July 2022 – Summer Blooms, Bounty & Dreams

July 2022 here in Minnesota was just perfect. I can’t describe it any other way honestly it is the weather example of why we’re willing to put up with -40 degree temps in the winter. Ideally though, of course, we do kind of hope to be able to hop out of here to skip the worst of the winter months someday but that’s a long time off! Meanwhile I feel like this summer is really trying to make up for last year’s summer though we did have a cold, late spring. Minnesota is forgiven in my book though as July and June 2022 were absolutely gorgeous.

Last year so much of the Midwest and Canada was on fire.

It would not rain.

It was hot beyond belief. We were hitting records almost daily!

It was the first year I’ve lived here at Grandma’s house that not only did we need an air conditioner but we needed two!

Fortunately, with normal summer temps, a tiny air conditioner cooling off our bedroom is all that we’ve needed and really could have survived without it. Evenings, after work, we’ve been outside trying to enjoy every second of it.

It took a bit for us to recover from the wedding and honeymoon…

I was getting a little worried about me…

We didn’t have a big wedding but it was a TON to plan and was our total focus (and crazy freaky worry) for weeks leading up to it. And the stress really got to us both… to say we were impossible to live with and just plain obnoxious may be the understatement of the year.

It was incredibly worth it.

July 2022 I am officially feeling like myself again!

The level of mental fatigue we both had was a very real thing. I wanted nothing. I wanted to do nothing. I wanted to think about nothing. It was all I could do to drag myself to my day job… it was weird and not like me.

I mentioned it to my day job boss and she gave me a talking to, “You just went through one of the biggest stressful days of your entire life! Give yourself a break!”

One thing we got totally right was that we didn’t just start planning the wedding and honeymoon months before, we also started paying for it too. So, I’m thrilled to say, we’re not more than a few weeks off from having it all paid off too.

It wasn’t a big wedding or a long honeymoon but my gosh do things add up.

(Especially nowadays it seems.)

I saw a meme on Facebook, “There’s like a $300 cover charge just to leave the house anymore.“

Lodi tackled the yard this July 2022 like an avenger and even took on the huge job of our horse pasture.

Because of the drought last year the grass didn’t stand a chance against the stink weed and thistles.

Lodi bought a much bigger weed whipper (a brush hog actually) that doesn’t use string but plastic blades as there was no way you can just use a riding lawn mower over seven foot tall thistles.

After getting it all down with the brush hog he then proceeded to mulch and mow it several times over several weeks.

He even weed whipped every fence post, tree and building… That man has left me speechless.

I am so proud of and impressed by him.

OUR PLACE LOOKS LIKE A PARK!

He even went out back and started mowing what we call our grove.

Its a little clearing, totally surrounded but thick woods that makes you feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere even though you’re only about twenty feet from the drive.

Its a tiny paradise… or it COULD be.

Lodi is working on a permanent camping spot that we are really excited about. With a load of decent dirt we would create a little level area for a picnic table, fire pit and full height canvas tent, surrounded by mowed grass and then deep woods on all sides.

We could even add an outhouse and rent it out in future summers…

So talking about the “future” I was already bursting out of our workshop even before Lodi moved in. With the inclusion of his tools now it just feels silly…

In fact it almost feels like we’re trying to create a workshop in a bedroom in our house… Oh right that’s exactly what we’re doing!

And in the winters our workshop gets even smaller because we have to bring in our chainsaws and any tool batteries so they don’t explode in the cold.

So (really dreaming here) but a 12×24 steel building on a cement slab that is heated to at least stay above freezing all year would be just incredible for us. It would even give us our entryway back where my desk currently is now.

The bare bones building is around $5,000 right now from Menards including a side door and garage door on one end.

Of course we would still have to pour the slab, build it, add windows, electrical and insulation…

It would get all of our yard tools out of the garage and all of our tools out of the house. It would also provide a home for opur ATV as well as both of our mowers, chain saws, weed whippers etc.

It would give me a real place to work!

OMG a real workshop!

We would put it where our little wood shed is now (right in our backyard) and add a three foot roof overhang to give us a spot to stack wood for our fire pit too.

It would give us SO much:

• Give us our entryway back from where my “office” is now.
• Give us over 1/3rd of our garage back.
• Give us a whole other room in the house.
• Give us a new wood shed.
• Give us a real workshop.
• I could go on and on… Ok I’m going to.

With where the blog is heading I really am going to need an office and getting that room in the house back would be ideal. It would also provide another place for guests to sleep and a place for gaming as well.

CONFESSION: We play a lot of Fortnite

Like so many kids of my generation (I was born in 1986) I’ve been a gamer since I could hold a controller and then moved on to the PC when I was a teenager.

Some of my very best memories as a kid are of my mom, dad, brother and me playing Nintendo together… I became a loner gamer as I got older playing city building games and RPGs on my PC just for fun after work sometimes.

I never would have played Fortnite on my own volition..

But it was my 70 year old Dad’s insistence!

So Lodi and I play Fortnite with my dad and several of our nieces, nephews and friends and it is absolutely wonderful to be able to spend so much time with so many of the people we love!

We all have the gamer headphones and microphones lol.

Listening to my nine year old nephew directing my dad around so he doesn’t die while all the time yelling, “Grandpa behind you!” Is just total hilarity.

The kids are, of course, much better at it than we are but I was never much of a first person shooter and, to be fair, they have quite a bit more time in their lives to practice than we do.

We set Lodi up with his gaming system in the guest bedroom which is working fine as we always planned on having a TV in there for guests anyway but it just isn’t ideal.

I need an office anyway and that bedroom (currently our workshop) is plenty big enough to set it up for gaming as well.

So, shooting for the moon with this day dream but I think getting a heated shop is achievable for us maybe next year!

And the benefits just go on and on that I absolutely need to stop myself at this point and get focused back on current projects lol.

(It sure is mentally nice though to have something so awesome to look forward too.)

On a smaller scale (and something we’ve already been working on) is the bunk house we want to create out of an old well building on the property. We covered the roof with steel last year and house wrapped it and I think we have enough leftover siding to cover it too.

Its not more than 10×10 but the plan is to build in bunk beds and create a small seating area besides.

FUN!

July 2022 our farm burst to life!

I have a post coming out all about our early summer gardens before the blooming you see here and another blog post about our loss of a giant Oak this year.

(My only complaint about this summer is we got hit by some nasty storms early on.)

We also had a bear visit us and take out all of our bird feeders so we didn’t get to feed the birds for a couple of weeks until he moved on. Annoying but not uncommon around here though they usually skip us because of our horse and dog.

Our rescue squirrel is growing up and doesn’t want much to do with us anymore which is a good thing. He’s finally hanging out with another squirrel which took weeks for him to build up to. We could always recognize him for coming in alone to eat when no one (not even chipmunks) were at the feeders.

But his caution was certainly a good thing until he got bigger!

July 2022 Our garden is finally paying off.

After having a vegetable garden here for five years I think I’ve finally managed to apply what I’ve learned from the past. For the first time our garden isn’t just breaking even but we haven’t purchased fresh produce since June and wont for a long time to come.

I’ve had a fresh lettuce salad every day for lunch and often for dinner for weeks now. (Meaning my lunch at my day job has been basically free.)

I’m a little tired of it… I’m still gonna eat it lol.

Not sure why I didn’t do the salad thing before – its so cool you can just cut the leaves off and it just keeps on growing and producing.

Radishes do REALLY well here but unfortunately we’re not very fond of them. Next year I’m still going to plant a row but I’m going to try roasting them as I’ve heard they can be really good cooked.

Have any of you ever tried that?

They grow so well here I could have kept replanting and harvesting radishes all summer long so I’m about ready to try anything.

The peas, carrots and beats are all producing beautifully and I’m really looking forward to the green beans, kohlrabi and yellow squash soon.

Our tomatoes, pepper plants and cucumbers were all pretty slow this year but with everything else doing so well I’m not even mad about it, they’ll grow with time.

I’ve never managed to grow a pepper plant here from seed but we LOVE them so this year we bought plants… we’ll see.

I’ve finally managed to plant not only the right vegetables in the right places, but also the right amount that we can keep up with. Another thing I FORCED myself to do that I’ve always sucked at was thinning everything out too which is huge.

July 2022 after five years of vegetable gardens I’ve finally managed to plant a successful one.

(To be fair though I think all gardens are a success no matter what the outcome. I understand why my Grandma gardened well into her 80s its such a joy for me. I just love our little garden.)