I'm Back, or What a Long Strange Winter It's Been.

Let's see, where were we before the snows that kept coming and coming. 29 inches officially at Lambert
Airport. Probably more here. Whoever said red sky at night, sailors delight was LYING.

Because they led to this:

At one point we were snowed in for two days. Of course being retired our two main concerns were, "is there enough toilet paper and alcohol?" Finally, in desperation, we fired up the truck, which has 4-wheel drive, and went into town. Yep, two middle aged people, driving this huge Chevy truck with tricked out wheels, listening to NPR and buying arugula.  But it wasn't all strum und drang. We built the seed starting tables.

And now as I write I have tomatoes, herbs, leeks, peppers, etc sprouting. No, we are not emulating the TV show "Weeds".  No wacky tobacky here.
At the end of January we had all the subcontractors and folks who have helped us during the construction process over for dinner. It was cute, one of the guys said he had never been to a party where there were appetizers. Our builder mentioned he mushrooms hunts and has even found some nearby. I made him promise to take us. We also met Ken Hudson, our farmer neighbor, in person. He was the one who granted us the easements for the utility poles. He came with his lady friend, Bonnie Douglas, who owns an animal rescue farm with llamas, monkeys, horses, and other creatures big and small. She said we could have all the llama poop we wanted. Interesting lady....
Once the snows receded, we discovered we have Lake Owen in the front yard.

It was worse when the rains came. I toyed with the idea of stocking it with fish from the local USDA office, but bought trees instead, aka deer food. Tom said the fish were so cheap, we should just buy them by the bagful and fry them up. It's drying up a bit and I intend to do a percolation test to see if we should just give up and build a rain garden at that end of the lawn. We also started to calculate the area we had plowed up. It's just under an acre. Tom did a spreadsheet and figured out we could build up to 318 raised beds 4' x 10'.
I about DIED when he told me that. Granted we are not going to do it all in one year but what an enormous task ahead of us.
We sent Tom to Beekeeping class in February. He is pretty enthused and wants to start with 2 hives. It won't be Tupelo honey, but they said you can get up to 9 quarts per hive. Here is a preliminary look at the site of the future market farm:

I did check into an organization called Crop Mob. See: http://cropmob.org/
There is a local outpost in Jefferson County, MO. I got in touch with the guy who runs their Facebook site (damn you, Facebook, I am going to have to learn how to use you!) He came over this past week and we all talked for 2 hours. The upshot is around May 1st we are hosting a Crop Mob day on our farmlet. We provide work and lunch, they provide labor. He said we hopefully could have anywhere from 10-35 people. So if you aren't doing anything, come on down, or up.
Other than obsessing about the farm, we have been exploring the area. We toured the lock and dam in Alton with Kate and did an eagle day at Pere Marquette State Park. We ended up seeing eagles and white pelicans (they stop over here on their way up to South Dakota). The tour took us into Calhoun County and we have some pretty cool places to take visitors to see wildlife. Plus Calhoun County doesn't look like anything in Illinois. Tom did get violently sick after eating at the Barefoot Inn in Hardin. It was where the ranger suggested we all go. I kinda liked the catfish fritters I had, but I don't suggest the burgers. For my money the Riverdock was way better (killer homemade pies).
I am volunteering at the Jerseyville Public Library on Thursdays. Unlike Fairview Heights, they are not union and let you do all sorts of jobs. Sweet. Tom helped them with their 501C3 application.
We met another neighbor. He is a tugboat captain. Real nice guy. He looks for artifacts and relics and wanted to search in our field. He did find some items and some were of the civil war era.

He said yes there was a house at the front of the property and two across the road. Apparently a barn stood where our house is now. The creek was a favorite dumping place and he has found pottery and bottles in there too. He has a pond and is going to let us fish. Score!
In other news: Kate will be living in a FEMA trailer this summer as an intern at Land Between the Lakes, KY. OMG, my daughter is trailer court trash! She is looking forward to the experience. She has decided not to pursue the Turks and Caicos study abroad and will finish up her degree at U of I next year.
Joe is continuing in the MBA program at Carbondale. He just bought a $3,900 bike. Don't ask. You can view it on his Facebook page.
In other news, we are watching Justified on FX and if you aren't, you are missing one of the best shows on TV. The other is Big Bang Theory.

More later on the farm's progress as we get out and play in the mud. Visitors are welcome, but we may put you to work. Spring is coming, on warm nights I have heard the siren call of the Spring Peepers....