Getting Ready For Clover

This spring we plan on planting up one of our fields with various clovers for the bees:  white clover, crimson clover, and sweet clover.   Harold talked to a couple seed dealers and we hope to get a good price for the clover we need for planting.  So today Harold did some disking of the field for the first time this year.  It is finally dry enough to get into the field and start to do some work.   A field of clover will be wonderful for the bees!! This field was our former horse pasture.

Working up the ground around the hops area.  "Lake Harold" is in the background, the other small lake on our farm.

This is a pretty good sized field.  Harold will work it over a couple more times before planting.

A closer view

I almost had to get down on my stomach for this picture!

While Harold was working the field, I took a little hike down some of our trails before the ticks get too bad.  I don't walk through the woods during tick season!

One of several trail paths

This is a path that I rarely take, through a part of the property that we don't get onto very much.  But today there was a big bog to go through and I didn't have my boots on, so I decided not to proceed further.   But I was able to pick some pussy willows to put in a vase in the window!  I didn't encounter any ticks yet either!

"Mr. Loon"

Please allow me to brag a little about my little loon painting project.  I am very pleased with the way it turned out.  My 50 cent garage sale purchase from a couple years ago looks like new!  If you recall in my last post, I said I was going to try to refinish the old loon planter.  Here is the 'BEFORE':

This old planter definitely needed some work!

NOW - Here is the 'AFTER':

This is one side of the planter.  The beak isn't that messed up - it's just that you see part of the behind.

Here is the other side!

Another view

I'm no artist, but I thought the planter turned out pretty good for an amateur like me!  I tried to follow photos from this book:

This is one of the best books I know on the subject of loons.  The photos are great, and the authors have numerous articles about every aspect of loons and all the different species of loons.

Loons are definitely my favorite bird.   They are also the official state bird of Minnesota!  We have many loons around here, and every year a pair comes to Two Squaw Lake.   I love listening to them at night.  They have many different calls.  Harold and I often sit on the porch at night and just listen to their calls. 
     Anyway, my "Mr. Loon" planter is now ready to display lots of beautiful petunias this summer in the yard.

Lining Up The Projects!

It's been almost a month since I posted anything on here.  There are a couple of reasons - first, we've been busy finishing up maple syrup, and second, there hasn't been much to report!  But all that has changed now since the snow melted!  Spring has FINALLY arrived up here in the frozen north country, and now we are in full work mode!  The past week or so I've been busy in my greenhouse planting things and cleaning up in there.   It's been SO nice to get back in there and play around in what I affectionately call "Patty's Playhouse".  I have about 1/2 of it planted up already.

Here I am setting a pepper plant in one of the boxes.

If I don't get out early in the morning to raise up the sides of the greenhouse, it can get pretty warm in there.  Notice the 95 degree temps this morning!  The moist atmosphere and high temps are what makes things grow so well in there.  

Here is one side I planted last week.  Already there are sprouts of radishes coming up:

You can barely see the radishes coming up on the lower edge of this photo.

We ended up with about 80 pints of finished maple syrup from this season's efforts.   It is lighter this year than last year, but very sweet and thick.

24 jars of our last batch of maple syrup.

The snow is all gone from the woods.  Even the mud is gone.  What a difference a couple weeks make!

We have clean pathways now!  If only it would have been this easy to get around during the maple season!

There are even some early wildflowers coming up in the woods!  Here is an early white flower called hepatica.

The ice is coming off the lake also.  This weekend the temps are supposed to get into the upper 70's, so maybe the lake will ice out!

The edges of the lake are thawed.  Only a little ice is left in the middle.

A closer view of Two Squaw Lake almost iced out.  The trumpeter swans and geese are back, too.

I walked around the yard inspecting our fruit trees and bushes.  The chokecherry bushes made it through the winter just fine without any deer or mice damage.   Our two apple trees are just about ready to bud out.  The gooseberry bushes are in excellent shape and ready to blossom.  We also planted a new apple tree!

We planted a new apple tree yesterday.   This one is a Cortland apple.  We also need to mow the grasses behind the tree. 

The chokecherry bushes look good after the cold winter.

Now that I have posted photos of things around here, these are some of our projects that we have lined up:

Harold is spending a good part of today putting a new starter switch on our Cub Lo-Boy tractor.  This smaller tractor serves us well for tilling and mowing.

Harold has things pretty well torn up, but not to worry, the new switch will have a better location and will work just fine!

My project for today is to re-paint my outdoor loon planter.  I bought this at a garage sale a couple years ago for 50 cents.  But now it needs a good sanding and a new coat of paint.   I will have to find a nice picture of a loon and try to copy the markings with paint!

Harold got our beehives cleaned and ready for new bees.  Our last year's bees didn't make it through the winter.  We had the hives a little TOO tight and warm, and there was a build up of carbon dioxide which killed the bees.   We have 6 hives of new bees coming on May 4th.  Four hives will go in these thick boxes, and 2 hives will go into regular hive boxes.  But we need to make better ventilation for these thick hives.

After we get the bees settled in, our next project will be to clean up and mow down last year's garden and till it up and start with new plantings.  We usually leave all the vegetation winter over, and mow it all down in the spring.  It's a lot easier this way to clean up a garden.

Our BIG BIG project will be to finish the backside of the house.  We need to finish the siding, put more metal roofing on to replace the shingle roof, and do some landscaping.  Then the house needs painting on two sides.  This project will take most of the summer to complete.

And of course, there will be plenty of new kittens to play with!  We lost a number of cats over the winter to owls and eagles.

Our Mama cat Whitney is enjoying the warm sun.   She will be having kittens in about 3 weeks. 

So, we will be very busy now with yard work, gardening, working with the bees, mowing, landscaping, home finishing, canning, market days, fixing vehicles and tractors, maintaining plantings and trees, painting, watering and a dozen other small projects (like painting or staining the new front porch).   We never run out of things to do!  During the winter I did quite a bit of sewing.   I made lots of vintage style aprons to sell at our market booth, and I also made several vintage look house dresses for myself!  It is so much fun to wear vintage look clothing, and wearing dresses is a lot cooler in the summer than hot long jeans.  When I'm out in the yard I have no choice but to wear jeans because of all the bugs and mosquitoes and ticks and tough garden chores.  But in the house in the afternoons when I am cooking and canning and doing chores, I enjoy wearing house dresses.   I could write a whole article on the resurgence in popularity of house dresses.   Dresses are coming back in style!   Patterns on eBay and Etsy sell out quickly. 

Here is a dress I recently sewed from a 1939 pattern!  Isn't is adorable?  This one will be fun to wear this summer in the hot kitchen (we don't have air conditioning). 

 I recently purchased this old pattern from the 1940's :

This will be a fun pattern to sew, and it looks easy, too.

How wonderful that spring is here!  But it's also hard to believe that in 5 short months, we will be back to winter.   By October the leaves are gone and the gardens done.  A lot will be happening in the next 5 months!!