The Minnesota Farm Woman

It is hard to believe, but it was seven years ago this month that we packed up and moved from sunny Florida to a little farm in northern Minnesota. Call it an adventure, a midlife crisis, or just plain old insanity, here we are. To those of you who encouraged our move with tales of global warming and the lack of the old-fashioned winters of our childhoods (Our northern friends), and to those of you that just asked, “Are you nuts?” (Our southern friends), I can only laugh. In the past seven years, we have had the longest winter, the coldest winter, the most snow, and the latest snowfall…at least in the last 30 years. It is a strange coincidence that it was about 30 years when we left Minnesota the last time. I don’t mind either the snow or the cold, as long as I can spend winters under an electric blanket with my computer and gardening magazines. Since we didn’t have much of a spring this year, I placed all my hopes and dreams on summer. Even without a degree in meteorology, I am somewhat suspicious that this summer will go down in the record books as the wettest summer ever. My garden has become a water garden. The low areas of the back yard have several inches of standing water, and I have to wear rubber boots to get to the chicken coop. The animals of the fields and woods have started lining up two by two except for the mosquitoes, who are gathering by the thousands and planning to take over the state…maybe even the world. I surrender every day to their annoying droning sound and biting, and I wake up at night scratching mosquito bites. I then lie awake for what seems like hours, listening to a lone mosquito, circling our bed, lower and lower, closer and closer until…..silence. I slap, waking the dog, waking HIM, and the mosquito starts all over again. Is it just one, or do the rest of the tribe wait behind the curtains to take turns torturing me one by one? This particular circle of life can be a vicious one for everyone involved, including the mosquito. All of the water standing in the back yard will only make the mosquito problem worse. This week, I’ll be spraying myself with bug spray from head to toe to go out and replant much of my organic garden, as soon as it dries out. If that doesn’t make any sense to you, let me just say that you just have to be here to understand. Oh, and to answer your “Are you nuts?” question, my answer is a resounding “Yes!”