Here we are on the final day of Quarry Farm Fridays with the Bluffton Public Library. It’s been fun, educational, and a welcome challenge during a year of uncertainty. Thank you to Tanya, Lauren and all who tuned in and joined in the conversation and introduced themselves to The Quarry Farm. Keep reading!
After a virtual summer with us, pack your mask and join us tomorrow in person for Family Day from 1 to 4 p.m.
A dozen squash and a bag of apples are all that remain from the December windfall from Hoehns Orchard. The fruits flash froze in the bed of the Ranger yesterday. They’ll thaw this weekend as temperatures jump from this morning’s -8°F to 52°F on Monday. Buddy and Lucy will love their sweet squashy pudding. Tonight, the geese will scavenge for apple bits after the pigs shred the applesicles.
Everyone made it through Wednesday’s -40°F windchill, at least everyone in the farm animal sanctuary. There were tracks leading up the path from Cranberry Run, so some of the wild things are beginning to emerge from the deep freeze. Here’s hoping some of the bush honeysuckle in the hedgerow weren’t so lucky.
We were—lucky, that is. A friend in Minneapolis says it’s still -21°F there on Day 2 of Invasion Polar Vortex, windchill notwithstanding. Mosaic the Llama’s dreamy eyelashes are dripping rather than hanging and she is out of the barn and staring at the mass of singing starlings that shelter in the pines.
We were lucky, counting all toes, fingers, nostrils and ears as healthy and whole. We weathered this bout with fractured weather patterns. As we hung blankets in the archway of Nemo’s and Carlton’s shed, packed straw into the barns and latched the doors Tuesday night, it wasn’t the plunging temps and 30 mph wind that scared us. It was what the wind was packing.
For 36-hours, the wind bore a topsoil blown from tilled fields to the west, a haze so thick that it coated trees, cars and ground with a gray film. Rays of Wednesday sunrise shown amber. Even with wind chill warnings outside, our boots left muddy tracks in the foyer. I wiped brown frost from the skin left exposed by my face mask. Snow and rain are predicted to wash down hill and stream this weekend.
Friend Kim called the film of topsoil on my car “cancer dirt”. She wasn’t being funny. Neither am I when I say I think I know what ash from nuclear fallout looks like. Why do we insist on taking everyone else with us?
Mosaic
Llamas can reach speeds up to 35 mph. No humans kept that pace during The Quarry Farm 3rd Annual 5K on October 6. Chablis and Mosaic, llama dams who arrived at the farm animal sanctuary the night before the run/walk, didn’t run that fast either. Instead, the matronly camelids watched people trot past on the south leg of the course (more to come about the llamas in The Quarry Farm 2018-2019 Newsletter.)
I woke before dawn on Saturday to the sound of a torrential downpour, lightning and thunder. My alarm went off a few minutes later. I pulled the covers up and over, sure that we would be cancelling the 5K. The clouds lifted briefly so I set off for my own run at 7 a.m. and got drenched for my efforts. By 8:30, blue sky peeked through gray clouds, cleared by a breeze from the west. Remembering that Gran always said to look out for wind from the east (attributed to “When the wind is in the east, ’tis neither good for man nor beast”) we set up parking signs, registration, coffee and cookies.
Upstream view from Mallaham Bridge, October 6, 2018, 10:15 a.m.
The west wind remained true. By 11 a.m., 21 participants had passed the first tree in the Road 7L catalpa corridor, crossed over the historic Mallaham Bridge (and smiled for my camera), turned around at Bridenbaugh Schoolhouse and crossed the finish line in front of Red Fox Cabin.
By noon, we had coffee dregs, three lemon cookies and plenty of photos to help us remember. We had our four first finishers: Jeremy Haselman, Christine Meeker, Martha Erchenbrecher (5K Birthday Award) and (under 12) Asher Haselman. We also had three lessons for the 4th Annual 5K:
Thank you to everyone who turned out and to anyone who crosses their own finish line to raise funds in support of what we do here and in educational settings in Northwest Ohio.
