Thanks for the topsoil!

This is the current view standing at the end of our driveway and looking east into our yard. As you can see by the mighty high snowbanks, my husband has been doing a lot of shoveling this winter.

As you can also see, we're the happy recipients of a new thin layer of topsoil over the end of our yard. Our neighbors to the north and west do full-till row cropping, which means that part of their soil base gets blown away every winter, to be deposited elsewhere. Like in rivers, lakes, and in my yard.

We grow alfalfa on our yard, so our soil is well bedded under a nice layer of decomposing alfalfa stalks and root mass. Topsoil is precious, so we try to hold on to ours as best we can. So I am partly grateful for the free gift of my neighbor's soil. But partly worried, as well. Dirt just shouldn't be blowing around like that.

Some farmers practice no-till and minimum-till on their cropland. I understand that sometimes they have a greater problem with insect damage when they don't till as much. I'm not a farmer, so I don't know all the ins and outs of it.

Here are a few pictures I took of a road ditch on the north side of the road, next to a couple of fields. I took them while driving home from New Ulm last week.

The first picture shows the ditch adjacent to a full-till field.

The second picture shows the ditch adjacent to a no-till field.

Believe it or not, these pictures were taken within 100 feet of one another. It was like night and day, from one field to the next. And we've had good snowcover thus far this winter - image all the dirt blowing around if we hadn't!

Burns Night (and morning)

This morning I was woken up with breakfast in bed, delivered by my husband. I actually get breakfast in bed fairly often, so am pretty lucky in that regard. My husband then told me that our boys were having an argument downstairs, an argument that only little boys could have.

"I am me."
"No, I am me."
"No, I am me!"
"NO! I am me!!" and so on.

We both laughed. Our boys argue and fight pretty frequently, so anything that makes it more amusing (and less aggravating) for us is very welcome.


Today is January 25, and this is the year I am going to do it. For years, ever since the fateful winter of 1994-95 that I spent in Edinburgh, I have wanted to start the tradition of Burns Night in my household. Not that I love Robert Burns' poetry (although some of it is nice), but I love the celebration: stand in front of a group of people and recite incomprehensible poetry, then eat haggis, neeps and tatties (which is sausage, mashed potatoes and turnips to us boring Americans) and drink whiskey until you collapse in a groggy, happy stupor.

Since our boys are still quite young, we'll probably switch out the whiskey part of it for pink milk. And we'll probably skip on the poetry reading part until at least one of our boys can actually read Scottish brogue. But this year, we will definitely be having neeps and tatties for supper. And though eating sausage made from a sheep's heart, liver and lungs and cooked in its stomach does hold some appeal, we will be opting for chicken & apple sausages instead. I have tried haggis, really I have. It was okay. I just don't think my family is ready for it yet. One thing at a time.

Although maybe we'll have a little bit of bagpipe music in the background ...

Goaty goodness

The goats have weathered the weather so far so good.* Our goats are angora goats, with nice thick curly fur. Imagine a cross between a sheep and a poodle -- they look sorta like that. With the snow as deep as it is, they spend most of their time inside the barn. On sunny days they step outside to catch a few rays, but not for very long.


We have plenty of feed for them. Not knowing how much two goats would eat over a winter, I ordered 100 bales of grass hay and 20 bales of alfalfa last fall. It's January now, and we still have well over half of the bales left in the barn. During the summer, the goats will be eating mostly fresh grass (and weeds), and should hardly touch their hay. So some of this hay will no doubt stretch through to next winter.


They have a heated water bucket (thank heavens for that - much better than chopping ice and hauling water), and get grain about every other day. I have to feed it to them in two separate pails, otherwise Dawn (the older and dominant goat) won't let Eve have any grain. They always have hay or alfalfa available, and the stuff they don't eat gets pulled out of their manger and makes a warm bedding on the floor.


I can't wait until spring to see what these two little weed-vacuum cleaners will do in their pasture. I hope this experiment in livestock and weed control is a success. It will make it easier to convince my husband to upgrade to a cow at some point in the future ...

*If my goats were neutered males, I could have said "our wethers have weathered the weather" . Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha. Hmm. A little goat humor there. Ok, I guess you had to be there...

Pah-tay

Since Owen's and Benjamin's birthdays are so close together, we usually combine the parties into one day of celebration. This year the big family shindig fell on Owen's day, so on Ben's day we had a smaller festival of cupcake decoration. Much fun and mess was had by all.


This weekend was the dual party, with games such as musical chairs, blindfold treasure hunt, and a goodie bag auction with monopoly money. Then onto several rounds of nerf battles with various foam-ball and foam-dart weaponry. It was all the kids vs. Uncle Bob. Despite being seriously outnumbered, Uncle Bob was victorious, due to a significant tactical advantage: being a whole lot bigger and smarter and sneakier than a eight-, five- and three-year old.

The cake had eight candles for Owen, and three for Benjimouse. Grandpa was the designated ice cream man. After recovering from the sugar coma, we played a few rounds of cards and then called it a night.


This old farmhouse of ours was built in the days of big extended families, with aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins all living under the same roof. It seems to me that the house feels more complete when we have a bunch of friends and family over.