new year 2014

Pinochle

12.30.14
-1 degrees, Partially overcast
Dew point: -7 degrees
Humidity: 71%
Wind: NW @ 5 mph
Forecast: Clearing, cold

Dinner done.
Table cleared.
A deck of cards shuffled and spread out on the dinning room table.
Everyone picks a card. The people with the four lowest cards go into the kitchen. The six highest stay in the front room.
The evening Pinochle games have begun.
Night two finds Don & Bob in the kitchen. Not the lowest cards drawn, but in contention. Bruce & Michelle are the other team. The kitchen Pinochle table is pretty laid back. Although some ‘smack’ talk is traditional. Nothing over the top but it is necessary to let the opposing team know that they are not going to have a ‘cakewalk’ victory.
Bob: ‘We are going to loose!’
Don: ‘We’ll stay in the kitchen all night!’
Not quite the usual pregame smack talk, but at least it drew a line in the sand (snow).
Without looking back Don & i proceed to ‘bid’ with abandon. With hardly two cards in the same suit we consistently ran the bid up to 20, 22, 23…. Certainly not the strategy ‘real’ Pinochle players play.
But it worked.
We took the game and moved to the ‘big’ table and picked up a player….Marissa. Marissa goes to school with Austin. Both juniors at Calvin. It was her first time at the farm. All the high school and college folks stayed up until way past the New Year but claim they never heard the cows singing. We still have a fair number of cows at the farm. But no milk cows. Except for Millie, and Hilary just won’t sell her….i mean how can you sell family. Anyway no one was out to see if the cows were singing.
But just about everyone heard Don & Bob singing, well cackling actually, a sweet song of winning. The reckless bidding worked. We took the evening.
Next night we were teamed up again. We started again in the kitchen and with total abandon we began bidding.
Well sometimes the magic works….sometimes it doesn’t!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A note from yesterday’s turkey smoking
12.31.14
4 degrees, Overcast
Dew point: -4 degrees
Humidity: 63%
Wind: N @ 13 mph
Forecast: Clearing, cold

The diesel heater is full blast in the Quonset.
We’re smoking a turkey and this is as good a place to do it as any…..better than most. Indoors. No wind. Warm (at least by the heater). Comfortable chairs. Refrigerator full of end-of-the-year libation. Dogs on the floor. Cats on equipment.
With this temperature it is necessary to turn the smoker up for awhile then go back to smoking mode. The diesel heater helps keep the temperature around the smoker more normal….but this may (will) take all day. Of course there are no cows to milk. No field work to do. A day of telling stories about milking cows and cutting wheat.

 

Ya’ could be a lot worse ways to spend the last day of the year.

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t miss milking

12.31.14
-9 degrees, Partly Cloudy
Dew point: -14 degrees
Humidity: 65%
Wind: W @ 7 mph
Forecast: Clearing, cold

I don’t miss the cows.
Never thought i’d say that….but, times change.
As long as I’ve been coming to the farm milking regulated the rhythm of life. 4:30, morning and evening, someone needs to be getting ready to milk. Storms, blizzards, weddings, funerals, eating, everything revolves around milking.
This compulsory cadence imposed cohesion to all we did. Milking also provided fodder for speculation.
‘If we weren’t milking we could be inside drinking coffee.’
‘Hey, if we weren’t milking i’d be in bed, dreaming about drinking coffee!’

Bruce & Joyce are heading to Salina early this morning. Before they left Bruce & i put the turkey, for New Year’s Eve dinner, on the smoker. Bruce imparted some last minute wisdom about cooking and basting. He has a special Apple Pie Moonshine recipe. It’s actually pretty straight forward….a tablespoon for the turkey, a tablespoon for the cook. Bruce did pass along that this 1 to 1 ratio can be changed if the wind picks up or the temperature drops….1 to 2 or even 1 to 3.
It’s cold.
It’s really cold.
OK, we’ve got the clothes, boots, gloves, hats to stay warm….but it’s cold.
Two years ago right now, we’d be almost finished milking. We’d be cold to the bone. No one likes milking in this temperature.
The cows don’t like it.
The people don’t like it.
The machinery doesn’t like it.
The dogs don’t like it. Well actually the dogs didn’t really care because they would be laying on some blankets in the barn office. But the vast majority of folks at the farm don’t like milking at these temperatures. And today….
i’m finally at peace with the milk cows being gone. Now if i can just get the diesel space heater to work.

Bar’Riki & Max

12.30.14
4 degrees, Overcast
Dew point: -4 degrees
Humidity: 63%
Wind: N @ 13 mph
Forecast: Clearing, cold

Bar’Riki was born and raised in Kenya. Nairobi.
She has a certain sensibility with an overlay of British decorum.
Max was born and raised in the Midwest U.S. A wheat farm.
A straight shooting, if totally, in your face sort of dude.
When they come in together it is quite a scene. Especially on a snowy day. Especially on a 9-degree Fahrenheit, 25-mile per hour North wind snowy morning. With Max in the lead they were a whirlwind through the kitchen and into the living room. Sent people, chairs, cups and conversation flying.
‘Close the door.’
‘I’ll send Bariki to the music room.’
‘Somebody get Max into the laundry room.’
We’ve got new hardwood floors throughout and there is a generally agreed upon philosophy that shoes should be left at the backdoor. In the laundry room. The backdoor is, in practice, the ‘front’ door. When folks come to visit the farm they naturally drive up the drive into the ‘yard’. The ‘yard’ is actually a large gravel oblong area where all of the buildings, barn and Grandma’s house open. Everything, except Grandma’s house, actually faces the ‘yard’. So the backdoor is the main door. Don opened the back door and Max and Bar’Riki bounded in from the cold. They were so excited to be away from the cold they did not take time to wipe their feet.
Understandable….but inexcusable.
It may be a former Dairy farm but we do have some fairly high standards. And not, at the very least, wiping your feet when coming in is just not appropriate.
Having dogs running through the house is even more unacceptable. But Max saw the chance and took it. Bar’Riki, of course, followed, but at lease she looked embarrassed.