August Lost

The entire month of August has slipped by.  It not as if we were sitting idly by, lazing away the hours, languishing in the Air Conditioning while the hot summer sun beat down.  In reality, August was extremely pleasant.  We never once hit 90 degrees, which is unbelievable here.  Usually August is the most dreaded month.  The nearly persistent, howling prairie winds suddenly stop, withholding any and all relief that it would bring to any other summer day.  The air is so thick with humidity that you could slice it.  Breathing the moisture laden air is difficult enough, but the stifling heat sets the air afire and sears not only the flesh, but the lungs.  Early August is also haying season, adding dust and stirring up the pollen.   Smoke from distant prairie fires pile on the atmospheric particle load.  The rising moon in the evening glows shades of pink, orange, and salmon until it can rise high above the horizon.

This month the pollen and the smoke are present.  The dust still rose high above the prairie fields, following the haying machines.  The winds died, but the heat did not come.  This year's wet pacific weather pattern held, and blessed us with days, even low humidity days, in the mid and upper 80s.  It's been wonderful!


In comparison, the end of July, was BRUTAL.  Temperatures were in the upper 90s and UP, and the humidity was off the charts.  Of course this was the week of the Cornhusker Games.  It's a state level friendly competition for ordinary citizens of the state.  Think the people's Olympics.  I was entered into 2 events, standard pistol and olympic rapid fire pistol. Doc and The Boy were entered into the rifle competition.  I kid you not, it was HARD, made nearly impossible by the heat and unholy humidity.  The day of my competition started at 6am, 78 degrees and FOGGY.  By the time competition started it was in the 90s, and the heat index was over 115!  Despite that I came in 4th in standard pistol shooting and 1st in rapid fire.

The following weekend was the boys turn.  Of course on their day of competition it was sunny, DRY, and 78 degrees.  Doc pulled in a 3rd place in open sight rifle, and The Boy came in first in his division, open sight rifle.

Back on the ranch, August came in cooler and dry, with regular rainfall. Most of my compatriots were tending their late summer gardens and putting up tomatoes, pickles, corn and peppers, I was standing, hands on hips, shaking my head at my container garden.  Poorly, does not even begin to describe the level of success these specialty planters.  From three self-watering planters, holding 5 banana and jalapeno pepper plants, 4 cherry tomato plants, and two full sized plants, we harvested two handfuls of cherry tomatoes (those went to the birds) and a handful of peppers.  Nothing ripened quickly enough in any quantity to use for anything.  A "chilly" night in early August that sent us to 58 degrees, told the tomatoes to just give up.  And so they did.

I ripped out the plants and put in beets, carrots, and leaf lettuce in frustration.


It was looking like county fair season was going to have to rely on items canned last year after the fair was over, and I'd toss in some baked goods to top off the ribbon count.  I decided after last year's fair, that I was switching counties.  Here you are allowed entry into any county fair as long as your home county touches that county.  The fair in my home county is just too long of a drive to keep up with.  The downside is that you cannot win a grand champion rosette if you are not of the county, and only the rosette winners can represent the county at the state fair.

This year I entered several jars of pickles, apple butter, apple sauce, as well as a painting, a braided loaf of challah, and some Bavarian pretzels.  The great thing about this county is that they actually open and taste everything!  They even give comment cards with each item, which can be helpful, funny, or down right annoying- as you cannot defend your item to the judgement they make.  You just have to roll with it.  I wasn't at all happy with the pickles I entered.  They were fabulous in taste and texture, but were at the end of their shelf life at fair time, so yes, they had lost their crispness.  All of the pickles took 3rd place. Comments included - not crispy (I knew), not enough Alum (I don't use it), what's with the leaf? (I tried an old farm trick of placing a grape leaf in the jar to keep crunch- used to be well known trick.), use bottled water, not well water (I did.)

Cinnamon applesauce took 3rd place.  Comment was- looks to have molded. (UM no, the area they called mold, was a final sprinkling of cinnamon on the top so I can tell it has cinnamon in it.)

Apple butter took 2nd place - comment - Not enough allspice and clove. (UM, you are correct.  My family doesn't care for them.  I can to suit my family, not your's, judge.  So I'll live with the 2nd place ribbon.)

My painting took 1st place and a small rosette.  YAY!

The challah took 1st place and a small rosette.

The Bavarian pretzels earned a 2nd place.  Comment - not crunchy (not supposed to be), top is missing salt and is wet (Yup, you are right.  I dropped them off in a vacuum sealed bag, looking golden and salt covered, with moisture absorbing pads in the bag under the plate.  YOU opened the back and left them sit OPEN for two days before judging, where the hygroscopic salt sucked up every bit of moisture in the August air!)

A last minute entry of jalapeno peppers from the sad container garden earned a 3rd place.  Although small they were beautiful.  But sized must have been the determining factor here.

And last, but not least, a 2nd place win for my spicey and sweet kosher dill jalapeno pickle relish.

All in all a good year at the small fair.  Next year, we'll switch counties again, and be more prepared.

The second week of August saw the boy's 18th birthday.  OH MY, Oh MY....where did 18 years go?!

The entire summer seemed to fly by acting as taxi driver to our hard working computer intern.  I feel as though I wore a rut in the road driving to and from the city.

No sooner was the internship over, then it was time to pack The Boy up and move him to the University.  That was craziness in and of itself.  We clearly remember our days of moving in, the uncertainty of being ready, too afraid to admit you are scared to death, holding your breath as family drives away.  The incredible reality of growing up.  So far, so good.  He's getting along with his roommates, classes are going well, and oh ya, he's changing his major.  What freshman doesn't?!

Apple picking season soon followed.  I picked and tossed all the immature fruit from the young orchard early in June, or so I thought.  I missed two apple trees and one pear tree.  We let them go.

The apples on the Early Harvest yellow apple tree, never came of anything much. The 4 apples on the Liberty apple tree however, AMAZINGLY gorgeous and super tasty! They were both sweet and tart.  A real keeper variety.

The kieffer pears were harvested a week later, and while small, look amazing and are finishing their ripening on the kitchen counter.

We were under the path of totality for the great eclipse, just barely.  In an amazing turn for August, we were cool, and CLOUDY.  Doesn't it just figure?  Any other August we are frying under a blazing sun and couldn't beg, borrow or steal a cloud for shade.  The one day we want a clear sky, nope.  The clouds were thick enough to keep the temperatures down, but thin and high enough that the filtered glasses still allowed a clear view of the eclipse.  Totality was too faint for the filters, and because of the clouds, could not be seen without them either.  The chickens didn't care a whit about the dark.  They just kept eating as if a storm was coming and passing.  The clouds did offer us an amazing view of the approaching shadow.  It rolled in from across the country to our west before it enveloped us, leaving us in the dark with sunrise views surrounding us.  The clouds on the horizon to our north were far outside totality.  and being on a hill we could see past the great shadow to our south.  Once in a lifetime and we didn't have to go anywhere!

The girls wanted nothing to do with this massive 40 foot python.

August is also the time of the Great Molt here at the Station.  As this is a family friendly site, I shall spare our readers the images of half naked chickens running around the acreage.  Boy did they look sad.  Well, funny and sad.  Wykin and Nod are absolutely cockerels.  While they have yet to find their cock a doodle doos, they are betrayed by their saddle feathers and enormous feet and log legs.  Little Blykin is the most delicate and lovely Splash Ameraucana pullet.  She runs with the big girls and torments her brothers.  She reminds me of a little blonde sister, chasing after her big brothers- white dress and blue sash, pigtails flying.

Eggs, Pears, and White Bread

Now that we are into early September, the molt is mostly over.  They are back to laying, and the egg supply is flowing again.

August also has meant Doc has had a month of rare vacation time to use.  While he has had classes three days a week, it's left us a great deal of free time to catch up on the acreage work AND to take little day-cations here and there and around and about.

One journey took us across the great southern wind farms to an antique store featured on a local television show.  A long and scenic journey to a shuttered shop and a yard filled with no trespassing signs.  According to the village post office, the owner is hardly there, nor the shop hardly ever open.  Wonderful.  Upon leaving the village, we came across an amazing brickyard, where they not only make custom bricks for construction but carved brick art, and murals.

State Fair One Man Band

We have been to the state fair, where we saw giant cattle, had an incredible meal, walked for miles, and managed to stay away from the worst of the fried foods.

Topographic elevation map of the State.

Everything on a Stick

We wandered hither and yon, to and fro, just enjoying the day and visiting places and driving down roads we've never been down.  It's been really fun.

The old bee hive firing oven.

Long Horn

Time rolls on, and now we Welcome September.  We still have some painting to do on the new barn and some Fall chores to accomplish.  (We still do not have a fence on the pasture.)  But for the most part, you can feel the countryside winding down for season.  The early corn is being harvested, and the remaining stalks are starting to yellow.  Soon the beans will yellow and dry out and the fields will be full of harvesters being followed by the gulls.

Watusi

Day Trippin' - Wayne, Ne

It was another one of those gorgeous Fall weekends that we were blessed with this year.  In fact, it wasn't until just this past Thursday that we finally plummeted from daytime temperatures in the mid 70s and low 80s to highs in the 50s.  Sure we were well below freezing at night earlier in October, and some in November, but the daytime temperatures have been fantastic!

It was on one of these amazingly stunning weekend days that I told Doc that I had seen a new shop in a "local" town on TV.  It was featured on a show that I record every morning and then watch as time allows in the evening.  The show features state points of interests, market and weather news, and brings in local speakers to inform viewers on crafting, cooking and farming trends.  It is quite well done and always interesting.  The show, Pure Nebraska, archives its episodes online so you are welcome to view them as you wish.  As a person that enjoys visiting the locales, the only thing you have to really look out for is that they do, occasionally, recycle some of their stories.  So it really is important that you make sure that the place you are planning to visit is still in operation. 

On this particular day, whether the shop that had been featured on the show was still there or not, was not an issue.  The town was interesting enough that it would surely be an adventure on its own.  If nothing else, the drive was a direction we hadn't gone yet, so the scenery was new.  Harvest was in full swing, and colour was exploding around the countryside.  Doc agreed to being dragged into the sunlight.  So with camera in tow, we hopped into the car and pointed her North.

Wayne is a SOLID two hours to our North.  There isn't a whole lot between here and there, but we had amazing things to look at.  As we drove, I made note of several sites that I wanted to photograph on the way back.  We also passed through a slow moving cold front, so our sunny warm skies were replaced by leaden clouds, threatening rain, and winds that howled across the empty prairieland. 

As if setting the stage, we approached the village of Pilger, which was practically wiped from the map by twin tornadoes just two years ago.  If you didn't know that, you'd never know it by the looks of the town.  All of the damaged homes were gone.  Lots were empty, but the grasses had taken hold.  But for the few verdant lots that had concrete steps standing as resolute witnesses to the homes that once belonged there, the town looked great.  Businesses have been rebuilt, life has moved on.

We pressed on.

Mile after mile, hill after hill, one farmstead after another snuggled in, sheltered from the wind in its cloister of trees.  We pressed on.  After it began to feel like we were on a never ending river of tar treadmill in the Twilight Zone, we crested a hill and the town of Wayne laid sprawled across the valley below us.  I didn't know what to expect, but I certainly didn't expect to see a city as large as it was.  A village, a town, a hamlet, yes, but I did not expect to see a full sized city.  (That'll teach me not to google before I go!) 

Wayne is a railroad town, which means many of its older structures are made from precious brick.  When you are close to the supply line, it makes it more financially feasible to use the heavy material.  Remember, trees were few and far between back in the day, so brick was the obvious, long lasting material of choice, but hard to ship far from the rail lines. 

It is also a thriving area for lumber, grain, and is the home of Wayne State University.  So the city is a hub for several of the surrounding counties.

Some of the buildings were quite memorable so the camera had to come out.

The brick on this church is a real eye catcher.  It reminded me of tiger butter fudge,

a deep rich brown and raw sienna/umber striped brick. In the intermittent sunshine,

the pattern just explodes.

Most of the main downtown area was destroyed in a massive fire in the late 1880s.  The buildings

that went up to replace them are stunning in their small details that go

missed by the casual observer passing through town. 

A remodeled building on the west side of the main street has shopping

below and apartments above.  The designer decided to replace the old time

advertising in the windows.  Sometimes it's worth the extra money, eh?

Looking North in Wayne.  The old downtown area is a mix

of old buildings and new shops; thrift, antique, gourmet food, coffee, clothing, and

professional shops line the lower levels.

The main purpose of the trip was to find and explore the Rustic Treasures Antique shop.  The episode featured a HUGE room filled with bee boxes that had been cleaned and were being sold as art, repurposed furniture, or as the foundation for repurposed items, like chalkboards.  The crazy collection and the passion of the owner on the show, begged a visit.

After a two hour drive, despite a stop in Pilger for junk food snacks, I could hear Doc's stomach growling from my side of the car.  That's never a good thing.  So we opted for lunch before we vanished into the bowels of an antique store. (Read: I get easily distracted and eating takes a backseat to exploring.  Dory the fish has nothing on my attention span!)  The town has several college town staples, and oddly enough, many steakhouses (must be a railroad- feed lot thing), but we ended up at Dairy Queen, where we KNEW food would be fast and hot.

Then we were OFF!  We found parking right in front of the store, which usually means I won't find a darn thing.  If I'd parked three blocks away, in a blizzard, uphill, and my truck was full of stuff I meant to take out, then I would have run into a free gold plated bedroom set.  I was hoping that my luck would be different this trip.

Upon opening the door and entering the shop, I KNEW it was different.  It was like that scene from every movie, when the unsuspecting main character opens a door, and the lighting changes, and uplifting magical fairy music starts playing.  Well that ACTUALLY HAPPENED! Ok the music was coming from the coffee shop inside the antique store, but the sentiment was totally there.  I distinctly remember saying "WOW" when I stepped inside. How a place can be cavernous, chaotic, eclectically mish mashed, and meticulously organized ALL at the same time is beyond me, but it was!

I did a quick glance around to get my bearings and to figure out a general plan of attack.  I didn't want to miss one tea cup, one antique salad spoon, or ceramic pug dog.  One of my favorite antiquing things is to find a shop that has yet to either be discovered or whose owner has not been tainted by the dreaded "but it sold on eBay for" disease, both of which drives up prices to unrealistic values.  This store was free from both.

My insulator coat rack - $5

It is filled with consigners, but was not done in an obvious booth setup.  The owners saw that the shop was meticulously maintained and organized, and that items were constantly moving around the shop, and that holes were filled.  An item in one spot may go unnoticed, but move it and suddenly it's the star of the shop.  As we wandered up and down the isles, creating a "save it for me" pile at the front desk, I couldn't help but to notice the amazing architectural details of the building, and couldn't help to notice the LACK of the wood walls and shelving and beekeeping supplies I had seen on the show just the day before. 

Perplexed, I asked an employee about the bee boxes.  He said that the room full of bee keeping supplies was in the basement and the whole area was off limits to the public as it is a safety issue (no fire escape access).  He then followed that with, "BUT the owner is having lunch, and I'll ask him if he'll take you down when he's done."

Tripping hazards, uneven floor, stacks of antiques, low ceiling, hanging wires, old stock, no marked fire exit vs. private showing?! BRING IT ON!

Folks, the basement was amazing!  The history of the building above practically oozed from the uneven old concrete flooring.  The leftover glass shelving remains of the now defunct Ben Franklin craft store lay stacked in a back corner, a silent witness to change.  As old light switches were flicked on, the glow from several old incandescent yellow bulbs illuminated the shelf upon shelf, upon shelf of wax trays, queen separators and bee boxes. It went on and on, back to the dark recesses of the old basement. 

The owner went on to explain what little he knew of the building and how he came to be the owner of all this sweet goodness in the basement.  He had gone to an estate sale, which had been a former apiary.  Upon seeing ONE bee box, he just couldn't leave the rest behind! Now could he?  So they all followed him home, and he sorted and power washed each and every piece, and meticulously dried and placed them lovingly on shelves.  He's figured that some people will want them for actual bee boxes. But most will want them for their repurposing value.  Old painted, distressed wood is hot right now and he has a few ideas.  The trays can be painted with chalk paint and made into rustic message boards.  Bee boxes can be stacked and topped of with their lids for a quaint storage side or coffee table.  Wax boards are art in and of themselves, but could be further sealed as serving trays.  We nodded in agreement, as I fell in love with a wax board of my own.  I sat it down so I could finish the tour.

The basement continued through an archway which had been the wall between one buildings basement and the neighboring basement, all now one property.  This room was piled with furniture, and fixtures.  There was an old room that appeared to have been some sort of large pantry with OLD wood shelving, and a large heavy door.  Further in the back, another large heavy door, reminiscent of a walk in cooler was both beckoning and foreboding.  The creepy room beyond had no electricity, so three humans whipped out three smartphones and pushed their flashlight buttons.  The cavernous space seemed to shrink from the probing lights, coyly hiding its secrets as the beams wandered the room.  One long wall held nothing but large wooden shelves, old small, used cans of stains and oils sat scattered.  The opposite wall supported a long counter, scared with long forgotten projects.  The tool racks above, empty of their charges.  A double sink and a large food warmer were all that were left. 

The owner moved quickly over these sights, as he has seen them many times before.  Instead, he focused on an odd piece of abandoned machinery on the floor.  The Doctor Jeckle and Mr Hyde quality of the room did not go unnoticed to me and this machine on the floor only bolstered that feeling.  The owner had no idea what it was.  Its knee high hulking mass on the floor was interlaced with tubes, hoses, valves, dials and gauges, and piping to nowhere.  It appeared to me to be the sick love child of Rube Goldberg and a Steam Punk fanatic.

Of course while I started to wonder where the bodies were buried, Doc was, as usual, attracted to both the mystery and the functional beauty of the mechanical beast.  As he poked and prodded, followed pipes and tubes to their ends, and pondered its use- I fully expected it to emblaze the room in light and start to scream "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"  No sooner had this thought crossed my mind, and I began to wonder if I would be able to outrun both Doc and a Dalek, Doc shouted, "IT'S A GENERATOR!"  I darn near jumped out of my skin.  I'm glad I found something to entertain him.

Mystery solved, we exited the odd little room back into the basement.  It was then that I noticed something odd, well MORE odd than anything before.  For an almost dirt floor basement with raw walls, exposed joist ceilings that were only about 6.5 feet high, raw light bulbs dangling, pipes and wires exposed, there was intricate TIN CROWN MOLDING around the entire basement.  WHO would do that, and WHY?

It certainly wasn't a public space, so why on Earth spend that kind of money on putting up Tin Ceiling crown molding, and without the ceiling, which there was no evidence of ever having existed.  Odd.  We kept moving and I made sure to snag my bee frame. Now back upstairs in the land of the day dwellers, we thanked the owner for his most generous tour through time and continued to walk through the shop, where we continued to find treasure after treasure. Doc disappeared to the adjoining coffee shop to peruse the internet and to put an iced vanilla tea out of its misery. 

Knowing I had lost Doc to technology, but knowing he was safe, fed, and fully entertained, I told him that I was going to stroll to the end of the block to a newly opened thrift store.  The thrift store was owned by the same set of managers that own the antique store, so it had to be GOOD.  Being a thrift store, I wasn't expecting much.  Again, I was pleasantly surprised.  It was clean, well lit, organized and everything was perfectly priced.  All the proceeds went back into the community!  A great place.

Satisfied with a great trip, we knew the trip home was two hours long, and we were racing a fast encroaching sunset.   So with that we turned the silver fiberglass horse south and headed home.

Thanks for coming with us.




Update: Two days after this visit, I learned that supposedly the best onion rings on this side of the state are in Wayne.  Now that I know that, we HAVE to go back!

 Oh, and I JUST had to share this Treager grill we saw at a Farm Store on the way home.  I mean really, who DOESN"T need a piggy grill?!