The greenhouse, as you know Crystalie had started all the tomato's and peppers and some other things for the Stanley Family Garden Club. Below you can see the plants prior to their departure to the rest of the family.
As you can see despite the cold spring and not a lot of sunny days they have grown quite well.
Now the challenge is to get a few dry days so we can start planting what is left in our garden area which has recieved almost 2 1/2 inches of rain in the last 4 days!
Last Thursday, Crystalie had some extra help while she was open, Ricki her daughter who is here from their home in Washington.
Crystalie, put her to work, and they enjoyed a day of visiting getting things ready for the big Memorial day weekend. A number of friends stopped by also that day so she got to see lots of her Mom's friends also.
I know they had fun because later that day they ended up at one of the store's consignors house going through a bunch of stuff as they get ready to move this summer!
Thanks for helping your Mom out and I know she loved every minute of it!
My helper and me, headed off to the woodchip work at Wooden Nichols, last Wednesday morning.
After we got back I began replacing some countertop on the back deck, I bought a piece of countertop last year and had used for a counter on my shelf, but needless to say indoor countertop is not made for outdoor use. Below you can see I removed the old countertop already.
After that we put the boats in the water and Rebekah and I towed the raft out to it's tie down, using the row boat, you can see everyone had to get up on the raft once I had it anchored. Including Tootsie and Smarkle, who rode with us in the boat.
Quite the fashionable helper I have! Also thanks to her mom, Ricki for the pics of the two of us working!Well below you can see all the new woodchips that we have used to freshen up the grounds and fill the new path around the gazebo to the new Porta Potty, on the south side of Wooden Nichols!
This was about a total of 9 yards of woodchips that we had Crystalie's brother Mitch hauled in his large dump truck named Popeye!
The other 3 yards of the total 12 yards ended up at Coffee lake Farm and was used to freshen up the gazebo walkway that is pictured in my blog title!I have to apologize, but this week has been a whirlwind and I have fallen behind on my writing, but I hope to catch up this weekend.
We have had company as you all know and some of my time has gone to playing live scrabble games and also playing Uno with Rebekah and Grandma Crystalie and Ricki!
We also have been very busy trying to get things in shape at the farm and the store for the Memorial Day weekend. Monday the 30th, Crystalie and I host the monthly Stanley Family Birthday party and also the Stanley Family Garden Club collects all the plants Crystalie started, which are growing well in the greenhouse.
Along with numerous projects at both places and work at Range and also at R it is a busy time.
Ricki has taken some nice photos of some of the work and also my helper Rebekah. Even though she is only 6, I am trying to keep her busy learning that with hard work comes some fun and special treats like "Freezies" you know the Popsicles in the plastic tubes...it has served as a good motivator!
More later!
Rebekah and I have a long lists of Projects to work on tomorrow afternoon and also on Wednesday. I am taking a little time off to work on the projects.
We have some new woodchips to put down on the gazebo path, and I have some other areas here at the farm that need the same. Then we will be off to Wooden Nichols to do the same there, along with some other yard stuff there.
We have to also, unload my slabwood from the trailer and Rebekah will get to stack her first bit of firewood working with Grandpa. There will be lots of other things and I will try to document them. There will be some fun breaks in there also so watch for more adventures of Rebekah at Coffee Lake Farm!
Needless to say having a 6 year old around, can make you tired, but it is also fun to see all the energy that she has. This photo was taken by Ricki (her mom) yesterday when it decided to quit raining for a bit.
Today was another soggy day so Rebekah didn't get a lot of outside time, but I think she rested up a bit form the travel and all the activities she did yesterday.
We hope to have some drier weather starting tomorrow, and hopefully we will be able to enjoy all the sunshine while doing a bunch of projects, that need to be done prior to the Memorial Day Stanley Family Birthday Party to be held at Coffee Lake Farm!
We have visitors from the west coast, yes our granddaughter Rebekah is here with her mom and dad, for a week or so.
They arrived last night around 8:30 pm, after a long day on the road. We are happy to have them visiting us and enjoying Coffee Lake Farm.
Rebekah had a busy day considering it rained into this afternoon, but Ricki and her kept busy around the house. Once the rest of us got done with work, the sun was shining so we played outside, she tested out the monkey bars, threw the ball for Smarkle to fetch, checked out the llamas, and the flower garden.
We also had numerous rides on the tire swing and of course, lots of food, and treats like rhubarb cake and whip cream, a freezy and a sampling of coco puffs!
Anyhow, everyone should be tired tonight!
Well the season of long day's is here.
What do you mean....with working two jobs and trying to keep up with all the daily and weekly tasks and also working on the project list, it involves some long days.
Like today, I left this morning for work about 7:15 am, worked at Range in the office and also made some calls for Lake Country Journal which involved some miles up on the north side of Gull Lake.
I then had a staff meeting at the part time job I have at R., which lasted an hour so I arrived home right around 6:00pm. Talked to Crystalie for about 5 minutes, went outside and picked up a bunch of stuff she had cut out of her flower garden.
Then proceeded to clean out the wood stove since I let it burn down to almost nothing, a task that needs to be done about every 2 weeks to remove the ash. After cleaning it out I had to fire it up again, which reminds me that I have to cut some firewood tomorrow so I have something to burn over the next few weeks.
After completing those tasks, I proceeded to wash the outside of the house windows, just to get some of the winter grime off. I didn't get to fussy as soon we will have pine pollen all over the place and then I will need to really clean everything after that screens and both in and outside of all the windows.
Then I grilled supper on the grill, filled the bird feeder while doing that and we ate around 7:30pm. I finished eating and then headed back outside, to start mowing some of the yard. I stopped around 9:00pm and then came in and did the dishes in the sink. Before sitting down to write my blog...if you are tired I understand. I am getting there also, oops I forgot Colette called me and the friend of hers I took the big pine tree down for last February, called and now has some more wood for me to cut up and pick up...cool the firewood problem is solved just when to go get it!
Hi all, tonight was my meeting for the Mid Minnesota Builders Association, I am involved in through work.
Tonight it was hosted by Anderson Brothers Construction, and held at Ernie's On Gull Lake, which is a beautiful spot, the bar restaurant sits on a beach facing north on a large part of Gull Lake. We enjoyed a beautiful spring day, of about 70 degrees and a number of us enjoyed happy hour just 20 feet from the waters edge enjoying the warm breeze and sunshine, that has been missing lately, but we have had 3 nice days in a row.
Tonight we awarded our annual scholarship winners, who are high school seniors who are enrolled to go to college, and who applied for the scholarships that the MMBA awards...it is $1000.00 per scholarship, and we award 3 annually.
Two were graduating from Brainerd High School and one from Pillager High School. There were 19 applicants this year and a committee makes the selections.
It is always good to be a part of something that rewards hard work and will impact the future, which I am sure these 3 students will do.
Today is Sunday, I returned home from a trip to the cities to see my Granddaughters Livia and Adeline perform in their Ballet Recital. I got home and headed over to Wooden Nichols to work with rocks and the new path. Above you see the process of removing the sod, about a 5 foot swath around the Corn Crib Gazebo.
I got all the sod removed from the 5 foot swath, and started placing the rocks.
You can see here we have two rows of rocks, the reason being Crystalie wanted to plant some plants that could climb up the Gazebo, and so I left about a foot of space between the inside ring and the wall of the Gazebo.
Your looking at a trailer load of rocks I purchased from a place north of Brainerd.
This is about two tons of rocks, and will soon be the border of the new path to the porta potty, at Wooden Nichols.
We have 80 acres of property and believe it or not there are not any larger stones on it due to it being mostly sand and some swamp land.
I wish North Dakota was closer, I grew up picking rocks off of the fields we farmed for years and we have piles of rocks around. But with gas prices and wear and tear on a vehicle so costly, the alternative was to buy some locally.
Hopefully this weekend I will get the stones placed, and then we have to get the woodchip mulch to put down for the path.
But tomorrow I have a Cultural Event to attend, my daughter Misty's two girls have their Ballet Recital tomorrow afternoon!
I spent the last two days and last night away form home, on a road trip up to Bemidji and back. Making calls on potential advertisers and various dining places, that we are try to get in the next 2 issues.
All in all it was a good trip, had some nice visits and came back with one contract with a great hotel and event center in Grand Rapids.
My travels took me north out of Brainerd, up through Walker, and then over to Bemidji for the night. Today I worked in Bemidji till almost 11 and then headed over to Grand Rapids for an appointment that I had scheduled last week. After a long couple of days I arrived home around 5:30pm.
To find my exhausted wife, who spent ever minute she could today and yesterday out in her flower garden, cleaning out the leaves, cleaning up the area that we removed a rose bush from on Monday night, and transplanting some plants.
Plus we had temperatures in the 70's the last two days, so nice warm weather and sunshine, needless to say lots of dirt and sweat and muscle soreness...but I will say even though she does hurt and ache...you can tell she loves it!
Okay, Bucky thinks the grass is greener on the otherside of the fence!
I had moved her to the girl Llama pen earlier in the week because it seemed the grass was growing faster there, and I thought she would have more to eat. But when she is on that side she has been known to get out on the backside and follow the fence around to the yard.
This picture was taken at 7:00am Sunday morning by Crystalie and was my alarm clock to get up this morning, so I got up, got dressed and went outside, grabbed a small bucket of grain and put Bucky back in the boy llama pen.
I have to say this was forcasted by Crystalie, when I told her I moved Bucky just 2 days ago....there is a new roll of barb wire in my shop, that is going up to re-enforce my fence in the next week so this won't happen again!
This is the new mountain of llama and horse manure and all the hay that was spread around the hay ring all winter.
I spent yesterday using the skid steer loader creating this pile in the llama pen. It is not just there to amuse them, which it does of course. But when they climb around on it they pack it, and being all piled up it goes through a heat process that will breakdown the hay fiber in it, which slowly turns into a manure enriched compost.
So in other words it is huge compost pile. I moved last years compost pile onto the old garden and the new garden site along with hauling a trailer load to Wooden Nichols to amend into the flower beds there. Then I spent time working it into the soil with my garden tractor and cultivator implement.
Getting close to planting season!
Time to prepare some Llama Doo for sale at Wooden Nichols!
Below you see my solar drying tray for Llama Beans..llama poop.
I use a pail to transfer them to my grinder, and it is a gravity flow grinder, that makes the beans into a crushed powder, biggest pieces about 1/4 inch in size.
I apply my labels to my plastic lined sealable bags, which are below here and then I fill them using a hand scoop into the llama doo bags, they hold 3lbs of this organic plant food.
Below you see my end product 6 bags all bagged up and in a box for the Wooden Nichols shopkeeper to haul them to the store.
This box of Llama Doo of 6 bags is a little over $40.00 worth of product, $6.95/bag.
Yes the first dandelions in my yard made their appearence today.
Oh don't worry there are even more, which means the spring rain we got all last night gave these little yellow flowers the drink they needed to sprout when the warm sun came out this afternoon!
Needless to say I will have to do some weed management in a week or so! Another project for my list.
Tonight, I got home from a day on the road, hooked up my yard tractor to the old cultivator section I have and started busting up the new garden spot.
It is still pretty wet in that area, and the soil there is pretty heavy, which will be good for the plants as it will hold the moisture well this summer meaning I won't have to water it to much.
I plan to add a bunch of composted manure and hay, to this area and work that in and it will help warm the soil up and and also lighten it a little more. Plus the fiber will provide a good mulch on the ground for cover and weed growth, till the jungle of pumpkin vines and squash, cover it all.
I also have to get a fence around it before I can do much planting! More to do!
Well, first of all thank you to all the friends and family for the birthday wishes! Yes it is May 3rd, and 55 years ago I came into this world!
I of course worked today, and the day went well, and seemed to go by fast. And it was definitely a nice day, sunshine and around 60 degrees. So after work I played my first nine holes of golf at Ruttgers as a birthday treat! Hopefully it will be the beginning of many more rounds.
I played the back nine at Ruttgers and shot a 47 which is 2 over bogey golf, I Hit my driver well and most of the mistakes were on the putting green and also some iron shots, but it was great to play and I know I can do better with more practice!
I got home and Crystalie had prepared a great birthday dinner, which you see above, roasted root vegetables and fresh asparagus and oven cooked ribs! Needless to say it was it was all delicious, and then we had a special treat chilled chocolate dipped strawberries and next is cake---Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting!No I am not going to the local Casino!
Yep, birthday tomorrow and the big 55, is my new age to be.
It doesn't really matter to me, as I believe you are as young as you think and feel!
I still enjoy pop music, playing various sports, and playing with the nephews and the grand kids down on the floor!
I am just thankful I have a loving family, and loving wife and partner in my life as i grow older!
Well, Sunday seemed to be a cold windy and snow flurries in the air off and on, and Crystalie and I both worked at our respective weekend jobs.
We are all alone again now as Raquel, Eric and baby Miles, left us early afternoon to go back to Ann Arbor, MI. We will miss them, but it is also time to settle into our normal Wooden Nichols season, and working at R, along with the projects on my list for the farm and Wooden Nichols.
The day didn't seem like much, but then the late evening development of Osama Bin Laden, being killed by American Forces in Pakistan. The date of May 1st, and it will forever be noted in history as the day, an evil man who killed many innocent lives here and and in the middle east.
My thought is that we should remember those who died rather than him, it made me mad today to see his picture on the front pages, of many of the local and national newspapers. I would have rather seen a list of those who lives were given justice, I think we all remember all the videos and pictures we saw of him, and we didn't need to be reminded of what he looked like.
Hopefully, our children, will not see the likes of someone like him or others who used the lives of the innocent to draw attention to themselves and their desire to control others. God Bless America and the Individuals of the Armed Forces who watch over us!
