corner. I can smell it! I was even able to spend some time yesterday just sitting on the porch. Actually, I was writing a letter and taking pictures, and just absorbing the pleasure of being outside and not being cold. Today is Thursday, and although the thermometer read 65 degrees this afternoon, it is far less pleasant. The wind is howling directly out of the south. The sky is ominous and gray. The power flickered off and on all morning, so much so that I started unplugging everything because I was sick of hearing things click off and then click back on. The ground today is even wetter than yesterday. The water flows east down the road and in the culvert in front of the yard. It was actually flowing at a pretty good clip! The ground sucks at your feet when you walk across it, puddles are left behind in footsteps, and where mole tunnels exist, one slowly sinks in.

Where the driveway meets the road meets the sky...

 I dreamt last night of snakes. In the dream, I was walking the dogs through the front yard, walking among all the twigs and branches still lying on the grass, and once among them all, realized that some of them were not branches, but baby snakes, just awoken from their winter slumber. By the time I realized what they were, they were on all sides of me. The dogs were playing with them, and I was trying to remember how to tell the difference between venomous and non-venomous snakes. I woke up caught in the sheets with a dog growling at my side. I do not like snakes. Actually, that's not true. I am afraid of getting bit by a poisonous snake. I am sure we have them around here. Last fall, Kerouac found part of a snake in the yard. It wasn't complete, and probably fell out of a bird's beak. I know I'll encounter some. Hopefully I won't get bit, and will be alone, so no one can hear my screams!

But until that day, I am going to continue to enjoy the sublime beauty life in Hutton Township, Illinois offers me...

The driveway.

Let the Melting Commence...

Fallen ice from the power lines

A little closer...

 Last night, Rich & I went to the local Rural King to buy some muck boots for me. We were thinking with the predicted warm temperatures (up to 60 by week's end!) and with all the snow and ice around, we'll need some good muck boots. Rich got a bag of fresh popcorn. If you have never been to a Rural King, perhaps you've been to another farm and fleet kind of store. The scent in there is unlike any store I've ever  been in: a mixture of animal feed, cold cement, tools and fresh popcorn. But last night, there was a new smell in the store: spring. It was like a whole new store! After I picked out a pair of boots, we walked around the rows of seed starter, rows of racks of seeds, huge bags of grass seed, barrels of other seeds, aisles of pest control. It was very exciting. And spring, while not really in the air, is being hinted at today. It is warm outside. In a short while, we're going to go out into the melting ice, in the muck, and pick up the limbs and branches that fell during the ice storm. We're going to finally hang the new bird feeder. In short, this will be the first day of 2011 in which we'll work in the yard!

Power line ice.

I don't know why I'm fascinated by the ice that fell off the power lines. But I am. For a week now, I've seen the straight lines in the snow where the ice fell from the lines above. But today, as the snow melts around those lines, I realize that the ice is intact in the snow. I picked up a piece. It was fragile and melting quickly, but for a few seconds, I was able to hold the power lines in my hand. Or at least their impression. It was some of this ice that brought the power down two weeks ago. It was some of this ice that was so beautiful and yet so terrifying. And it is this ice that is quickly becoming water that will soon become the garden...