StatCounter

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Summer on the farm

Now that the rain has stopped falling several times a week and things are drying (relatively) out I can start mowing pastures. I'll put the bush hog on the tractor and get to it. As soon as the fog clears and the humidity drops below 96%. I'm not kidding! It should be raining, but it isn't. The actual air molecules are dripping water. Step out the door and you become instantly damp. If I put on a rain jacket I will be just as wet on the inside as the outside. No point in taking a shower as I will not dry off. I just hope no one shows up at the farm so they don't find me offensive. Maybe at the end if the day things will change so I don't have to be disgusting in front of another human being. Maybe.

Here is last weekend's chore.  

230 bales of Northern Minnesota's finest hay kept us busy for a bit. That's Stitch doing some stretching before the work begins. Good idea.

Summer is in full swing in town. Between the Art Festival, Wooden Boat show, Fisherman's Picnic  (Fisherman's Panic, as it is known locally), Unplugged and other things at North House Folk School, there is more than enough activity in Grand Marais. If you go through town before civilized people are awake it is pretty quiet, though.



We are just ten miles out of town so mornings here are a lot quieter. Here is one of the local residents saying good morning.





I actually have been able to get some reading time in lately. It often takes a week or two to get a book read as there is little time to do so, but I got one done in just a few days this week. Who needs sleep, anyway.  Dr. Fizzy has written another one to follow The Devil Wears Scrubs. 
It is called Suicide Med.

The Amazon review is this:

  There’s a reason Southside Medical School has been nicknamed “Suicide Med.” For the last six years, every year one student has taken his own life.

Except for last year. Last year was a murder-suicide.

The press has pointed to the heavy workload as the culprit in the high suicide rate. Some students believe that the school is cursed. And others believe that the deaths may not be suicides at all—that it’s no coincidence that Dr. Conlon, Southside’s quirky but beloved anatomy professor, joined the staff on the very year that the suicides began.

Either way, the same question echoes through the minds of every first year student at Suicide Med:

Who will be next to die?


Having lived with some med students at this time of their lives I can tell you that these characters are not far from the reality that I observed. Dr Fizzy (a.k.a. Freida Mcfadden) tells the story from each students viewpoint and weaves them together in such a way that I found it difficult to stop reading. If you are looking for an entertaining book that is different from what you usually read, this is a fun (but chilling) one to read.

I leave you with a quiet, yet overgrown (I'll fix that soon) paddock shot of summer on the farm.

 






12 comments:

  1. I don't envy you the humidity, seen enough of it to last me out. It's been in the high 70's into the 80's here, but the humidity is around 20% at most.
    That is one fat doe feasting in your pasture.
    There is little that I wouldn't believe about docs....I've seen things that would curl your hair in the OR and ICU.....in the 70's, at a unnamed medical center we had a happy hour every friday at 3pm at shift change for the nurses. I've seen nurses adjusting IV's with a glass of wine in their hand, and somewhere there's a pic of me sitting in front of a intraortic ballon pump, adjusting the settings, with a bottle of guiness in my hand.
    Different time, different place.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good to see summer has arrived on the North Shore.

    The Weaver and I will be at Barbra and Ted Young's August 12-15, we'll have to meet up sometime.

    ReplyDelete
  3. We had a short spell of delightful (for St. Louis) weather. The temp was relatively low, the humidity was way down--it was perfect.

    Now, the heat has returned, but the humidity is still in the wings and has not retaken the stage yet.

    Yet. In the Midwest, we still have August, September and October if we're looking forward to miserably hot and muggy days.

    I enjoyed the time I spent on your farm (via the photos). Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm not going to pretend that my once-a-week lawn mowing chore can compare to your farm work (I grew up on a farm and know how much work it is!), but I can understand your humidity issues.

    Just last week, it was so humid here, I was swatting fish instead of mosquitoes while mowing!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Same humidity issue down here as well but, it's expected in the deep South. Hay looks beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm just going to pretend I know what a bush hog is.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Should Fish More, Way back when I was a nursing assistant (Orderlies back then) I got to do dressing changes on all kinds of wounds, but I was always sober.

    Professor, I will take you up on that. I'm marking my calendar!

    Sioux,It's always cooler by the big lake except in winter when it's warmer. Our humidity in winter is like a desert.

    PP, I've been to Florida in summer and I believe you about the fish.

    Mr. C, we way north folks don't deal with heat and humidity very well. The hay really smells good, too!

    irbii, My particular bush hog is called the squealer. It's just a rotary mower that attaches to a three point hitch on a tractor. Now you know! Glad your back!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I don’t envy your weather. Here it has been unusually cool for Georgia – today in the high 70s with low humidity - a pleasure to be outside. For the son of a Norwegian how do you like hot weather? I remember once we had trainees at work from Sweden (actually Swedish Air Force) for 3 weeks in May. It had been very warm in the 80s and they only had woolen clothes. They were almost sick they were so warm. We had to change class hours to early morning!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Although humidity has its benefits, I'll take our high mountain desert. There's something fundamentally wrong about going for a jog in an outdoor sauna.

    I'm always looking for a good read. Thanks for the recommendation!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Vagabonde, it's tough for a Northern person to adapt, but I grew up (allegedly) in a hot, humid place. I was a kid and could tolerate anything. Now, not so much.

    AT, when I was a jogger, I could tolerate anything. Now, not so much. See above answer. This was brought to you via your Department of Redundancy Department. :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. I love that pic of Stitch stretching on the hay bales!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Calving, haying and silaging were my favourite seasons

    ReplyDelete