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| Roofing underway early in month |
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| Mark setting fence |
May was an amazing month in Wisconsin with heat coming
early, followed by one last nasty snap of freezing weather and snow while the
fruit trees were flowering (likely lessening pears and apples unfortunately), then
enough dry days for folks in Rudolph to get their crops and gardens in and
finally rain to bring everything along.
Rudolph was abuzz with activities and all the wonderful sounds and
scents of spring. The Henkel hilltop was
awash with the scent of lilacs for nearly ten of those days.
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| Apple Blossom |
The month started with the long-awaited replacement of the
house roof for Henkels. The crew from
Goodwin were excellent in speed and clean up and the relief of having that done
without rain issues was enormous. Mark
tackled resetting the cedar fences on the east and west of the property and
Hilde ripped out yards of iris and weeds
to decrease the perennial bed behind the house to half the size, so both were
outside trading mattock and shovels
They worked together to weed and re-set raspberry starts in the huge bed
which supplies them with the years topping for oatmeal.
as needed.
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| Fighting thru the prickly ash |
Mark and Hilde also spent two days clearing prickly ash and
other brush out of the farm lane at Lomira, regaining access to the ancestral woods.
The first day it was 91 degrees and the lane
is on the south side of a slope!
Using
the brush cutter and a tractor loaned by the helpful Priest family, a narrow
path is now
open, but the amount of
prickly ash cannot be expressed….much more to cut, dig and remove.
The second visit included cutting some downed
wood (until the chainsaw died) and preparing for cutting and stacking more for
future syrup making.
These things take
time and sweat equity.
There was also
time for a visit to St. Paul’s cemetery and what turned out to be a depressing
tour of the old family barn….years of hard labor to build and maintain it and it
is slowly collapsing.
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| Trilliums were abundant this spring |
There are hand
hewn beams in the original section, cut by Schultz forebears from the adjacent
land
in the 1880s and still strong, but
the foundation is heaving and buckling without animal heat in the winter.
Sad.
remove.
This was a spectacular spring for flowers---long, lovely,
lingering trilliums, hepaticas, violets, lilacs, mayapples, jack-in-the-pulpits,
and more. Without out of town travel, Mark and Hilde
were able to get out almost daily to enjoy and photograph the succession of
bloom. When
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| Oriole antics for grape jelly |
Mark’s assistant Sandy gave
Hilde a cute oriole feeder, it immediately drew several pairs of orioles, which
brighten any day and will sit and chirp at those too close to the feeder.
The usual spring tasks of garden planting and chick tending
were much more leisurely with Mark’s reduced schedule, although he had several
office days connected with the flood repair and the official testing of
the
sensor to show it was indeed
defective and tried again to flood things.
Hilde had the usual spurt of extra meetings for spring, many of which
were lengthy, and a few contentious and upsetting.
A county board meeting opening with folks
making inaccurate accusations and wild comments segued into some really nasty
comments on line.
The national politics
reflect an increasing level of incivility and irrational suspicion existing on
every level.
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| Mark shows grandkids the chicks |
A sorry situation
nation-wide and locally.
All the spring activities culminated in a short visit from
Jim, Kayme and their three kids on their way home from holiday camping. Caleb is trying hard to talk, wants to get
his two cents in, and he is moving at top speed. Rhiannon is maturing, and a sweet big sister
ready for kindergarten in fall. Rowan is
so joyful and curious. It is always fun to have them come by and
always amazing how they have grown and changed.
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| Rhiannon, Caleb and Rowan |
