weekend

On my way home Friday I stopped at the entrance to the property to take this picture of Tim's scarecrow and pumpkin display. Hooray for Tim, Steve's brother, for this annual decoration. We live at the very end of a road through some old, then some new, subdivisions. You start seeing "Dead End" signs several blocks before you reach our gravel drive. I'm thinking no Trick-or-Treaters will make it out this far. Now and then some couple of young family wander back, and you see them pointing at the houses and trying to figure things out, all the while knowing this is clearly private property and they will have to scram when someone makes an appearance.

I also wanted to take a picture of this path through the cornfield. We lease two small fields to a neighboring farmer. This year one was fallow, and the other was in field corn. Field corn is nothing like sweet corn. It must be more drought-resistant, for one thing. Most of the fields around here are planted in it. It stil needs lots of water, and in fact for the three summers I've been here, the first two years the corn failed to germinate because June and July have been too dry. This is the first year there's been actual corn on the stalks. Field corn just sits out there until, well, mid-October, drying and seasoning, before it's harvested. So our corn field has been yellowing and drying and looking very happily fall-like. And then a week ago a single path was harvested through it, leaving this cool opening.

Good thing I took the picture on Friday afternoon, because Friday evening the combine showed up. It harvested late into the night, and in the morning was sitting right outside our bedroom window. They finished the harvest on Saturday. (yes, this is ANOTHER pond. The one in our backyard, which irrigates the vegetable gardens. When the water shortage comes, Minnesota will be sitting pretty-- there are 11,000 lakes in the state, and pretty much anywhere you dig, water comes up. We have three pond here, and the wetlands...)

There are so many things I want to write about-- including the play we saw last night-- but I'm pretty tired. I hope to write a few "essays" this week, so keep checking in. Meanwhile, enjoy the photos!