i'm building wheels for my touring bike. this is the rear. it came out really nicely

I have a nice old cast iron truing stand, but no dishing tool. Dishing tools are only 35 dollars or so, but they are really only worth about 5. Being cheap, I cant seem to part with the money.
Instead, I'm making one from an old jacked up level.
Dad was a little horrified when his eye caught, amongst all the clutter, a cut up level. I explained to him that it had been on a shelf in the shed for about 30 years, so it must have been off somehow or it wouldn't have been there in the first place, and it is being transformed into a new tool; he was a bit more understanding.
I have a couple sets of wheels to build. Its nice to have a diversion when the madness of Christmas trees looms.

prepping for birch deliveries

my neighborly dairy farmer friends were kind enough to rent me their plow rig. it's a fine machine and really does a nice job.
because of the rainy spring and summer, we were force to manage much of the sweet corn ground under wet conditions, which made for some soil compaction. this chisel plow does a nice job of breaking up that compacted soil.

the wind and rain sure can take the fun out of the pumpkin business. washing pumpkins in full rain gear layered over winter cloths is not too fun. still the loads are quite lovely and there are plenty of orders to fill this week

we've harvested a mountain of pumpkins, squash and gourds.
this gourd is the most amazing of all and it may take me a while to figure out how to capture photographically its incredibleness.
maybe you'll have to see it in person

12 plus hours to prep for the weekend markets.
I sure hope the sun shines upon us
Its all so ordinary, almost sad, when its gray
but when the sun comes out
even for a moment
spectacular

Rain can take some of the fun out of the pumpkin business. Its not just the sluggin around in the fields harvesting; its all the washing. If its dry, one can just brush off the pumpkins and its all good; now, because of the mud, everything needs a bath and scrubbing; everything, gourds, squash, pie pumpkins, jacks.
If the sun favors us this weekend, they will look spectacular.
There is still corn. Bicolor saturday; white on sunday.

pumpkin, gourd, corn bundle emergencies have popped up in a serious way this week.
this is the first load of the season.
there will still be sweet corn for a couple weeks; mostly at the weekend markets.

somehow these loads of corn never look as big in a photo. this is 85 sacks of corn. it took us 2.5 hours to pick it. nice corn right now. a few worms, but not bad.
good crew i might add.

market schedule

Really nice corn coming in now
Wednesday: UofMn Farmers Market, Church street, 11am-2pm
Thursday: Nicollet Mall Market, 8th and Nicollet, 9:30am-3:30pm
Saturday: Minneapolis Farmers Market, 6am-1pm
Mill City Farmers Market, 7:30am-1pm
Sunday: Minneapolis Farmers Market, 6am-1pm

This is the 4am load on a Saturday morning. If we have a lot of corn there is a second, not nearly so big load around 9am.
Unfortunately, I am currently kind of short of corn. I'm into a planting that did not develop well because of all the early rains. I'm skipping tomorrow's market(Sunday), and hope to be back to regular market schedule by weds. I suspect there will be a rather tight supply for about a week to 10 days. After that i hope to be back to huge piles and multiple loads.
There will be all yellow and all white corn coming ripe very soon.

the two hoodlums helping sell at the UofMn. wow we were busy.
we are into some really nice corn this week

Today I was driving by a garage sale and saw a bike, so I figured I
should stop.
As I approached I saw that it was copper colored Raleigh with high
flange hubs.
Closer, I could see it had a chrome fork ends, chrome stays, ornate fork crown
I could hardly breathe...could it be the Holy Grail; a copper colored
Raleigh International?
Alas, it was a Super Course with cheap simplex derailleurs.
However, it did have Suntour bar-end shifters that I've been looking
for and the hubs were Normandy with aluminum rims with new tires, and
some nice long reach centerpull brakes.
And the coolest handle bar water bottle holder ever.
The guy was an older gentleman and had ridden it to Madison and back
when he was younger.
Asking 40
I gave it too him.

2010 sweet corn sales schedule

The ceremonial washing of the tables can only mean one thing; sweet corn season is upon us.
We're going to start picking Weds July 21st.
The 2010 schedule is:

Weds - U of Mn market, Church Street, 11 am to 2pm
Thursday - Nicollet Mall, 8th and Nicollet 10 am to 5pm
Saturday - Minneapolis Farmers Mkt, 6am to 1pm
Saturday - Mill City Farmers Mkt, 8am to 1pm
Sunday - Minneapolis Farmers Mkt, 6am to 1pm

In our family we always take 4th of July corn photos. the corn is progressing nicely; not too weedy and plenty of silks showing so we are expecting to start harvest somewhere between the 17th and 20th.
Emily and Austin are good kids and not too grudgingly give in to this yearly ritual. It's getting pretty hard to call Austin "the boy"; we still manage to blame him for everything that goes wrong.

I got an excellent deal on a nice cultivator; it'll take some modification to fit my row width, however its in good condition and the discs on the ends will help hold a nice line on the hillsides.

Some of the corn is quite spectacular, some really suffered with all the rain and has yellowed. One can see a little of both in this photo. The last few days of sun and warmth has improved conditions in the field dramatically.

Today, finally, I was able to cultivate pumpkins. Normally I would have rotary hoed a comple times and cultivated by this point, however, the rains made that impossible. Vines don't normal do well with that amount of moisture. Fortunately these are on a nice fertile hillside on Karen C's farm. The weed pressure is managable and I see almost no bug damage. Quite lovely I think

in spite of my minimalist management, there is going to be buckets of strawberries soon