SAND PRAIRIE

Took the long way home friday after school.  the first stop was at Zach's land takes up most of a section.  the old farmsted sitsing the center of the section down a long sandy lane.











  The prairie is a Shortgrass prairie; Sand and sandsage prairie; Mixed prairie .... with eastern red cedar a dominant tree, especially in sites sheltered from fire.

 Little bluestem and side oats grama are two of the  common grasses along with Prairie Bush Clover, also known as the Slender-Leafed Bush Clover, is a Federally Threateded prairie plant endemic to the Tallgrass Prairie and

Hoary Vervain - The genus name, Verbena, is Latin for "sacred plan.t," and refers to an ancient time when the plant was thought to be a cure-all among medicinal plants.


Saturday I pulled 20 frames off the bee hives to extract and one frame of Ross rounds for comb honey

Susie’s Birthday weekend in Madison.

  Rolled into Madison Friday evening.  Checked into HoJo’s and took off  for the downtown area to grab a bite to eat.  After an hour wait for a table at the Old Fashoned, which wasn’t all that bad because of the great selection of fine Wisconsin beverages, we got a table up front.
Whoever came up with the idea of putting an egg over-easy on top of an already delicious cheeseburger with bacon should be the real Governor of Wisconsin.  RECALL WALKER

We were up early and out the door for

the Dane County Farmers’ Market on the Square is a Saturday  tradition in Madison, Wisconsin. You’ll find the season’s best bounty of vegetables, flowers, and specialty products from approximately 300 vendors throughout the year. About 150 vendors attend every Saturday.  All of the agriculturally-related items are produced in Wisconsin. We got there early for the pink pearl apples.  At the goat cheese stand Susie pointed out a guy who bought 30+ pounds of cheese  plus he had a large wagon with wooden sides labeled graze.

The idea for Graze came from Chef Tory’s love of comfort foods. Inspired by the New York gastropub scene, the menus feature a range of classics executed on a higher level than traditional pub food.   After introducing our selves to chef tory we had to hit Graze for some breakfast and good coffee.  Susie did a chocolate croissant with a back up for the ride home and I did the mushroom and cheese croissant.

It was game day so the market filled up rapidly as the day progressed we walked around campus for a while and then we went home by way of Black Earth Wisconsin, home of the Shoe Box.

Four more hours of working on Susie’s new sculpture and then off to the Voices show in Dubuque.  Shots of the sculpture from start to finish coming soon.

Wisconsin

.

Another Great Workout!

 40  five gallon buckets  (avg wt. 12 lbs) of dirt carried up 15 vertical feet to the top of the future green roof.   You do the math.








 Besides being aesthetically pleasing, a green roof can provide numerous environmental, technical and owner benefits,
including saving energy, preventing stormwater runoff, providing wildlife habitat, and creating beautiful spaces and just being kinda cool.




Soon after the tornado that hit our area in may of 2008 I salvaged a good number of large barn beams, 6X6 and larger.  This year I decided to use them before I loose them.  


This was the result.  I've still got to trim out the four vertical posts and install the two ornate iron panels that we got from our friend Steelbelly.  







Here are some shots of the project and a closing shot of the upper garden.  In the background is the hoop house.  Sue has is planted and everything is coming up just great!

HONEY

The obvious reason to setup, maintain, and stock a beehive is so you can harvest great honey The right time to harvest the honey will be known when taking a look at one super hives and find that the frames are full of honey combs that your bees have covered with wax caps.

The process of honey harvesting and extraction.  These are the tools required:

Honey Harvest
1) beekeepers suite - mesh helmet and folding veil would do it, with some layers of clothes
2) smoker with fuel (dry branches, leaves, etc.) and a lighter
3) frame super - where frames with honey combs will be put for transportation
4) sting resistant gloves
5) hive tool - to move the frames, scrape wax, etc.




Honey Extraction
1) heated knife - to unseal honey cells
2) uncapping fork - to unseal honey cells missed by the heated knife
3) tub for wax/honey
4) extractor! - fancy cylindrical piece of equipment, used to extract honey
5) food-grade bucket - to catch honey out of the extractor
6) sieve - catches wax and impurities as honey is poured from extractor
7) containers - final destination of honey before consumption

Bottle houses

Bottle houses  for my friends Frank and Rick

"At Cap-Egmont in Prince Edward Island, where he was a lighthouse-keeper, Edouard Arsenault started collecting bottles in 1979.…In the spring of 1980, at the age of 66, he began his construction, a mere hobby yet. As his six-gabled structure was taking form, visitors started coming in. Impressed by his work, they encouraged him to continue and to advertise it as a tourist attraction. And so, in 1981, the first Bottle House was open to the public. From 1980 to the spring of 1984, he cleverly cemented over 25,000 bottles of various shapes, sizes and colours, into three fantasy-like buildings."
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/08/extreme-recycling-bottle-houses-prince-edward-island.php
More bottle houses: http://www.agilitynut.com/h/bh.html

SEVEN YEARS.

Big break in the heat so, Beau and I drove up north to Backbone State Park in Delaware County.  Its been over 7 years sense we've hiked along trails winding through old twisted and windblown cedars and up rough, rocky staircases to one of the highest points in northeast Iowa, the "Devil's Backbone" and climbed down the limestone bluffs to reach the upper end of the Maquoketa River.  Backbone lake is an impoundment of the Maquoketa River created by the CCC. Backbone is well known for trout fishing in its cold, clear, quick-flowing stream. Richmond Springs, the source that feeds the stream pumps out over 1500 gallons per minute and is located near the north end of the park.  The water temperature was cool, in the past we would catch a variety of fish such as bluegill, bass, catfish, and trout.

Not that we're competitive but the scoring goes as follows:  a point for the first fish, largest, most species  and most fish.  Each trout is 2 points.  Beau took the lead with a small blue gill.  Soon after that I hooked a nice little smally.  Don't horse him, just play it.  Lost it.   But, we're off to a good start.  two quick fish.  We're going to nail them today.   The stream looked great!  Water quality is excellent with nice holes gouged by recent rains.  We love to wade the stream pitching spinners, jigs and rubber grubs.  I missed another small bluegill then a nice little rainbow trout... landed.  3pts.  All most an hour later and no bites we came across a nice hole with about a dozen trout.  But, their not hungry.  Time to make the climb back up the bluff and Beau pitches his mepps spinner and he hooks into a smally,  landed it.  3 pts.

Tie...  Great day  out on the Maquoketa at Backbone, Iowas first state park. 

Fishtival

 Here's a shot of our fish from the Fishtival

The event kicked off with fish sculptures designed and decorated by area artists who helped raise money for the Bellevue Arts Council. The sculptures had been placed on metal poles and displayed throughout the downtown area. Ours featured a metal fish designed with bottle caps that had been flattened by the train that runs through Bellevue.  A guy can only drink so much beer so we came up a few caps short.  Other fish had pictures and copper material.  Proceeds from the silent auction, will go to the Bellevue Arts Council.

 Saturday’s events include visual art vendors on the riverfront.  Susie and I worked with kids on  children’s art activities.  The kids designed and worked on recycled sculptures,  wine bottles painted with chalkboard paint then decorated with their own art work.


 The Iowa Department of Natural Resources offered boating excursions on the Mississippi River
A chef Jason offered demonstrations on preparing fish Saturday at the Great River Gallery.




And finely, a shot of Beau and Maddi our local mermaid down at the Happy Bean