Author: admin (Page 9 of 13)

Goin’ Against the Grain

September 18, 2008 / admin

I had a nice visit with our conventional pesticide and fertilizer supplier dude earlier today. I’m sure he has a title, but I have no idea what is is. So pesticide and fertilizer dude will have to do.

It was really nice to have a long talk with a farmer who’s squarely planted in the conventional world but who also doesn’t freak out and have a heart-attack when I tell them we plan to go organic. We had a long chat about different planting options, about my concerns with our ragweed problem (which wasn’t solved by the machete work), about his concerns with soil erosion in organic grain systems, and about the challenges of balancing our concerns for the environment with the economic health of the farm.

I must say it was pretty cool to receive advice about different things we could do to help us reach our goal faster, especially coming from a man who spends most of his Spring driving one of those tall, monstrous pesticide-sprayin’ vehicles that just look evil and remind me of a giant moon rover. (Not that I’ve ever seen a moon rover.)

Because I gotta tell ya, I can feel myself faltering once and awhile. It simply gets harder and harder for me to maintain one foot in the organic world and another in the conventional world. Let’s be honest. I have to constantly explain the rationale behind keeping part of the farm conventional when talking with my organic cohorts. And then I have to explain why I won’t plant GMO crops to my conventional cohorts. Especially when I see, we all see, the major weed pressure in our non-GMO fields and a simple switch to Round-Up Ready would take care of it.

I know where I want to be. I just want to be there already.

OK, I admit…patience isn’t my strongest quality. But this path in the middle is not easy. Not at all. And the worst part is that I know the longer we allow the ragweed to populate our fields, the larger the problem is going to grow. I am pretty sure that within a year or two, we’ll be at the point of no return, especially in one particular 45-acre field.

I asked Mr. fertilizer dude about planting wheat. Wheat requires less nitrogen and harvests mid-summer, which would cut back the ragweed. It also bumps up your future soybean yields, something that has lagged on our farm for years. He said the ragweed could cause a big problem with our wheat crop, though. Plus, we’d have to coninue to mow the fallow field the rest of the season if we wanted to keep the ragweeds down. Can you say diesel, diesel and more diesel?

The best option we came up with is to take that field out of row crops altogether and sock it into hay ground. We could get a premium oat-hay crop in late Spring, and then two more cuttings of Alfalfa that summer. Which means we’d mow down the ragweed 3 different times. The field could be left as hay ground for two more full summers, getting mowed 4 times each summer. Then you plow in your hay field and plant corn, which would need no nitrogen since the alfalfa provided it for us. Follow that with a year of soybeans and then back into alfalfa for three more years.

And maybe, just maybe, after three more years our cattle herd might be at the size that we’d need the land for grazing. So we wouldn’t even need to put it back into corn or soybeans.

Hmmn. Hmmn. Hmmn.

The only teensy-weensy miniscule problem I can find with this new little seed of a plan is this: we’d have about 95 acres of hay to cut, dry and bale next year!!!!! And you’all know that cutting, drying and baling hay without it getting rained on isn’t an easy task. It isn’t an easy task when your dealing with 42 acres. Add another 40-odd acres and what do you get? A stressed-out farmer, that’s what you get!!

Guess I’ve got me some thinking to do. And guess I gotta consult with the family.

Let’s see. What should I bring up first? My great idea on how to get rid of our ragweed problem? Or the fact that we might be hayin’ on 95 acres next year?

If you have any advice, this is the time to cough it up. Unless you’re the conventional-judgemental type or the organic-judgemental type. Then you can just keep it to your nice little self. Thanks in advance.

Pink Eye

September 15, 2008 / admin

Around the time we had our chicken harvest, our baby calves came down with Pink Eye. We noticed it first in the second youngest calf…the one that was too lazy to search out his mom, if you so recall.

We check on our cattle every day, often times more than once. But, as you well know, cows run in herds. And when you see the herd mullin’ around, nicely chewin’ their cud and swattin’ at flies with their tails, well…..well, they check out just fine.

Mother cows keepin’ up their conditioning? Check.
Grass supply sufficient? Check.
Babes nursing? Check.
Water tank in workin’ order? Check.
General all-around happiness? Check.

I guess what I’m saying is that we don’t literally look them all in the eye, every day of the week. And especially not in each eye, as was needed in this particular case.

When I checked on little lazy calf, he looked just fine. Perfectly fine. Until he turned his head the other way, which provoked me to loudly exclaim, “WOA….What is THAT?”

*Insert violin soundtrack here*

Oh no! His eye! His poor, poor eye. It was all squinty, and runny, and sportin’ a nice crop of flies, those despicable creatures. The worst part was that his eyeball was snow-white. White as could be. The kind of white that you know means one, and only one thing: Blindness.

My heart sunk. My (s)mothering instinct kicked into full gear. And my thoughts started racing: Could he have impaled himself on a piece of wire? Did he get kicked by another? Was there a possible predator attack?

But then I knew. I just knew. I knew the truth when he walked out of the shed for a moment, only to immediately turn around and high-tail it back in.

Oh no.

No.

No, no, no.

Not Pink Eye. Anything but Pink Eye.

But Pink Eye it was. I started looking, really looking this time at each and every calf. In each and every eye. And in all of the calves but one, I saw it. I saw the signs of that blasted disease, and in the blink of an eye (sorry) I knew our lives had become much more complicated.

I called the vet and arranged to pick up an antibiotic spray that would need to be sprayed in the affected eyes, once a day. The exact indications read: 2 squirts directly on the eyeball, every day until the infection clears up.

Did I mention that it could take over a month for the infection to clear up? And that we had to spray the antibiotic directly on the eyeball?!?!? It was going to be one long month. Sigh.

All but one calf had Pink Eye, so we decided to treat them all. The flies were carrying the infection from one calf to another anyway, so it was only a matter of time before the last one would contract it as well.

And hence began the rodeo at Irish Grove. ‘Cause for the next week, once a day, we had to corral the little buggers into a corner pen in the bullshed, handling them one by one, until we had sprayed their infected eyes with the antibiotic.

Marcel came to the scene armed with a lasso, I came with the spray. Marcel would gently slip the lasso over the head of one calf, and then quickly pull it tight. At this point the calf would go nuts, bawlin’ and kickin’ and jumpin’ all over the place. Marcel would hold on tight until the calf was close to a corner of the pen, at which point Marcel’d shove his butt into the corner, and I’d shove his head and neck against the wall.

We’d have about 3 seconds before the calf figured out that if he jumped forward, he could get out of this hold. Umm, 3 seconds is not a lot of time. Especially when you’ve gotta ply open an eyelid and spray 2 squirts of antibiotic onto their bare eyeball. I’m sure you can imagine that the calves just somehow weren’t quite goin’ for the whole scene.

I’d usually get one squirt in before the kickin’ and jumpin’ and bawlin’ started up again. Oh, and did I mention that we’re in a pen with all 8 calves, not just one? Yeah, so while we’re trying to wrestle one calf into a corner, we’re also tripping over and generally trying to avoid gettin’ kicked by the other 7. But it’s easier to control an animal when he’s with his buddies then when he’s alone, so believe it or not, this was the better option.

After a few days of corraling calves, squirting ’em in the eyes, and leaving the barn covered from head to toe in manure, we noticed the calves weren’t getting any better. The spray wasn’t working.

We didn’t want to, but we had to call the vet and have her come out. The vet came the very next day, and we repeated the rodeo scene for the last time. But instead of spraying them in the eyes, she gave them a shot of antibiotics in the neck, and then a shot into the tear duct!

*Cringe. Wince. Shudder.*

The shot into the tear duct bathes the eye with antibiotic every time they blink, as the intra-muscular shot works its way throught the blood stream to the infection. As horrible as it was, I was relieved that it was finally going to help the poor calves.

I have to brag and say that the vet was very impressed with our setup, and especially with how smoothly it went. It’s always nice to be complimented, but especially by the veterinarian!

Pink Eye is a horrible disease to suffer through, and a horrible one to treat. But I’ve gotta be straight with y’all: I enjoyed every last minute of it. Handling those calves was exhilarating!

A little extra swagger in my step? Check.

Rest and Relaxation

September 1, 2008 / admin

Happy Labor Day! I hope you’re taking full advantage of your day off.

I see these guys sure are.

They deserve a break. I mean, it’s hard work following your mother around all day, trying to sneak a drink of milk here or there.

The calves tell me that Labor Day is the perfect day for relaxing,

visiting friends,

and just hanging around.

Obviously I’m not the only one who agrees!

It must also a great day for daydreaming. Take this chicken, for example. She’s wondering if maybe, just maybe, she’d make it as a flamingo.

What do ya think?

The goats also have an active imagination.

They think they’d make great mountain climbers.

As for me? Today I’m dreaming of vacations, good food, and great company in a far away land.

That’s me and Madelina in Boquete, Panama. Isn’t she the cutest, sweetest thing ever?

Hope you find a restful, relaxing way to spend your day.

Help Us Decide!!

August 28, 2008 / admin

I’ve got a fun little task for y’all to do for me.

You see, rumor has it that we here in Irish Grove just might be going organic on some of our acres next year. Grassfed beef is our main push with those acres, but we won’t be able to certify our beef until the following year. So, in the meantime, we’re thinking of raising some organic, pastured chickens to sell for meat.

This is where y’all come in. Organic pastured chickens will be a lot of work, for minimal return, especially the first year. Organic pastured chickens mean Marcel and I will be spending many winter hours building moveable chicken pens. Organic pastured chickens mean that yours truly will be spending about 2 hours/day, 7 days a week, for 4 long months next summer, feeding, watering, and moving those same chickens to a fresh paddock. Organic pastured chickens mean we’ll be buying organic grain from someone for extremely high prices. And organic pastured chickens mean I’ll be driving 4 hours south, once every 2-3 weeks, for a long, boring day waiting for the chickens to be processed at an organically certified chicken processing plant.

The extra work doesn’t scare us. We’re farmers; the type of people who like to work. What scares us is the prospect of extra work coupled with few customers and a failed business idea.

So, I need to know the following: Do you think organic chickens is a good idea and worth the effort? And do you or would you pay more than $3.00/lb for organic chicken?

This is not a ploy for customers, even though I’d love to sell you a chicken, but a ploy for opinions. You all are very aware of my opinions on store-bought chicken. Now I’d like to hear yours.

You can reply to this post, or vote on my cute little poll that I’ll be adding in the sidebar. It’s as easy as that. We’ll just call today “inform a farmer” day.

Please?

Mi Bountiful Gardenita

August 27, 2008 / admin

Gardenita. I like the ring that has. Even if it is Spanglish and might win me some scorn from our anti-immigrant compatriots.

I’ve spoken Spanish daily for the last, oh, 12 years or so, and I still find it exciting to communicar in another language. Especially for small-town-old-me. And somehow I’m still as American as I was before I spoke Spanish. Or at least I think I am. I think I’ll go check, just in case. Yep….still freckled, still blancita, still blue-eyed. Our compatriots can all heave a sigh of relief on their way to their jobs at the meat-packing plant. Oh wait. Our compatriots don’t like to work at meat-packing plants. Never mind.

One downfall of being bi-lingual, however, is that my command of the English language has faltered. I used to have an impressive arsenal of complicated palabras ever at the tip of my tongue. My college friends would sometimes comment on my impressive vocabulary and use of proper grammar, and I’d feel all smart and educated. (That is until I’d get to my next class, where the professors were more than happy to bring me back to reality.)

The grammar I’ll attribute to my Grandma Alice….she’s a stickler for proper usage of the English language. She always knows whether one should use ‘lie’ or ‘lay’, ‘who’ or ‘whom’, and ‘its’ or ‘it’s’. I find myself double-thinking through my sentences when speaking with her, lest she raise her cejas at me and say, exasperatedly, “Jackie!” (Hi Gramma!)

My nice vocabulary, however, was due to the fact that I was quite the bookworm as I grew up. I read lots and lots of books. Of all types and kinds. At all hours of the day, night, and early morning. In junior high, I was a huge fanatica of the Anne of Green Gables series, and I imagined myself to be just as heady, analytical and charming as Anne. Why, I was Jackie of Irish Grove, mind you. Except I wasn’t really all that heady, analytical or charming. Ah, the beauty of an over-active imagination and plenty of tiempo to read!

My vocabulary now, however? Post-Spanish? Now I stumble on even the silliest of sentences. I often can’t think of the names of simple things like ‘strainer’ or ‘chain’ in English, because colador and cadena are just easier to remember. That leads me to say really inteligente things like, “Mom, where do you keep your, um…your, eh…you know, your colador? What’s that thing called that let’s you squeeze the liquid out of a food?”

Knowing a second language has freed up my mind and improved my creativity, but boy, has it put a padlock on my tongue!

The worst part is that while I can still call to mind some pretty nice words, I can’t remember their proper pronunciation, and they tend to come out with a Spanish accent. This gets really bad at work, where I teach biologia and nature-related topics. Oh, and even though I’m interacting with kids of all different ethnicities, I pronounce their Asian, African, and sometimes even American names with a Spanish ring. Sometimes even rolling an ‘r’ here or there. Then they raise their cejas at me.

Anyways, I was wanting to talk about how much comida I’ve gotten from my teensy-weensy gardenita, and I got side-tracked.

Gardening is fun, and it is absolutely amazing to see the cantidades of food one can get from even the smallest of gardens. When Marcel and I first moved into this house, we planted a huge, lovely garden that was about 1/3 acre. Wowsa. That was alot of work, especially since Ana was a bebe. We kept it up for two short years. With each additional child, my garden got exponentially smaller. Until we ended up with our cinco, quaint, small raised beds.

But I still get a lot of food from my gardenita, especially considering the cold, wet primavera we had. When you add in my many failed tomato plants (they had a fungus or something), an extremely late planting date (mid-June), the fact that my espinaca bolted as soon as it had about 2 leaves (too much heat), and a pretty lackadaisical attitude about watering and weeding, you’d have thought I wasn’t going to get much of anything. But I’ve gotten loads of medium-sized onions, enough tomatoes for fresh salsa, green and wax beans (yummmmm-y!), and zucchini.

Oh, zucchini. Lovely, lovely zucchini. Bountious, copious, plentiful, fertile zucchini. It’s the conejo of the vegetable world, if you know what I mean. Thankfully I love it, so no complainin’ here. I’ve shredded and frozen bag after bag of zucchini to use for muffins and queques this winter. I’ve chopped and sauteed zucchini every night for weeks now.

Today I made zucchini bread, zucchini cake, and zucchini hashbrowns, even, topping them with homemade salsa. De-lish. Tomorrow I might try a zucchini pie recipe I found in one of my cookbooks.

And if my zucchini plants don’t slow down soon, I just might have to start pranking the vecinos with my zucchini. You know the one, where you ring the doorbell and run, leaving a pile of…..um, zucchini…..yeah, that’s it……on their front doorstep?

Between the home-grown garden veggies, eggs, chicken and beef, we’ve been eatin’ like reyes y reinas here for weeks now and we don’t even have any large grocery bills to show for it. Now if that’s not un-Amercian, I can’t think of what is.

Chickens, and a visit from Cousin Jenny

August 26, 2008 / admin

Well, Saturday was a long one. It took us about 10 hours, but we butchered 40 chickens and filled the freezer with some homegrown, healthy food. I’d post pictures, but, yeah, well…..I imagine most of you just don’t wanna know. Let’s just say that by the end of the day it looked like the entire community of Irish Grove had descended upon our farm to partake in huge feather-pillow fight. And we’ll just leave it at that.

Thankfully we had the help of my sister and her family (my lovely sister who brought her famous cinnamon rolls) and yes, the help of my kids. Ana and Madelina dove right in at the plucking station, along with Laura, Rob, Brady, and Jonathan. Wow! 6 pluckers! Armando even helped, doing a great job of taking the fully dressed (which is a definite oxymoron) chickens over to the cold water tank.

Madelina was the funniest, though, as she had decided to take on the role of narrator for the day. She was getting a kick out of the fact that her Aunt Laura was holding back a retch or two as she plucked her first chicken, and that her cousins were a little more than hesitant to get started. You see, according to Madelina, she had tons of experience in the ole chicken-pluckin’ thang, so she pulled out the big guns and started in with her 1st-grader hipster talk. She started struttin’ around saying things such as “It’s not gross! I think it’s really cool.” and “Look at the guts, their like, so cool lookin’.” (She gets her eloquence from her mother.) Finally I had to step in and let her know that she’d already over-impressed everyone and could put a lid on it.

Anyways, the extra help made the job much lighter for Marcel and I, both physically and spiritually. And then, of course you can’t forget our other helper, my cousin Jenny, who gave us more moral support than actual physical help. Jenny did a good job of holding down a lawn chair, if ya know what I mean. For some reason or another she just didn’t feel like plucking feathers. I can’t imagine why!

That’s okay. Jenny might not be the ‘dive-right-in-and-get-dirty’ type o’ gal, but she is one of our biggest supporters. She loves to come out and socialize, which can be a good thing when you’re filled with chicken guts. Someone has to help keep our minds off the yucky task at hand!

Jenny also likes to drive the PUG when she’s here. It can be a little nerve-racking, though, ’cause, shhhhhh! don’t tell anyone, but…….she’s a crazy driver!

Here she is taking a whirlwind tour of our yard. (Marcel is a brave man!)

Here she is, almost taking out the garage:

Here’s Marcel, waving frantically for the kids to run for their lives.

Whew! That was a close one! The garage was saved, the kids were safe, and Jenny had a blast.

I’m sure Jenny is still wondering how she got roped in to coming out to the farm for the pluckin’ party. In fact, that’s probably what most of our helpers are thinking right now. Hopefully the fresh, wholesome chickens in their freezers made it worth it.

Wait! Jenny didn’t get a chicken! Don’t worry, Jen. We’ve got one with your name on it. As creepy as that sounds.

Pluckin’ Party

August 22, 2008 / admin

Rumor has it there’ll be a pluckin’ party around these parts.

Our 50 meat chickens are market size, and so, they’ve reached the end of their journey.

Butchering is never easy. We don’t name our food animals, nor do we cuddle them or play with them. But we do have a relationship with them. We care for them, making sure they are happy, well-fed, comfortable and free to roam around the way nature intended. They have a good life, as far as domesticated farm animals go. Yet it’s always difficult to bring that life to an end.

I want it that way……to be difficult, I mean. The day that butchering becomes easy, the day I don’t feel conflicted about killing an animal, that’s the day I should get out of the livestock business.

But until then, we’ll continue to raise food, knowing that we’ve done our best, the animals were humanely treated, we’re putting only the healthiest kind of meat onto our plates and into our bodies, and we’re supporting the family farm in the process.

So, if you’ve never seen a chicken be processed before and want to educate yourself on how a fully feathered bird turns into that boneless chicken breast on your plate, come on over.

Tomorrow’s the day (Saturday). Bright and early. Rumor has it fresh chicken will be on the grill by noon.

Oh, and wear old clothes.

Felling the Giant, one machete-swing at a time

August 12, 2008 / admin

That’s right, I said machete. Machete. A third-world tool that no self-respecting, American-born, tractor-drivin’, weed-busting conventional farmer would ever, ever touch.

I guess that’s why I’m not your usual self-respecting-American-born-tractor-drivin’-weed-bustin’-conventional farmer.

Cause a machete is what’s been occupying my right hand for a few days straight now, and I gotta tell you……ouch, ouch and ouch. My forearm is extremely sore, and my middle finger (yes, the naughty one) is barely working this morning. My hands are blistered and my waist hurts so bad from the rythmic ‘bend-swing-fell’ movement of the machete that I’m walking around, preggo-style, with my arms propping up my lower back. And no, I’m not nine-months pregnant! ‘Cause if I were, I wouldn’t be so %#$&* sore from using a machete.

But machete I did, and machete I will do again. Because we’ve got this little problem going on around here. OK, it’s a big problem. In fact, a giant problem. A giant ragweed problem.

Gaint Ragweeds are the enemy of all conventional farmers. They are this huge-mongous weed that grows about 11′ tall (seriously), their roots send out many stalks that happen to be as thick as small tree-saplings, and then. Then! Then they do something that is quite amazing, and extremely frustrating, especially if you’re 1) a farmer, or 2) a person who suffers from hayfever.

They put up this glorious (in their mind, at least) flower head, with copious amounts of pollen waiting for the most minute gust of wind to carry them straight to your nose and mine. (Cue sneezing and wheezing.)

And when the pollen does its job of mixing with its friends (yes, it’s called cross-pollinating….I’m not really as dumb as I make myself out to be), the flower-heads will turn into seed-heads and drops thousands upon thousands of tiny Giant Ragweed seeds into my corn or bean-field. Which will promptly turn into thousands of huge-mongous Giant Ragweed plants next year. Noooooooo!!

Giant Ragweed are all too common in these parts. Especially on farms like ours where we don’t plant Round-up Ready anything. Round-up Ready corn and soybeans are also known as GMO crops–Genetically Modified Organisms. The scientists take genes from unrelated plants and splice them into the DNA of the corn or soybeans. This change allows farmers like me to herbicide-spray the crap out of our corn or soybeans without killing them. Except farmers like me don’t plant GMO crops. Did I already say that?

But before you think we’re all virtuous or something, we do spray herbicides on our fields. They’re called pre-emergence herbicides, and they’re sprayed on the land before we plant the crops. They kill all those sneaky little weed seedlings that sprout the moment the weather warms. And they give our crops a ‘head-start’, a chance to get established before the weeds come back and give ’em a run for their money. Or our money. Whatever.

Gosh, this is getting long.

So, we spray in the spring, and then try not to spray again if possible. If it’s really bad, we can re-spray, but these herbicides WILL shock the living daylights out of the corn or soy, and we don’t like to do that.

Re-enter the machete. Here I am, getting ready to go to work:

(OK, not really. I’m just being goofy.)

Marcel and I spent 5 hours slaying the giant over by my sisters house last week, and 4 hours at the back of the main farm two days ago. Yesterday I spent 2 hours, all by my lonesone, machete-ing in the same bean field as the day before. Another 2 hours will finish that field up rather nicely, upon which we’ll move over to a major infestion left by Laura’s. That one will take a good 5 hours or so. And I’m hoping that’ll be it for this year!

I’m also hoping that by the time we’re all said and done, my fingers, forearms and waist muscles will still be functioning and that we’ll have prevented 459.768 billion ragweed seeds from forming. Or something like that.

And that, my friends, will make it all worth it.

So look out, Giants. There’s a Machete-Wielding Gringa in these parts. She’ll getcha sooner or later. If she can move, that is.

Groan.

Have You Herd?

July 30, 2008 / admin

Sorry, that title is terrible. I couldn’t help myself. But……

Y’all have just GOT to take a gander at the newest members of Irish Grove.

Here’s our first little guy, born the second week of June. He was startlingly silver. But now he’s white, and goofy-lookin’, and definitely thinkin’ he’s a big deal.

Here’s #2, pitch-black at birth. Altho he’ll end up a nice dark brown. If you look hard, you can see the brown peeking through on his neck.

Next up? Numbers 3, 4 and 5. Two of which are females. Heifers, as we call ’em.

The white-faced one is our spunkiest calf. She tends to run circles around the other calves, kickin’ up her hind legs and just generally havin’ a good time. She’s been named Delilah by the kids. We only name the girls, because, well, umm…..just because. (We shouldn’t talk about the facts of cow life when they’re just babies.)

Delilah was our first girl. We’re partial to her because she’s so darned cute with those black circles around her eyes. And because she’s spunky.

Here’s #6, the dark one with his mother. Another boy, and a sweet little guy at that. He only weighed about 60 lbs at birth.

Number 7 is another story. He’s this big bumblin’ bull-calf that has a very annoying tendency to walk off and hide in the tall grass. He’s like a great big oaf that doesn’t have any survival instinct what-so-ever.

I’ve never before seen a calf like this. He will literally sleep in the tall grass all day, all night, and all day next as well. We have to go looking for him in the morning and literally roll him over a few times before he finally finds the gumption to stand up and try to find his mother. The big lazy bum!

Hopefully he livens up a little as he gets older. Here he is after being pushed, prodded and generally rolled around by his human keepers. His mother isn’t too happy with us, seeing as we’re botherin’ her baby. We decided to keep our distance:

Last but not least is this little cutie. Gosh, is he a doll. White as can be, with a black nose a black eyelashes.

Eight healthy calves, born in the height of summer. Who could ask for more?

Marcel is pretty happy with the new crop of calves. Can you tell?

Cemeteries, Gravestones and Procrastination

July 27, 2008 / admin

I’ve always loved roaming around old cemeteries. They’re so peaceful and serene, quietly shaded, and curiously inviting; the type of place that makes me want to sit for awhile, a place to perhaps read an old classic novel while leaning back against an old, sturdy headstone. I’ve never done that, read a novel in a cemetery. But I’d like to.

Irish Grove’s cemetery is especially beautiful. And yes, I’m partial. But what can be more beautiful, peaceful and inviting than a rural church surrounded by the crumbling gravestones of its founders and the newer, shiny gravestones of its more recent members?

So you’d think a few simple requests to find the grave sites of my reader’s ancestors would be pretty easy for me to honor, right? Well, unfortunately not.

You see, Irish Grove’s lovely cemetery was a place I loved to roam up until that fateful day that one of my own was buried there. And now that Dad’s there, the cemetery has become a place to avoid. It’s the one place where I can’t gloss over the pain of loss, where I can’t deny reality, the one place where I’m forced to grieve.

But I go. I do. I force myself to take deep breaths and think positive thoughts, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. I send my kids to jump on their Grandpa’s stone, to “wrestle him” like they used to, which makes me smile and laugh one of those forced laughs….you know the kind. And I think to myself, “If I keep coming here, it’ll get easier.” It will, right?

But today, as I drove to the cemetery to finally take some photos of someone else’s relatives and someone else’s history, ancestry, and quite possibly grief, my stomach started to tighten up. I mean, how could I justify going to the cemetery and not go visit Dad’s grave? What kind of daughter am I, anyways?

But then……well, I saw something. Something, I am ashamed to say, that prompted a sigh of relief to escape through my lips. A lawnmower. I was saved by a lawnmower!! There was a young man mowing the cemetery lawn and I couldn’t have been happier to see him. I mean, I can’t go visit my Dad’s gravesite and cry in front of a teenage boy, now can I? The poor boy is just trying to make a little money. Probably saving up for college. And he was so content, sitting there listening to his iPod and driving around headstone after headstone. Some old lady crying would make him really uncomfortable, and you must agree that that wouldn’t have been very nice of me.

So, Fox’s and Cuff’s……please thank the local teenage lawnmowing boy for your photos. Without him, who knows how much longer it could’ve taken for you to get these.

And please accept my apologies for the delays, especially you, Rex. You’ve waited far too long for this:

PATRICK CUFF

DIED

Oct. 21, 1817

Aged 52 years

Here’s the headstone, up close:

Here is the view behind the stone:

Here’s the stone as it’s found in relation to the church. It’s the small headstone on the right side of the picture:

For the Fox family:

THOMAS FOX

1815 – 1891

SARAH FOX

1813 – 1891

and THOMAS

son of J.B. & C. Fox

Erected solely by J. B. Fox

I must admit that my family and I had to chuckle at that last sentence on the stone. We meant no disrespect, but there must be a good story there somewhere!

Here’s a close-up of the gravestone:

And here is where the headstone is found in relation to the church:

Irish Grove really is beautiful. Maybe I will take that book on over…..