Tonights haul from the garden!

Crystalie went down and picked these items from the garden, things are starting to bear produce, she picked as you can see some green beans, a head of broccoli and also some basil and two different types of zucchini.

We like picking the zucchini when they are smaller and more tender. Well most of this ended up in our hobo suppers tonight and it was of course all very delicious!

Nice to start eating the results of all the work and nuturing!

Well I told you of the Handyman job I had for our friend Colette, when she had a water issue along her basement sill, due to a water run off problem.

She asked me to install some new rain gutter along the north side of her house. I had picked up all the stuff for the job earlier today and brought it home. Picked up my ladder and headed over to her place and began the work.

As you can see I finished it all and installed about 44 feet of rain gutter and I also put in about 17 feet of downspout. With a 4 ft extension and a water baffle out on to the lawn.

It should keep the heavy rainwater away from the exterior of the basement wall! I sent her a text with the image, of the installed rain gutter! Needless to say she was very pleased to see it up already!

Here is my Mom and Dad, we took this picture this morning, before they got ready to leave for their trip back to North Dakota.

Today the 25th of July is my Mom's 75th Birthday so happy Birthday again Mom, hope your trip home going through Fargo was good!

Thanks for coming to Coffee Lake Farm, and Dad thanks again for mowing some of my lawn while I was working at R. I really appreciate getting it done over the weekend.

Well, it seems my Handyman skills are needed again, by friend Colette! The recent rain storms we have had ended up causing some water issues along the walkout side of her basement.

The job involves installing some additional rain gutter and a downspout and some work on her deck that is above the area to make sure the water can run off and drain through the deck.

Anyhow, it will involve a few hours of work, and then later I have to remove some of her siding and replace part of some of the wallboard.

It is always good to do work for a friend and she is always very appreciative and her cookies are great!

Yes we have some company this weekend. My Mom and Dad are here, they arrived Thursday early evening, and we enjoyed a nice supper and visiting.

Mom is going with my daughter Jennifer to the cities for a wedding shower for my niece Michelle, today and tonight. Dad is staying with us, and enjoying the peace and quiet of the farm, and maybe mowing some grass if things dry out after the inch of rain we got this morning. Also keeping an eye onthe dogs, since Joya is here to play with Smarkle and Tootsie!

I will try to get a picture or two of them here at the farm, before they leave, but right now I am busy with work at R.

Yep tonight was a night of mowing grass over at Wooden Nichols.

This involves loading my mower in my trailer behind the pickup, driving over to the store and then unloading, the mower and spending about 45 minutes mowing the grass. I will also take the weed whacker, but tonight is was so warm I passed on that, and will have to clean it up next week.

I also trimmed a couple of pesky branches on one of the pin oak trees, that was hanging over the climbing trellis area, and one of the bittersweet plants planted there had just started climbing on to the branch.

So all in all, about an hour's worth of work and then load things back up and the head back. Which involved a stop at the gas station to fill up my lawn tractors gas tank so I could begin the process of mowing grass at Coffee Lake Farm!

Well it was supposed to be mid 90's with lots of humidity, but...

We had a huge thundershower around 8:00am this morning and the winds blowing all day after it, seemed to keep things much cooler with the temps reaching the low 80's and the humidity dropped significantly for the rest of the day and this evening we are enjoying a refreshing breeze and temps in the mid 70's and a chance we could see mid 60's overnight.

The oppressing heat and humidity gave us a great break today!

I was really nice as I played in a golf event for work today and it ws great for golf and we had a great turnout, with about 130 golfers showing up to raise money for the MMBA (Mid-Minnesota Builders Association) Scholarship Fund which is on going fund that awards 3 - $1000.00 scholarships to students who are selected from their applications.

A great day of golf and my team shot 6 under par in a best ball scramble!

We had company last night, Livia and Addy, were here. They enjoyed Coffee Lake Farm even in the hot weather....played fetch with Smarkle, tire swing for a little while, fetch with Smarkle of the dock, played with the Barbies,had supper grilled chicken and peaches and potatoes, a jacuzzziiiii as Addy would say nice and cool for a half hour, had some ice cream and cookies, then relaxed and watched the Secret of Nihm, and then to bed...

This morning grandma Crystalie fixed breakfast, watch some tv and played with barbies, made their bed, packed up there clothes and had some lunch...

It was a short visit but it was good to see them and we had some laughs! Thanks for visiting Livia and Addy!

I don't know when I had my first hobo meal, but it is always been a favorite here at Coffee Lake Farm!

You can start with either ground beef or chicken breast filet.....




Season your meat the way you want, and then place it in the center of a large piece of tin foil, I usually double up the foil to prevent it from ripping easily.



Once the meat is placed on the tin foil no spray or butter needed, add fresh or frozen vegetables, to it piling them on top of and around the meat. Again season them with spices and herbs to your taste...this may include but not limited to


potatoes

zucchini slices

green beans --fresh is the best

sweet pea pods

sliced onion

radishes(try baking radishes--it softens the bite and they are quite tasty)

parsnips sliced

carrots sliced or baby carrots

and any other vegetables


Once you have all what you want on this pile, place an ice cube or 2 on top of it...the extra moisture helps things from getting scorched....add your butter when it is cooked...if you add it before it can burn things.




Then take another doubled sheet of tin foil, and place it on top of the pile and then seal the sides and corners all together.




Tip---fold your corners differently to remember who's is who's so if you have different ingredients once it is cooked, you can tell which one is yours!




Cooking time on my gas grill is about 30 minutes, and I do move them around on the grill and rotate them, you do not need to flip it over though...moving and rotating them just insures even cooking and that when you open them up your meat is completely cooked! Enjoy!

Looks good doesn't it, and it was really tasty also!

Like many people, we enjoy morning coffee, which is made easier by having a timer coffee maker.

Every night in the evening, I make the coffee for the next morning, and set the timer, which I rarely forget to turn on, the only thing that goofs this up is if the power goes off, and the clock needs to be reset.

But at 6:30 am every morning the coffee maker comes on and by the time we are up and ready for a hot cup of rich coffee, yes we like it to be dark and rich in flavor, one of my favorites is a coffee blend called Black Silk, by Folgers. Or a good 100% Columbian coffee is always good, and with the best being Blue Jamacian coffee, if you have never tried it you should. It is not cheap but it is wonderful!

During the summer we enjoy going out on our front deck, and have a cup of coffee with the dogs and now Trixie to watch us drinking coffee and visit a little about the upcoming daily activities or just sit and enjoy the tranquility of Coffee Lake Farm.

We can look out over the llamas in their pen, and also enjoy watching the birds flutter around Crystalie's flower garden. It is a peaceful time and a time Crystalie, enjoys immensely each day. I am good for a cup or two and then it is off to start on a project or get ready to go to work!

The last two days we got about one of inch of rain, which will help keep things nice and green and it will be needed for the vegetable garden as now we are facing some very warm sunny weather over the next 4-5 days.

My plan is to get some weeding in the garden done by the end of the weekend, but I also am working some shifts at R. through the weekend.

I did managed to get my swim raft back out on the lake, as the cable that secured it to the weight I had on it, snapped, a couple of nights ago. So the dogs and I got it back over to the dock and I bought some new chain in town today to fasten to a new anchor...a heavy iron wheel.

I managed to pull it out with the paddle boat far enough for now, and dropped the new anchor.

We have been enjoying some much cooler temperatures during the last two days, lows have been down into the mid 50's which feels kind of chilly.

The Llamas and Bucky, have enjoyed the cooler weather, all except the deerflies and horseflies. It seems with the warm weather we had over the last week, the population of these pesty flies. has grown.
The cooler weather and some breezy weather help keep them down, but the grass in the pasture is an area the flies love to sit until being disturbed by a passing animal.

We do spray Bucky down every so often, but the llamas are not to easy to spray down, they like to get in one of there dust bowls, and roll around to get rid of the flies.

Anyhow, the fly season will pass, in about a month and in two months we will experience a frost...that would be Mid-September which is the full Moon cycle in September.

Here are some different areas that are popping with color around the farm, this first shot is of one of the plants down by the corn crib gazebo, you can see they start out white in color and turn to the baby blue color, I believe this is a mini hydrangea.

This is a large pot next to the back deck, and I wanted to show you this as the sunflowers that are in this pot, were planted there by a little chipmunk! there are about 5 plants growing in this pot!

This last one is the old Coit cast iron tub, that I hauled form North Dakota out of the old Roger Coit house, that we put on the end of the house on the area below a bedroom window. You can see everything is growing very fast, and there are a bunch of wild poppies in various stages along with it.

Hope you enjoyed the flower show!

8 days ago I posted a bunch of pictures of the vegetable garden and what I did to clean it up.
Well we have 8 days of warm sunny weather with temperatures in the 80's and even low 90's over the weekend.

You can see that everything almost doubled in size if not more! So far we have had some radishes and also a little broccoli, but much more will be ready soon!

Days 3 and 4 working on the pool deck project I undertook for my brother Bill and his wife Kathy.
Day 3, I woke up early Saturday morning and was on the road by 6:15 am, in route to Bill's house. I arrived around 8:45 am and proceeded to get to work. I had some extra help this weekend also, brother Neal, and my Son-in-law Chris also came down and helped us both out.

We of course started with trying to finish all the framing of the deck surface, which was completed by Saturday night, except for the area of his pump cleaning system. We ran short of 2 x 6 lumber and I will have to finish that next time. Bit we got the rest of the poles all set and even got the steps built, and the boards were on it also before we called it a day at 8:00pm, and we took a refreshing tip in the pool prior to eating supper. You can see the steps in one of the pictures below.
We started with the deck boards on the large area at the top of the steps bright and early Sunday morning, which was nice and wet due to a heavy rain storm the rolled through at 5:00am this morning. Making the air heavy with moisture.

You can see in the shot above and the shot below, that we got all the deck area closest to the house pretty well finished, up and we even started on and completed 3 sections across from stairs and large deck platform.

I figure we have about 60% of the decking done now and another day of deck work, and we should have that part done, and then it is on to capping the outside edges, and then installing the railings on the half with the tall poles sticking up.

Needless to say it was very hot about 92-95 degrees with out much of a wind, and we all were thankful for the cool water of the pool. We worked till about 10;45 am and then we took a brunch break, after words we all had changed into shorts or swimsuits, so whenever we got overly hot or a section completed we would drop our knee pads, tool belts and such and take a quick dip in the pool for about 5 minutes, get out feeling much better and we also drank lots of water, and iced tea. It was difficult to stay hydrated, with the sun and heat.

Above is the stairs and large area, before the pool. that is about 14 ft long and 8 feet wide. Well, I am figuring 2 more days of work and hopefully be complete.

Thanks to Kathy for all the food and beverages and also helping out when she could, also thanks to brother Neal for his help for almost the whole 2 days, and Chris who helped on Saturday afternoon.

It is looking good and things are working out as planned, but it is a lot of angles to deal with!

Tonight I spent about an hour putting cages on the tomatoes, which was almost to late to do...they are getting big and starting to fill out nicely and of course some of them even have blossoms on and I even saw some small green tomatoes on some of them!

I also am trying a tip I saw online, for fighting the blight issue. The article said that you should pinch off the little branches with leaves on up to a foot of the ground. More of the plant energy goes into the fruit also!

The reason being the ground underneath them has the fungus, that causes blight when it gets on the lower leaves, the dirt gets there from tilling the dirt, and also from the rain splashing on the ground, then the leaves start getting splotchy.

The idea is by removing some of the lower hanging branches closer to the ground, that you will see less blight on the whole plant. Another tip is to wet the plants down with a compost tea almost weekly, or a food mixture, the healthier the plant the more it can endure!

Compost tea, is essentially putting your manure and dirt combination, in a thin gauze or an old pantyhose leg, tie it off and soak it in a 5 gallon pail of water for a day or two. The nutrients leach out into the water and you can use a sprinkling can to wet the plant down with nutrient rich water which will have a brownish tint to it!

Try this it really greens up your plants!

Well, we don't have fields Poppies, in the Wizard of Oz, but we have lots of them and the blooming season is just beginning!

Once you start growing them you, will always have them as they reseed themselves each year. Unless you pick the pots before they start spreading their seeds. The blue-green foliage is kind of cool and offers a nice contrast to flower areas.

As you can see below they will grow just about anywhere, like the crack between, the sidewalk and the timber wall.

These were all double blossom variety, we do have some singles but none were blooming yet. They last about 3-4 days and then the soft petals begin to die off.

Thought you might like to see them!

Below are a couple of Trixie pictures, but she wouldn't sit still for long, and it was getting darker out so the camera wasn't adjusting it 's focus very fast. Either that Or I am just slow...anyone I had a request for some new pics of her.

She has adpted very well to the farm life, we still are putting her in at night, but she is ready to come out of the studio in the mornings.

4th of July brings lots of explosions of color, but in this case it is in Crystalie's Coffee Lake Farm Flower Garden! Below you can see a batch of Lilies that just burst open in the last day or so.

These orange Calla Lillies, have been blooming about a week now and look so cool!

Here is a closer look at one of the dark red Lilies, the pictures don't do it justice, but it is very bright and so perfect right now!

I hope you enjoyed the explosion of color, thanks Crystalie for supplying some great flowers to take pictures of!

Finally a time period to work on the vegetable garden and pumpkin patch.





I finished mowing the yard on Saturday the 2nd, and that is freeing up the morning of the 4th of July for some serious garden work.

Starting the tiller up again and going through everything first and then after that, it was time to get the rake and hoe out for some closer weeding work. After that, some hand work also with a little digger in spots I could not get to with a hoe.

Yes it is that time of year, Fireworks and celebrating 4th of July!

We usually get two shows a year that we can watch from our living room, one of them is tomorrow night, when Ruttger's does their fireworks show, and then we usually have a show that is to the North of us, on Tamefish Lake, if they get high enough over the trees.

It is not always easy to sleep some nights due to the small fireworks that various neighbors set off but it is only a few nights, and then it is back to the peace and quiet of northern Minnesota!