Happy Holidays from Green Acres!

I have received a lot of comparisons to Green Acres since I started my blog. For those of you who missed this 1960’s sit com, this series featured a successful New York lawyer who gives up the rat race to fulfill his dream: living the life of the traditional American farmer. Fighting the move to rural life is his glamorous, boa-wearing, city-loving wife. While I didn’t grow up in a large metropolitan area, it would be fair to say that I moved to the country with some reluctance. After several months of absurd adventures, I decided to start my blog to share these adventures with others.

It is hard to imagine that we have lived in rural Iowa for over two years now, and I’m happy to report that we are still alive and facing each new challenge with a laugh and our trusty Kubota. I have received so many comparisons to the old T.V. show Green Acres that I was determined to take a similar photo for our holiday letter. Unfortunately, it is a lot harder to borrow a pig than you would think. So here is my “slightly retouched” version.

Our year has been filled with adventures and misadventures as we continue to adapt to country living. As I look over my blog and remember our attempts to tame nature, bouts of poison ivy, bon fires, grass fires (oops!), tree trimming, tree falling (oops!), tree not falling (strong expletive!), cutting grass and removing snow, I am amazed that we have escaped serious injury. Dealing with the moles, chipmunks, raccoons, deer, and other wildlife has become a science experiment involving chemicals, weapons and my trusty camera. (If you can’t shoot it, shoot a photo of it!)

We are hoping that this Christmas proves more peaceful than last Christmas when the septic system backed up and we spent the majority of the day digging our daughter’s car out of a snow drift that it landed in when my husband tried to pull her up the icy driveway. I invite you to follow our crazy antics on my blog as we continue to adapt to country living. Happy holidays to all.

Theme song from Green Acres

Green acres is the place for me.
Farm livin' is the life for me.
Land spreadin' out so far and wide
Keep Manhattan, just give me that countryside.

New York is where I'd rather stay.
I get allergic smelling hay.
I just adore a penthouse view.
Dah-ling I love you but give me Park Avenue.

...The chores.
...The stores.
...Fresh air.
...Times Square

You are my wife.
Good bye, city life.
Green Acres we are there.

Saga of Snow Fences

We need a snow fence. We know this because everyone who comes up to our house for the first time, asks us if we use a snow fence. Being the clever souls that we are, we recognize that we need help, so we Googled "snow fence installation" and gathered a wealth of information. Things like:


"A drift can spread as far as 35 times the height of the fence. Therefore, the fence must be at least that far from the roadway and the distance may be farther because of irregular terrain. Also build the fence longer than the area that needs to be protected. Add 20 times the height of the fence on each end to account for wind variation." Math stuff hard!  The most daunting bit of information is the statement "proper installation of the snow fence is critical to its success." Hmmm.

Friday - Installation of the first snow fence. Posts, check. Fence, check. Zip ties, check. Printed instructions from the DOT, check, calculator, measuring instrument, bottle of vodka, check. We have determined that the snow fence needs to be 120' from the driveway. 120' is a long way. We decide to go 80'. We install the posts and tie the fence to them, noting that the wind is very strong here, making it difficult to stretch the fence and hold it taut. When we are finished, we note that our straight line is more of a zig, zag, rather than straight. It doesn't look very taut, and we are out of zip ties. Also, the posts look too short. A trip to the hardware store is needed.

Saturday - Installation of second snow fence. This time, we set the posts first, making sure they are in a straight line. THEN we attach the fence, using a few more posts and a few more zip ties. We are so proud. The fence looks straight and taut.

Tuesday - Huge wind storm. Snow fence #2 blows over. Damn it! Are you kidding me???

Thursday - Setting posts with an attitude and a vengeance. More zip ties.

Winter just 36 days away -- I checked on Google!

When life hands you ashes . . . cook wieners!

We had a terrible storm hit our county in July with winds over 130 mph. The storm caused tremendous damage throughout the county with the loss of thousands and thousands of trees, and over 400 telephone poles had to be replaced. Unfortunately, our property was not spared. We lost close to 40 trees. Some were simply blown over, while others snapped 20’ off the ground. There was debris surrounding our house and all over our 14 acres. Fortunately, our home and workshop were spared.


With the help of friends, we were able to clean up the downed trees near the house, and Gene and I have been cutting up one or two trees each weekend trying to clear the rest of the yard. It felt like we were on a treadmill going nowhere. The more we cut, the more trees there appeared to be. And then I found Dean. For the past month, this wonderful man has been helping trim trees and stack firewood. He even rented a 60’ lift to get the dangerous hanging limbs out of the tops of trees. I have felt like I was playing Russian roulette all summer long as I have mowed under these hanging branches, just waiting to be decapitated.

To say that we have created a large burn pile is the master of understatements. The burn pile has grown to 30’ X 20’ X 8’ tall. And I have been patiently waiting for the farmer to harvest the soy bean field that abuts our property. (Okay, I wasn’t patient, but I didn’t want to set fire to his crop and have the entire area talking about me!) And then came our chance . . . a nice, calm weekend day to light this puppy up and get rid of it.

I celebrated as we set fire to one corner of the pile. Had it been up to me, I would have started fires on all four sides, but Mr. Safety Conscious, my husband, suggested that the pile might be too big to handle and we should start small. My celebration lasted about five minutes until the fire lit up all the leaves and we had a serious fire on our hands. I prayed we would not set the neighbors forest on fire. I suspect that is a good way to lose friends.

Three hours after the initial lighting the torch ceremony, the fire appeared to be under control, and we were starting to get hungry. Now this is where being creative and impulsive is a good thing. I suggested that the fire coals were just about perfect for a barbecue. After all, if life hands you ashes, shouldn’t you cook wieners? Gene fabricated a wiener roaster out of a coat hanger. He seemed to think we shouldn’t use the painted hangers in case they were toxic. Always thinking, isn’t he? Just for good measure, I wrapped 4 potatoes in foil and threw them in the ashes. Next time, I will be a little less impulsive in tossing them just anywhere. They can be a bear to find later. We used the Kubota tailgate as an impromptu table. And sat out and enjoyed our lunch while monitoring the fire. This is the life!

750 wieners and 93 packages of buns later, and I still can’t get the buns to equal the same amount of wieners!

Tree Trimming

Do you think it is rude to supervise the tree trimmer?  I'm sitting in my lawn chair with a book, a camera, and a beer.  I think it is important that someone is available in case there is a disaster!

Friday Night Lights

One of the great things about living in the country is that you can burn brush and debris and not have to bundle it for the landfill. One of the bad things about living in the country is that you can burn brush even if you aren’t a qualified fire fighter.

We have had a tree trimmer out for the past couple of weeks taking down dead limbs from a summer storm. Our brush piles have grown to the size of two story buildings with no relief in sight. The trimmer asked if he could start burning some of the piles while he was working so that he could supervise them and make sure they didn’t get out of hand. The winds have been quite still and he is making a dent in all of the piles of debris. He seems to have some experience or training in brush burning, because he builds small, 3-foot piles and adds to them as the day goes by. (My approach would be to set the entire thing on fire and stand by with a small garden hose.) At the end of each day, I would go out and fuss with the embers to make sure they were out or sufficiently banked for the night.

On Friday, the breeze had picked up, so we made the decision not to burn. About 8:00 pm, I walked by the kitchen window and saw flames shooting into the air on the far side of the drive. I yelled, “Fire!” and my husband flew out of his recliner and raced to the window. Dolly dog started barking, and I knocked things off the counter in my haste to run to my shoes. With a quick, “Dolly stay!” I grabbed my cell phone as my husband grabed the keys to the truck along with a shovel (I guess we were going to beat it to death).

My heart was racing as I think that we have set an entire field on fire. I quickly called my neighbor as they could be trapped if the fire crossed their driveway, and I asked my husband if I should call 911. He suggested that I wait until we could see what was going on first (God bless him). As we backed out of the garage and looked toward the field, we realized the fire wasn’t where we thought it was.

It turns out that our new neighbor had built a bon fire two stories tall to invite the local high school football team and fans out to celebrate a football rivalry. His driveway is lined with tiki torches and half the town was invited. This gives a whole new meaning to Friday night lights!

Since I have mobilized neighbors who have called neighbors who have called . . . well you get the idea, I now have to start making calls that explain what is going on. I seem to be having a little problem with fire out here.

Poison Ivy

Why is it that when you see photos of people with poison ivy they are always smiling? There is nothing funny about poison ivy! After a recent wind storm, we were clearing trees, and it would seem that some of them were covered in poison ivy. Unfortunately, I only found out the hard way. I wore gloves and washed my hands and arms when I went inside, but four days later, I broke out in a rash on my face and arms, then small blisters appeared . . . and then the itching started. We are talking itching on a scale that you can't imagine. Then the poison ivy spread to my ankle, my knee, and so on.

Once I realized that I had poison ivy, I started searching for images online so that I could identify this noxious weed in the future. "Leaves of three, let me be," seems to be the best description out there. But raspberry bushes have three leaves and I know they aren't poison ivy. So now I'm spraying weed killer on anything that remotely looks like it has three leaves. You can hear me outside mumbling “One, two, three” spray, “One two, three,” spray. And now I'm afraid to go near the wood pile. I know there must be poison ivy there somewhere, because I keep breaking out. But after four days, who can remember everywhere they have been?

I love my sister’s comment after listening to me whine about the poison ivy. “Use your head girl. Move the woodpile!”

Things I've learned:

•  Lots of plants have three leaves.
• You can only stack firewood so high before it falls over. It must be a physics thing.
• People will post the strangest photos online.
• Nothing stops the itching. 
• You can get scars from poison ivy.
• Home remedies only involve how to wash it off once you know you have been in it. Not how to stop it from spreading and itching. 
• I'm buying stock in Dawn dishwashing detergent 
• Showering in Dawn dishwashing detergent creates a LOT of bubbles.

And my favorite news release:

FORESTVILLE, Calif. — They're kicking off the Poison Oak Festival here along the Russian River this weekend, complete with an itchy queen and guideless tours of select patches of poison oak. “What we really want to do is pay tribute from a respectable distance," Forestville Chamber of Commerce spokeswoman Nancy Wallace said Friday.

Other rhymes about poison ivy that make me laugh:

1.  "Longer middle stem; stay away from them.
2.  "Hairy vine, no friend of mine."[5] Poison ivy vines are very poisonous.
3.  "Raggy rope, don't be a dope!"  
4.  "One, two, three? Don't touch me."
5.  "Berries white, run in fright"
6.  "Red leaflets in the spring, it's a dangerous thing."
7.  "Side leaflets like mittens, will itch like the dickens."
8.  "If butterflies land there, don't put your hand there."  
9.  "If it's got hair, it won't be fair."

Hey, Hey, Hay!

I have spent three delightful days being entertained by the neighbor farmer as he harvests hay on the acreage next to us. I sit with a beer in hand, and my trusty camera to record the progress as he works in the July heat and humidity. Harvesting hay seems to be a multi stage process that requires dusty work, patience and big boy toys. I am short on all three, so the best thing I can do is stay out of the way and document his progress.

Day 1: The farmer shows up with a new cutting tool attached to his big red tractor. I was fascinated to watch as this cutter could be swung out to the side, making it easy to get around obstacles. It was easy to track his progress because a big cloud of dust followed as he cut the hay – which looks like a big field of weeds if you ask me. Near the end of the day, the farmer left and I pondered how he was going to collect this mess into bales.

Day 2: I’m finishing my morning coffee when I see a tractor followed by a cloud of dust out in the field. Time to gear up and hit the lawn chair with my camera. It is too early for a beer, so I sit with my coffee and trust Dolly Dog at my side as we watch an odd machine gather the hay and flip it into rows that are called windrows (I know this because I looked it up on the internet!) It is a funny little machine, and I have no idea how it works, but having the hay in rows offers an excellent photo opportunity.

Day 3: As I drive up the driveway, I see a suspicious cloud of dust out in the field again. Sure enough, the farmer is collecting the hay into bales. Now we are talking! This is an amusing process of driving up and down the windrows in some pattern that only the farmer understands. At some point, the baler is full and the tractor pauses and gives birth to a round bale of hay. I kid you not, there is a pause, a grunt and then the back end opens up and spits out a bale of hay.

The bales are round and since we live on a hill I found myself wondering what prevents the bales from rolling downhill. I soon got my answer . . . absolutely nothing! No sooner had the thought crossed my mind when one of the bales started rolling downhill and out of sight. I had visions of a bale of hay going over the edge of the quarry and into the water. Does hay float?

My husband drove up a few minutes later and asked what I was doing. “Supervising,” I reply. “Grab a beer and come watch.”

Dolly supervises hay baling.