Sweat and Sweet Corn

 Last week we hosted a bit of a Skeehan Family reunion here on the farm. Family members from Colorado, Chicago and Australia all converged on this little piece of land right at the start of the sweet corn season and one of the longest heat waves in a decade. We were quite the hive of activity, with much laughing, eating, swimming, eating, horseback riding, eating, photo-taking, eating and when we were done eating, we even managed to get a bit of work done.

The big project of the visit was to start to tear the roof off of the old packing shed. In the first picture you can see the hard-working crew pausing from their shingle-stripping fun. Notice the lovely green porch roof below them. That was the most recent (and wonderfully shady) progress before the Skeehans arrived.

The de-roofing crew (plus a wandering garlic harvester)

Dan inspecting the porch roof while Miranda, Carman Marie & Dominique take a much-deserved breather

big progress on the de-roofing front

Carman Marie & Miranda stripping the last of the tar paper

Sweaty, but still smiling, Australian brothers Dan & Tom

It was such crazy fun to have every here. Huge thanks to my parents for providing cabin-accommodations, work-crew wrangling and photographic skills and to all the Skeehans for their good humor, great company and hard work. We hope to see you all again soon!

A Day at the Farm

This post was supposed to be about Blue and Luci, but I came upon some pics from a couple of weeks ago and I just couldn't pass them up. My favorite red-heads were visiting the farm, which always makes for a good time and great photo opportunities. This day, bubbles were the theme...

N provides the bait

Z goes in for the bite

and as the boy does, so does the dog!

Luci was somewhat baffled by the bubbles and preferred to keep her distance.

In other news, Blue and Luci continue to be the best of dog buddies, though Blue takes very seriously her responsibility of teaching Luci the rules. If Luci jumps up on something and we scold her, Blue will grab Luci by the leg and pull her down, which is pretty entertaining and generally leads to some serious wrestling on their part.

However last week Blue demonstrated some rather impressive corrective behavior. The farm crew was in the garlic patch, weeding. The dogs had been keeping a supervisory eye on our activities while playing around the perimeter of the garden. Luci has been struggling a little with the idea that the white electrical tape the surrounds the garden is a "barrier" that she must not cross, after all it is several inches over her head and the gate opening is just that...wide open. So as we were working, Luci walked through that gate opening and was standing several feet inside the garden (strictly forbidden here), when I looked up and noticed her. I pointed outside the garden and said firmly, "Luci, OUT!" As is common when receiving a command, Luci froze and stood there staring at me. Blue however had no hesitation, she ran through the gate into the garden, grabbed Luci by the neck and dragged her outside of the garden. When they had cleared the fenceline, she dropped the puppy and laid down as though nothing had happened. Upon being released, Luci hopped up, tackled Blue and a full-out wrestling match ensued.

The farm crew saw the whole thing and just stood there staring at the dogs. One of our crew members said, in an incredulous voice, "Did I just see what I saw?" That was a pretty good summation of the scene.

The Peace After the Feast

My three-year-old nephew shares a little quiet Christmas time with our cat Daisy. It was like experiencing our own little Christmas miracle, as only minutes before he had been chasing her round and round and round the house. May we all have a little peace this holiday season.