June 28 - 29, 2013 Baby, the rain must fall

The last weekend in June and the pumpkin patch was calling, "weed me, weed me!".  I dove into the grasses and weeds and found six hidden plants, well-saturated by rain but shrouded from the sun.  Fortunately, my three-hour weed fest was preceded by a late afternoon downpour so the soil was soft and moist. After I did the hard work, Jeff went back the next morning with the weed wacker and finished the job. I'm a little cautious after zero pumpkins last year, but I'll chalk it up to the drought and remain optimistic. 

Dinner on the deck - watching the clouds roll in. Quiet and peaceful between rains. 

We woke up to rain Saturday, making it the perfect morning to cozy up on the couch with a second cup of coffee and finish my book, while Jeff painted the ceiling in the mud room.  This what I saw when I finally ventured out about noon. Fresh, verdant fields and shimmery rain washed corn fields. 

During the time I walked down to the gardens and started back up the hill, the clouds returned with a vengeance and I could actually see a wall of rain moving toward me. I quickened my step but took the wrong path and had to wade through tall grasses to get to the lodge. Jeff was out in the worst of it, weed wacking around the trees and only came in when he was muddy and soaked to the bone. 

 

June 14 - 15, 2013 Father's Day Covo-style

Father's Day weekend 2013 is better than Jeff could ever imagine with a last minute visit from Nick, who has not been home since July 2010. Nick sees lots of changes in the landscape and the lodge, which was still in the drywall state when he was last there.

They accomplish a special project together, one that Jeff was eager to complete but couldn't do alone. First, they search for the perfect beam in the old dismantled hay barn,  transport it by tractor up the hill to the lodge, haul it in the front door and install it up above the front door below Sneaky Pete, as a new perch for Carlos, the pheasant that recently moved from the suburbs to the farm.

Knee high by Father's Day

Nick overshadowed by the trees he planted with Lizzy and Katie in ...

May 2009

May 25, 2013 Arbor Day

 Grab your work gloves, boots and a shovel and come join us at CoVo Hills farm to plant some trees!  We're having our second Arbor Day Festival weekend at the farm and would love for you to join us. We promise fresh air, sustenance and camaraderie in exchange for a little bit of fun hard work.  What a deal!  We're ordered 500 bare root trees to plant along with wildflower sees so we will have plenty of work  for all comers ~ Dan 

The morning of ~ fresh and damp from overnight thunderstorms. Dan and Jeff take precautions, erecting a canopy for shelter should the rains return while our crew is out in the fields planting.

Meanwhile, Deena and Marianne head to May Fest to check out the flowers and crafts, when Deena is suddenly missing ~  and found in the pie tent.
All homebaked pies on Saturday are supplied by the Catholic ladies. Come back on Sunday, they say, for the Baptist pies, but ya know, there won't be as many cause they're a smaller church.

ARBOR DAY 

The management and staff at COVO Hills heartily thanks all of you who participated in this year's Arbor Day event. I would have used the word festivities but due to grumpy Mr. Weather not cooperating very well, we had to cut out the fun stuff and focus on the task at hand ~ planting trees. And boy did you all focus. We made excellent use of our 3 1/2 hour window of no rain and power planted 500 trees in roughly four hours. Damn! ~ Dan

Our Crew

Mark, Jeff, Brian

Cash

Tom, Mary, Deena

Janie, Marianne, Dan 

Jessica, Tim, Deena, Dylan

Tom and Staley

Deena

Mark

Janie and Brian

Janie and Jeff

Deena and Tim

Every flag, a tree

Break time

Mark, Mark, Tim

Jeff with Bella 

Jess, Tim, Deena, Dylan, Mary chillin' after being out in the rain 

Lighting the stove

Nita 

And this is what we planted, thanks to Dan's initiative, foresight and passion to reforest the farm!

-         100 White Pines ( the long, soft needled pines)

-        75 Norway Spruce ( the other conifer with stubby branches)

-        100 Swamp White Oak

-        100 Burr Oak

-        75 Cherry

-        50 White Oak 

All of these are excellent habitat trees that will provide food and shelter for a multitude of critters and which are native to the area.

The plan is to try to protect the hardwoods with either plastic tubes or metal cages which will keep the deer hordes from crunching them down to the ground.  Without that protection, we would be lucky to get 10% of our trees to survive from the combined forces of deer, weather, mice girdling the trunk, rabbits eating the stems, natural causes. With the tubes or cages we can expect around 60% making it through the first 10 years.

May 24, 2013 If you plant, we'll take you to Bella's

Dan wants everything to be perfect for his Arbor Day weekend, including the partner prep day. What's the best way to get Deena and Marianne to work on the farm? Dinner reservations at Bella in downtown Mt. Carroll!

Our task for the day is planting our garden. Pumpkins, watermelon, cataloupe, kohlrabi and onions. Jeff mows the weeds and we're ready to plant in ground that is soft and easy to dig a hole in. We're hoping the clover Dan planted will overtake the weeds and surround the pumpkins, yielding a bountiful crop where last year there were none.

Dan snapped before we were ready for the camera. 

Looking pretty good after a day at the farm with no shower!

May 6 - 7, 2013 COVO Spring

So after the long winter away, we are back at the farm in early May. The calendar says spring, almost summer even, but the trees are slow in responding to the season. Like an impressionist painting, the leaves dot the branches with flecks of verdant green, pointing to the fullness yet to come.  Why are we surprised by the sluggishness of the midwestern spring? Fooled every year by our own memory that paints a different picture.

There were some nice surprises. 

The overabundant rain, which caused flooding in some areas, filled the ponds that were dredged 

last fall. 

The garlic overwintered well and is on its way to maturity. 

The best surprise of all, Dan and his friend Mark transformed interior wood from the old milking barn (the distant building in the photo above) into a gorgeous dining table. They're the ones who salvaged, cleaned and installed barn wood for the wainscotting last winter.

And then this curious bird, a turkey I believe,  appeared on the wall

The view from the top

We see the farmer preparing the fields for corn planting and the tree at the bottom of "stairway to heaven" is in full bloom. Summer can't be far away.