May...maybe it will, maybe it won't.

May is a month of uncertainty in any year.  This year was no exception.
Will it rain?  It May.
Will it be warm? It May.
Will it be dry? It May.
Breezy?  Yup...that's a given.

With the promise of a real Spring, garden centers filled with people and with great flats of lush, green garden plants.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again, "IT'S A TRAP!"  But this year, even more than in years past, people have fallen for the lure of garden plants at the big box store.

The stores, eager to take your green backs, are happy to push whatever you want to take home, knowing full well that May will eat every effort you put into your plants and spit you out like an unripe grape.  They know you'll be back to replace and replant your failures.

Except for cold weather crops like lettuce, peas, or cabbage, nothing goes in the ground here until at least June 1st.  While plants are happy and green at the garden center, they have also just been yanked from massive, toasty green houses, with grow lights, and attendants that see to their every need.  They're put on trucks and delivered to box stores within 48 hours where you buy them and take them home, shove them in the still cold, poorly prepared earth, and expect them to thrive.  Nope. Not going to happen.

If you bring them home, be prepared to keep them warm, feed them, watch for and treat disease, and yes, even prune them.

This year I decided on just tomatoes, 50 tomato plants, in fact, and one row of silly sweetheart cabbage just for fun.  I planted one row of mustard seeds just to act as bait for the horn worms, and then I'll seed the ditch with the seed this year.

Flat after flat of tomato seedlings filled the potting shed shelves just waiting for June.  I let them get lanky for deep planting.  With nothing much else to do after planting the apple seedlings, I loaded up the truck with my trusty 5 gallon buckets and shovel and headed to the county compost soil site.  The county collects yard waste all year and then spends all winter turning it into black gold, free for residents to haul off, as much as you want, free of charge.  It's awesome.  I loaded up the truck with my treasure, and on the way home stopped short to avoid a run-a-way driver, dumping many buckets of black earth inside the truck.  (Better than an dented truck.)  Luckily The Boy is good with a shop-vac, and loves me enough to detail the inside of the truck.  Phew.

I used the dirt to amend all the planting rows in the garden and worked in a mix of epsom salt, worm castings, egg shells, and ground baby aspirins to make for strong and happy tomato plants.

We managed to get a pair of broody hens in May.  Sadly, we think our rooster is getting up there in age and, while still dancing and having the eggs show as fertile, none of the eggs have made it to hatching.  Some of the girls are getting rather old, and we've done nothing all spring but treat for Northern mites, which are brought in by wild birds.  We've already lost two girls to the tiny blood suckers, so we'll need to think about chicks soon.  Yet another commodity that is hard to find.

In project land, under the heading of 'anything other than mask sewing', I purchased a Cricut machine to make my own business decal for the truck and it has turned out handy for other fun projects, despite the fact that it is not Chromebook friendly and any project takes me twice as long as it should.  But they do turn out nicely in the end.  I made a bee warning sign to go by the beehives that were recently moved closer to the garage.  I made name and birthday signs for the boys, a decal for the truck, and 'do not spray' signs for the ranch.

Speaking of mustard from the paragraph above.  I finally got around to dealing with last year's harvest that has been drying in a paper sack all winter.  I got it in my head to make a batch of mustard with it.  I now wonder why this stuff doesn't cost $100 and ounce.  It took me hours to remove the seeds from the prickly pods, and clean the chaff out.  Then it needed to soak in vinegar for two days and then get pureed.   IT was really good and hot.  But OH removing those seeds!

On a day trip, I stopped at a favorite local candy shop. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had renovated and expanded.  I was thrilled to find root beer from our alma mater.A great, and sugary box of sweeties was shipped to my niece and nephew who were still in a locked down state. And a 6 pack of root beer came home with me.

 The lack of Spring festivals, events and parties is making the weeks and months feel even more odd.  March didn't feel like March. April didn't feel like April, May isn't feeling like May.  Norwegian Constitution Day came and went without festivities and feasts in the great church halls.  No picnics were had, no dressing up, no parades.

 Like I said, I moved the bee hives.  They are now in a VERY sheltered spot and I hope they do better there.  The light blue hive is the hive from last year.  We lost the bees in that one this Spring with the last great freeze.  Even though they had plenty of pollen enriched food in the hive and plenty of insulation, they simply couldn't cope with the last great cold snap.  We had several nice days, and then slammed down to 20 for several hours.  They actually just dropped.  It's sad to loose a whole hive.  Many around here lost 30% of their apiaries.
I have plans to purchase one package of bees with a queen from a man just up the road, so cross fingers that that works out, as I missed the deadline to order more bees from California.

Another day trip, and I came across a gas station that was shut down and remodeled into a much needed village market!  Just look at all that gorgeous fruit and veg!   Fresh local beef inside as well.

May also brought the end of the school term and the ramp up of the ubiquitous ZOOM staff meetings. Bombed by farm animals, of course.

And June is fast approaching, so you know what that means!!!  SHEARING DAY!

Just look at that CRIMP!

Doc and I went out and noticed the boys weren't going to make it to shearing day to get their nails clipped.  They were crazy long, thanks to the fortified feed they get.  So we haltered each one up and marched them to the new small animal chute I built and everyone got a pedicure.  Of course Angus, Oh ANGUS, didn't want anything to do with his halter, or being led anyway, and he's unanimous in that.  He ran, bolted, kicked, spit, and basically pitched a fit, all with my hand wrapped in his lead.  All was rocky, but good, until we got inside the barn, when with one great burst of energy on his part, he slammed my left hand into the steel stall door lock ripping it open down to the tendons.  I won't show you that picture. Trust me it's gross.  I washed it out, put on some Vetericyn chicken spray, a piece of gorilla duct tape and my work gloves and got back to it.  It took a solid month to grow back over, and only I can see the scar, but ooo that little bugger.

Spring comes in April, right?

Still stuck inside in April, and the warming temperatures, longer days,  and increase in sunshine sure didn't help with wanting to get out and DO something.  I had planned this Spring to gut the master bathroom and remodel it.  Those plans were put on hold as the master bathroom is directly above BOTH lower level home offices. With classes, and zoom meeting, and conference calls going on below stairs, I could hardly be banging away at tiling or sawzalling a fiberglass tub. 

So changing gears, I compiled all the things I need to remodel the bathroom and heaped them in the storage room in the back of the lower level storage room; paint chips (Blueberry frost) , vanity, sink, fixtures, hampers, lighting, and artwork, just about everything.  Which reminds me, I still need to order the wood flooring and barn door hardware.

Mask orders were still piling in, but with hopes that Spring and Summer festivals would still take place, I decided to take breaks from tiny sewing to working on my DAR and Norwegian clothing.  8 skirts, two jackets, petticoats, a set of stays, caps, and aprons and I now have a grand wardrobe.....and no where to wear it.  But it's done and ready when needed.

An early Spring is always welcome.  Although we had an easy Winter, weather wise, the urge to get OUT and be free of heavy gear is always a joyous feeling.  The increase in the sunshine meant that the hens were up to their shenanigans.  More and more they too wanted out from the in.  They were sick of looking at each other, sick of eating in, sick of playing the same old games, and sick of watching the re-runs of alpaca TV out of their picture windows.

The nest boxes became a place to queue up and gossip.  I swear they spent more time in there than was needed, just to have a moment of peace and a little space to themselves.  Well, unless your Jaunita, then every box is your box regardless of who may have been there first.  With no campers in the park below us, and our regular customers in lock-down, we were drowning in eggs even though there was a shortage of eggs in the market. 

So I gathered the needed ingredients and The Boy and I set to filling the freezer with cheese quiches, sausage/bacon and egg and cheese muffins/bagels/biscuits/burritos for grab and sit breakfasts.

The alpacas, being curious little beasties, are always happy to see the grass greening up.  Happy to munch on hay and browned pasture grass all winter, those first tender shoots of green have them almost giddy to go out and nibble noisily all afternoon in the Spring sunshine.  They can sense that the long, dark, cold days of plodding thought the snow for exercise, or laying about in the barn all day listening to NPR are almost over.

But you know....April.

 One day it was Spring, and then it wasn't.  Fortunately, it only lasted one morning.  Winter's final try to keep us subdued.  It was heavy and wet, and miserable, but as quickly as it came it was gone.

Stormy made sure to let me know that shearing was coming up and that he wanted to be SURE to cost me extra money at the Mill this year.  He found the biggest puddle of mud and went for a dip. Some days........

Besides sewing my fingers to the bone, planning the grand bath project, and just generally keeping up with this place, I had to replace the sewing table.  I had been using a small, plastic, folding table that was barely large enough for the machine on it, and forget about stability.  With the new, larger machine, I wanted a table that could put up with my marathon 12 hour sewing sessions.  A friend that owns an antique shop and B&B (which was closed for the duration) let me in to scour the rooms for something not too wide, not too long, that I could put between the sofa and TV on the lower level and leave out day to day.  I was also looking for cheap.  $15 later and I was out the door.  A quick stop at the local hardware for a can of spray paint, and a stop at another friends scrap wood pile and I was set.  In one afternoon, we went from this .... to this!

Now it's much easier to just leave everything right where I stop and night and just pick up in the morning.

Hey, the Easter Bunny did manage to find us! Thanks to stores putting out Easter Candy right after Valentines Day.  Smart Easter Bunny.

 Remember how I mentioned we grind out our wheat?  Well I love bread, who doesn't?  But I wanted a real WHOLE Wheat bread that was soft and delicious and didn't turn into brick on day two, was easy to make, and was actually GOOD for you.  I experimented all winter.  Along the way, I sent many a bricks/doorstops to the compost pile.  I found out that commercial loaves separate all the bits of the ground wheat and then add them back in at a specific ratio, but that ratio and the remixing really doesn't mimic the health benefits of actually using all the bits from the wheat kernel as it is ground.  So I ordered a large bag of wheat from Wisconsin and a NutriMill grain mill to grind it with.
I managed to do all this just before the world went nuts and started buying up all the flour, yeast, and baking supplies in stock everywhere.  I already keep one pound bricks of yeast in the freezer, so Phew.

I can't tell you how much I love this thing.  (No affiliation or goods or payment received).When I got my grain in, I vacuum sealed it in 8 cup amounts and put those in the freezer.  When I'm ready to bake, I pull out a bag, let it thaw an hour, and then toss it in the grinder.  I then have enough fresh flour for 4 loaves plus other baked goods.  On a funny note, this is what happens when you forget to fully lock it into the working position and pour in your grain.  There is no recovering from this.  You just have to let the grain flow and then clean it up.  Sigh.  It....was...everywhere. But it was funny; Lucy in the candy factory funny.

I'm making so much whole wheat bread that I was killing my professional 6qt kitchen aid!  So I ordered the companion mixer to the mill, which is specifically made to handle heavy duty blobs of dough.  I really like it too.  (Again, no affiliation, payment, or product received.)

If anyone is still reading this blog, and wants the recipe, I'll be happy to share it on here, just post in the comments and I'll add it on.


 Oh and what else do you do to keep busy when there is nowhere to go?  You take online classes and re-certifications. A friend of mine and I decided back in December, that we would add our state substitute teaching licenses to our list of credentials as country schools were desperate for subs. So I managed to get into the January class and finished the 8 week course (except for the final which was scheduled for week 8) in just 10 ridiculously hard days.  I took my final exam on the day the country shut down and schools closed.  Grand timing, eh?

The same friend also asked me this winter to bring baked goods to her new flower shop when it was open.  This required a food handlers permit, which also required classes and exams.  Mission accomplished...the same week the country shut down.

CCL done.
NRA RSO and Instructor Re-Certs done. 
Pollinator Habitat and No Drift Zone re-certified.
Norwegian is on its second year straight of no missed days for at least a half hour per day.

Garden plans were accomplished and seedlings started in the potting shed.
Spring apple trees were planted and irrigation lines installed.


Come on MAY!  I need to get outside!

So what's been going on down on the Ranch?

Everything has been clicking along like normal, well, as normal as it can be.

Besides the men not being in town for 5 days a week, they'e been here.  Besides all the little outside activities that help keep us sane, being cancelled right and left, it's pretty much been the normal, 18 hour days here.









We always kept plenty off food, both for us and for the livestock on hand.  After all, we aren't a hop, skip, and a jump to anywhere so it's just prudent to stay on top of things.  The girls give us eggs and grinding our own wheat, baking bread, making cheeses and meals from scratch are the normal here but I have to say though, even our supplies ran low at a point.  And I too was shocked at the scene of emptied store shelves.  I can clean a shower with homemade vinegar and citrus oil, the hens had bugs and are happy with freezer burned green beans, but the alpacas need special feed on top of their pasture and hay.  Luckily, our local tractor supply ordered in bulk for us and we loaded up as much as we were able.

Being way out in the middle of everywhere, we are fairly self- entertaining, so that's where it hit the hardest for us.  It is rare that we do any shopping besides the basic food, and replacing worn out clothing.  We just aren't "out" people, and I'm certainly not a window shopper.  The boys survived on home buzz cuts, and mine just went up into a bun. 

Doc and I both missed our several times a week at the local range, and I missed all my competitions, but I suppose it's all for the greater good.  Being stuck on the ranch, working outside most of the time,  with a list of chores and projects to get done was far and away better than many who were literally housebound.  For those of you that were, I am truly, truly sorry.

So here I sit on a perfectly SPLENDID weather Sunday, on the deck, in my high-top chair, toes curled around the deck railing like a great hawk surveying the valley below.  In the distance I can hear someone bringing in a second cutting of hay, the great chitter chatter of the sickle mower sounds like a giant cicada.  The wind is breezy enough for the great lake below the house to be dotted with quickly tacking, white sail boats.   Giant, towering, silvered cumulus clouds march by in neat, flattened rows on a mission.  The flock of hens has spotted me on the deck and are racing towards me in hopes that I'll drop them an apple or some grapes and the alpacas, well, they could care less about anything other than the new green grass in front of their noses.

I think back to the last 5 months and try to put it in some kind of order.  It really is a blur.  I remember people mentioning that they were having trouble remember what day of the week it was due to loosing their weekend reference points.  For me, it's just all one smeary mess.  It seems to have all gone by so quickly.

March rolled in, and like thousands of others, the plea for PPE rolled in to anyone that could thread a sewing machine.  I teamed up with the local 4-H and made surgical hats to start, as they were more complicated and they needed more of them to start.  Then the call for masks came in.  I quickly depleted my person stash of quilting fabrics.  Anyone that has a quilter in the family knows that's a LOT of fabric.   I personally stopped counting at 380 masks.  When I ran out of fabric and had to brave the world for more, I myself masked up and made the journey to town. 




By this point the local need was down, and personal masks were not yet recommended, let alone mandatory, but they were elsewhere.  I moved my whole operation to my etsy shop and put all the other etsy projects on hold.  Of course, as soon as I opened up orders online, my 18 year old sewing machine decided to have a complete and total digital sewing machine failure.  The mother board died.  In a scramble, with orders pouring in, I started calling all my "local shops" to see if anyone had one in stock.  By a great stroke of luck, I purchased the last Bernina machine in a shop that was a 3 hour round trip.  By evening, I was literally back in business.   

Now that more and more people are well stocked, and more and more imports are coming in to buy, even with more areas under mandatory mask rules, it seems like supply has caught up with demand.   I have a pile of about 200 more cut out and ready to sew, but after that, no more.  I'm making many for the college and high school kids in the family that need them to get through the day (you really need several), but then it's just special order.

The shop has now pleasantly gone back to antiques, weaving, orphan barrel dresses, french seamed pillowcases, and historic caps.  I even built a portable little shop that can be take to local businesses when they have outdoor open houses and visiting vendor days to boost local sales. 

Really? It's August?!

Someone this week, very kindly, reminded me that I have a blog. (Thanks Mike.)  You'd think that with all that is going on, or not going on, that I would have found the time to sit down and put ink to paper, or slap a few keys around and hit 'PUBLISH'.


We all know darn well what's been going on for the past 5 months so we won't even go there. I will leave my comments on all aspects of the situation on the alpaca compost pile.

But needless to say, it has been a BUSY 5 months here at the Ranch.

The college man came home in March and took up residency in his room, and his downstairs office space.  (I hardly ever get to see him, even on Summer vacations, as he lives/attends class/works on campus.)

Doc was now working from home and took up full-time residency in HIS downstairs office space - yes, the one I remodeled in the late fall. (I hardly ever see him, even on Summer vacation, as he teaches Summer classes. (Sorry Summer School Kids.)

It has been nice to have them both at home for the occasional 'hey, this is heavy, someone haul this for me' to the 'field squirrels are out of control again, someone go set traps please', but while they are at "work" from early in the morning until at least 5pm or 7pm dinner, I considered them NOT home.  But just with them being IN the house the routine around here was turned on its head.  Just like it was for the majority of people.

Suddenly, the kitchen is open for lunch as well as dinner.  I couldn't get by with just me skipping lunch or having it out while running errands  anymore. And The Boy obviously wasn't eating at the 'all you can eat' dorm kitchen anymore.  DH wasn't packing lunches or going out with the office for lunch. Extra people in the house, meant extra laundry, food, cleaning, etc.  But it's all good. We get along well, and everyone had work/school/projects to keep them busy.)

(I'm also VERY glad that I finished the shared downstairs, office bathroom remodel in February, as are the two working on the lower level!)

Ranch life sputters forward. Nature cares not for the problem of man.

I actually DID have several posts ready in the wings, but technology happened.

Apparently when you work on a Chromebook, a very OLD Chromebook, it freezes up when you leave it open and it goes into sleep mode.  This causes you to have to force a hard shut down the Chromebook.  No big deal really.  That is, unless you've forgotten your password because you recently changed it, because your machine did this last week, forcing you to reset your password.  If you enter TOO many passwords, and use use phone as a back-up to reset your password, you are afforded the luxury of re-entering your Chromebook account and resetting the password. (:::Getting out pencil and paper and writing it down this time - hey, don't judge, being 50 is hard!)

Being able to now access my own Chromebook, I crawled into the files to work on another project involving a great deal of photo files.  GONE.  ALL GONE.  Apparently, unlike a real computer, I've been saving things to a temporary file. Who knew?!  Not me!

I was immediately dumbfounded, shocked, sad, and then angry.  I was then informed by both techies in the house, in their calm 'did you try turning it off and back on again tone', that I should have set the default to upload photos to the cloud.  NOW you tell me?! Seriously?!  :::Feeling my Norwegian Viking blood starting to boil:::

I'm not tech illiterate, but being an OCD I hold fast to the old ways and have a great deal of trouble learning, or caring to learn something new when it comes out.  Just ask the poor SPRINT customer service agent who got an earful after one phone update scrambled all the locations of my Apps on my home screens.  Learning new technology methods for me is like having to feed pureed peas to a baby for the first time.You know they're going to eventually go in where they need to, but there's going to be a lot of rejection, head shaking, crying, pleading, swearing, and possibly a new shirt involved before the peas go in and stay in.

So I'll start over and get some things on here to entertain you and let you know what's been going on here at the Ranch. 

While I'm canning today, and need to stay relatively close to listen to the 'old hiss and jiggle', I'll park myself on the deck, enjoy a decent day of weather, and schedule some posts to automatically update. So subscribe to follow or check back in!

Clouds doing what they're supposed to do, being pretty and precipitating, not hiding all my photo files!

Hello Spring

Winter on the Open Prairie - A sea of sienna.

Winter came and went on the ranch.  I have to say, that after last year's nightmare of a winter, this one was a breeze.  We had our cold snaps, but they didn't last.  We had snow, but it was never a lot, and it didn't stay around long.  (I think I spent more time on the tractor moving alpaca manure than moving snow.)We had ice and fog as thick as a down blanket. We had a lot of wind, which made the cold even colder. But here we are, March 1st. 

Oh, I'm sure it's going to still snow, but again, it won't last.  The sun is high.  Even the thick ice on the 1800 acre lake below us is gone.  Only the thin ice that forms each night on the still water greets each morning, but is gone by noon.

The flocks migrating snow geese fill the skies like a cloud of smoke when disturbed from the lake or when coming in to roost on the water at night, and when leaving by the thousands each morning.  The sound is alien, but joyous.

I've been busy on the ranch this winter doing all the little things that don't need to be done outside.  Things that you can manage inside as to not waste a lovely day outdoors. My shop on etsy.com, GnomeGnomeOnTheRange, is up and running.  It has some antiques, some weaving, lovely pillowcases, and soon will have wonderful gardening aprons and what I call Orphan Barrel Dresses for Toddlers, and of course, an array of alpaca yarns.  Which are going fast, so don't wait too long to get yours.  For my spinning and fiber art friends, I also have bags of cleaned and washed alpaca fleece.

I gutted and remodeled another bathroom. Yes, the ugly urine yellow one on the lower level has been brought into the 21st century and is now a lovely shade of stormy sea blue, and the floor is cherry.

We decided to add another 10 trees to the orchard and the irrigation that goes along with them.  The trees are all heritage grafts, to include one from a certified Johnny Appleseed (Chapman) tree.  How cool is that?  The trees should be here at the end of the month.

I built a small animal chute, which will hopefully help with alpaca toenail spa day. (Now, I just need to catch a victim, em ...volunteer.)

I built a second Top Bar Hive.  This one went much faster than the first, due mostly to the fact that I'd done it before.  It has a few changes from lessons learned last time around and is painted a lovely glowing blue shade of Hydrangea/Lilac/Wisteria.

I earned my State Teaching Certification, which required me to take a modern Human Resources College course to update. It was an 8 week course that I took as a full time job, and finished it in 10 days- 24 essays and papers.  I thought my brain was going to explode and my fingers were going to fall off.

I earned my State Food Handler's permit so that I can now sell baked goods at my friend's floral shop along with the honey and eggs.

I earned my CHP certification, and was awarded this year's Swiss and Royal Canadian Mounted Certifications.

I created a custom Tartan design for the Ranch and it was accepted into the Scottish Register. (I'll share it when the official paperwork gets here.)  I'll be getting it warped onto the loom this week and hopefully have the sash done for my DAR convention at the end of March.  OH....

I was accepted into DAR, Daughters of the American Revolution, and have continued to do research to add to my long list of patriot ancestors.  It is time consuming, but fascinating.  I had a fellow etsy.com artist design me a custom wardrobe and it is gorgeous.  LOL.  On a day you feel like a giantess, I suggest you put on a 18th century bumroll, and all 3 petticoats and jacket, and see how slimming your 21st century clothes make you feel.  Although I am perfectly comfortable in my period costumes and wish I could wear them all day long, all the time like my fellow online blogger Thea ,but it's just not practical here.  She's an inspiration.

My friend Kelsey, had her re-Grand Opening of her new shop in Stromsburg, Spindle Shuttle and Needle.  In celebration of that event, I made her a large 4 foot square Dala horse of her very own for outside the shop.  Shops all over downtown have them in support of the town being the Swede Capital of the State.

We've been playing with making our own Farmer's cheese and we're hooked.  We especially like plain with cinnamon and honey, but garlic-onion-black pepper is our hands down favorite.

I've taken to grinding my own wheat in a KtichenAid Grain mill which turned out to be total garbage.  I had to grind it 6 times to get it to the quality of flour and it almost killed my machine, and I have a professional machine! 
I switched to the NutriMill Plus Mill which takes all of 2 minutes to grind two weeks worth of fine flour from high quality red wheat berries. Those I order from Minnesota, and have come up with a delicious 100% whole wheat sandwich bread.  I've been making it once a week. 
It freezes well and makes a great toast, which is high on my 'must' list for a bread.



I found an enormous, antique, bread dough trough that was brought here by homesteaders in the 1880s.  I scrubbed it down, dried it, and rewaxed it.  It is now ready for use, but I almost don't dare.  I might break it in this week or next.  She's almost too pretty to use.

The seeds for this year are on order.  The sweet potatoes are in jars on the window sill sprouting starts for me.

The chickens and alpacas are doing their best to entertain us all while they themselves are going stir crazy.

Twill Place Mats fresh off the loom.

So here's to the last day of a productive Winter, and to a busy Spring!