This song needs no introduction. Everyone of us has sung or at least heard “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain…”

The melody for the song was originally an Old Negro spiritual “When the Chariot Comes“, about the second coming of Christ written in the 1800s. The “She” in the song originally refers to the chariot that Christ would be driving.

She’ll be coming ’round the mountain when she comes…
She’ll be coming ’round the mountain when she comes…

She’ll be ridin’ six white horses when she comes……
She’ll be ridin’ six white horses when she comes…..

Oh, we’ll kill the old rooster when she comes……
Oh, we’ll kill the old rooster when she comes……

Oh, we’ll have chickens and dumplings when she comes……
Oh, we’ll have chickens and dumplings when she comes……

Oh, we’ll all come out to meet her when she comes……
Oh, we’ll all come out to meet her when she comes……

We’ll be shoutin’ Hallelujah when she comes……
We’ll be shoutin’ Hallelujah when she comes……

She’ll be coming ’round the mountain, she’ll be coming ’round the mountain,
She’ll be coming ’round the mountain when she comes…

In the late 19th century the song spread to Appalachia where the current lyrics were developed. Later it was sung by railroad work gangs in the across the US. It was first published in print by Carl Sandburg in 1927.

It is now thought of as an old folk song for children.

Click on the photo above or click here  to listen to me playing:

The last few weeks we’ve had some sunny warm days in the 60s and 70s.

The bluebirds have returned, as have the robins.

The grass is turning green, the tulips are sprouting, and the daffodil buds are almost ready to bloom.

Spring is here!

A week ago, last Monday, I came home to discover the surest sign that spring has arrived: my honeybees were returning to the hive carrying pellets of pale yellow pollen on their legs. They probably found some willow or birch blooming down in our canyon.

I opened the hives to see how they are doing. I  found that one of the queens is already laying eggs and even has some capped brood (baby bees). The other queen hasn’t started laying but gosh did she look plump and fat- she is probably full of eggs. I expect that she will begin laying soon.

My bees are good girls!

Last weekend, I tilled in the composted manure and prepared our raised beds . I planted my peas planted as well as my outside spinach. A slight frost won’t hurt them.

Planting season has begun!

We already have been harvesting fresh salad greens from the hoop greenhouse for several weeks. There is nothing like eating fresh homegrown salad of spinach, arugula, Tai tsoi, lettuce, claytonia, mache, and baby kale.

We’ve also have continued to dig fesh carrots right out of the garden. Last year I planted a variety of orange, yellow and purple carrots.

When cold weather came, I covered the carrots with a foot of straw and then clear plastic to keep in the warm of the sun and prevent the ground from freezing solid. After several weeks of cold weather, the starch in the carrots is converted to sugar.

Carrots wintered underground are the sweetest you’ll ever taste.

Eating locally grown foods is an emerging trend- well there is nothing more local than eating what we’ve grown ourselves a hundred yards out our back door, now is there?

My transplants have been started including peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, leeks and onions.

In a few weeks, the leeks, onions and cabbage family will go outside into the garden- they can tolerate a mild frost.

Already I can see the garlic and fava beans I planted last fall beginning to sprout from the ground where they spent all winter.

The tomatoes. peppers and eggplant will go in the hoop house a couple of weeks before our last frost date (around mid-May).

Then after all of the warm sunny weather we’ve had, this week we had a early spring blizzard. The clinic was closed for two days. Nothing to do but stay home and catch up on inside stuff.

Everyone was actually looking forward to the snow. we have been in such a drought, all precipitation is welcome. Plus, the snow from these late winter/early srping storms melts in a day or two.

The Rapid city airport got 25 inches of snow. Unfortunately and as usual, we didn’t get quite as much as everyone else got- we got maybe a foot of snow- if that.

Winter is not over yet, there is still a chance we could get another storm in the next couple of weeks.

To be honest, I’d welcome getting another couple of feet (after our current snow melts).

My family and I live “up in the trees” as they say here in western South Dakota. We live at 3800+ ft elevation in the Ponderosa Pine forest of the Black Hills.

I find it interesting when I travel across the United States, how often others say when I tell them I live in western South Dakota, “Oh I’m sorry!”

They really have no clue what it is like here.

Last week I was in Kansas City. Someone said, “Oh you should move to Kansas, it’s very beautiful. You’d love it.”

To which I replied, “I’m sure it is very nice, but it is not as beautiful as where I live…”

They tried to convince me otherwise and started listing all the positives of living in Kansas: strong midwestern sense of community, good schools, etc.

We have all that, of course- plus beautiful scenery, countless outdoor recreational opportunities, mild winters (for the Midwest), cool dry summers (without the unbearable humidity of places further east)

It is true; much of the rest of the state of South Dakota is either the Great Plains prairie- or where there is more moisture further east, cultivated farmland.

But that is not how it is where we live.

The Black Hills are mountains and foothills, some approaching almost 7000 ft elevation at their highest. It was the ancestral home of the Lakota and other indigenous people, and remains a special sacred place.

One does not need to be Native American to understand that the Black Hills are special beyond only their physical beauty and unique geography. The connection and love one feels for a place is difficult to describe in words. It is as if this land has become almost an extension of myself. I can only begin to imagine how someone might feel whose family has lived here for generations.

Here, as in much of the mountain west, the Ponderosa Pine is the climax species. The Ponderosa is a species born of fire. The natural history of Ponderosa pine forests is for there to by low intensity brush and grass fires every 5 or 10 years. Pine cones open in the heat of a fire; the seedlings sprout eagerly afterwards.

More recently, with human  intervention, such low intensity fires do not happen as often.

Years of fire suppression combined with years of drought and acres of pines killed by the mountain pine beetles and needle blight- are a recipe for more severe and widespread intense-hot full-canopy fires.

Every place has its share of natural disasters to worry about. There are earthquakes in California, hurricanes in Florida, tsunamis in Alaska and tornadoes in Oklahoma. Nowhere is completely immune.

Here our greatest fear is forest fire.

Last summer, when smoke drifted in at 2AM from forest fires 100s of miles to the west, I was awakened from sleep. I could not go back to bed until I had walked outside and reassured myself by making sure the glow of flames was not to be seen.

Last year, the first wild fire of the season was in March. Normally our forest fire season does not begin until June or July. The drought is partly to blame.

Well, in 2013 it turns out that the first brush fire of the year in the Black Hills happened to be on our property!

On Monday, the day after Easter, Nathaniel went out to feed the chickens and let them out of their coop. He noticed smoke a few hundred yards away.

He went over to investigate. Fire was burning in the grass and brush. Nathan tried to beat the flames down with a large stick but immediately realized the futility of it.

He ran to our cabin and told Jeanne.

It was right about this time that I called home to talk to Jeanne as I often do over my lunch hour.

Nathan answered the phone.

I asked where Mom was, “Oh she’s out fighting the fire.” He said it as if it were a completely normal and expected thing for her to be out doing on a Monday over the lunch hour.

“What?!?! A FIRE?!?!!?” I responded.

“Yeah Dad, we have a fire burning.”

I hung up and called Jeanne on her cell phone. She was out at the brush fire.

The sheriff and fire fighters had been notified but they not yet arrived at the scene.

Jeanne was amazingly calm. She was much calmer than I would have been. My wife is an amazing woman.

Being a work day, none of our neighbors were home. It was fortunate that the fire happened to occur on the day after Easter, Nathan was out of school and at home and he went out to feed the chickens when he did.

It is also fortunate that like his Mom and Dad, Nathan is one of those people who is usually pretty observant of his surroundings.

Many people might have walked outside looking only at the ground and never noticed the smoke rising on the horizon. There is no telling how long this fire could have burned if Nathan had not seen it.

The fire came across our property line from our neighbors. The week before, there were a few inches of snow and they burned their brush as is legally permitted when there is snow on the ground. Most of us stack brush piles from firewood-cutting and brush-thinning waiting for such snowy days so we can safely and legally burn.

The following weekend, they put new dry brush over the same area where they had burned the previous week.

Big mistake.

Hot embers can remain for weeks or even months. The embers caught the brush on fire- then it spread to the neighboring grass.

All told, it burned about a half-acre total before it was extinguished.

We are fortunate to let our horses graze down our late summer pastures in our forest fairly aggressively. We do this on purpose. Grazing off the dead brown grass in the late summer does nothing harmful to the living grass roots underground. It does remove fuel for to minimize the severity of wild fires such as this.

Also fortunately the trees on our land have already been thinned very well by the previous owners.

If the fire had burned another couple hundreds yard onto another neighbors property which has not been thinned, it might have gotten into the trees themselves instead of burning only grass, fallen pine needles and brush. The situation could been an entirely different.

Our neighbors called and apologized. They felt absolutely terrible. I can only imagine how bad I would have felt if it were me who had caused the fire.

Of course, feeling sorry about something that was unintentional and accidental still would not replace a house- or a lost life. Luckily, it was only some grass and brush that burned and nothing else. This fire could definitely could have been much worse- much much worse- it is frightening to think about what it could have happened had the day been windier.

And hey, I just realized that there is a positive side—-at least now we have a nice fire-break already burned to protect us for the next time our neighbors accidentally start any more wild fires….

Here’s another fiddle tune which I’ve been learning: “Old Joe Clark.”

Either click on the photo above or click here to listen to the video.  The back up guitar that you hear is from the excellent website “Old Time Jam.”

“Old Joe Clark” is an old mountain ballad from Kentucky and is one of the more popular traditional old time fiddle songs.

There actually was a real-life individual named Joseph Clark.  According to a biography by Lisa Clark, Joe  Clark was born in Clay  County, Kentucky on September 18, 1839. He married Elizabeth (Betty)  Sandlin  when he was 17 and she was 15.

When the  Civil War began, Joe was 22 years old and enlisted but  became ill during  the winter months and was discharged  in 1862. After the war, he  resumed farming  and lived in the log house on Sextons Creek that had been built by his family.

He also operated a country store and ran a  moonshine still, under license from the state. He sold his whiskey from an ox cart as well as at his store.  Joe earned a notorious reputation in the local area, his wife left him around  1864.  There are several stories surrounding his murder around 1885/1886. He is buried in the family cemetery on Sextons Creek.

Around that time there was popular tune which did not  have  lyrics, so some  started making up rhymes to be sung with the tune.  Others claim that the ballad came first and the melody later. There are estimated to now be about 90 stanzas in various versions of the song.

Some of the more popular lyrics are as follows:

Old Joe Clark’s a fine old man
Tell you the reason why
He keeps good likker ’round his house
Good old Rock and Rye

Old Joe Clark, the preacher’s son
Preached all over the plain
The only text he ever knew
Was High, low, Jack and the game

Sixteen horses in my team
The leaders they are blind
And every time the sun goes down
There’s a pretty girl on my mind

Old Joe Clark had a yellow cat
She would neither sing or pray
She stuck her head in the butermilk jar
And washed her sins away

Old Joe Clark had a house
Fifteen stories high
And every story in that house
Was filled with chicken pie

I went down to Old Joe’s house
He invited me to supper
I stumped my toe on the table leg
And stuck my nose in the butter

Fare ye well, Old Joe Clark
Fare ye well, I say
Fare ye well, Old Joe Clark
I’m a going away

If you pay attention, you’ll notice early in the song I get off from where the guitar is and also where my bow slips on the E-string a bit (oops….screeeeech!!!). Later in the song I relax and it sounds a little better. I have a lot to learn about old time fiddle shuffling with my bow.

Considering I began to teach myself this tune only two weeks ago and I’m still a beginner with a great deal to learn- it’s not too bad.

I’ve played guitar and clawhammer banjo for over 20 years. You can see some of them hanging on the wall behind me. I enjoy all of my instruments but I just LOVE the fiddle. It’s a beautiful delicate little instrument with such a lovely expressive voice.

I’ll post more videos of new songs as I learn them. As my fiddling gets better, I might even repost new videos of the same songs so you can see how I’m improving.

I haven’t posted lately, or for that matter read or commented on anyone else’s blogs. I’ve been busy with a number of other things, but alas not with running or with posting in this blog.

After I finished our hoop house last fall, I planted spinach, dwarf red flower peas, mache, bok choy, komatsuna, mizuna, tat tsoi, lettuce, claytonia, arugula and a variety of other greens. Most of the seedlings sprouted during the warm winter days.

Then came the deep dark of mid December through January. The soil in our unheated hoop house froze solid. The little seedlings didn’t die but they didn’t grow either. I worried that they would freeze during some of the sub-zero nights.

Now the days are just a little longer, the sun is just a little higher.

I barely noticed it but the seedlings have. The seedlings not only survived but they have started growing again slowly. In a few weeks we should have our first late winter home-grown salad.

We are really looking forward to our first taste of the lush-green goodness of spring…

Next year I will plant my winter salad greens much earlier- in September instead of in November as I did this year. That way we’ll be able to harvest homegrown salad greens throughout the winter.

This weekend, I planted my onion and leek seeds in flats to sprout and grow in a sunny south facing window. They will be tranplanted outside in April.

The tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cabbage, broccoli, brussel sprouts and other transplants do not need to be planted for several more weeks. They don’t need as long to grow before transplanting as do onions and leeks.

The outdoor vegetable garden appears to be sleeping quietly under the snow.

It looks like not much is going on… but the microbes and other organisms are still there, still active and still very much alive. The earthworms have burrowed deeper to get below the frost line but will come back up to the surface in a couple of months. I put a layer of horse manure over my raised beds so the garden will be ready to go once spring  and planting time finally comes.

We are very fortunate to live where we do. Although we certainly get our share of cold and snow, it is always short lived. In a day or two, the sun will return. So much the better for warming our hoop house, and for raising our spirits and moods as well.

When we were planning on relocating from Wisconsin to South Dakota a few years ago, I was amazed by how many people said and said with such authority, “Oh yah, you know you’re movin’ to another cold and snowy place just like here!”

When I replied, “Oh no, western South Dakota won’t be at at all like Wisconsin! It’s much warmer in the winter and cooler and less humid in the summer!” I’m pretty sure that none of them believed me.

In the winter we can get a cold front, with low temps overnight dipping down into the below zero range. But then a day or two later it almost always warms back up into the 40s and 50s. 

I  don’t mind some cold weather in the winter, I just prefer not having it for weeks on end.

As you can see, our flock of laying hens have enjoyed our warm sunny days too. We have a number of customers who love our free range eggs. You cannot purchase eggs like this in the grocery store.

I believe our hens to be among the most spoiled chickens there are. Happy hens lay delicious eggs. Besides feeding them a variety of scratch grains every day, they get any old collard, kale or cabbage plants from the garden, extra winter squash we haven’t gotten around to eating as well as any leftover table scraps.

They also get to eat all of the spent malt grains after I make a batch of beer. Spent malt is basically like a soft cooked whole grain gruel.  It hasn’t been fermented so there’s no alcohol in it- I can only imagine how happy those hens might be if there was!

There is such a demand for our free range eggs that we are thinking of expanding our flock. We’re thinking of getting 50 chicks this spring.

Now I just need to get that chicken coop finished!!!!

Our bees are snug as a bug in their hives. On warm days over 50 degrees they’ll remove any bees that have died and fly out of the hive to empty their bowels. Only a sick bee will poop in the hive.

Some of the older bees, sensing that the end is near, will go on one last flight out of the hive never to return. It will save one of their sisters from having to carry their body out of the hive after they die. It is a final act of self sacrifice for the good of the hive.

A few weeks ago on a warm sunny day, I cracked open the top of two of the hives to take a quick peek.

They buzzed slowly in the cool temperatures. Plenty of honey. Good. There are many reasons why a hive does not survive the winter: parasitic mites, diseases such as Nosema, a failing queen or no apparent reason at all. It’s hard to be a bee. At least this year, our bees won’t starve.

We’re thinking of expanding the number of our hives to ten, the maximum number that can be kept in an apiary (yard where beehives are kept) in South Dakota. If we want to have more hives than that we’ll need to find another location. I’m sure we won’t have any difficulty finding friends who’ll let us keep some hives on their property in exchange for rent honey  ( or mead).

For my Christmas present to myself, I bought a new fiddle. I’ve been practicing,… and practicing… and practicing. I have started to grasp some more advanced techniques including playing double stop (two strings at the same time), using my fourth finger, and vibrato.

Someone asked, “Are you taking any lessons?”

I replied, “No. I’d rather teach myself.”

They were incredulous. They couldn’t believe it is possible to teach oneself how to play a musical intrument without an instructor. When some think , “You just can’t!” I believe: “Yes, I can!”

Plus, the internet is amazing. If you search You Tube, you can find lessons for how to do just about anything, including how to play the fiddle.

I am sure if I had some formal instruction, I’d proceed faster and make fewer mistakes along the way. However, I’ve always been one of those people who’d rather learn by doing than by repetition or memorization.

For example, rather than playing scales over and over- that’s boring!- I just learn several tunes in a certain key. Once I learn those songs well, I find that I have also learned what notes make up the scale of that key.

Learning new songs is much more fun than playing scales!

I found a wonderful website: http://www.oldtimejam.com/Jam.html It was created by an Atlanta neurologist who plays old time music, it has a collection of old time songs with guitar, banjo and/or fiddle. I can practice jamming with other instruments so that when I get a chance to do it with real people, I’ll be able to do it.

Well, I will finish out this post with a video of me playing “Jack of Diamonds” also know as “Rye Whiskey” or “Drunken Hiccoughs.”

Click on the photo above or click on the following link to hear and watch it.

It’s an old folk tune, first made popular by Tex Ritter when he recorded it in 1932. However, this song existed in various forms for hundreds of years before that. The melody is believed to be from an old Scottish song “Robie Donadh Gorrach.” There are dozens if not hundreds of variations of the melody and lyrics. 

A version dating back to the Civil War is:

Jack o’ Diamonds, Jack o’ Diamonds, I know you of old

You’ve robbed my poor pockets of silver and gold…

It’s beefsteak when I’m hungry, rye whiskey when I’m dry.

Greenbacks when I’m hard up, sweet heaven when I die…

 Rye whiskey, rye whiskey, rye whiskey I cry

If I don’t get rye whiskey oh I surely will die…

I’ll eat when I’m hungry, I’ll drink when I’m dry

If the Yankees don’t kill me, I’ll live until I die…

You’ll drink your fine brandy, and I will drink my wine,

You can drink to your true love, and I will drink to mine,

 I left my dear old mother to weep and to mourn –

I am a Rebel Soldier and far from my home!

My old worn overalls do give the video a real old-time hill-billy feel, now don’t they?

With everything else I’ve been doing, I haven’t been doing much running. I do miss it but there just isn’t time to do everything I’d like to. I’d like to start running again more consistently- I am sure I will once the weather becomes warmer. I must admit it’s been very nice having more free time to devote to other activities I’ve neglected these past several years.

Maybe instead of running 3 to 5 ultramarathons a year I could cut back to just doing 1 or 2? Maybe I could even just do some regular 26.2 mile marathons or even some halfs? There’s nothing at all wrong with shorter events, nothing at all.

Everyone…. hug your loved ones, live life, dance, smile,  sing, play music, run, be well and and think of spring!

I have gardened in many regions around the country: Nevada, Wyoming, Wisconsin and now western South Dakota- not to mention participating in my family’s garden as a child on the east coast.

I’ve found that western South Dakota is actually one of the more gardening-friendly climates (except for the hail!)

Although we do get occasional cold blasts from the north in the winter- these usually are only for a few days at the most.

We do not have the relentless wind of Wyoming, the weeks of dreary gray dark days without sun  and also not the fungus growing humidity of the Great Lakes region and the north east. Our summers are arid but not quite as dry as Nevada.

Indeed, some call the Black Hills of South Dakota the “Banana Belt” of the Midwest.

Don’t laugh.

We may not have any bananas growing anywhere near here but we do have peach trees and a number of other plants that one normally would not find unless one traveled hundreds of miles to the south.

The Black Hills blocks the cold winter temperatures and wind only a few miles away. Our microclimate is more similar to the Front Range of Colorado than it is to most other places in South Dakota. There is quite a difference in our microclimate where we live compared to other locations in the Black Hills.

When Lead/Deadwood is getting feet of snow, we might get only an inch or two.

The one thing we are do get here in the winter is sunlight. It is difficult to describe the bright beautiful winter days with clear brilliant blue skies to those who have never experienced them.

In many places, winter is a time of cold, dark gray days…it can be depressing!!!

Here, as in most of the west, even if we get a day or two of cloudy weather, we can take heart in knowing that we will see the sun in a day or two. I cannot recall ever going more than two days in a row without seeing the sun.

A drizzly foggy rainy day is rare, we look forward to such days when we have them.

When we were in Wyoming we built cold frames and subsequently a greenhouse (thanks Pop!)  in which we could grow salads in the winter.

It was fun than to have guests for dinner in January and ask, “Would you like fresh salad with dinner?”

When their answer was “Yes!” To their incredulity, I would invite them outside to trudge outside through the wind and snow.

Their initial look of skepticism became a smile when I opened the door to our green-warm salad-growing paradise.

Some people go on vacation in the mid-winter to southern sunny places-  we would just walk into our greenhouse to get an early taste of spring.

In the summer, we would grow warm weather crops such as tomatoes and eggplant that never did well in the high altitude cool nights of a Wyoming summer.

After we had left Wyoming and relocated to Wisconsin, I dreamed of having another greenhouse. I did not get a chance to build one however before relocating to western South Dakota.

After reading Elliot Coleman’s bible on cold weather gardening, Four Season Harvest, I was inspired to build a hoop house to grow salad greens in the fall and winter and warm weather crops in the summer.

Besides adding a few weeks of warm weather gardening each end of the season, I also wanted protection from the inevitable hail we have a few times every season which decimates our crops. Rather than glass or polycarbonate, my hope is that the hail will simply bounce off of the double wall cushion of polyethelene.

If not, then at least such a covering will be much less expensive to replace that polycarbonate or glass.

I started building our hoop house a couple of years ago. First I built the 12 x 20 ft base, then got a pipe bender to bend the chain link posts into hoops.

We have already been growing our tomatoes, peppers and eggplants there for two summers now- even before I had much else completed other than the base. Our rocky soil is not very conducive to growing vegetables, so I put in about 10 inches of compost and well-rotted manure for the vegetables to grow in.

Later, I constructed the end walls complete with a door and windows. Finally I added a ventilation fan with the ends covered with double poly-carbonate.

Every time I got close to finishing this project, something came up: a new writing project, another ultramarathon to train for, a new series of lecture to prepare for and so on.

After giving up most of my weekends this summer on a few writing and other work-related projects I was working on, I decided “Enough!” I took a few weekends off from doing much else other than catching up on work in our vegetable garden and finishing up the hoop house.

I purchased 6 mil greenhouse-grade UV-protected film from Johnnys Selected Seeds. I used two layers: to better conserve heat and (I hope) better withstand our inevitable hail.

I have a small fan that blows in air to keep the two layers separate. It’s basically a smaller version of the much larger commercial scale hoop greenhouses. The covering is supposed to last at least 4 years before needing to be replaced. We shall see.

Nathan and I got the covering placed last weekend- just in time for the first real snow of this winter. Inside the unheated snow covered structure it is 45 degrees right now- and today is cloudy and cold, in the low 30s. I still need to trim off the excess but I am waiting until the warm weather of spring so I can pull it tight (its easier to hold on the excess material when stretching the covering).

My only regret is that I didn’t get this covered sooner- if I had gotten it done in September I would have been able to plant it with cold resistant vegetables to harvest all winter.

Now, I will be able to plant, but may have to wait until the lengthening days of February and March before I see much growth.

Oh well, I look forward to  salad early next spring and winter salads all winter long in future years.

Some of the greens that I will plant for winter harvesting include: spinach, mache, chicory, winter lettuce, claytonia, arugula and various types of Asian greens including Tat tsoi, Pak choi, Hon Tsai Tai, and Vitamin Green and others.

It is not yet completely finished.

I need to add  a humidstat and misting system along with a plug in thermostat for the fan to keep it cool in the summer, seal the cracks with silicone caulk, plus add permanent electricity and bury the wire in a trench.

But at least now it is complete enough to begin dreaming of future planting…

I ordered some seeds today and will plant them as soon as they arrive.  More to come in the future…

Happy winter gardening!

In addition to my running and all of the other things I do,  I grow a HUGE vegetable garden every year.

Even if no one has yet been able to prove that food grown sustainably or organically is not healthier or more nutritious than food grown conventionally, that is not the reason why we grow some of our own food. Although it may be easier (and cheaper) to buy our food in the store like everyone else, I like how gardening keeps my in tune with the seasons.

There is nothing better than vegetables picked fresh from the garden only a few minutes ago.

An emerging trend is locally-grown food.  Well there is nothing more locally grown food than food  grown a hundred yards out your door!

Last weekend was our last warm weekend before the temperatures turned cold. I was busy harvesting the last vegetables and preparing the garden for the winter.

I worked a little bit on our hoop house, a project I began last year, which I haven’t completed yet. One of these years, I will get it finished; then we will be able to harvest cold weather crops and greens all winter long. The ends are up, all that I need to do now is put the covering into place.

I do enjoy those last few weeks of the garden season in the autumn.

In early spring, one dreams of the upcoming season; seeds are ordered and transplants begun. In early summer the first greens are enjoyed, but soon begins a flurry of activity as the garden is prepared and planted.

During the high season of summer, the warm weather crops are enjoyed but the weeding seems endless. In dry years, the need to irrigate is constant. I am grateful for automatic timers to ensure sufficient watering at the optimal time- late evening and in the middle of the night.

At  least once or twice a summer our garden is decimated by hail. My feelings are ambivalent with every summer thunderstorm: I hope for rain and dread the hail.

By the autumn, the days are warm and nights are cool. The need for weeding and irrigating have all but disappeared.

This is the season when cool weather crops are at their best: kale, cabbage, brussel sprouts, broccoli, beets, carrots, mustard, chicory, arugula, spinach, and Asian greens such as Bok Choi and Tat Tsoi.

All that is left now is to enjoy the end of the season, to bring in the last of the root vegetables, to remove old dead plants from the garden, and to put away hoses and other garden tools.

Sometimes, by the end of the season, it is easy to be ready to be done with the garden and leave it as it is.

But the autumn is an important time; what we do in the autumn will often affect how the garden does the following year. It is a time to prepare the garden to “go to sleep” for the winter so it will be ready to go (ready to grow?)  the following spring.

I have heard it said that gardening is not about growing plants- given the right conditions they will do that pretty much themselves- but rather about building and maintaining the soil. I agree.

I am careful to never allow there to be open or uncovered soil for long. In the growing season, either mulch is applied or new crop planted. Open soil is asking for a weed to sprout, or for the soil health to degrade.

If there is a spot where one crop is harvested but I’m not ready to plant a new one, I make frequent use of green manures. I like buckwheat in the summer because it grows quickly and has a weak root system- plus my honeybees love the flowers. In the late summer/early fall I prefer to plant oats and berseem clover because they winter kill and are good for the tilth of soil.

We make good use of compost. All weeds, kitchen leftovers that the chickens can’t eat and all old spent vegetable plants goes into the compost pile. I make layers alternating with chicken and horse manure.   In our arid climate, we need to add water to our compost pile- in the summer I have a sprinkler system that waters the pile for a few minutes a few times a day.

Our compost pile is full of red worms. Unlike the more common earth worm, red worms do better in manure or compost piles than in the garden soil. I have no idea where they came from but am very glad they are here.

After 6 months or a year, garden waste is converted to rich black gold. I apply it liberally to the garden every spring.

In the fall, I “single dig” parts of the garden. Unlike the more labor intensive and much deeper ”double-digging” single digging involves turning over a spadeful of soil at a time and leaving it in place. I’ve tried both and didn’t think the extra effort of double digging is worth it.

We do have a rototiller, an original Troy-bilt. I use the rototiller primarily for mixing compost and manure into the soil, and preparing the seed bed in the spring. I inherited it from my Dad and remember as a child watching and listening to him work the soil with that rototiller every spring.

I love that machine. It is one of the few mechanical devices that I know how to work on and tune up- it makes me feel as if I have some mechanical skills- even though truly I do not. You could say I have worked out sort of a relationship with it.

Our native soil is rocky and calciferous- few things would grow well there.

However, very fortunately dark top soil was placed in our garden spot by the previous owners for which I am grateful. It is the best soil for growing, though a little bit “clayey.” Thus,  I make sure to add organic matter liberally every year to maintian a soft fluffy loam.

Sometimes, if I have extra horse manure, I will apply a few inches in the fall to avoid it being too “hot” or have too much nitrogen for the plants. By spring, the horse manure has decomposed in place enough for the soil to be perfect for planting.

Many cole crops such as kale and brussel sprouts can take a light frost, they even taste better after a frost compared to before.

The carrots can remain in the ground as long as they are protected with a mulch. As long as the ground is not frozen solid, they too can be dug all winter long. the taste of carrots also improves with the cold weather as starch is converted to sugars.

I also plant my garlic and shallots in the fall. They stay underground, covered with a light mulch of straw, developing roots, waiting for the first warm days of spring to sprout.

Garlic does well here, with some of our bulbs growing as large as the “elephant garlic” one occasionally sees in grocery stores- but our garlic has a rich earthy-spicy real garlic flavor that elephant garlic lacks. We grow an heirloom German hardneck garlic and plant cloves every fall from the previous years’ crop.

There are few things as good as roasted homegrown garlic eaten on homemade sourdough bread.

This year I tried something different. I planted my fava beans in the fall. Fava beans are very cold hardy, the plants can tolerate a frost of 10 – 15 degrees.

I thought, why stress about getting the seeds into the ground in the spring?  Why not just plant them in the fall and let them come up in the spring when the weather is right?

There are many other crops that could be potentially be suitable for this: peas, lettuce, radishes, mustard, spinach, some cole crops- basically anything in which the planting instructions say “plant in the spring as early as the ground can be worked.”

For years I have observed seeds come up as “volunteers.” These are seeds that were accidentally dropped or lost on the ground, later to sprout in the spring after spending all winter in the soil. It’s what weed seeds do.

Why not do the same with cold tolerant vegetables to save time and stress in the spring?

However, when I told others of my experiment, it’s amazing how many people told me, “You just can’t do that!”

“Well, why the heck not?” I ask.

There is nothing worse than following conventional wisdom, or doing things the way we always do them, because that just the way that we do them.

This is true in gardening.. and also in science and in medicine.

At worst my experiment will be a failure, I’ll be out of the money it cost to buy a few seed packets.  Success or failure, I will learn a valuable lesson either way.

Soon it will be firewood cutting season. We heat our cabin mostly with wood, with propane for backup. Wood is best harvested the year before it will be needed and allowed to dry in the forest before it is brought up to the house to be burned.

There is a saying, “Firewood warms you twice: when you cut it and when you burn it…” more on this later. It’s time to get back outside and finish up the last of the fall garden chores.

This song goes out to Jeanne…. my beautiful bride, the mother of my son, my best friend and the love of my life.

Those of you who were at our wedding may remember it as our wedding song. You may also recognize it as the theme song for the Ken Burns 1990 PBS television miniseries, “The Civil War.”

Although Ashokan Farewell sounds as if it were a traditional tune that was played at the time of the Civil War, it was actually composed composed by Jay Ungar in 1982. Ashokan Farewell  captures the essence of a period of time gone by; it is among the most beautiful fiddle songs ever written.

My fiddle playing is coming along. My bowing has improved, I still need to get better at vibrato with my left hand.

But it’s coming along…

Click on the photo above for link to the video or here: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=4775740396494&saved

Yesterday we had our 4th annual Oktoberfest party. Every year it seems to get bigger. We invited friends, family, co-workers and neighbors to celebrate our European heritage. We had 99 people sign our guestbook; I assume there were probably a few who didn’t.

I have been an avid homebrewer for years. I enjoy the creative aspects of developing a new recipe and the challenge of trying to emulate a style I haven’t brewed before.

Brewing for me is as much a form of artistic creative expression as is playing my musical instruments or any other art.

This year at our local homebrew competition the Rapid City Bierborse,  I won a total of 6 medals.  I received 1st place lager for my Doppelbock, was awarded 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the Belgian category for my Saison, Belgian Quadrupel and Belgian wit respectively. Then I got 2nd and 3rd place meads for my Rosehip Rhodomel and Elderberry Melomel respectively.

I was surprised. I had been only hoping, oh, maybe for only one or or two medals.

Most unfortunately I had to be out of town for work. I wasn’t even able to be there to accept any of my medals in person.

I admit that as I was winning the medals back in South Dakota, I was celebrating by sampling various craft beers of San Diego and was getting a tour of White Labs, a well-known producer of  yeasts used in commercial and homebrewing.

Oh well.

At least my beers and meads were able to be there for the judging the week before. I suppose that’s what matters. I hope I can attend in person next year.

Since I seem to have the brewing process figured out, perhaps I should volunteer next year as a judge?

I enjoy making beer even more than I do drinking it. I brew more beer every year than I could ever consume. Fortunately, I have friends who enjoy consuming it for me.

You could say it’s a perfect symbiotic relationship!

We again served traditional German food. I got up early Saturday morning to build the cooking fire. Then I slow roasted Schweinbraten (Pork Roasts) over hardwood coals for 10 hours.  The meat was encrusted in a German mustard sauce. We served other foods too including Rotkraut and Kartoffelsalat- as well as a variety of delicious dishes brought by some of our guests.

Texas may have a reputation for being the center of deep pit barbeque in the US but the reality is that there was no barbeque in Texas as we know it- until it was introduced there by German immigrants.

This year we put up a green screen so that we could take photos of guests and then photo shop in backgrounds from Germany. The kids especially had fun dressing up in various costumes we had available.

Oktoberfest 2013 is only a year away!

We are already thinking of what we might add next year. An outside beer tent? A roast suckling pig? A strolling accordian player to play polkas?

Jah voll!

After Zumbro 50 mile, I felt better. At least I had finally finished an event under cut off.

I am used to DNFing, I do it frequently. But after while DNFing gets really old.

I was beginning to wonder, am I really cut out to keep doing these extremely long endurance events?

Maybe I should back of to  doing something shorter and more main-stream?

Nah.

Some of the time I DNF because something happens out of my control, and it is my decision to stop. That kind of DNF I consider a good DNF. it was my choice. You know, as the old saying goes: DNF stands not only for “did not finish” but also for ”did nothing fatal.”

But then there is what I consider a “bad” DNF.

Those are when I am forced to stop, not because anything  is wrong, or I am having a bad day, but simply because I am slow and missed a cut off. When many runners are going slow and miss a cut off, it is because they are having a bad day and probably should stop.

For back-of-the-packers like me, we could be having a really good day (as good as one can have while doing an ultra) and yet we still can be forced to DNF because of missing a cut off.

If something goes wrong, faster runners may have an hour or even a few hours to get the situation sorted out.

Back-of-the-packers do not have that luxury. We might only have a 15 minute cushion. If we can’t get our situation figured out soon, our race is over, even if we could ahve actually gone the entire way if we had a little more time.

Running ultramarathons is an entirely different event for us.

While the elite may worry about where they will place, the mid-pack sometimes will strive for a personal best on a certain course or at a certain distance, we back-of-the-packers are overjoyed to simply have the privilege of even finishing.

If we can’t finish under official cutoff, then we’re extremell grateful when those very rare race organizers allow us to go the entire way unofficially.

If we are made to stop, then we take pride in at least getting as far as we could.

Yes, our races are very different for back-of-the-packers than for many runners.

I was going to be pacing my good friend Dave Elsbernd at the legendary Western States 100 this-coming June. Dave is a faster runner than I am; I didn’t want to let him down. I had been doing more training than earlier in the year.

However, as with most ultramarathoners, I never ever feel as if I have ever trained “enough.”

I decided to register for a “training” run May 27th: the Wyoming Double Marathon.

The Wyoming Double Marathon is the oldest marathon and ultramarathon in the Cowboy State. The course  is located about 10 miles east of Laramie on hilly gravel and dirt roads in the Medicine Bow National Forest. It starts at 8,700 feet and  drops down to 8,000 feet at the turnaround. The marathon would one out and back, the double would two out and backs.

I intended only on jogging it  and had no specific goals in mind, other than to get in a good training run.

Although ultrarunners enjoy hours of running alone out in nature, it is fun to run along other self-described running “nuts” occasionally. After a while, we get to know other ultra-insane in our region and see them at events. Race begin to get a reunion kind of atmosphere as runners catch up on news and update each other on what is going on in their lives. Where our training is mostly solitary, races are definitely social occasions.

Plus, it is much easier to make used of aid stations during an organized race than to “go long”  entirely unsupported.   Once we begin doing extra-long training runs (over 30 miles), our back packs begin to get unreasonably heavy. Often we must hide extra water and gear in the bushes somewhere or in several places along our route. The race entry fee is well worth it.

Of course, if only I were faster, it might not be as big of a problem because I’d be done in 5 or 6 hours instead of 7 or 8.

Oh well.

Slow I am and slow I always shall be…. but I’m also extremely tenacious and determined as hell. That is more than many faster runners of shorter distances can claim.

One concern about this race, it is at a higher altitude than where I normal do well. I was slightly apprehensive by how I might do. It was only to be a training run, so how I did was not that important, but I was still apprehensive nonetheless.

I have congenital anomaly that prevents me from doing well at altitude. I get more short of breath than do most people at the same level of exertion.

There is no cure, more training will not make it go away and it is not life-threatening, however, it does prevent me from going fast.  It likely explains why I was one of the slowest kids on my high school cross country and track teams.

I loved running out in nature, even back then, but there was a suggestion by one of my coaches that if I had only trained harder, I would be able to go faster.

I know now that not ot be true, training improve performance but only to a point. Just as I don’t have the physique to be a power lifter, I won’t ever win any medals other than finishers medals at races.

But frankly I don’t give a $%^#$! what others think of my speed, or lack thereof.

I run for myself and no one else (OK I run for my family too).

Of course, how many of my cross country and track team are in their 40s and doing ultramarathons or even still running?

Probably not many.

Well, in an ultramarathon speed is way overrated anyway.

Still it would be really really nice to not have to always worry about thosed danged cut off times…

…if only I could be just a little faster…

The first part of the race went through rolling hills and meadows of the Medicine Bow National Forest. I had spent several weeks living in Cheyenne when I was a medical student and am somewhat familiar with the area. Of course, that was 20 years ago.

The slopes of the stream valleys were forested with spruce and aspen. Wildflowers were in bloom; the streams were backed up into ponds by beaver dams. There was elk tracks and other sign everywhere.

I am sure that if one came out here at night one would see many eyes staring back at you in the light of your headlamp.

Sadly, many of the conifers were dying from pine beetle infestation, as are most of the pine trees where I live in the Black Hills. Soon the Rocky Mountains will look much different, with few trees and much more open, grassy areas.

I did notice increased breathlessness at the start of the race and so I backed off down to my “100 mile” pace from my 50 mile pace.

This event was only to be for training, Western States was coming up in a few weeks. I couldn’t afforded to by injured.

The road left the stream valley and entered some open country. The wind blew and blew. This was Wyoming after all.

Whenever I visit Chicago, I have to chuckle; the “windy City,” is not so windy, at least not compared to Wyoming.

The couple of miles on the shoulder of the road with the wind blowing were not fun.

I am a trail runner, I HATE asphalt.

It was hard to get our breath with the wind blowing. Even though this portion of the course was relatively flat, between the wind and the altitude, some of us had trouble cathcing our breath.

We soon  left the pavement, but as we did, I thought: “too bad this is an out and back course, I wish I wouldn’t have to see this section more than once…”

In the distance, we could see the Vedauwoo rocks: unique granite rock formations called “hoo-doos”   and other outcroppings .

The name comes from the Arapaho word “bito’o'wu” meaning “earth-born”.

Vedauwoo is a popular area for rock climbing, hiking, mountain biking and camping, it is a fun place to run through as well.

These rocks are located a short distance off of Interstate-80 between Cheyenne and Laramie.

If you are are ever traveling this part of I-80,  Vedauwoo is definitely worth getting off the interstate for a short sight seeing, picnic or hiking trip.

The temperatures warmed in the mid day sun. We started at temps in the low 40s; many of us had to shed our warm outergarments along the way.

As I went back onto the paved sections I realized, “Hmmm… this was a headwind this morning and now the wind is in my face again as I go in the other direction, now how does that work?”

As I headed back down through the streams and valleys, I looked at my hand and realized that my fingers and hands were swollen.

A little swelling is normal, but not this much.

Sometime excessive swelling can occur from over -hydrating. However, in the thin dry mountain air, I was certain that I had not over-dranken.

Indeed, I was a little worried about being dehydrated.

I hadn’t peed for a while and it was dark when I did (this is more information than you want to know, but us ultrarunners play close attention to our bodily functions and we are not shy in telling others… or showing them).

Now this did concern me.

Was it a low-grade form of altitude illness? I had a slight dull headache, which I was attributing to being a little dehydrated.

Could it be mild altitude sickness instead?

I live at 3500-4000 ft so I am not a complete flat-lander, of course walking vs running at altitude are very different things.

I had never had anything happen like this in a race before, but then I tend to avoid events over 8000 ft because of my baseline altitude intolerance. I absolutely love the mountains, I just can’t go very fast when I’m up there.

Hmmm…I had several miles to contemplate what to do.

Should I keep going?

Or should I call it a day?

I did have a headlamp, in case I ended up slowing down on my second out-and-back. I had extra clothing so I came prepared…I could be out there half the night if i needed to and they didn’t pull me.

What should I do?

As I approached the 26.2 mile start/finish, I saw my car.

Dang.

That’s the one real disadvantage of loop or multiple out-and-back courses. Every time you get back to the start and finish area, the temptation for you to stop increases.

I saw my car and knew instantly what I should do.

If I stopped now, I could get back into my car, drive home and be home in time for dinner.

On the other hand, if I kept going, I would finish to full double marathon but afterwards I’d be so tired and it would be so late, I would have to get a hotel room in Cheyenne. I wouldn’t see my family until the next day.

So I made my decision. I would stop.

26.2 miles would be enough.

26.2 miles would be a good training run.

As I approached the start/finish area, the race organizers cheered, “You’re half way done! You’re amazing!”

To which I replied, “No I’m not amazing, I’m stopping.”

They asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am.” I said, “I’m OK, I just want to quit is all.”

“Well, then here’s your marathon finisher’s medal then…it’s amazing that you did the marathon…”

I didn’t think so.

I tried to tell them, I didn’t deserve any medals.

I had signed up for the double marathon not the single. I was a quitter today.

I should get nothing more than a big fat DNF- not a marathon finisher’s medal. Most especially for this my slowest marathon EVER.

But they gave me a marathon finishers medal anyway…

Yes, today was a good DNF after all.