Author: admin (Page 12 of 13)

No, not Marcel and I….the cows!

8 proud and pregnant mama’s. Woohoo!!

Grandma Ruth passed way on December 11th, 2007, at the ripe old age of 95. And with her comes the end of an era for the Flynn family.

I realize that you readers must be thinking by now, “Good God. How many more posts about death can we take?” Well, I can assure you two things. First, I am wondering the same thing. And second, I promise to keep this one light.

In fact, it is pretty hard to be all glum and gloomy while reflecting on my Grandma’s impact on our lives and Irish Grove.

Born Ruth Doty, she came from a relatively prominent family in Pecatonica, and was the youngest of 6 children. We didn’t hear tons of stories about her life as a child, but she did talk about riding to school in a horse-drawn carriage, and about the different chores they had to do during the Great Depression.

When Grandma married Grandpa Lowell, she became part of Irish Grove history. But she didn’t see the value in looking back much, and would only reluctantly throw us a few nuggets about life on the farm. Things like how the Spelman’s would come over to play cards, and the kids would run wild, blissfully unattended. Or how she hated it when the kids rough-housed. She’d tell me about her large garden South of the house that she loved to dig around in, and would suggest I move my garden there immediately. “It has the best soil of the farm.” She was right, by the way, and that was precisely the reason my Dad didn’t let me put my garden there. And she’d talk about her flock of laying hens and how she sold the eggs, just like we do.

On second thought, she did enjoy telling us how tight Grandpa was with his money…so tight, in fact, that Grandma would hide her egg money from him and use it to secretly buy things she needed or wanted. She also enjoyed rolling her eyes at Grandpa’s “hair-brained ideas” that were going to make he and his brother Donald “a million bucks”. Ideas like planting a Christmas tree farm across the road from the house, or building the machine shed that was going to be used to store grain for the government.

When I asked her if they’d made any money, she’d quickly say “Lord no!!” in her gravely voice, and she’d raised her eyebrows and wave her hand at you. She had a certain “stick-it-to-ya” attitude that I always admired, one that has successfully been passed down the generational line. In fact, Grandma’s crusty attitude might be her most enduring legacy. (Remember what I said about crusty farmers and getting a kick in the pants?) A Flynn family get together can often turn into a competition to see who’s best at flinging barbs, and the fastest to duck-and-run.

But her sense of humour and crusty attitude were her most colorful characteristics, and ones that served her well throughout her life. You see, Grandpa Lowell decided to check out early, dying from a heart attack at 48 no less, and he left Grandma with 3 kids and a farm to manage. No small feat for anyone, much less for the Doty child who was “spoiled and used to getting her own way”, according to her older sister Dorothy (who died three short weeks after Grandma Ruth, at the even riper old age of 103!!).

Grandma persevered, and wisely turned the farm over to the Brown family until Farmer Don retired in the 1990’s. She also put her mark on Pecatonica with her many moves and home rehab jobs, earned the respect of the community, gambled in one-cent increments during her weekly penny-poker reunion with friends, and became the center-piece to en ever-growing family of 3 children, 10 grandchildren, 24 great-grandchildren and counting. All of us Flynn’s, all of us benefiting from Grandma’s strength and love and stick-it-to-ya attitude, all descendants of Irish Grove….Lord help us all.

We will greatly miss her. Grandma, there is no way you could ever be replaced. Now go shake ’em up in heaven. I’m sure there’s any number of high-falutin‘ souls that could use a good kick in the pants.

As I write, six to eight inches of snow are falling upon Irish Grove.

Our farm has converted itself into a winter wonderland. A fact which did not go unnoticed by Marcel…..

or the kids……

or even Olivia, for that matter.

When it’s this beautiful, there’s no way you can resist the urge to go out and play.

Here’s Marcel pulling a child-laden sled with the PUG. (Pleae don’t ask me what PUG stands for.)

We went down to the pond to see if it was frozen enough for some ice skating. On the way there, the PUG got stuck.

Push, kids, push!!

Umm, Armando….?? Just ’cause you’re three doesn’t mean you can slough off. Gees, what kind of farm kid are you, anyways?

Maybe we should try the other way.

Or maybe we should just walk the rest of the way.

See that open water? Guess ice skatin’ is gonna have to wait. Bummer.

Instead, we can just admire the beauty of the creek.

Gosh, that’s pretty.

Here’s another view:

Winter in Irish Grove is a sight to behold.

A beautiful memorial to my dad was erected today. Right in my front yard, no less.

It has brought with it a mixed bag of emotions. Pride. Sorrow. Wonder. Loss. Gratitude.

I think it’s a lovely addition to the farm.

And a lovely reminder of the people, the sacrifices and the hard work that has gone into this farm. We are forever grateful. And we will never forget.

Thanks, Aunt Nancy and Uncle Jim. Your memorial is a fitting tribute not only to Dad, but to our whole family.

I don’t normally plug other websites here, but as a farmer and environmentalist, and with it being the consumer, I mean Christmas season and all, I couldn’t let this one pass by.

With the New Year right around the corner, I opine that it would serve us all well to slow down and perhaps decide our yearly resolutions should be about something a little grander than, say, making it to the gym each week or not drinking soda pop. Not that those aren’t good ideas.

I propose we stop and really think about how our own personal actions affect our loved ones, our community, our environment and our future. I know that I, for one, need to do much, much better in all of these areas. Shall we try a little harder?

My answer? Yes.

Please check out: http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Irish Grove has a few new additions. Seven adorable Murray Grey calves that are so cute you just want to squeeze ’em. We bought them from a nice man in Platteville, Wisconsin, and had a fun day of loadin‘ and unloadin‘.

Here I am, trying to let one calf at a time out of the trailer. My brave husband is inside(!) the trailer with the calves, piercing their ears. Who’d have thought we were so beauty-conscious on the farm?

The one to set free is the calf that Marcel has just pierced.

So far, so good.

Darlin’, you look mah-velous.

A few calves later, I was still doin‘ okay.

This one pierced her right ear. Umm, wait a second. Does that mean…? No, it couldn’t. Could it?

Okay, only two more to go, and one brings her own tag with her. We can let her out, and then quickly tag the last one. Piece of cake for a seasoned cowgirl like myself, right?

Wrong.

Do you see an oh-so-stylish yellow dangly earring on her? Me neither.

Uh oh, Marcel looks a little peeved.

I mean, he’s inside the trailer with those unhappy babies, trying his best to pierce their ears without getting kicked, or butted, or smushed against the side of the trailer. All I have to do, for Lord’ sake, is slide the gate open and shut!

Might as well just let the last one out, since she brought her own earring with her. She’s a trend-setter, that one. Go on and join your siblings, little lady.

And now it looks like we’re going to have an impromptu rodeo.

Lucky for me, Marcel loves playin‘ cowboy. Look how happy he is!

Aww, anything for you, sweetie. Aren’t I just the best?

Marcel may be happy, but this little heifer doesn’t want any part of it. She prefers the natural look.

Who knew we’d be into forced piercings? (I’d better remember this day when my kids come home with a nose ring and a pierced tongue.)

Ahh, the beauty of new beginnings:

In the meantime, can you tell which one of my kids is the cowpoke in the making?

Armando?

Ana?

or Madelina?

I realize that I’ve pointed out my farming inadequacies more than once or twice in this blog, and that my constant self-humbling could become more than a little tiring. But I do often wonder to myself: 1) who the heck do I think I am, trying to run the farm? and 2) why haven’t I screwed things up yet?

Well, it turns out that I have a little secret. A well kept secret. A secret that I’m about to let you all in on.

Shhhhhhh…….listen closely. There is a method behind the madness. And that method is Marcel. That’s right, my incredible husband, Marcel.

For those of you who don’t know Marcel, he is the only Panamanian living in Irish Grove. Still not ringin‘ a bell? Well, he has an awesome smile, a laugh that sounds just like Eddie Murphy, the patience of a saint (he’s got to put up with me, the poor, poor man), a generous spirit, an uncanny ability to eat huge amounts of food and still stay incredibly thin, and the tenacity to put up with me (did I already say that?).

But more importantly (at least for Irish Grove’s sake), he is a master mechanic with a God-given ability to repair even the most mind-numbing of mechanical, electrical, and logistical problems. A common complaint I hear from homeowners is that when you finally repair the roof, for example, the gutters fall off. “There is always something” is the collective sigh ringing out across the country. Well, when you run a farm, multiply that frustration by a thousand…..

…..the auger’s broken and we can’t get the corn out, the water tank has frozen over and the cattle are thirsty, the blades need sharpening, the tractor won’t start, the sliding barn door fell off the track, the raccoons are eating the chickens (again), the electric fence isn’t working, the wheel fell off the grain wagon, the lights on the cattle trailer won’t work, etc. etc. etc., ad naseum. Marcel is the answer to all this and more.

That is not to shun his inventive nature, of course, because Marcel spends a large quantity of his time at home in the garage, inventing something that will save us time or labor. In fact, I often tease him that he is the hardest working lazy man I’ve ever met. And while he has jerry-rigged many, many a system that has made our lives around the farm much, much easier, he has also come up with a few ideas that have had me laughing and shaking my head for days.

Like the sweep auger he invented so I wouldn’t have to shovel the last 500 bushels or so of soybeans out of the bean bin. It was a great idea, and very sweet considering that he wanted to save me a long day of dusty, dirty, sweaty labor. But when you have an open(!) corkscrew blade whirling around at 50 mph, and the dang thing weighs close to 100 pounds, and I’m supposed to lift it and throw it onto the pile of beans without throwing my back out or getting my hand caught in the auger…….well, let’s just say I tried for over an hour to get it to work, mumbled a few choice words that day (in true John Flynn style), and shoveled the beans out anyways.

But that pales in comparison to his now infamous invention: the Chicken Condom. Yes, you read that right, I said chicken condom. As gross as it was, Marcel was being his kind, generous self and was really just trying to accommodate some of our egg customers, who were a little wigged out by the dot they sometimes found in their eggs. You know, that little brown dot that means the egg was fertilized? Well, Marcel set out one day to solve this little problem by inventing a condom for the roosters. He took the tube out of an old bicycle tire, and fashioned it so that there were two looped ends–one to hook around each wing–that then met at the bottom in a sort of ‘V’ shape that got hooked under the tail feathers. And this is the important part: here is where a flap hung down to supposedly impede the rooster from penetrating the hens.

I soo wish I had taken a picture of it. Perhaps then we could have had it patented. And revolutionized the chicken world forever. Needless to say, I found the condom in our backyard a few weeks later, discarded hastily by that promiscuous, dirty, and very naughty rooster with absolutely no respect for the fact that we have young children that play in that very area. The very thought!!

And so, while I poke fun at my husband for his twisted, I mean, less productive ideas, he is the reason we are up and running in Irish Grove. Marcel is the method behind my madness, the how and the why of it, the safety rope that we depend on, and as the kids say, the one who can do anything.

And that’s no blarney.

Well, we’re done. The corn is in the bin, Farmer Mark has taken his combine and gone home, and the phones are quiet.

Phew. What a whirlwind.

For six days, my life was dominated by corn. Yes, corn….the plant that has singlehandedly taken over huge tracts of land around the world and intoxicated farmers with its ability to produce those amazing seed heads, each one boldly holding hundreds of yellow kernels.

Now please don’t start lecturing me on the evils of corn. I’m an environmentalist, remember? And a mother. I understand the pitfalls of mono-cropping, the stress corn puts on our soil and water, and the damage high fructose corn syrup does to one’s body.

But during the past week, I most admittedly fell under corn’s spell. I became enamored with its reproductive genius. I basked in its yellow beauty. I reveled in its smells, its abundance, its ability to dominate every waking moment of my life. I was as giddy as a teenager in love. Giddy!!

And now?? Now that the harvest is finished, and the corn has been neatly tucked away into the corn bin, or sent off by the truckload to intoxicate someone else??

Now I’m feeling the aftermath of my drunken harvest fest. My house is in a shambles. My yard is a mess. We have yet to return the tractors and wagons we borrowed. My head is foggy. I can barely drag myself out of bed. I’m grumpy with my kids and my husband. I have lost my drive, my energy, my passion.

I’m hungover, d*mn it.

And instead of being a responsible adult and admitting my weaknesses, I’m going to blame it all on the corn. That’s right, it’s corn’s fault. She did this to me.

So let this be a lesson to y’all, especially you beginning farmers out there. Corn has an uncanny ability to bewitch, to dominate, to intoxicate. Plant with care.

Thursday night, Irish Grove was a beautiful sight, lit brightly by October’s harvest moon. Friday afternoon, the corn harvest began.