Sometimes I write my post in my head while awake at 3 o’clock in the morning. Such is the case today, and our discussion will be about prunes. There seems to be a notion abroad that prunes are to plums as raisins are to grapes. (Sounds like an SAT question.) “Prunes,” it is true, is the name given to the wrinkled, chewy treat, dried from ripe fruit, bagged, on the grocery shelf, best known and loved by the elderly in pursuit of, well, regularity. Ask someone and they will assert that sure, prunes are just dried plums. Go to Google and you will read that while both plums and prunes are from the same genus,(Prunus)they are not the same plant. Huh? Then why aren’t plums a type of prune? If the genus is “Prunus?” Confusion abounds. Of late I see prunes labeled as “Italian Prune plums.” Strikes me as a bit of cover-your-ass reverse engineering by the plum lobby. Not buying it.

Anyway, while no one will stroll about picking a basket of raisins from a vine, one can, and should, pick a handful of lovely ripe prunes fresh from the tree. They are lush, purple, lobed, swathed in powdery bloom, and inside, are a juicy gold color. But what should I do with mine, I asked last week. Decided to freeze them, and now, here they are. A permanent dark purple stain around my fingernails from handling them gives me a kind of neo-Goth look. Interesting.

Yes, it is all about chickens! Our coop comes with a solar-powered door to let the birds out in the morning and tuck them safely in at night. Instructions, YouTube videos, a phone call to the builder, easy, right? Took Larry all morning, hands and knees, power tools, an assist from me, posted inside the little structure, and friends and family, you are right. This is when we remember how old we are. But it’s done and miraculously, the thing works. We waited anxiously for nightfall to see if it really would close by itself, and after only two flashlight-powered trips outside, we learned that it indeed does. (Slightly reminiscent of the days when, at midnight, I’d wait to see our teen-ager’s car pull into the driveway.)

With Larry’s new-found expertise based on “Living with Chickens,” we ventured forth into Craig’s List. Lots of choices! Time to head over to Wilco. Where it seems to be chick season again, lots of babies chirping away in their heat-lamp warmed cages. We needed feed and watering systems, bedding material and, we thought, some sort of carrier to transport our chickens, when and wherever we found them. And were lucky in being assigned to Amanda, who has strong opinions and much experience. Best news, there’s a Poultry Faire (cute spelling) in Corvallis on the 29th.

On the way to Wilco, Larry and I debated our strategy. We would take the truck to the Faire, and bring the birds home in our to-be purchased carriers. Just put them in the back and away we go. Me: But we can’t just drive around with them getting blown about in the wind. Like What’s His Name Romney from Utah who strapped his golden retriever to the top of his SUV. Larry, sighing: We’re not going to be driving that fast, and I don’t want chicken poop inside the truck. And so on. We agreed to disagree and, as these things often turn out, the question was moot. “Chicken carriers?” harrumphed Amanda. “Alls you need is cardboard boxes.” Oh.

Back while Larry was struggling with the chicken’s power door, I decided to bring some discipline to the tangle of tomatoes growing up and through the orchard fence. These plants, unlike those in the actual garden, have shown vigor, coupled with absolutely no restraint, and whoa. We got tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes by the bucket, and, something the nursery tag calls “Amana Oranges.” Fun! Heritage! But I didn’t read the small print, which describes “one-pound beefsteaks.” Well. One of these would feed a large family, each member of which just loves tomatoes.

Next day: Thursday, to be exact. Ooh, this was a hard one. We split the wood that has been lying under the oak since the dinosaur (see earlier post) was removed and left to lie in pieces among the blackberry and hemlock. Larry rented the splitter and drove it up to the site — a brilliant idea. Oak is heavy! And the chunks to be split, huge. But now the tree stands in splendor, the truck is loaded with split wood, and all that remains is a burn pile.

Today, Friday: Allan and another Guy came to work on the path through the copse. It is so cool! Switchbacks down to the lower meadow. I would show you a photo, but at the moment, my computer is refusing to allow this move. I will say that the walk down through the woods is now a lovely stroll. You will remember how treacherous it was earlier, and now, with the trees Sam has removed and the graded path, it’s just so much fun. Of course, going back up the hill is still an uphill climb. Come on over and I’ll show you in person!

Back in Portland, which is probably why my computer is being difficult. Or not. Annoying! See you next week!

Really, it could happen to anyone. Say you’re checking out at Costco and your old college buddy phones at that moment to wish you happy birthday and you get a little distracted. The wife has to sign, and she puts the Costco and Visa cards in your shirt pocket, she’s pretty sure, but when you try to pay at the service station which is 75 miles from Costco and 75 miles from home, your credit card is missing. You’re not wearing that shirt. Oh crap. So you use your wife’s card and here’s the fun part. You have to put a hold on the card until you can get back to Bend, and you will have to use her bank card any time you go shopping at the farm. Because you’re not on her account, you will have to take her with you when you go, for example, to the Corvallis Home Depot, and she simply can’t understand why it takes a half an hour to select the correct widget for your Whatsit. If she had just handed you the stupid cards like a normal person — but wait. You can only think that. Do not say it.

But it’s okay. He got the cards back now and we’re good.

On Sunday morning, early, Cory and Tiffany arrived to wash all windows and screens, upstairs and down. This was to take 6 or 7 hours, a big job. They were efficient, thorough, and we were glad Craig’s List delivered them to us. But why! does anyone name his/her child Tiffany? Think, people. It’s a jewelry store, could we just leave it at that?

Everyone is running ahead of the rain. On Monday, Bill and Allan, Landscape Guys, stopped by to discuss the trail through the copse. I put on my boots (Larry still not back from his trip to retrieve his Visa card) and we decided on the path, angling down to emerge at the base of the giant, old-growth fir tree which stands alone, an anomaly here, taller than any oak will ever grow. We decided that Allan will carve the path with his little one-man skidsteer, and mark the path with green tape. The marking will let Sam, Tree Guy, know which trees must go, which must not be touched.

Tuesday was the long awaited move-the-coop day. Adam, who is the Brush-clearing-along-the-fence Guy, and his dad would do the job. In preparation, Larry has leveled the new site, built a foundation, and lay and attached wire (he calls it cloth, but, it’s not) a couple of feet around the perimeter to keep foxes, etc., from digging under and into the coop. Yes, I am surprised that he knew how to do all this! Here we are:

Yes, that’s grass inside the coop. Nothing too good for our girls! But where are they, our girls? To be continued. Meanwhile, Larry has undertaken to read “Living with Chickens” from cover to cover. A little alarmed to learn that the author’s flock quickly expanded to 55. “That’s not going to happen.” he muttered from deep within his comfy chair.

Allison, daughter-in-law, has been here since Sunday, helping get her Amy established in the little house she and friends are renting for the school year in Eugene. I love having Allison here, and although she usually has time to organize a cupboard or two of mine (I’m serious, I love this!), on this occasion the task with Amy proved too great. Exhausting, because Amy’s room in the basement of the little Eugene house has proved to be, um, well, shitty. Her words, not mine. Amy keeps her off-season clothes and stuff here at the farm, which is great because she has a reason to visit us when collecting whatever. Good news, at the end of the day, Amy has secured an upstairs bedroom, and all’s well.

Wednesday: Sam Carter, Tree Guy, arrived with a reduced crew, to do what he could toward completion of the week’s work we agreed upon. Main guy out sick after pine-cone harvest-induced illness. Elk hunting with Dad, not to be missed. Meaning the week will extend well into late September. We actually don’t care. The idea is to clear one section of the copse of as many as 150 small oaks to provide living room for the older trees. (And for our path.) The trick is to maintain a level of canopy that allows the wild flowers underneath to thrive. Too much sunlight and the grasses crowd out the flowers. Too little sunlight and the oaks can’t achieve the natural, expansive shape with which we’re familiar.

After two day’s labor, here’s what we have:

While this was going on, a great cloud of dust began to fill the sky. This would be Ryan’s (Cow Guy) work, disc-ing the field along Llewellyn. You could see the dust, but not the tractor, and smell the dust, and see it settling on our newly cleaned screens, the porches, inside the house if we didn’t get all the windows closed. But, speaking of rain, where is it?

On Thursday, the rain finally arrived. As did Bill, to discuss the selection and placement of trees that will mark the beginning of the homestead place, end of the road, where the rough gravel becomes more civilized. It was a thought from the beginning, forgotten about, but we do like the idea. Also to be considered, some similar treatment down by the entry gate. Bill is promoting manzanita trees there. Sidebar: When I went to Google to have a look, the first entry was a selection of battery-operated, glittered gold or silver, table-top trees. Wow. Who knew? But no, we mean real trees. I always believed manzanita to be an Eastern-Oregon, high desert shrub. Trees. Hmm.

This was the day when Larry acquired the sod to go inside the coop. Home Depot is just a short hop from the chicken store we’d identified along the road to Albany, so let’s go check it out! Drove into the place where, indeed, dozens of chickens were roaming about. But it resembled nothing so much as that horrid Harris Ranch cattle feed lot down I-5 in California. Just dirt. A variety of birds, from turkeys on down, scratching about a few wooden coops here and there. Ugh. A woman, chased by a bulldog came to enquire if she could help. Um, we’re wanting a couple of chickens? Turns out, the sign advertising the place does say “chicken” not “chickens” and what’s for sale there are eggs and chicken meat. So this is what they mean by “free range?” Yeah. Don’t think so, but thank you. It’s probably too late, she advised us, but we could try the poultry exchange at the fairgrounds. Although that was last week. Maybe someone still has some birds for sale. Anyway.

This morning has been devoted to putting up the apple crop. Provided by just the one tree which succeeded in fielding a real crop. So. Perhaps 50% of the apples were afflicted with worm-age, but hey. My dad-the-DDT purveyor for the Willamette Valley, back in the day, used to tell me that if one objects to the use of insecticides, one should be willing to choose the wormy apples at the grocery store. Well, good point. I know I always try to choose the best specimens when shopping, but now I’ve raised these organic beauties and we’re going to eat them. Of course, I carve out the wormy spots, don’t worry.

Seven apples, 2.5 pounds, these will go into the freezer, and when solid, into a plastic zip-lock for a future apple crisp. Yum! Next up, the prunes. What am I going to do with them? I’ve learned that they’re not free-stone, so that means either drying, canning, or freezing them whole. Fortunately, there aren’t vast thousands of them. Any suggestions welcome!

Okay, lunch time. Gotta go. Up to Portland this evening for a nice weekend with Peter, dinner with friends, nice. See ya.

No sooner had I hit “Publish” to send my last blog when an incoming mail note from neighbor Terri informed me that we had missed the fire on Wednesday. And had Philomath Fire District contacted us? Whoa. Seems this fire was in the “park,” which is what the folks along Bellfountain call the county easement that separates their properties from ours. Terri had taken her dogs out for a walk on our property that evening, had noticed an apparently burned piece of wood in our grasses, just across from the fire, and would inform the fire department that it was there in case they hadn’t noticed it previously. No one knew how it started, maybe a spark from an engine? People had heard an ATV along the edge of our property last week, had our fence people been there?

Hmm. Feels like we’re being set up to be the culprits here, doesn’t it? Larry immediately jumped on the ATV to have a look at this “burned” piece of wood. There was a piece of fossilized wood from ages past which may have looked recently burned, but not on close inspection. And yes, Ryan, Cow Guy, had been here putting up a run of hot wire around our barn, so, yeah, the neighbors probably heard him.

Wait! Back up. This fire was in the park! Not on our property. Was put out by the fire department. Though Terri told them she’d take them onto our property through the recently created gate between us, they declined the offer. So what’s going on?
Got it. 😠 WITCH HUNT! Ha!

No, I know this was scary for everyone, and it’s perfectly natural to want to know the cause, so this is me, taking a deep breath.

We had to be in Portland for a couple of days, are back now, working to put things back together after our absence. But first, you remember those cukes I dumped? We bought another batch, took care of them properly, and making pickles moved to the top of our list. Making pickles is something I do with my bestie, Vik, but we couldn’t get our schedules coordinated, and cucumbers wait for no man, so Larry had to fill in. Did an excellent job, too. Nine jars of dills and bread & butters, looking good. And where are we going to store them? Hmm. This is bad. Means we have to get those two new stand-alone pantry cupboards for the garage. Is there room in the garage? Only if we move the current shelves which hold extra garbage bags, shoes and boots, etc. So where does that stuff go? Remains to be seen. In this way, one job begets another. Almost Biblical?

Next up, yellow-jackets. According to the nice bee-keeper Larry ran into at Shonnards, it’s a bountiful year for the unpleasant insects. Not enough freezing weather to keep their numbers down, then the long hot spell, all the rotten fruit on the ground, whatever. We wouldn’t care, but they won’t leave us alone, making it impossible to be outside when they’re active. So. Yellow-jacket traps. We have 4 hung around the area we like to inhabit, like our garden, our porch. Not the orchard, where there are millions of them, as we’re cautioned not to hang the traps around food. The activity is mesmerizing. Hundreds of the beasties swarm around each trap, desperate to get at the attractant, whatever that is. If they determine how to get in, they can’t get out, and soon die. Cruel? I guess.

But come evening, they cease and desist, and the land belongs to us again. We spent the evening watering the fruit trees, which we weren’t able to get near during the day. The crickets have begun to sing at dusk, a sign that fall is upon us. (Yes,I know they don’t actually sing.)

Excuse me, but what about your chickens? Weren’t you so eager to get home from the Baltic so you could get your little family of chickens?

Yes. Do you remember that old rhyme about the house that Jack built? This is the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt, etc.? It’s like that. We can’t get the chickens until we can move the coop. We can’t move the coop until Grant can bring his skid steer to lift it. He won’t bring the skid steer (to build the last fence as well as move the coop) until Jarod has dug the pond, and Jarod can’t dig the pond until Ryan discs and harrows the field, and today’s news? Ryan’s tractor has been hit by a car on the road and won’t be repaired until next Thursday. Any further questions?

But now, the Golden Gophers are on TV, playing New Mexico State, and all farm activity is hereby suspended. Go, Gophers!

Home again! I’ve just dumped 5 pounds of pickling cukes into the pit (wait, I haven’t told you about the pit. I’ll get to that) We picked them up at Sauvie Island Thursday afternoon, fighting jet lag, and it said right on the bag: Take cucumbers from bag, refrigerate, and use within 2 days. But did we listen?

But a word about our trip. Fourteen days cruising the Baltic Sea. We do know better than to leave our garden in August, and the only reason we would do such a thing is friendship. We were celebrating Ursel’s birthday, and wouldn’t miss it for all the apples in our orchard. So it was a fascinating, magic, frustrating trip! See, it was a special “German language only” cruise. I’m about 1/4 literate in German, Larry not at all, so it was deep immersion. Very deep. But to see the German cities, Russia, and the beautiful Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia was powerful, even if we couldn’t understand a word the tour leaders were saying about them. Look at the difference between a Russian port and a Lithuanian: There’s such energy in the lands who were freed from foreign occupation, who retrieved their own languages.

Finally, though, my homesickness worsened and I was desperately happy to retrieve my passport and climb on the plane. Yes, me. “Don’t be such a house-cat,” my mom used to admonish me. “Where’s your sense of adventure?” I believe my sense of adventure is hiding out somewhere along with my naturally curly hair, blue eyes, and that 3 extra inches that would have let me reach the top shelves.

So here we are at the farm. Good news: Look at Larry’s flowers! Our prune tree! (Yes, I know, the proper name is “Italian prune plum”, just like “hazelnut” is the hoity toity “proper” name for filberts.) We have a modest collection of pears ripening in the garage, some excellent squashes, and massive cabbages. (I just learned that it’s possible to can sauerkraut without a pressure canner, so if I can succeed in making some, we’re golden.) Yes, we like sauerkraut.

Some bad news: Those trees were thirsty! A yellow-jacket disputed my rights to the pear tree, with an itchy, swollen arm as result. Don’t know how she’s doing. I’d show you a photo of my stung arm, but that would be weird.

Some really bad news: Here’s a photo of a huge tree I’d decided was the grandfather tree on the property. For perspective, look at the fence around it. I know it’s a bad photo, sorry . . .

We took a walk around the perimeter this morning, and here’s what we found:

We can hardly get over the size of the thing. At least it tip-toed around the fence instead of crushing it, but it seems unstable, and while we’ll ask Sam, our Tree Guy, I don’t imagine we can just let it lie. The tonnage of the it. We don’t know when it went down, if there was a heavy wind in the area, but it is just nature being Nature, so while it saddens me, I have to accept the loss. I guess we always have to accept loss, hey? Sometimes I say pretty dumb things!

But now it’s afternoon, we’re still tired, so nap time at the Viehls. Oh yeah, I said I’d tell you about the pit. Seems our earlier composting efforts were useless, but we had to provide for the garden debris that would be forthcoming. Like spent tomato vines, sunflower stalks, and so on. Yes, we have yard-debris collection, but that means hauling stuff down to the barn, then out to the road. I remembered how my parents disposed of garbage by digging a deep pit. Aha! We had Ian, working on the fence around the garden, use his excavator to dig a trench at the back of the garden, where we can toss things like, well, garbage, of the non-meat variety. Sounds disgusting, huh? But oh so correct for people posing as conservationists! Next year’s lovely compost!

And now, good night. Yawn.

Their little house is here, though, of course, they are not. Pretty cute!

We’d ordered this from Central Oregon Coops, and the owners, Steve and Sarah Herbert, hauled it over to us Friday afternoon on a flat bed. While Steve put the segments together, Sarah told me how they’d gotten into this. Steve was working with his dad in home construction when the great crash of ’08 knocked the business out from under them. He used his skills to build a coop for their back yard, and Sarah was inspired to create a web site to see if there would be a market for them. Turns out, they caught the great back-yard chicken craze that swept the land and he suddenly had so many orders that he was able to make it into a full time job. Sarah went to work for an accounting firm in order to secure health insurance for the family. Nice!

They told us enough about chicken husbandry to turn Larry a little green — like how to “dispose” of the flock when they stop laying. Yep. Wring their necks, toss the bodies into the trash, although one could always use the hatchet on a stump method.
No, you can’t introduce a new adult chicken into the flock if one is lost to an eagle or fox. They’ll kill the new-comer, pecking it to death. If you lose too many, you’ll need to start over next year or buy an established flock. Where to buy established flocks was not made clear. Laying hens are not good to eat, so don’t bother. If a hen gets broody, find her eggs and do not let her try to hatch them. Ever since I mentioned chickens, Pinterest has been tormenting me with advice, but I haven’t noticed any pins about what I suppose is the reality of the thing, see above.

“It’s easy,” Sarah and Steve say as, full of good humor and sunshine, they drive away to leave us alone with our thoughts.

The first of these being that the coop is in the wrong place. We hadn’t visualized it well enough to understand that the roof can’t fit into our orchard, as we’d planned. But next time we see Grant, we’ll ask for his help in moving the structure around to another side of the orchard where it should be more convenient. Then we’ll sail away on our Baltic cruise, putting the acquisition of actual birds off while we see the cities of ancient Europe, and a ballet performance of Swan Lake in St. Petersburg. I don’t anticipate that my college minor in Russian will be useful, though I once imagined that perhaps I would have this very interesting multi-lingual international life. Right. You were young once, too.

Larry’s garden looks lush and productive, from the distance of the driveway. Up close? Well, those zucchini haven’t gotten any better, the second planting beans simply refuse to prosper, the withered tomatoes send out an occasional fruit, and we almost made the mistake of the year. We wanted to continue the fence which lines the road and circles the house to enclose the garden as well. This will be augmented with a hot wire, because the cows will simply lean against the wooden rails to scratch their backs, potentially pushing the whole thing down. All good, and the fence is in place, the hot wire buried to allow machine access through the gate, but with no way for a simple human to get in without taking down two wooden rails lining the drive, unhooking the wire, then repeating the process into the garden. Oops. But Ian figured it out, and will build a man-gate in a corner by the lawn where there is no electric wire. Save!

It’s been so hot, as you probably know. Don’t want to do any work in the daylight hours, but we do love to sit out and watch the sun go down, count the stars. We hired a landscape service to come and provide watering to our porch plants, but, sigh, the system is drowning the geraniums,etc. Fine farmers we turned out to be. Can’t even grow zucchini? Seriously.

But I’ll close with a photo of the sunset I’m talking about. We’re not discouraged!

Why not go to a banjo band concert at the Sweet Home Veteran’s Club, if you want to celebrate Americana? That was our thought, too, so we did. After all, my life with the banjo had begun with The Rose City Banjoliers, and Uncle Carl’s wife Reg’s little tenor banjo retrieved out of My Mom-in-Law’s attic one hot summer day.

I looked up banjo lessons and found Eliot Sweetland, who, after a year or so, offered me a place in the band he led. Imagine 20 banjos, an assortment of washboards (always played by band wives), and a tuba, in one room. There’s a joke in there somewhere. I stayed with it long enough to ride a float in the Rose Festival’s Moonlight Parade, felt I had reached as far as might be possible, and put the banjo away. Fast forward: See, what I had actually wanted to play was Bluegrass, and for that, a person would need a banjo with an additional string. I heard of a man in Pendleton who made banjos, Verne Marr, and soon had a sweet little instrument scaled down to my hand. Lessons? Yes, but. Not very satisfactory (or was it my lack of talent?)

I was told of another band, which played Traditional Jazz, and which needed a banjo player. Sunset Traffic Jam Jazz Band. I dug out my 4-string, trad banjo, and played with the band for maybe a thousand years, until I decided I no longer wanted to be the band manager, financial officer, marketer, scheduler, and finally learned of another band in which I could just play the banjo. Now you’re up to date, and yesterday, we came full circle.

It all came back. The music (if you can call it that), the atmospherics, the Darling Twins singing “You Call Everybody Darling,” the jug band bass players, (but no washboards), a tuba, the guy in the front row with the flag shirt, the waitress who, in fact, called everybody darling. They were scheduled to play for three hours (!) and perhaps they did, but we found one hour was just about the right length of time and found the exit.

How did you celebrate the 4th?

Back at the farm, the fence building is marching along. Today saw the delivery of a truck-load of gravel, which will enable the cows to cross the streams without muddying the water. The posts are in, and a crew was busy securing the corner posts. Larry had been in Portland, so when he got back we went for a walk along the fence lines to check on progress. We find that our 6600 trees and shrubs are in need of either spray or weed-whacking, as a bumper crop of thistle and tansy is springing up right along with the salmonberry, cascara, nine bark, and so on. After trading calls all day, I finally connected with Adam of Cut Away Inc., who’s profession is brush-cutter, sprayer. He’s coming by tomorrow to talk about keeping my “boulevards” clear, as well as free the fence lines from over-hanging blackberry, serviceberry and so on. On our walk, Larry and I passed one of the downed oaks, now completely smothered in thistle, with blackberry waiting for an opening. Wonder if this Adam will be able to tackle this kind of mess. Fingers crossed.

Here’s one of the fence corners:

Looked more interesting in real life. It wasn’t that much fun pulling the devil’s darning needles out of my socks after out trek, so not much was gained by going on a cross-country walk.

Now, you are probably wondering how the Vision Garden is doing? First produce:

Pretty? But alas, the zucchini is profoundly bitter. Huh? Googled it, of course. Do NOT eat bitter zucchini unless you want severe abdominal pain . . . Well, no. Don’t want that, but in fact, I can’t imagine eating anything so toxic smelling anyway. Rats. What causes bitter zucchini? Apparently random events, like not enough water, uneven water, bad seeds, bad dirt, take your pick. Just don’t pick the squash. So, along with the desiccated tomato plants, the dead pear tree in the orchard, the cherry trees stripped of fruit by birds, we’re not doing very well.

But we soldier on! And now the hot dogs are off the grill and I’m out of here. I just noticed that my first post was in June of 2014. So I’ve been writing this for 4 years? Guess so. Hmm. What do I think about that?

I wake up this morning to the percussive, pneumatic sound of fence-post driving. We sleep with the porch door open (yes, screened porch door) and the cool air makes me burrow in a little. I watch the long morning rays of sun turn everything gold. Five thirty-eight a.m. In the city, committees would form, letters would be written.

The sound seems to have stilled the morning bird song, and maybe it’s the absence that makes me understand that I won’t get back to sleep. Okay the, coffee. It’s the first day of summer, and if that fence crew can be up and at it, so can I.

I want to tell you about a little boy. Fence Guy Grant’s son, Anthony, about 8 years old, I think. He comes to work every morning with his dad, rides behind on the huge tractor, skid steer, whatever, with his helmet and ear protection in place. On Wednesday, during a discussion of a certain fence-post location, Anthony climbs down. We talk a bit and he tells us that he’s gone swimming in Muddy Creek that noon. Larry jokes that he should watch out for the giant fish. Anthony looks at his dad, like, what? “There’s only leeches,” he says with a shrug. “I just pick them off my legs.” Well. One tough little dude.

By yesterday, however, Anthony has been promoted to ATV driver. He roars around the fields with Ian (Other Fence Guy) behind, delivering, picking-up, or just joy riding, though actually I doubt that. “My Uber driver,” says Ian, “knows where the gas pedal is.” Sometimes Anthony talks to us lying supine across one of the fence rails, or disappearing into a ditch. Yes, he likes working with Dad. He has a little sister. “Pain in the butt,” he reports, thus dismissing her while stripping the seed heads from a stem of fescue.

Walking up the road, my path crosses Grant’s. Great little boy, I remark. What a lucky kid, to have this summer life. “Yeah,” Grant says. “Get him up early, take him out here. Otherwise he’d just be at home playing computer games, watching TV.” We think about this for a minute. “People used to live with their grandparents, uncles, cousins, down the road in the same town. Everyone came together to harvest, build, whatever. Now everyone’s scattered. Kids don’t learn how to work.” I can’t argue with him, but can’t say he’s altogether right, either. Work at what? Different world now, for sure.

Peter and Andrew (son and grandson) came to see us for the day. They’re vacationing in Black Butte while the rest of the family romps around Paris with a crew of Lindbecks and kin, getting Amy safely off to Sienna for a summer semester abroad through UO. Photos are sent and they appear to be having a great time. Photos go the other way, of a day on Lake Billy Chinook, a boat, a donut behind. Peter and Andrew also having a great time. We do the farm thing for a day — retrieving the ATV from the shop, bouncing around the property perimeter, staking up the apple trees in the orchard. Hot dogs on the grill for lunch and all the Ruffles you can eat.

Forward to Friday, the plan was to split the wood lying athwart the oak copse, there from the unfortunate felling of half the homestead tree. Larry would get the splitter from the rental place and drive the thing, behind the pickup, to the site. This is hard work, some of the rounds being a couple of feet in diameter. We wanted to split the chunks into fire wood before the fence separating the copse from the house was in place. Larry is a stubborn soul, wouldn’t give up, so, five hours later, this is what one old goat and an aging crone managed together:

Note: the stacked pile represents only one third of the total, the wood in the ATV and pickup not yet unloaded. That will happen next week when the vehicular wood will be delivered to the barn.

We met with Sam Carter, arborist, in the afternoon to discuss a plan to thin a section of the copse that afternoon. This idea was under consideration from the first, but there is some debate about the health of the forest when just left to develop as it will. The Oregon White Oak has this shape when grown in the savanna landscape. This tree is at least 300 years old:

Presumably, early herds of elk and deer would have grazed the young trees before they could grow, and/or, native peoples used fire to maintain the grassy savanna. But in the copse, steep terrain, the trees have grown tall and narrow, competing for sunlight. There will be a few dominant trees and many smaller strugglers. The whole canopy is dense, and provides the appropriate environment for wild flowers. If we open the canopy too severely, we’ll get grass, instead. But what do the trees want? This is how they grew undisturbed. So we will attempt balance, clearing the sickly, misshapen, thinner trees, leaving the healthier ones to prosper. So we think. Sam will return next week with his mentor and we’ll all discuss what we should do. Reminding ourselves that their opinions may be colored by the prospect of a big job, and sobered by the thought of all that wood to be what? Chipped? Felled and split?

Next Thursday we’ll receive a bid, then decide. I’ll let you know how that goes. At the moment, (Saturday evening in Portland) a pizza’s in the oven. Beavers playing Mississippi State. Go Beavs!

I want to get right to the topic of hot dishes, as my hamburger is thawing in the sink as we speak. So, thanks, Martha, for the idea about stroganoff. Yep. And Kelly, I was pretty excited when I came across the recipe I most remembered from Grandma Viehl, the one with rice? Got it from Mr. Google. One can each of chicken/rice soup and cream of mushroom, plus 4 TBS soy sauce and 2 TBS Worcestershire? O.M.G, that’s it! Come on over, the recipe makes one pound hamburger feed a LOT of hungry Minnesotans.

Now, when last seen, Larry and I were trudging through the tall fescue. I’m disappointed to report that Ryan came and cut it while we were away, but when we got back, here’s what we saw:

Amber waves of grain? See, this is not what those words have always brought to my mind, but it will be now.

Ryan seems to work on the weekends, and of course, we seem to be in Portland on the weekends, so we missed the next two chapters in our little story. I did see Ryan, or someone, driving a tractor through this field with strange whirly devices on the tractor front which whisked the waves into flat land, but the baling went on behind our backs. Rats. Would have like to see that! But here’s what was next:

To give you an idea of the scale here:

These bales each weigh approx. 1200 pounds. Each. It’s about equipment, baby. Look at this:

It took five trips to take this to the hay sheds Ryan owns, and here’s some exciting news: Ryan wants to pay us half in US currency, half in — meat! Larry said fine! Well, you know what’s for dinner when you come to my house.

This is not the only thing going on at the “Wood.” Remember the meeting with Ryan and the Grant (Fence Guy)? We agreed to start on the perimeter, and this whole past week our days have been filled with the sound of grinding, hacking, felling. The idea is to clear the land in front of the existing fencing, see what needs to be replaced, or mended, or what is good enough to keep. It’s really magic to walk along a newly created path — well it’s more than a path, more like a boulevard through a park. It’s so gorgeous. First, the machines:

Hmm. Okay, maybe you have to use your imagination, hear the bird song, feel the hush of the ancient trees? I was going to go out and take more photos this afternoon, but, oops, it’s raining. What?

I’m sure you will want to hear how the Vision Garden is faring? Sorry to say, not so well. Apparently the long 13-day period of neglect in favor of a golf tournament has thrown our tomato plants into a sulk. Leaves curled, though they are getting enough water. Seeds didn’t sprout, ditto water situation. So, off to Shonnards for an explanation and, it is to be hoped, a remedy. Only remedy may be replacement. But our Master Gardener did not wish to give up on his babies, and instead, purchased four more tomato plants. Maybe twenty flower starts (instead of seeds), which he is ourside planting. Right now. Yes, in the rain. (We are Oregonians, after all — little rain never hurt anyone).

And as we drove up, we met Scott, the Guy who will be working to enclose our orchard more securely in advance of the chicken coop, which we ordered and now await. So we’re busy old folks, and in fact, when Larry finishes, before our hot dish supper, there will be naps!

If you’re going to be a part time gardener, you will need to have an automatic watering system. First, the new stone planters behind the patio.

In my head: This should be easy. We’ll just get Allen to come over and plug in to the foundation system he already established. A couple of hours.

In Larry’s head: This should be easy. I already have left-over widgets and gaskets down in the barn. A quick trip to the hardware store for some soaker hose and connector brackets. A couple of hours.

Guess which head was in charge. Yep. Those left-overs? Wrong size. Soaker hose? No, better idea. Punch holes in the main line and run auxiliary lengths to each individual plant. A second trip to the hardware store for quarter inch line, another hole-punching tool because apparently a weasel made off with the one we already had. Stakes, which aren’t stakes as you and I know them, but u-shaped wire doodads which hold all this auxiliary line stuff in place. Many hours later, done! No reason to pay some expensive gardener person to do what is so simple that a child could really do it.

Now for the Vision Garden: well, back to the hardware store, of course. There is some urgency to these projects as the Vision-meister will be away for 13 days, and all those fledgling tomato and squash plants? But he did it! Not sure about the blood, but for sure at the cost of sweat and tears:

Pretty gorgeous, right? By late that evening, he had also planted assorted pepper plants, some broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage, green beans, spinach, head lettuce, and rows-full of assorted flowers.

But we had been devoting time and energy to the garden and house at the expense of the greater, conservation projects. We were lucky to catch both Ryan (Cow Guy) and Grant (Fence Guy) for a meeting concerning the wider acreage. Decided to focus on the eastern half, down along Muddy Creek, where Grant would have to employ his dozer, brush hog, skid steer, grapple, to clear the riparian forest area for a perimeter fence. Grant says he can get started next week. We are becoming accustomed to the pliability of language as related to time, so hope he can start sometime before August.

Meanwhile, it would be important for the homeowners to identify and stake the two stand-pipes in the eastern quarter, where tall fescue has been growing all spring. Ryan may be able to hay the area to reclaim the forage, which cows will not eat as it stands but will be happy to eat in the barn next winter. But the fescue stands taller than the water pipes, and should the combine roar by and decapitate the pipes, the well would run to depletion before the pipes could be repaired. No!

So Larry and I set about to find the pipes and flag them. Here’s what that looked like:

It was an adventure, walking where you could not see the land below your feet, where there may be snakes. Larry said “Snake!” and when he got the reaction, said “don’t worry, he’s gone.” Yeah, but gone where? I’m really not good about the snakes we see, but when they’re just sitting there on the road, for example, okay, it’s interesting to observe them, but at large in the world? Ugh.

Safely back at the homestead, we called Ryan to see if we could come by to pick up the first installment of the meat which we’ve bartered for his grazing rights. We had not yet seen his holdings and were astonished by the number of huge machines parked in front of an assortment of barns. He’s an astonishing young man. His mom and dad owned the property, got a divorce, and when Ryan was 19 years old, his mom gifted him her one-quarter share of the farm. He got a federal Farm Loan to purchase the rest. He’s been running the operation ever since. Says you can either to to college to learn, or go to life. He earned an expensive year of college credit when he changed the system of feeding his cattle vegetable by-product from broccoli to cauliflower. Forty cows dropped dead, and he learned that the rumen of his animals could not tolerate the change in the Ph factor of the two. Now he custom-feeds animals from the coast dairy operations, moves his own herds across the valley, was taking his bulls in that morning to be tested for semen before turning them loose among his cows. One bull for twenty-five cows, he says. Nice work for the bulls!

And we came home with 23 individual packages of grass-fed hamburger, assorted steaks and roasts. His idea of what two elderly farmers might eat in the course of the next months. Been searching my mid-western memory for hamburger hot-dish recipes. If you have a favorite, post it on the comment site! (Or e-mail it to me.)

By the way, I love your comments! I’ve decided not to re-comment but I promise you, I look eagerly to see if you’ve posted anything and consider your words my reward for sending this out into the atmosphere. Thank you! And see you next time. We just learned that Ryan is over on the property, beginning to cut the fescue. It will look so different when we return!

If your dentist’s office phones you as you’re just pulling out of the parking garage to say that The Dentist is stuck in traffic and you will need to reschedule your 7 a.m. appointment to replace a crown, and if the sun is already warn in the early morning sky, you will probably dance a little jig, and jump back into bed, too.

Of course this means I will have to spend all tomorrow morning on the procedure (they call it a procedure, I call it punishment for a mis-spent childhood.) While Larry gets to be at the farm, working on his Vision.

That’s what he calls it, and you can actually hear the capital letter V when he talks about it. Last post you saw him pushing a rototiller across the designated space. Here’s the next step:

With his rental tractor and attached tiller, he was able to spread 3 inches of this lovely stuff onto the garden and till it into the resident acidic clay. Then came the very hard work of shoveling same into orderly raised beds, with a carefully calculated 24 inch walk between each bed. Good thing this is a Vision, right? We’ll worry later about how to keep weeds out of the walk.

Next comes a visit to the nursery to select the tomato and squash starts which will initiate the plant design. Why do we need 6 tomato plants? There are 7 rows, the outside two set aside for flowers, and He with the Vision wanted to have a tomato plant to punctuate each vegetable row. Wait a minute. Bad math, there. Oh well, easy to get confused when surrounded by the seductive bounty of an early spring nursery.

Time out: Too hard to type with a bandaid on my finger, the result of trying to slice frozen bread. Do not do that.

Okay, I’m back. Found a smaller bandaid and yes, you’re right, it is hard to play my banjo missing the one index finger, too.

Some bad news. While we weren’t looking, one of the cherry trees began to suffer. Suddenly, this:

Back when Peter was still here, I clipped the tip ends of a few branches and took them into Shonnards, another local nursery. “Your tree is just fine,” said the guru there. “Been raining. Lots of trees in the valley are looking like this.” So relieved I didn’t stop to think. It’s been raining? It rains here every year. Seriously?

Obviously our tree is not fine. I took photos and shopped around the other nurseries in town. Got a different diagnosis everywhere, ranging from cancer — trees get cancer? — to borers. “Look under the gummosis and see if there are holes, and if so, you got borers.” Gummosis is the technical term for this:

Larry scraped away, said he didn’t see any holes, but, honestly, how would we know what a borer hole looked like. Nonetheless, he sprayed with something called Serenade, at the recommendation of Shonnards, who admitted that yes, we did have a problem.
It doesn’t look too good for this poor tree. This is the tree which the nearby birds shredded last year, eating every last bright red cherry. We’ll see.

Larry just phoned in to say that at last he has figured out the water-system programming, but can’t yet determine how to water the squash plants. All six of them. Six squash, six tomatoes, two people. Yeah, but, look at our success with the cherries. Maybe we will need all those plants? Anyway, he’s heading out to Block 15 for a well-deserved burger and a beer. Me? I’m going to go sit on the deck with my coffee and read my new book (The Very Marrow of our Bones) until the sun does down.

Which seems a good note on which to end this post.