“You can sit by me if you like….”

“You can sit by me if you like,” Jarret said to me at lunch today

“Do you know why I asked you to sit by me?”, he asked.

“No, Why do you ask me to sit by you?” I replied.

“Because I like you! “he said with a shy smile.

Jarret is 4 years old.

He has been asking me to sit by him now for the past three weeks.

Our crew is building a shop at their farm.

The family  has  invited us in for  lunch  almost every day we’ve been on the job.

When I sit down at their  14 ft farm table  I think,...this is what it must have felt like to be a part of a large threshing crew..

Grant Wood’s Dinner For Threshers

People with a real gift of hospitality are a dying breed.

Even here in Iowa.

It’s one thing to invite a few close friends over for  lunch once in a while..

I scratch your back, you scratch mine..right?

Well, …it’s a completely different ball game to cook lunch for  a construction crew of 4 , 5 days a week, for the better part of a month.

Today lasagna  was on the menu

Yesterday I thought  Jarret’s mom had asked if I wanted a piece of “cheese cake” for desert?
“Yummy I said..I love cheese cake…!

“No” she replied, I said  “sheet cake”

my bad.

Well, today, guess what we had for desert?

Cheese cake topped with a blueberry filling.

I had to pry the guys away from the table today….

They did not want to go back to work.

John said it was the best tasting lasagna he’d ever had.

While I’m thinking about it..here’s a recent crew photo

Crew photo

I work with a great bunch of guys.

The morale on this crew is second to none.

Nothing worse than working around someone with a bad attitude.

At this point in my life, when I’m looking to hire someone, the numero uno thing I am looking for is

ATTITUDE.

I don’t care if you don’t know how to properly hold a hammer or read a tape measure.

I can teach you those things.

What I really detest is a whiner or someone with a dark cloud following them around.

I am really enjoying  the guys   that is helping me out this Winter.

As I write this, I feel like I’m starting to fade….4:30 AM comes pretty early

Jarret’s comments were still rolling around in my head when I got home from work, and I wanted to tell you about it…

Yea, I’m assuming I have a couple of regular readers 

There is just something serendipitous about a 4 year old   requesting that I be his lunch buddy 3 weeks in a row.

I am a rich man.

I will miss Jarret when the job is done…

Heck, I will miss the whole family…

Here is a picture of the shop we’ve been working on:

End view of shop

One last thing before I sign off…

Did you know what the word Hospitality literally means?

Hospitality:  Lover of strangers

I believe it is more caught than taught…

Jarret is growing up in a home where it is being modeled in a powerful way….

If I were a betting man, someday when he has a home of his own, he will also know how it’s done….

Is there anyone in your life, with the gift of hospitality?  Tell me about them.

Hungry

“
That was then and this is now.  Things are different  today.” 

I didn’t buy his answer.

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I was in my early 20′s , experiencing a spiritual hunger and restlessness I hadn’t  gone looking for it…

it had popped out of the ground of my life like a mushroom.

One minute I was minding my own business, doing my own thing, the next thing I knew, there was a hungry for something spiritual that was real.

It  started when I read  the following account:

“All the believers continued together in close fellowship and shared their belongings with one another.  They would sell their property and possessions and distribute the money among all, according to what each one needed.  Every day they continued to meet as a group in the temple, and they had their meals together in their homes, eating the food with glad and humble hearts, praising God and enjoying the good will of all the people.  and every day the Lord added to their group…”

Just for a second, try not to get hung up in the “churchy” words and just try to imagine what it would be like to be involved with people on that level of relationship…

Certainly not like any church experience I’d ever had.

I tend to chew on stuff like this,  So there I was at work one morning,  setting up scaffolding with Lester.  He was in his 60′s,  an old retired farmer.  minding his own business, and there I was, wound tight, asking him  about deep spiritual things on a construction site.

You got to love him ….we’d worked together for a few years so he didn’t just write me off as some nut job.

His answer didn’t satisfy me but I let it go…..

There was a major disconnect when I would read about the 1st century Christians and what  passes for “Christianity” today.

A major disconnect

I have a hair trigger when it comes to hypocrisy and  phoniness.

I have been known to get  agitated and  leave the room.

What happened was, my hunger for deeper, genuine relationships actually increased.

We’re all at different places in our lives.  As I’m writing this,   I’m talking to someone who is spiritually hungry, but put off by organized religion.

Ever wonder how you can sort out all of the conflicting voices out there telling you this is truth…no, this is truth…no, there is no such thing as absolute truth,  all paths will eventually lead you to the truth…bla bla bla.

Here’s a tip-  look @ the person  or the source of who’s talking to you and look at their life...If they’re married do they seem to have a healthy marriage or does it feel phony. If they have children…do they look like they’re nurtured, or is something not quite right? Does this person for some weird reason give you the creeps?  (don’t discount that sort of thing/ I think it’s discernment)

We moved to the East Coast so I could pursue some schooling.    A local faith community took us under their wing, full of imperfect but genuine people who had also decided they wanted nothing to do with the phony crap that passes for “church” today.   It was there I had my thirst for deep significant relationships slaked.   We were there 5 years.  When we did eventually return to the Midwest, I brought back with me the know-how , the first hand experience on how to cultivate those same type of relationships….genuine, loving, trusting,  practical and real.

Reminds me of doing an internship at an organic farm for 5 years.

After 5 years you would  hopefully come away with the ability to grow fresh vegetables.

So here I sit this morning thanking God for the spiritual hunger and restlessness he puts into my heart so many years ago now  and for the ways he regularly satisfies it.  DM

Baby Chicks

I got a phone call 6:30 AM Thursday morning from the post office.  Our little peepers were in!  Come and get them

Our new Chicken shed in transit.   Found a John Deere wagon running gear on Craigs list for $200.  Ended up spending another $184.00 on 4  good used tires.

I saw a set up like this on a local CSA.  The birds free range during the day and spend the night in the shed, so as not to be eating by coyote’s , racoons etc. @ night.

I had the new chicken shed all set up with two heat lamps, 2 feeders, and a new waterier.  The day the chicks arrived it was windy and cold…even with the heat lamps I was concerned it might be too cold for the chicks so I did what any farmer would do trying to keep the baby animals alive…brought them into the house.  In this case, our living room

I was talking with  Janaan a farmer’s wife earlier this week.  She told us, her husband had brought, baby pigs, chicks, sheep and even a baby calf into their  basement to get them started.

60 baby chicks are in that box just waiting to get out

Here’s what they look like when you pop open the lid

baby chicks spending the night in our living room under the heat lamp

Yes we really do have 60 baby chicks in our living room.

At the water cooler

eating some tasty organic chick starter

birds eye view

Whatch you look’n at???

Here’s some pictures I grabbed of the Internet to get an idea what the chicks will look like when they mature:

Silver- laced Wynadotte

black-australorp-rooster.

Rhode_Island_Red_Rooster

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What I would really like to look into now is growing our own non-genetically modified chicken feed for next season…any of you reading this ever come up with your own chicken feed  recipe?  Talk to me.  We have an acre and 1/4 of ground behind the barn just sitting there doing nothing.  DM

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Update 4/20/2012  This post originally appeared on my other blog last week/ (it has more to do with things around our acreage)  Let me know if you’d like a link to that blog and I will get it for you.  Thought some of you might get a kick out of the little baby chick pictures. DM

Spring In The Country

I could not believe my eyes…

There they were, popping out of the grass in our orchard this past Wednesday evening.

Grey Morels….

A month early, no less…

close up of a morel I  found this week.

You’d be proud of me.

I resisted the temptation to pick them all,  and went to find my wife.

It felt like we were on an Easter egg hunt, only we were looking for mushrooms.

By the time we were done, we’d found over a 100:

They may look gross to the untrained eye, but boy are they tasty

They sell on craigslist around here for  $40 a pound.

In case you’re interested, here’s how I prepare them:

Cut them in 1/2  (sometimes little bugs like to hide in the hollow middle)

Then I soaked  them in salt water over night.

Rinsed them in clean water when I got ready to fry them.

Dip them in an egg wash

Then I put them in a baggy with crushed Ritz crackers and Johnny’s Seasoning Salt (shake)

Fry in real butter…

Yummy!

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Apple Trees

There are   60  semi dwarf  apple trees on the East side of our house and another 20 on the West side…

They are in full bloom this week…

Wild bee pollinating in our orchard

Just like the rest of the plants this year, the apple trees are a month ahead of schedule.

I am gradually coming to the place where I think I may build a bee hive.

So far, the wild bees have been doing a pretty good job of pollinating the trees….

We’ll see…maybe next year.

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Wild Asparagus

This morning I came across some more “edible landscape”

Wild asparagus…

Wild asparagus

I can’t stand the stuff myself, but Mrs DM loves it….

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Grant Wood

My favorite Grant Wood  painting  is “Spring in the Country”

Remember American Gothic?

Yep, same guy…

Local boy too.
Turns out he was a prolific artist.

Sometime when you have a minute, Google his name and check out some of his other work.

We probably have a dozen of his prints scattered throughout our country farm house.

I feel like I’m living in the middle of that picture this week….

Several of you live in urban settings..

I know  it can be kind of stressful….

so tonight is my humble attempt @ bringing a little country to your door.

g-nite. 

DM

Where my mind has been

Long term gardening goals.

That’s where my mind has been.

I would like to raise 90% of what we eat.

Labor free as possible

Organic/ or at least as chemical free

only grow what we will eat and  as much as we will use

I’ve read articles, attended workshops, bought books… everything from  Permaculture gardening, square foot gardening, raised bed gardening,  Ruth Stout and Mulching, composting, organic gardening, self watering container gardening,, hoop buildings, three sisters gardening, earthworm composting…

and I’m still confused.

Here are some random pictures from the last couple of gardening cycles…..

just to get your mind  percolating:

Cortland apple tree in bloom

Heirloom Brandy-wine tomato  Grew this from seed

Close up of pole bean climbing  Mandan Bride corn in our 3 sisters garden patch

Heirloom tomato in bloom

my first attempt @ braiding onions.  Don’t let this picture fool you   they were not very big.

close up of Mandan Bride Heirloom corn  at pollination stage

Another Mandan Bride in pollination.  Didn’t realize there was so much color diversity.

Winter Greens experiment.  The past couple of months  I have been trying to grow Kale in our basement under a grow light.

Kale chips.  (think potato chips, only lighter)   Very easy to make…toss in olive oil, salt lightly, bake @ 250 or 300 for 15 minutes/ until crisp)

Farm fresh eggs.  We have (1) rooster and (2) hens currently

Red Delicious ready for the cooler

Black Futsu squash

Wild grapes behind the barn. ( I didn’t grow them or do anything with them, just

loved the picture and wanted to share)

Mandan Bride drying

Did I mention, I love watch things grow (people too for that matter)

Talk to me about  food, gardening, or  things  related.  DM

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Update 2/2/2012

Just came across this utube clip…I’m not interested in doing everything they are doing, but at least it gives me an idea how much you can cram in a 4000 sq ft space. Wow….Imagine what a person could do with an acre (43,560 sq ft)

Guess I better start eating more vegetables

Tell me I’m special

One of my Mom’  winter onion’s

I took them because I didn’t want to be rude.

Stuck them  in an out-of-the-way place amidst the ferns, blue bells, and bleeding hearts.

Probably not the best location for onions..

Going through their life cycle the past ten years  without me doing a thing…..

Until this year.

All of a sudden, I saw these little onions in a whole new light.

You see,  I have always secretly harbored the opinion that these  “onions”  were not really worth my time to mess with.

They were so small.

They were “wanna- be’s”

Read  an article in a hobby farm magazine last winter about their cousin the garlic plant.

Did you know there are hundreds of species of heirloom garlic?

most of which you’ll never find  in a store.

So on a whim this Spring, I pulled up  15 of those  wild  onions, figured if little garlic bulbs are that special then so might these.

After I washed the little fella’s off,  I  keep several inches of the stem….

otherwise  I  would have ended up with  a 2  inch piece the size of  my little finger.

Chopped  them up, fried them  in butter, with some potatoes..and boy was I in for the surprise of my life….delicious!~

Even the tops fried up into a crispy little morsels.

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Those onions  reminds me of me.

I’m tucked away in a quiet out-of-the-way spot.

There is nothing about me that makes  me stand out in a crowd.

Sometimes I feel despised and misunderstood by people who don’t really know me.

It’s always exciting when someone  stumbles across me  into my little corner of the garden  and tell me I’m special.

I think it’s part of the human condition to want to be appreciated.

To feel valued

To be cherished for who we are

I’m not a Walla Walla  or  Spanish hybrid

I am a winter onion.

to be continued….

The Food Routines Of My life

 The urge to  lay up locally  grown food  has gripped me like a mad squirrel this Fall.

  Dehydrating heirloom  tomatoes…

 blanching fresh green beans:

(those are little potatoes from our garden and onions from the farmers market  I mixed with the beans )

And picking apples….

 bushels and bushels of apples

2010 basket of Cortland

picture of our son helping  pick the Cortland

Ever heard of the term Locavore?   

Me neither…until this year.

 (be sure to check out that link/ lots of great information)

Well, I”m a new convert 

      Quoting now…

“ Locavores  are people who pay attention to where their food comes from and commit to eating local food as much as possible. The great thing about eating local is that it’s not an all-or-nothing venture. Any small step you take helps the environment, protects your family’s health and supports small farmers in your area.”
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I need to back up just a little….

This past March, I realized I was the heaviest I’ve ever been.  I don’t really take too much stock in  those ideal body weight charts.   At my height, if I were to  follow their recommendations, I would look like a stick man. 

   Having said that,  I knew I needed to lose about 35 pounds to get down to what I consider my ideal weight.     I talked with my baby sister who is an RN, and  has managed to stay  fit for several years and is not obsessive about it.  The last thing I wanted to do was go on some fad diet that lasted for a spell, then  wind up fatter than before once the motivation wore off. 

That sort of thing happens all-the-time.

 I was looking for a routine that was long-term and simple.   One that  didn’t have me counting calories, buying expensive foods or taking supplements.   

Well,  I found what I was looking for.

 I am not kidding.  It is so simple a 6 yr old can do it and it works.

  You don’t hear a lot about it because 

A….  it cuts out the middle man who wants to sell you “something”

and B….It’s so simple, you’re tempted to think  you’ve missed something. 

  Why  isn’t everybody doing it????? 

My thought exactly

Here in layman’s terms  are two new routines we’ve been doing with food that has enabled me to keep shedding weight after I lost  the first 10 pounds:
 Suggestion#1 

Cut out  95% of the junk food out of my diet.- biggest help with this was  to  go through our  cupboards and remove the temptations…

    (Like my sister told me,” You don’t have to be anal about it..when we  get together and mom offers you a piece of pecan pie- you don’t have to be rude..eat it. )

Suggestion # 2 

The less processed  the better it is. 

The closer it looks to how God made it when you eat it the better.  This is where becoming a Locavore comes into play as well.

For example,  instead of eating delicious crunchy potato chips for break, I’ve switched to eating english walnuts…right out of the shell.  

Our bodies  crave   fat.  

 Certain foods will satisfy that craving while others don’t. 

 I could eat a whole bag of carrots, still feel hungry, still crave  fat, and say the heck with it, or  eat a small handful of walnuts  that  calms the beast.

Stay away as much as possible from white sugar and white breads.   Those food types  are highly addictive, and  create within us  the craving to eat more of the same.  And sugar morphs   into the fat I’m   trying to shed.

 final story.

     I did a  remodel job for young family recently.   Both of them work like dogs. Later that day, I saw the wife walking  3 miles from home.    She told me she does this just about every day, walks 5 miles  but  is not able to lose  the weight.  She just couldn’t understand it.     The last thing I was going to do was talk to her about loosing weight, but since this is my blog and nobody is forcing you to read this I’m going to tell you what I wished I could have told her…. I know she loves to bake.    Baking for her family is one of the ways she expresses her love …and I am certainly not going to diss that.    But it is a two-pronged effort..physical activity and what we eat.  Until you and I are willing to look @ the foods we eat without getting all defensive we probably won’t experience any significant  changes, unless you get a tape worm   I hear they keep the pounds off.

What I  eat and how much I weigh  is such a personal topic.  It ranks right up there with how I spend my money, sex, and politics.

  I’d love to hear your thoughts….

Honor System

 

We sell apples  on the honor system.  It’s not our only method, but it’s my favorite.

   When I mentioned this on Facebook last weekend, one of my friends said the only time she’d ever seen  anything like that was  in France….she could buy goat cheese from a local farmer on the honor system. 

      Last weekend we did over $200.00 business at our roadside stand with nobody manning the cash register   but a chicken. 

You don’t believe me?  Here’s his picture:

     When I told two of our neighbors (and a few others) what I had in mind, they all looked at me like I was crazy.

         “Aren’t you afraid someone is going to steal your apples, or take your money?

      “No, I replied.  I’m not…and what if someone makes off with $20.00 or, God forbid a cooler with apples in it, then so what?  If they need it that bad, then let them have it….”

“Well you’re at least going to put a lock on the money-box right?

“Nope”

Cause here’s the deal,  sure there are some “bad apples”  out there, but I’m convinced the majority of people are not

       I even have some evidence to the contrary.

     My brother, sold asparagus last year, doing basically the same thing on a smaller scale .   He had a cooler with asparagus in it, and a coffee can inside…He told me that more often than not, there was actually more money in the pot @ the end of the day than there should have been…

And then today, someone told my wife @ her  workshop, she’d heard Panera’s Bread was doing something very similar in one of their stores . …and they are thinking about expanding it to other areas.

   I’m a contractor and experience this level of trust all the time .  Just this Summer, someone asked me to oversee the construction of their 4500 sq ft addition on his house.  Here’s what he told me:

     “Doug, I’m busy farming  and to be honest, I don’t know that much about construction. What I would like you to do, is take the ball and run with it.  I trust you.   that’s how I’d like this project to go.”

     Now, let me ask you a question .  When someone entrusts you with that much responsibility and thousands of dollars of their hard-earned money,  are you  going to take advantage of that? 

     Heck no!    that is the ultimate compliment.

       Most of us would do everything in our  power to live up to that trust.

      I look @ this self-serve apple stand in the same way.  I’m offering  fresh, beautiful locally grown  Iowa apples at wholesale cost. 

      I think most people love to be treated that way.

     Here’s a few apple pictures to give you an idea of what I’m talking about:

Picture of our 2009 Gala’s

Picture of our Ginger Gold’s

Picture of our Honeycrisp’s

 Ever seen the movie Pay It Forward?

    This is one small way for me to light my candle and change the world.

     Have a great day… 

       and how many apples did you say you wanted ?

The Art of Hustling

Hustle: pressure or urge someone into an action ;  twist somebody’s arm; manipulate so as to persuade someone to adopt a certain position, belief or action. 

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    Bob and Rita boarded a  painted quarter horse with us a few summers ago.  In their mid 60′s,  Rita was 3 inches taller than Bob, wiry, sharp featured, intense.    Bob on the other hand was kind of roly-poly, wire rimmed glasses, very laid back, an interesting pair.  They would come out on the weekends  to work with their horse. 

     Can’t say we had much in common  (I hate horses/ had a run in with a Shetland pony when I was a kid, ) but we would visit on occasion.  That’s why it kind of took me for surprise one Saturday when Bob suggested they would like to get to know us a little more, take us out for dinner some time….”and maybe take a road trip to Nauvoo“

      Me being the simple  guy that I am, played dumb, smelled a rat, so first chance I could, I got on-line and googled “Nauvoo”.  Sure enough, those little rascals    were trying to put the moves on me spiritually. ..they were Mormons and this invite was a veiled attempt do some “friendship evangelism.” 

      Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses,  even certain segments of the Christian community are not above “hustling”.   It smacks of manipulation pure and simple.  Now if you have a genuine interest in me,  you’re willing to accept me  right where I’m at, and if I don’t buy what you’re selling, you’re still willing to accept me, then I’d say you’re not a hustler.  If on the other hand, you come into my life with a fixed agenda,  give me your little schpeel,  I don’t bite,   so you walk away muttering something negative about me..then  you are no different from the snake oil salesman of yesteryear….you don’t really care about me, no matter what you tell yourself.

    I’ve been thinking along these lines because I got a call last week from a couple who have reservations  in our Bed and Breakfast  come  June.  They have a booth at our  county fair selling two health related products.    Having sold a few things myself, I could already feel him working me  over the phone.

       It just so happens that my wife and I had already decided we needed to start eating healthier this past  February.  I got a craving for some cookie dough so I whipped up a batch of chocolate chip cookies. I can still remember standing over my favorite ceramic mixing bowl,  dumping that cup of white sugar into the mix.  In  two and a half  days I ate the whole batch, never made one cookie. I was a sugar junkie  out of control.

      Later that same week  I caught Dr Oz on a PBS special talking about obesity, processed sugars,  blue berries, fad diets….he talked about keeping things simple, slow weight loss is more effective long-term or you end up loosing muscle mass.    the importance of a good breakfast, why you need to snack, why certain foods make you feel full while others don’t.    He said forget your pants size (mine hadn’t changed in 25 years)  instead, run a tape measure around  my  belly button area, that’s  the fat to be concerned about.  I was  shocked.

      So I’m already interested in being more healthy, if  you have some tips you like to share,  great, I’m listening.  (That includes you the blog reader)   I’m  not interested in being part of  your  great business opportunity.

      You’ve heard that old maxim don’t work for friends or relatives….I would add, don’t hustle   friends and relatives….relate to them,no strings attached, you can’t go wrong.  As always, thanks for reading my stuff.  DM