Our chores begin at sun up

This morning’s dawn featured stratus clouds blanketing the ripened crops, bands of red, orange and purple layering each other just above the horizon, a waning crescent moon roughly thirty-five degrees high in the eastern sky, and one bright star just below the moon, off to the right. A punctuation mark! At least that’s the way it looks for the first few seconds. As the sun inches closer and closer to its entrance stage east, all the components shift. The constantly changing light at dawn is one of its most appealing qualities – a fitting reward for climbing out of a warm bed and stepping outside into crisp, damp air.

In the city, I never see the sun rising from its slumber. One reason, I suppose, is that cities lack discernable horizon; they also lack serenity, which is fundamental to enjoying daybreak. In the city, there’s always someone who’s up and out on the road ahead of you – ahead of the sun. Daybreak loses its meaning when people all around are well into their routines even before the sun. We were meant to wait for the sun, not render irrelevant it’s place in the daily cycle of life.

Here, though, I’m constantly climbing out of bed long before I would have to. It seems as if I can’t help myself. The day is breaking, after all, and I want to be a part of it from the very first moment. I want to see the purple sky transform into a red one. I want to watch the stars fade, knowing in fourteen hours or so, they’ll reappear over my head like a vision. I want to see the groves across the fields come into view as the clouds thin with the rising light.

Of course, rising to standing witness to the dawn instead of sleeping an extra hour or two, makes a country day longer than a city day. And the farm doesn’t close up shop on the weekend. There is plenty to do around here just to stay even. No, my day won’t offer many opportunities to rest. Still, I abandon my bed to greet the day. Soon, I’ll be toiling at something.

In the city, morning means routine that chips away at that 40-hour work week with the promise of leisure come week's end. In the country, dawn means each day arrives like a gift. The days are short. Get busy. Out here, I work harder. Out here, I think I come out ahead.

A bouquet especially for you

I was struck by the way the sun filtered through the kitchen window to illuminate a quickly arranged collection of cosmos and zinnias. Enjoy the image on this beautiful first Friday of September.

Hot enough for you?

Shocking isn’t it?

We’ve reached the ninth day of above average temperatures here in the Upper Midwest and our latest string of 90 degree days, in September, have left many longing for the cool, crisp, low-light days of autumn.

Admit it. Did you carp about the heat yesterday? I did.

Consider this: From September to December, the average temperature in Minnesota falls by approximately 43 degrees. What’s more, it has snowed in Minnesota during every month except July.

I needed 15 seconds of blizzard yesterday. I was at work, assembling a video history of a man who had ventured out into a blizzard with horses and a sleigh. He made six trips in that blizzard in one night; the first to fetch a doctor, the last to deliver his brother’s dead body to a hearse waiting on the nearest passable road. According to the sister who tells the story, the weather meant nothing to her brother. “He just put on his mittens and his Mackinaw coat and out he went.” A bit of falling snow outside would have been great for effect. Alas, the sun was still wearing its summer attire.

Today, it’s expected to be unseasonably hot again. It may be the last 90 degree day in 2007. Take a few minutes to stand in the heat and absorb as much as you can. Winter will be here before you know it. It will be a long one. It always is.

Four Square

The farmhouse is old. Really old. The papers filed with county tax assessors indicate the house was built in 1890, but the abstract for the property stretches all the way back to 1866, when the United States government deeded the property to George Sallmennsberger. President Andrew Johnson signed the deed. There’s no indication as to what the land cost at that time. The property changed hands a few times in the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s. In 1890, when the house was supposedly built, Albert Dittbarner owned the place.

When we first found this property for sale on the internet, we drove around the area for awhile then stopped at the local gas station to ask for help. “That’s the old Phillips place,” one old-timer said. “Two miles down, about the fifth place after the S curve.”
It was 1907 when the first Phillips purchased the farm and the property stayed in the Phillips family for eighty years. Our neighbor just to the north is a Phillips and all the cropland to the east is held in a Phillips trust.

The house isn’t at all architecturally significant. Its design is called Four Square or Prairie Box. Its design is simple – four rooms on each floor, all about the same size. That’s the way it was described in catalogs of the time. Houses like this dot the countryside and can even be found in the city. Most have front porches and many have dormer windows that protrude from the third level. Ours has neither of these features.

At some point, perhaps this winter, I hope to visit the local historical society to learn more about the area around here. Maybe I’ll even stumble on a picture of our house, or George Sallmennsberger, Albert Dittbarner or Nicholas Phillips. That would really bring the history of the old house to life.

Every farm needs an angel

Every time I cast my gaze toward what is slowly becoming a vineyard, I think of my late sister-in-law, Lynn. Her last visit to Four Cedars Farms came just one year ago, when she and Tony drove down for lunch before going to the Rock Bend Folk Festival.

The weather was miserable that day; rain was persistent and there was a bone-chilling wind that foreshadowed November. When they arrived, I mixed up a salad, turned on the oven and we baked fresh hand-tossed pizzas and focaccia. Tony opened a bottle of red wine made at the nearby Cannon River Winery and we had a wonderful lunch. We ate. We drank. I updated them on our research into grape growing and told them we’d decided to proceed with a vineyard.

If we could have subtracted the affects of the weather outside, it would have been a perfect afternoon. But they couldn’t ignore the weather because they were heading to an outdoor festival in St. Peter to hear Eliza Gilkyson, who was performing at 5 o’clock. She was Tony and Lynn’s favorite folk singer (and since has become a favorite of mine). After lunch, as they put on a few extra layers of clothing, I dug out a blanket to lend them and they were on their way. I worried about how they’d fare in the rain, but Tony assured me they were well prepared. He thanked me for the blanket and later told me how, under it, they’d huddled closely together to stay warm.

The 2007 Rock Bend Folk Festival in St. Peter is coming up this weekend and as I look at the cloudless sky, I wish some of that day’s rainfall could be conjured to moisten the 500 pounds of grass seed we just spread across the vineyard floor. Historically, September is the best month to seed a new lawn since temperatures usually moderate and morning dew provides substantive moisture. But it’s hot, near ninety degrees, it was hot like this yesterday and the forecast is for more of the same at least until Friday. Two and a half acres of seed is too much ground on which to lay a protective cover, too much soil to sprinkle.

That leads us to prayer. We look skyward and pray that a kind rain will come yet hungry birds will not. We pray that despite summer-like temperatures, the morning dew will provide the moisture this seed needs to germinate. In other words, we put our investment in the hands of God much like farmers do each spring. And while farmers do put their faith in prayer, wise ones also buy crop insurance. We don’t have that option.

But we have Lynn – our vineyard angel. I’ve written how it was she who first envisioned this land as a vineyard and we’re proceeding with our plans in her memory. On Sunday, on the north end of the vineyard, we started a memorial garden including a statue of an angel set in place to watch over the land. The statue represents Lynn perfectly; she was a gifted gardener and a woman who trusted God completely. She also was a get-it-done kind of person; if anyone can implore God to send us some moisture, it’s Lynn.

Of course, if anyone of you have time to send up a prayer, for Lynn, for her family, or for rain, we’d be much obliged.

Think differently about Labor Day

Today is Labor Day. For a few moments, though, why not dispatch with the holiday’s conventional themes. Forget this day was meant to honor laborers. Forget that today marks the unofficial end to summer. Get past the fact that today is your last chance to attend the Minnesota State Fair. For just a moment or two, let go of the plans to help the kids load up their backpacks for tomorrow, the first day of a new school year. For the time it takes to read this post, put the first day of kindergarten or junior high or college out of your mind.

You’ve stopped at the farm after all. Welcome. Journey with me for a moment as we think about Labor Day just a bit differently?


A Labor Day Reflection

Here’s how the day starts …

It is 6:38 a.m. The day starts humbly. The sun brings no expectations.


Here’s how the day will end … at 7:47 p.m. There will be mosquitos.

In between, well ...

between a humble sunrise and a spectacular sunset, 13 hours, 9 minutes and 51 seconds stretches out like a soybean field. This is Labor Day but it could be any day.

And so, what to do with the intervening hours, how to best spend 13 hours, plus change? That is the challenge.

Will we set a goal?
Will we live the day for ourselves or live it for others?
Will we make a plan or will we sit idly, reacting to the plans others have made that affect us?
Will we pray?
Will we help?
Will we labor?
Will we serve?
Will we share?
Will we laugh?
Will we learn something new?
Will we reflect?
Will we call a friend?
Will we read a book?
Will we find some reason to be grateful?
Will we bring meaning to any of our actions?
Will we act in a loving manner?

Between sunrise and sunset on this Labor Day, we will face dozens of opportunities in which to spend 13 hours, 9 minutes and 51 seconds of our alloted daylight. There are plenty of ways to squander this time. Plenty of ways; we all know what they are.

Labor Day is short, just 13 hours, 9 minutes and 51 seconds of daylight. You may spend these hours in activities of your choice. You know what you like to do, how you typically spend your free time.

But if I may be so bold to make one tiny suggestion? However you choose to labor on Labor Day, make it a labor of love. Be passionate about something. Use some of the time for good, however you choose to define it.

And if that doesn’t fit into plans that have already been laid, fear not. There’s always tomorrow. Tuesday, September 4 will start much like Monday did. Humbly. If you’re lucky enough to wake up on Tuesday, your opportunity to make the most of the daylight is renewed. You get another chance, except you get three fewer minutes.

Dirt farming

Dirt. It’s not a thing you might use words such as magnificent, eye-catching, or even beautiful to describe. In fact, dirt, when used in metaphor, is often pejorative: someone is as plain as dirt, as dumb as dirt, as dull as dirt, or as old as dirt. We can dress up dirt by calling it soil, or loam, or earth, but a rose by any other name is still … dirt.

It’s taken exactly one year for us to convert an overgrown, weed and manure-filled horse pasture into a plot of ground that is flat, smooth, rich, and clear of plant life. It’s all just dirt out there now; black, smooth, beautiful dirt!

Our first step toward vineyard establishment occurred last September when a local farmer rolled in with a tractor and mold-board plow to flip the sod. When the farmer left, the field was a bumpy mess. We let the freeze-thaw cycles that occur during a Minnesota winter break up the sod clumps and beginning late spring, we tilled, ripped, disked, and dragged the ground every few weeks. In other words, we kicked up a heck of a lot of dirt. Weeds that emerged were sprayed with a systemic, non-residual herbicide; some weeds seemed to come out of nowhere and go from green stubble to small tree in several days.

The weeds didn't come from nowhere, though; they grew from our rich beautiful dirt. You’ve no doubt heard of someone who “grew like a weed.” An apt metaphor from this perspective.

Yesterday was our last day of dirt farming. Jim dragged a disk harrow up and down the field behind the ATV until the dirt was so smooth a Michigan-based pilot we know might think it's asphalt and be tempted to land his airplane on it. Jim spent so much time on the soil, in fact, that he added more than one hundred miles to the ATV odometer without leaving the vineyard!

Tomorrow, our schedule has us broadcasting five hundred pounds of grass seed on the dirt, which will become the floor of the new vineyard. Grass will choke out next year’s weed crop (much of it anyway) and allow us to get into the vineyard much more quickly after a rain. Once our new grass is sturdy enough to walk on, which should be the end of September, we’ll begin to measure and mark rows. By marking the positions of rows, end posts, line posts and turning lanes, the vineyard we’ve only been able to see with our mind’s eye will be visibly evidenced to all who regularly drive past Four Cedars Farms and may be wondering, “are they ever going to do something with all that dirt?”