Over the last several weeks we have been happy to have some overnight visitors at our acreage. We have a hide a bed couch in the garage and a 5^th wheel trailer for guests to use, along with several air mattresses if they would rather stay in the house. All of them enjoyed the quiet and the faraway views out here.

I noticed recently I had not seen any of our ever-present rabbits since discovering the mangled corpse of one a few weeks ago. I was wondering if something was clearing them out when, of course, the very next night I spotted one run behind the machine shed.

I have been slowly winterizing around the place and putting away flower pots and tomato cages, mowers and chairs. It can be a bit of a melancholy chore, thinking about what is coming next. But on the bright side we planted some peony bulbs along the front yard that Shelly got from a friend, so we will be anticipating their blooming in the spring.

There is a very big yellow hunk of fungus on one of our largest trees, an ash that stands in the front yard. Shelly put out a photo and asked her online people what it was. Might be a sulfur shelf? Our own research says that is most likely what it is. This is good to know, but also bad news for us. This kind of fungus usually only appears on the exterior of a tree with much rot inside. A close examination of our ash tree revealed a large cavity facing south with a lot of rot inside.

We were sitting at the kitchen table looking out the west double windows and noticed a lot of bird activity. Eight to ten blue birds were flying around and drinking and dipping and washing in the puddles in our gravel driveway. We shortly identified them as a flock of blue jays, which none of us had seen in a large group before. They hung around and bathed, then were gone. We found out some blue jays migrate while others don’t.

Harvest started last month and is finally winding down in our area. As usual an amazing amount of dust and debris was kicked up and if there is no breeze it will hang in the air for hours. Add to that all the dust from our gravel road created by coming and going farm equipment and it has been a pretty dirty fall so far.

Our well has been repaired (broken impellers) and the new overhead door for the machine shed installed. It took two and a half months to get the door because of back ordered parts. Our situation with broken supply chains is occurring worldwide. I was visiting with a lady who told me she placed an order for replacement windows for her house in June and was told not to expect them until November. A few weeks ago I heard an unfamiliar call from up in the trees on the acreage and spotted two larger than average birds, both sporting a dash of red and white. It took a few days of observation while out and about until I finally was able to get a good enough look to identify two pileated woodpeckers. They stuck around for close to three weeks and seemed to be bickering with each other, not mating. Then they were gone. In early August we noticed all of the robins were gone, and they remain so. We have had about the usual amount of fireflies drifting about and dragonflies buzzing around but very few monarch butterflies and no painted ladies. We have a few toads again this year, with a new addition: tiny frogs, about the size of a penny. When walking through the grass they will leap out of the way, jumping up to two feet at a time, while the toads will just sit and watch you pass by.

Over the last few weeks we have been visited by crop dusters spraying the fields surrounding our acreage. They, of course, fly very low when spraying and it is a little disconcerting to look out the living room window and see a plane roaring past the house at 100 mph just above the corn field across the road. When spraying the other fields that surround our acreage they looked like they would crash into our house until at the last second they pulled just above the tree line and over our property, then do it again and again. I really came to admire the skill of those pilots. Recently I spied some noxious looking weeds growing in the area where our fire ring is located. They were about two feet tall with greenish yellow buds growing close to the main stem. Since we had a fire going at the time I used the pruning shears to cut them down then toss them in the flames. Immediately my hand and arm began to itch so I hurried up to the house and washed off with soap and water for several minutes. That took care of most of it but now, a couple of weeks later, I still have a lingering rash on my arm. I have committed what those weeds looked like to memory in case of future encounters. So far this year our problems have included a leaking roof, our oven quit working, the overhead door on the machine shed broke in the open position (we can’t close it because the tracks are bent) and now either our well keeps running dry or there is a problem with the pump. It was determined the roof was leaking around the chimney, which was patched for free but came with a quote to take the chimney off. We are still deciding whether to fix the old stove or buy a new one. A new overhead door was ordered the first of June and we are still waiting for it to arrive. The door company says the supply chains with their vendors are backlogged. I have to keep knocking down bird nests inside and chasing critters out. We can get just enough water to flush the toilet and fill a few jugs before it turns off again. The well man should be out again next week. All of us have problems but out in here in the country they can take on a little different flavor than we were used to in the city.

Late spring and early summer a heat wave came through and now it is cooler but rainy. It has been good for the grass, weeds and garden (not to mention the corn fields that surround us) but has put a stop to burning the fallen brush and branches we accumulated over the winter. One thing that has not stopped around the place is birds mating, eggs hatching and chicks squeaking for food. This is our fourth summer out here and there are more birds than during the previous three. The majority are robins, followed by finches, swallows, a couple of mourning doves, thrashers and a humming bird I recently spotted visiting the hollyhocks. Not on our acreage but in the ditches along our road we see (and hear) beautiful pheasants strutting and calling. Dragonflies of many sizes and colors zip around, then hover and cavort with with each other, and are gone again. Come sundown the fireflies slowly begin to light up and seem to vanish and reappear at different places. The corn is now so high (over seven feet tall) that you can only see a few dozen fireflies at a time against the green walls surrounding us, but when on a higher position (such as the back porch) you can look out over the fields and see thousands of greenish-yellow lights blinking in the summer darkness.

We have seen more deer around us in the fields this spring than during previous years. When we lived in the city they would come up from the river valley in the winter to eat the acorns on the lawns and at night they would walk right down the middle of the street. Out here there is not much cover for them until the corn grows high enough during the summer. That rabbit that Dean shot on Mothers Day must have just had time to do his duty before he bought it because there are at least four little bunnies hopping around the place now. The dogs tear after them, and Steve almost caught one the other day that had run into a dead end but at the last moment it turned and ran right past Steve, who was slowing down to turn and was caught off guard. Marley, our 13 year old lab, is still in the game and brings up the rear huffing and puffing with her bow legs galloping as fast as she can move them. We were walking around the acreage the other day when the dogs stopped ahead of me sniffing around very intently. Usually when this happens they have found something dead or poop, and as I got closer I could see it was an adult rabbit, maybe the mama. The curious thing was the head was gone, the backbone was half pulled out and the pelt was hollow but intact. Whatever creature did this had somehow removed almost everything inside without tearing through the skin of the body, with the exception of the missing head. We spotted a groundhog waddling down the drive a couple of weeks ago but thankfully have not seen it again. Because of the dry spring the lilacs barely flowered at all, but we are keeping the flowers around the house well watered and most of them are thriving, as is the garden. We have two chairs outside of the garage facing the west and every day we sit there we notice the fast growing corn covering up more and more of our view.

Photo: Steve (left) and Marley on Bunny Patrol

It has been a dry spring so far this year and that seems to have slowed down the blooming period for the flowers on the ground and flowering trees. We finally got almost two inches of rain during a 24 hour period a few days ago, which seemed to help. At the beginning of the month I noticed several turkey vultures soaring past our place, not circling but flying in a straight line north. I mentioned that to my dad and he said they were probably migrating. That was my lesson of the day because I had never seen them migrate and did not even know that they migrated. On Mothers Day our kids and their kids came out to the acreage to celebrate. The ladies went into town before lunch to do some shopping and have coffee, which left us boys sitting around outside talking and enjoying the warm morning. A couple of times the dogs took off chasing rabbits and Dean, our oldest grandson at 10, asked if he could shoot a rabbit. I said sure, and his dad Jesse told him if he got one he had to eat it. Dean said okay, grabbed his BB gun and was off. We were thinking nothing would come of it when not five minutes passed before he returned with a dead rabbit, a clean kill through the neck. Jesse proceeded to clean it in the grass, describing to the boys what he was doing and why and answering their questions. About an hour later there was rabbit on the grill next to the steaks and chicken, and true to his word Dean ate some. Later on he and I did some practice shooting at cans and sure enough he is a pretty good shot. Maybe this could become a family tradition, at least until we run out of rabbits.

For the last few weeks we have been engaged in the usual spring ritual of raking, stick picking and sawing up branches around the place. Between the ice storm last November, winter blizzards and windy days we have probably the most tree debris to clean up since we moved out here. One of the first times we walked around the acreage we counted 130 trees, most of them graceful, beautiful but frail white willows. Not the ideal tree for a windy environment. During Easter weekend we had both kids and their families out to celebrate, and our daughter brought her little Jackshund, Colt, not yet a year old. Our oldest dog, Marley, at 13 years old, has lost most of her will to play so was not very interested. Steve, our other dog, at 10 still has a little gas in the tank and so he and Colt went around the acreage together. After some time we realized we had not seen the two for awhile, and called and called for them. They had disappeared. Several of us got into two separate cars and went in opposite directions looking for them. During a pause in the search a van drove up and out hopped Steve. The driver said he found him in the grassy median of four lane Highway 20 looking scared and confused. When he opened the side door Steve jumped right in. He drove around asking neighbors if they knew the dog and someone said he belonged to us. We asked about Colt but he said only Steve was in the median. Now we had an idea what area to search and we did so, scanning the empty farm fields, driving Hwy 20, looking in culverts and ditches. No sign of him. We agreed that the young and inexperienced Colt was the one to wander off the acreage, with Steve following, because neither of our dogs will leave without one of us. For a few days after Steve stayed by our sides, lost his appetite and was spooked and skittish. There is still no sign of poor little Colt.

A warm beginning to March was chased in by a very cold February. Finally the temperatures drifted above freezing, and then higher. As the days went by the snow, which had been around since December, began to shrink. The snow banks grew smaller and the dark soil of the farm fields emerged. After the first week of March the snow covering the ground all around us was almost gone. The first storms in November had spread around a coating of soil that had blown off of the fields before they froze. Now that all the snow has melted there is a dirty layer covering everything, waiting for the spring rains to wash it off and soak it down. Within the first few days of March the birds began to return to the acreage, including multiple robins. The geese in their V formations are soaring back north, and closer to the ground the flies are buzzing around. Our dogs don’t really seem to care what season it is most of the time, as they roll on the ground as much as on the snow, and will eat anything they find most anytime. Of course as soon as I write about the coming Spring the National Weather Service has issued a a Winter Storm Warning for overnight and into tomorrow. I guess those lilac buds will have to wait a little longer to open up.

Here in Iowa, like most of the rest of the country, we are currently locked into a polar vortex that is producing low temperatures of double digits below zero and highs of single digits above zero, sometimes not even reaching above zero. There has been steady snow to go with the cold out here on the acreage, along with the accompanying winds that turn a couple inches of snowfall into two foot high drifts around the outbuildings and across the driveway. Both the house and shop propane tanks were filled at the end of December and are now at 50%. I worry about how often the furnace keeps kicking on, day and night, if it is wearing out. Thankfully our tractor, outfitted with a snow thrower, continues to start and keep us dug out. It is an old John Deere 420 that I encourage before trying to start it, pleading with it, “Come on old girl,” then praising it when we are done and back in the machine shed and I am brushing the snow off of it, “Good job old girl.” The dogs always come out with me, to look for bunnies in the shed when I open the door, then to run around the yard and on top of the hard packed snow drifts while I am clearing the snow. When the job is done they are ready to come back in with me, all three of us cold and snowy, looking for warmth and comfort. Today, Valentines Day, the high temperature here was -7.