Living the Country Life

Betsy's Backyard Blog

Betsy Freese is the editor-in-chief of Living the Country Life and executive editor of Successful Farming. She grew up on a fruit farm in Maryland (see www.strawberryfarm.com) and moved to the Midwest to get an agricultural journalism degree from Iowa State University. She and her husband, Bob, a veterinarian, have three children and own a farm where they raise sheep, hay, corn, and soybeans. 

November 5, 2012

My vacation with Sandy

Bob and I flew to Maryland last week to spend time with family and friends. Hurricane Sandy showed up while we there, but she didn't ruin the party. Mom and Dad's old farmhouse started to shake from the storm on Sunday night and by Monday the rain was coming in sheets, the porch roof was leaking, and the wind was roaring in gusts. This got stronger as the day went on, until about 9:00 that night when the center of the storm passed over the farm. We had two hours of eerie stillness and then the bands of winds were back, this time knocking out power. Just as I was settling in by the gas fireplace for a day of quiet, the power came back on. That's when we started to see the news reports of horrible destruction to the Jersey shore and New York area. God bless everyone still suffering through the aftermath. We are back in Iowa now, where the weather was beautiful while we were gone.

Dad's sudan grass maze before the storm.

After Sandy.

 

October 26, 2012

Our "neat red barn" makes LA Times

I'm not sure if the writer thought our barn was neat, as in tidy, or neat, as in appealing, or both, but our barn made the Los Angeles Times yesterday. You can read the story here. (Ignore the politics, if you like.) It is a decent reflection of our town and the citizens. I guess we sit in the center of the political universe.

The paragraph that describes our farm is this one:

The vista heading toward Des Moines is particularly telling: a tall, sky-blue water tower, "Indianola" emblazoned across the tank's width. A neat red barn in a stand of trees losing leaves with the approach of winter. And the new YMCA, a crane looming over unfinished walls, with opening day nine months or so in the future.

Bob was surprised the writer didn't mention the giant compost pile beside the neat barn. That could have made a nice segue to politics.

October 25, 2012

Milk cats

Nobody works harder than a dairy farmer. Bob was called out yesterday to treat a cow at Jim Schimelfenig's farm. Jim is one of only three dairy farmers left in our county. I'm not sure how many cows he owns, but he milks about 30 cats.

Bob also took a photo of Jim's best cow, Betsy. I may use this as my new column portrait.

October 23, 2012

Burn it

Bob and I were driving across central Iowa on Sunday when we came across this house burning. Firetrucks were in the yard and no sirens were screaming, so it appeared to be a scheduled fire. Bob's dad knew the acreage and said a neighboring farmer had bought the property recently. He wasn't interested in the rental house, just wanted the farm land, so probably had the place burned. Seems a waste. I guess prime Iowa land is worth more than a house in this economy.

 

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October 22, 2012

Virus killing deer

A neighboring farmer reported $1,000 worth of tire damage to his combine last week when he ran over a huge rack from a dead buck while harvesting corn. Other farmers are finding bones and carcasses in their combine heads. 

Deer are dropping like flies -- from flies -- the midge fly. This small, biting insect congregates near water spots where deer drink and infects them with epizootic hemorrhagic disease and the bluetongue virus. Both diseases are closely related and have similar clinical signs.

Some deer die of these diseases each fall, but the drought this year is making it much worse because there are fewer water spots. Middle River in Iowa, which flows behind our crop farm, is barely trickling.

Most deer infected die within a few days. Symptoms include fever, salivation, swollen neck/tongue/eyelids, and reduced activity. Because sick deer are feverish, they are often found near water.

If you find a dead deer, report it to your local conservation office.

For more information, here is a good report: http://mdc.mo.gov/newsroom/disease-biting-midge-flies-causing-deer-deaths-around-state

October 19, 2012

Rebuilding together

Yesterday I helped put together picnic tables and plant bushes in a park in the old Italian neighborhood of Des Moines as part of Rebuilding Together.

Jodi Henke (below), radio editor for Living the Country Life, and I worked as a team to dig and plant. We knew enough to wear chore boots in the cold rain. Jodi also wore her fishing gear.

If you have a chance to participate in a Rebuilding Together project in your neighborhood, consider joining the fun!

 

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October 17, 2012

Dam trees gone

You do not want trees on your pond dam. I've written about it and recorded radio shows on the topic, but never actually followed through on my own pond. Tree roots can destroy the structure of dams and cause leaks. You can see from the first photo that we had a lot of trees on our dam. Not now. A bulldozer popped them out yesterday. It looks very barren and almost sad down there, but it's for the best. We still have wildlife habitat on three sides of the pond.

BEFORE (Bob was teaching Caroline how to drive, so this was about four years ago)

AFTER

AFTER (looking west, with our barn on the hill)

Pond overflow on south side of dam. We cleared the brush and added rock.

October 16, 2012

Clearing land

It pains me to see trees uprooted and bulldozers clearing land, but sometimes it has to be. The area behind our pond had been so densely overgrown in the past 25 years that we had no fence back there. Never needed one. The sheep didn't venture back there -- it was marshy with nothing easy to graze.

But then came the drought of 2012. Our pasture dried up and the ewes went searching for green last week, walking through the dry underbrush behind the pond (no marsh this year) and up into a new housing development. They found a backyard that had been well watered and set up camp. We got them back in, locked them in a smaller paddock near the barn, and called Vanderpool Construction. Bring the dozers.

I took these photos at dusk last night. In the second one you can see the overflow pipe from the pond. Dry as a bone. This is the year to clear brush and build fence.

October 15, 2012

Do you hunt?

Do you hunt? I don't, but I have family and friends who do. Deer, pheasant, and wild turkeys are popular targets in Iowa. I grew up in Maryland where duck hunting on the Chesapeake Bay was popular. My grandfather Johnson shot bear in Maine.

I didn't think many Living the Country Life readers were hunters, but I posted the question on Facebook and got lots of response from readers who enjoy hunting deer, turkeys, big game, even moose. However, most of our audience would rather shoot photos of wildlife.

This is Kelly Whipps of Dike, Iowa, with her first deer ever -- shot yesterday during early muzzleloader season.

 

October 12, 2012

Caroline and college

For years, this blog was full of my teenage daughter, Caroline, probably too full for many readers. That girl again?! Caroline went off to college in August and I've been trying to respect her privacy as an adult, and not be a Helicopter Mom. Everything seems to be going well. She lives in the same dorm (by accident) where Bob and I lived and met 30 years ago. The steps of that building are seared into my brain because I walked up and down them so many times as a freshman and sophomore. Dorm life suits her well, and she has made close friends. She joined the college's boxing club and works with a trainer three nights a week. Now she is talking about sparring in matches. I don't like that idea (her face, teeth, and brain, dear God!). But she will make up her own mind. She's not on the farm throwing hay bales or wrestling sheep, so she needs to use her muscles.

Here is a photo she posted today from the dorm lobby (Caroline is on the right). I looked at it and realized, Hey, that's my jacket! I think those are my jeans, too.

You go, girl.

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