Cow Pie Bingo and Late for School (plus a rainbow)

Every town has a summer festival of some sort right? Well our little town didn’t, until three years ago when a committee formed a new annual celebration, and held a contest to name it. So the Irish Spudfest was born. It’s pretty much perfect. Family focus, low-cost, simple and “villagey.” We kicked it off by conquering the 1 mile walk as a family. The girls ran the last quarter-mile or so, because they decided it was a race. Kayla had an injury (blister from those new Nikes) and convinced me to give her a lift on my back.

Following the big race/walk (some ambitious/silly people actually ran a 5k), there was lawn mower bingo for the kiddos (and at least one adult–more on that later), the big tater dig in the community garden, a spud-themed parade, kick ball and bean bag tournaments, inflatables, vendors a silent auction, a dunk tank, fresh-cut fries and sweet corn, a big community picnic (tater salad), and dancing to the harder-than-expected rock of the Neo Johnsons. Did I forget anything?.. Of course–the Cow Pie Bingo. We bought square E11, to no avail.

Today was day 1 of the 2009-2010 school year her in Montrose. And we were late. It’s a long story–something about hair pieces in the wrong spot, a calculator and the ‘meanest parents in the world.’ Nice way to kick things off.  The big deal this year is Hope moved to another building, so Mesa is on her own in the first grade. Zoey is kickin it at the daycare as the “biggest kid” (oldest) around. Despite the rough start, Mesa said the first day was ‘fabulous.’

As a parting gift, here’s a panoramic shot of the full rainbow we saw one evening this past week. I used some software that came with our Canon camera to stitch three photos together. I am not a pro.

Oh Hail

Saturday morning I went to set up the Green Project booth at the Sioux Falls Bio Blitz. I stepped outside into a sauna of 95% humidity on the way to 90 degrees F, and wondered how soon this would cook up the kind of south Dakota summer storm we haven’t had yet this year. It only took a few hours. By 2:30pm our garden was trashed and smashed, along with our heat pump and some siding and deck posts. Still beautiful though, don’t you think?

Garden Surprise at Dusk

Just before bedtime tonight, in between swing set play and  some left overs from the Methodist ice cream social, the girls discovered these yellow beans ready for picking. Then we remembered that the north half of our pea rows are snow peas–great for picking and eating the whole pod. Hope’s excited to pack her lunch tomorrow for Totus Tuus (whatever that is).

Another surprise at dusk for me: an awesome half moon seemed to suddenly appear against the pale blue sky. So I wrote this spontaneous haiku. I guess most all of my haikus are spontaneous–my friend Tim might call it slam haiku. Just whatever words are given.

half moon rises in still blue
solo artist on shy dusk
floating pearl sends rest

Weeds and Neighbors

Both are growing at our place.

We’ll have new neighbors next door by Fall. The footprint of the house is staked out already, and word is the basement will be dug this week. It’s a great thing for our community–our soon-to-be-neighbor is a young and wonderful music teacher that we all figured would be whisked away by some other school district with better pay and bigger band budgets. Thanks for planting some roots in our little village Mr. Whitcomb.

rows of weed

And then the weeds…I had more weed than crop. No, not the kind Justin likes to plant in the hidden confines of the backyard cornfield. I’ve been ignoring my gardens (and my family, for the most part) the past week and a half. We launched a trashy new program at work, and it piled up a bunch of long hours for me lately. So, my neglect packaged up with boatloads of rain mean the gardens were green, and plumb full of weeds. I went on a ruthless killing spree last night out there. No undesired plant stood a chance…

Oh, and check out what my radishes did during the week of neglect. Skyscraper root veggies.

Those are a couple of homemade compost bins cookin’ in the background. I invited Rani to add to my newest pile any time she wants. Since she politely listened to my detailed DIY compost bin instructions before telling me she’d rather give the stuff to me instead.

Icky Situations

The latest Rock Garden Tour podrocket just launched today. In case you missed it on SD Public Radio Sunday night, you can check out chunks of my conversation with Flowerman. Hot Sludge just won’t die. My apologies to overall-wearing county commissioners for blowing your cover.

sick 'mater

As I peered into the tomato/pepper raised garden bed this beautiful evening, I could only think…WTF!? Any tomato doctors in the house? Never seen something like this on the end of a vine. What gives, master gardeners of the blogosphere? I need to use the force to fix this one, cause worm poop tea–the cure-all of plant cure-alls–hasn’t done the trick so far.

And finally, a question. I’m not really watching the bartblog stats like a hawk, but couldn’t help noticing a major GWB-sized dip in the ‘ol traffic the past several days. We’re talking near three-year lows on daily visits. Can’t think of any reason people would be staying away from bartblog, can you? It’s not like my last post was scary or anything…

Rock Garden Tour Blows Up

Straw hats off to the dudes of Rock Garden Tour. The best radio show on the prairie just went global. Well, statewide anyway. Flowerman, Oil Can and the RGT Family Band made the leap from small college radio to South Dakota Public Broadcasting. Boom!

What?! You don’t know how to turnip your radio? Rock Garden Tour is this fun little program and podcast celebrating some of creations’ greatest achievements: rock n roll, rural life and gardening. The podcast is great, the live show is better. Now you can catch it on SDPB Radio Sunday nights at 10, or download the podcast.

The Rock Garden Tour interview at Michelle's Coffee

Now that’s a big accomplishment for RGT. But there’s something even bigger: Flowerman just wrapped up an exclusive interview with me about my big trip to the sewage treatment plant yesterday. We talked about the guy who operates the Hot Sludge lake boat, and bib overalls. You’ll have to tune into the show to check it out.

Update: Poo Lake made the cut.

And the Evening Roar Begins

My neighbor is mowing his lawn. It’s been Spring for about five minutes.

Can’t wait for my no-motor-rotor-mower. Anyone looking for a used but not abused Lawnboy? Also ditching the gas weed whacker for a good old shears.

Wiggler Update (plus worm poop tomatoes)

What my worms love this summer: strawberries and zucchini. This stuff disappears in about 48 hours (that’s pretty fast eatin’ for red wigglers). They also gobble away watermelon, but I’ve been putting most of that into the big compost bin (without worms). The watermelon makes the whole worm box soaking wet. I’ve used it to my advantage though–I set up a pretty simple system to capture all that ooey ‘compost tea’ as it runs out the bottom of the worm box (see below).

That stuff is supposed to be super fertilizer and a cure-all for sick plants. I’ve tested it twice, with mixed results. I put some on the cherry tomato plant in our garden, and we just harvested the best little ‘maters we’ve ever eaten. I also put some on a dying bush in our yard, and it just finished it off (it’s dead).

fully loaded

fresh fill

under the zucchini

compost tea

little veggie garden

cherry ‘maters

There’s also a shot up there of our veggie and bulb garden (and the cherry tomatoes we didn’t already eat). It’s commercial fertilizer and pesticide free. Only thing we added to our (lousy) soil was compost from last fall and some worm poop to each tomato plant. Two of the tomatoes are heirloom varieties, and they haven’t had any disease problems at all. All those marigolds are great natural pesticide too.

Empty Nester Weekend

We lost our kids this weekend. On purpose. Mom and Dad took all of them camping for a three-day weekend. We missed them, and it was nice for Jaimie and me to have some time to be with each other. We went out for dinner Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, took a long bike ride, slept in, took a little nap here and there, got some chores done around the house, watched a few movies, and just hung out. We only sat and stared at each other a little. It was really peaceful. We were really glad to see the munchkins this evening, even though Mesa was the only one that seemed happy to see us. Zoey figured they should go camping for another two weeks. Thanks for the break Mom and Dad. Now back to the roudy mayhem…

Here’s a pic of our first gladiola saying hello yesterday morning, and a couple shots from my hike this afternoon. I just uploaded a whole bunch of new pics to our flickr site too…

first glad bloom

purple coneflower

green bug’s lunch

one seater

thistle meadow

running rain

First Garden Bounty and Tall Grass

I harvested three radishes from the garden Tuesday. It took 25 days to go from seed to my radish-and-butter sandwich. Been a slow start for all the gardens around here–mine’s no exception…

I finally mowed my lawn this evening. Through a series of events and decisions, it had grown pretty darn tall. Maybe For sure taller than I’d ever let it grow before. We went on vacation three weeks ago, and I hired my neighbor, who is 14, to mow my lawn and water the flowers while we were gone for 8 days. It rained most of the time we were gone, and he mowed the lawn the day we were coming home. Check that–he mowed part of the lawn. With a riding mower instead of my push mower.

[not Dylan's riding mower]

I have nothing against riding mowers in general. I use a push mower mostly because I like getting the exercise (except when I’m actually doing the exercise). They’re a little lighter on the CO2 emissions too. I asked Dylan to use my mower because I mow my grass longer than most (3.5 to 4″), and particularly longer than my neighbors do, and he didn’t know how to adjust the deck on his dad’s mower. A little bit longer grass is better grass, especially when you don’t put any chemicals on it (I don’t). The grass stays healthier (more blade to catch more sun and dew) and it helps keep the weeds down. Besides, really short grass is in a hurry to grow up, so it can catch more sun and dew. Mow it a bit longer, and it grows more evenly and slowly. For reals.

To make a long story a little shorter, Dylan mowed my grass pretty short. And didn’t mow some of it at all. I’m grateful that he helped me out. Especially since it set me up for a couple of little experiments. I let the part Dylan missed grow for an extra week or so, until I started mowing. I got about half done and ran out of gas (and sunlight). That was last Friday, and it was overdue already (according to local norms). Then I went canoing and hiking Saturday morning and got pretty sick from my allergies, so I didn’t get back to mowing on Saturday morning.

As I was nervously looking out the window, worried about what my neighbors must be thinking about my tall grass, I noticed that some of the weeds were still taller than the grass. I decided to let if grow a few more days and test a couple of things:

1. would it be easier to find and pull bigger weeds?
2. would anyone complain about my lawn?

By anyone, I mean my neighbors. I put as much time into my yard and garden as most people, maybe more. But it’s not a trophy, not a way to show off, for me. Like most things for me, my yard is a little unscientific laboratory–it’s about trying to learn something. I’ve been experimenting with gardening, composting, mowing, fertilizing and weeding. This was a test of the organic and the social natures of my nieghborhood.

So, it turns out my experiment lasted even longer than I had planned. When I tried to start mowing again, my Lawn-Boy bit the dust–at least for now. I don’t know what’s wrong with it, but it sure isn’t going to cut my grass until it’s fixed. I messed with it for a couple of evenings, and then borrowed my Father-in-law’s Toro tonight. It’s all pretty and manicured now…

So, here’s the results: Letting the grass get long made pulling weeds beautiful (if pulling weeds can be beautiful, and I think it can). The thistles, which I’ve had special trouble with, grew very tall and big, so they pulled more easily without breaking off. Nearly every weed I encountered was easier to pull, and easier to find. Despite going a couple weeks in the heat with no rain, the grass stayed green and healthy (which is really something on our clay and gravel hill). And the dandelions, which have been really kicking my butt this year, were totally held in check by the longer grass. As Mesa would say, “Awe-some!”

As far as my neighbors go, nobody said ‘boo.’ This surprised me a bit. I considered making a “My lawn mower is broken” sign, but turns out nobody cared enough to give me any grief about it. I guess they’re used to weird stuff going on in the Bartmann’s yard.

Mow your grass long. (Or don’t mow it at all if you can get away with it.)