On a sunny day last August at the farm, our family took a stroll through a wildflower meadow to the Oconomowoc River that skirts the property. My daughter-in-law stepped down the rocky bank just as a snake came poking out of a hole. She screamed and lurched backwards, reaching instinctively for protection from her loyal and rocklike father-in-law behind her. But he was gone, a mirage, an arrow shot from a bow, halfway back to the farmhouse.
Read moreVeggies on the Menu
I detest grocery shopping for so many good reasons. The biggest one is that it implies I will come home and cook. Which, until Covid, I had resisted more and more. I would put a bag of lettuce into my cart, move it to the conveyor belt, bag it, put that bag back in the cart, then move it to the trunk of my car, then to my kitchen counter, then into the crisper drawer for ten days and then it went into the trash.
A shameful exercise in tedium, waste.
Read moreMy Babies Are Back in Their Coop
I first hatched the idea of finger puppet children four years ago. We’d been up north with the kids for a vacation, and on the last day, during a family photo, we had a big fat ugly argument. When we returned home, I saw a friend post a pic of a finger puppet she had knitted for her grandchild and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be fun to get some new kids.”
Read moreLinda Bleck's Farm Map
Shortly after my husband and I closed the deal on our new farm, we saw an Instagram post from our friend, artist Linda Bleck. She had just completed an illustrative map of Whitnall Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as part of the Milwaukee County “Parks for Good” fundraiser. My husband was intrigued. To him, Linda’s map looked vintage, like an illustration in a third grade social studies book. He loved the feel of nostalgia her map conveyed.
To his giant to-do list for the farm, which included check chicken butts he added: commission Linda Bleck to draw a farm map.
Read moreIf You Give a Mouse a Cookie
Have you heard of Fika? It is a Swedish tradition, taught to me by my daughter-in-law, where you take a break from work to enjoy a cup of tea or coffee, a little tidbit, and conversation. I love this observance, especially because my former favorite ritual of a glass of wine in the evening is forbidden. (You can read about my sober life here.)
Anyway, I was out at the farm one sunny afternoon in July, getting my Fika on with a cup of darjeeling and a cookie, watching a hen out the window.
Read moreA Glass House and Plenty of Stones
Welcome to the glass house. This 150-foot building, circa early 1900s, is one of our biggest challenges at the farm. The glass is single-paned, uninsulated, fragile, and so dirty, it may as well be wallpaper. The painted wood is peeling and moss-covered, but underneath is solid redwood, still as hard and intact as the day it was milled. We don’t know what to do with the structure. Every visitor who enters through one of its four doors falls instantly in love and urges us to rehab. Every tradesman who has been asked to submit a bid assures us he would relish the chance to work on it, but he cannot predict the costs. “You know,” my friend Patrick says, “restoration means they take a shop vac to your wallet.”
Read moreA Peek at Our First Week on the Farm
Do we look like two soldiers in the pic above? We are settling into a workflow now. There’s Atticus who loves freeing things like trees encircled in wire, limestone paths covered in dirt, or fieldstone fences drowning in hostas. He wants to see progress now, dammit, now. There’s Walter who won’t let anyone weed anything because of medicinal properties and nutrients. Stinging nettle can cure blah blah blah and purslane tastes delicious with blah blah blah. There’s my nephew Graham who loves the slash and burn approach. He has sharpened the antique tools hanging on the walls of the chicken coop and if I don’t keep a close watch, the 40-year-old tamarack pine will be pruned into a telephone pole in an afternoon. There’s Nick who is painting chickens and Jane who pets chickens and Liz who names chickens and George who says chickens are dicks.
Read moreGarden Furniture Passed Down or Stolen
This week’s post is a little sloppy because the weather is fine so I am required to report for weed duty. They are unstoppable, the bindweed, the lamb’s quarter, the farter’s button, overrunning every inch of our idyllic little farm like the oligarch tourists swarming over Lake Como.
Read moreGetting to Know Our Chickens
Lots of people in the Milwaukee area know our farm well. It was a thriving business and a popular destination for over forty years. When folks learn that we are the new owners, the first question they ask is, “What about the chickens?”
The chickens are staying. As of Monday, we are in charge of their welfare. All thirty-nine of them. Scott and his staff are done renting and we are keepers of the coop.
Read moreOur Plans for the Farm: A Short List
I’m going to share a bunch of ideas we’ve discussed for this farm. In case you’re new here, we purchased a farm that is currently a perennial plant nursery and a gift shop. We did not purchased the actual business, though, so we have been considering all manner of proposals. This has been fun, especially for someone like me who is a squirrel and scampers after anything shiny.
Read moreWe Bought a Farm: Part Two
Shortly after moving to Wisconsin over twenty years ago, my husband and I took a Saturday drive with our friend Stacey out to a very special farm and garden center called Monches Farm. We climbed out of the car and fell instantly in love with the overwhelming beauty of the place: deep rolling furrows of field-grown perennials, stone and timber outbuildings, a big red barn with antiques and gifts, pergolas and statuary, a glass house with teetering stacks of pottery, a vast inventory of day lilies, and dozens of exotic chickens freely pecking hither and non.
Read more