The New Adventure

I promised I'd link you all up to my new blog once it went live, so here it is! If you missed the last post about why I'm starting a new blog, check out my previous post! That has my probably long winded explanation as to why I'm starting this new chapter in my writing.

Thank you all for reading, and I hope you'll follow me on this new adventure!

Endings and New Beginnings

I graduated from college a little over three weeks ago.

It's still really weird to say. It still doesn't really even feel real. It probably won't feel real until fall hits and I don't go back to classes like I have for the last sixteen years of my life. But a little over three weeks ago, I walked across a stage with 6 of the other Horticulture graduates, shook the hand of the dean and my Plant Genetics professor, and just like that my undergraduate career was over.

Now what?

That's the question I've been asking myself for the last three weeks. I went back to my hometown for a while to help my family out with my sister's high school graduation among other things so I've had a lot of time to sit and mull that question over. And I've realized that, at this point, I don't know. I don't know what's next. And right now, I think that's okay. This summer, I'll be working part time as a gardener at a country club until anything full-time (either in hort or in some other field) rolls around. Otherwise I'll just be figuring out this new part of my life that is, frankly, sorta freaking me out right now.

This last semester was incredibly hard. There were points where I didn't think I'd graduate on time or even make it through the semester with the last shreds of my sanity. Thankfully, I've done both. But now that it's over, I think my brain needs some chill out time.

So what becomes of my blog? I've realized that maintaining a blog titled "The College Gardener" doesn't make a whole lot of sense once the author is no longer college. This blog has been with me since the beginning of my foray into horticulture and I've become so fond of writing here. But I think that now that college is over, it's time to move on to something different. But I definitely don't mean I'm going to stop blogging. On the contrary, I hope to blog more. But I've decided to retire this site and start up a new one, with a new name and a new platform. I've been working on it for the past few weeks and it's almost ready. Rest assured I'll be posting the link here and on my other social media outlets for everyone to find.

The new blog is going to be a bit different from this one. I'm hoping to focus a little more on my writing instead of simply relaying current events and projects like I did on this blog. It will also be on much broader of topics. Gardening and horticulture will still be large elements, but my passions for food and nature will not be ignored as much on the new blog. So look for that coming very soon.

So, for my penultimate post, I would just like to send a "Thank You" to anyone out there who has ever read this blog. Some of you may never see this thank you, but I don't mind. Doesn't matter if you've only stopped by once or if you've read every post (those of you who have, please let me know so I can thank you properly!!). You all have made this a spectacular journey.

Much Love,
Abby

Spring is Here!

One day it was winter and the next it wasn't. Just as winter was starting to become unbearable, we were hit with rising temperatures into the 50s and even very, very low 60s. It was like the universe answered all of the north's silent (and not so silent) prayers for spring. The warmth is making me even more excited to get done with my degree and enjoy a summer of growing food, working (hopefully!), and hanging out in the Twin Cities. 

Sunshine and 60 degrees on campus.

One exciting, new piece of life is that I've signed on as a member of Southeast Como's FairShare Farm! FairShare has a really neat model that allows members to pay a small, one-time fee, work a few set hours per week at the farm, and then receive a portion of every harvest. No one has their own individual plot, but all the plots are shared and rotated every year in keeping with good crop rotations. So it's somewhat like a CSA and a community farm smooshed into one. I'm just excited to be working with others who share my passion for gardening and meeting people from my neighborhood at the same time. 

One of the old grain towers near my house.

Otherwise, things are pretty normal. I'm heading home to Michigan for spring break on Saturday, leaving my roommates to have fun in the Twin Cities without me. But it'll be great to have a relaxing week of sleeping and taking care of myself. I'll also be helping out my dad who's having surgery on his knee while I'm home.

Once I get back, it's full steam ahead on seed-starting. The only thing I have going right now are perennial, native, pollinator friendly seed mixes started in some makeshift greenhouses (juice containers with holes poked in them) sitting outside. Since they don't mind the cooler temps, I've left them to generally fend for themselves with the occasional watering. I didn't want to start anything else until after spring break because I didn't want to leave newly-started seeds on their own for eight days... But I'm planning on some small space gardening at my own house as well as having things to grow at FairShare. I have some dry beans that I want to grow simply for seed-saving purposes (with the couple of beans I have, I wouldn't be able to grow enough to eat), as well growing some mini-bell peppers in pots for the ledge outside. I have several tomato varieties I'll probably offer to start for my family members as well. 

The last project I have are some perennials that I grew from cuttings in plant production last semester. I have some rugosa roses, a hydrangea, a mum and a pretty crispy-looking cold-hardy hibiscus (don't know if that one has made it...). I attempted overwintering them in our cooler stairway area and once it warms up even more, I'm going to set them outside, throw on some fertilizer and see if they come back. 

I'll probably have a seed-starting post up eventually, but this semester has been way more crazy than I thought. Plant genetics has been tricky and keeping up with it is requiring tons of work. But I just have to keep it up until the beginning of May...

Hope you all are enjoying the lovely spring weather, wherever you are!

Grow Your Food and Eat It Too

Now that my semester is up and running more smoothly, I've been given a few seconds to write a blog update (finally!) about what I've been up to lately.

The first large portion of my time has been taken up by applying for jobs. It's like having a whole other class with the time and effort I've been putting into searching for openings, writing cover letters and submitting applications. I don't want to go into too much detail about how everything is going, but overall I'm feeling positive about the process as a whole.

The second large portion of my time is, obviously, classes. This semester has felt pretty surreal so far simply because it's my last one. As you might've read in my last post, I have two classes with labs (genetics and aquaponics), a cooking class, and an online sustainable agriculture class (that has yet to start). The cooking class has turned out to be one of the most interesting as I've never studied the human consumption side of food past selling it to them at a farmers market stand. I'm excited that I'm finally learning a whole other side to the food system from the perspective of a consumer and cook, than just a producer/grower. Just a few classes and weeks worth of reading has started to change my outlook on food. Because of my work on an organic vegetable farm, I've long been of the opinion that one should eat more locally, include more whole vegetables in their diets and try to understand where their food comes from. But now I'm starting to add things to that philosphy that don't just benefit the environment, but also benefit my health. Changing my normal pasta, rice and other wheat products from refined to whole-wheat is something I'm slowly starting to do. As I run out of the refined products that I've subsisted on, I'm starting to replace them with the new products.

One of my cooking challenges, a meal I usually eat with proportions as set out
by the Harvard Healthy Plate guidelines.

These fixes probably seem like no-brainers for a lot of you. But the fact is, many people my age eat white rice, white bread, white pasta, you name it simply because it seems like the "normal" type of those products to eat. Most of us grew up eating it. I mainly ate wheat bread growing up (thanks Mom!) so that was never an issue for me, but when it came to other products like pasta and tortillas, I didn't really give it much thought as I grabbed that white flour tortilla bag off the shelf at the grocery store. I've been reading some pretty interesting things for class that made me realize that I grew up in the "low-fat" era. The USDA and other health officials started the "Fat is Bad" trend, so we started eating more carbs. I, and the rest of my generation, are the product of that. But learning not all fat is bad is another part of this class. Fat from fish, olive oil, and nuts is a great thing to have in your diet.

Probably the most interesting thing I've read so far is the free first chapter of a book called "Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy" which calls out the failings of the USDA's food pyramid and, right away, debunks some of the myths we've been living with in our food system for my entire life. In short, the food pyramid leaves out some key information that we have done without for years. An example of this is the three servings of dairy per day to combat the low amount of calcium that Americans consume. The truth is, most Americans get more calcium per day than they need and there are cheaper, more effective ways to supplement calcium if you're someone who doesn't get enough. The fact that we're eating too much dairy is somewhat scary to me because I drink a lot of milk. Granted, I drink skim milk which is much better for a person than whole, or 2%, but I always thought that my high milk intake was a good thing. I grew up being told that. So now that I'm reading this classes literature, I'm not so sure.

See the dilemmas? I invite you to read it for yourself and see what you think. I certainly had a few mindset shifts after reading this and several other articles. You can find the link here. 

The Final Semester

Today I started my last semester of college. Pretty crazy looking back over this blog and realizing how long it's actually been since I started writing. I'm going to have to really push myself to power through this semester then I'll be officially done with school. I'm also in the process of big-kid job hunting, so that's a whole other new element to life right there. I'm only going to bore you with a post about my classes today, as I do at the beginning of every new semester.

My class load is relatively light this semester, due mostly to the fact that I don't need many more classes or credits to graduate. Technically I've had enough credits to graduate for a while now, but have not completed several of the required classes for my major or minor. 

The only class I've had so far is my Aquaponics course. This course is designed to be an experiential learning course and it's the first time the University has ever offered it. Hopefully one outcome of this course will be a publication, most likely in ebook form, that has results of group experiments that will be conducted during the course of the semester. We'll be trying several different types of aquaponics set-ups so hopefully I'll have a blog post or two about those in the future.

The second regular class I have is Plant Genetics. This one, frankly, scares me a little. It's one of the more difficult of the Hort courses at this school and, on top of everything, I really don't think I'll be using the things I learn in it once I'm done with the class. Since I'm more interested in the human aspect of horticulture and am in no way intending on breeding plants, this isn't really something I'm looking forward to. But we'll see how it goes. I'm trying not to be terribly negative about it since I haven't even gone to the class yet.

My third class, Intro to Sustainable Agriculture, is an online course I'm taking solo. It's the final course needed for my Sustainable Agriculture minor and, thankfully, the professors made an exception for me to complete it online because I wasn't able to take it during the semester it was offered (it conflicted with a course required for my Horticulture major). My guess is that it will be a lot of reading and writing reflections, which I can handle no problem. 

The last class is my one-credit cooking lab I'm taking through the Food Science department. It's called Cooking on a College Budget and, even though I'll be leaving college in May, knowing how to cook on a budget will be handy for years after. This is really my "fun class" since it's not required that I take it for any reason. I'm simply doing it for my own enjoyment. 

And that's a brief rundown. I'll probably have plenty of posts about classes later. I'll also be posting lots of pictures and short observations to Instagram and Twitter so be sure to check those out!

New Year's Resolutions

A Northern Cardinal in the yard. One of my favorite backyard birds.

Now that I've returned to the land of snow and cold, I've had a bit of time to think on New Year's Resolutions. I've never been good at these. Most years, I don't even make any, or they're very generic. A few of the ones I came up with this year are pretty generic or easily attainable as well, but I like them all the same.

1. Taking time out of the day to do something calming that helps get my mind off stressful things. Writing, reading, listening to music, or anything that could help me care for myself mentally. With my last semester coming up, I'm sure I'll have my share of freak-out or anxiety-ridden moments and having some way to combat that will be necessary.

2. I hope to write on this blog at least once per week or, during really busy times, at least once every two weeks. There will be parts of the semester where updating will be difficult or I'll have simply too much schoolwork for updating, so I wanted to keep this realistic.

3. Break 150 species on my birding Life List. I'm currently at 84 species so I hope this goal will be somewhat easily surpassable. I don't really care too much about numbers with birding, but I set it mostly because I want to keep myself motivated in this hobby.

4. Graduate from college. This one is sorta a no-brainer to have on the list.

5. Keep myself healthy, whatever that entails. Exercise, eating better, etc. I'd like to have several meals a week that I prepare from scratch and try to cut out more processed foods from my diet. Being a college student, it's often very difficult not to eat processed food simply because a boxed meal is faster and less work to prepare during times where schoolwork and other things make me busy. But I'll have less things going on in the evenings this coming semester so setting aside more time to cook will be great. I'm also taking a cooking class through the university so hopefully that will teach me more techniques to use that will make cooking easier. The university rec center also has fitness classes it offers that I've utilized before and greatly enjoyed. Hopefully some fit into my schedule this year.

6. Keep in touch with people from my hometown more. I'm dismal at doing this and I always feel bad about it once I come home and see everyone once again.

7. Try to integrate more environmentally friendly practices into my daily life. I found an excellent list here.  And this definitely includes growing more of my own food this summer.

And that's that! Hopefully I'll be able to stick to it. And posting this somewhere public will hopefully keep me more accountable. I'd love to hear about any New Year's Resolutions that any of you have. I always find sharing not only makes me follow through with a goal more, but makes me more excited about it as well!

Birdwatching on the top of Mount Marquette.

Florida Trip

On December 29th, I flew out of Minneapolis-St. Paul airport with 300 other crazy band kids and headed to the warm, muggy land of Orlando, Florida. When we landed, all you could hear were the shouts of joy as people who had gotten used to below-freezing temperatures felt 70 degrees against their skin again. As the Minnesota Golden Gophers were playing in the Citrus Bowl on the first of the new year, we were all there to cheer them on and provide the general pepping up any college sporting event needs.

Over the course of our three days there, we marched two parades, played at several pep rallies, spent an evening at Downtown Disney or Universal CityWalk, spend New Year's Eve at Seaworld, rehearsed several times, and, of course, marched at the football game. The end of the trip brought new meaning to the phrase we use a during our pregame show: "And down. Stop. Breathe." While we got drizzled on a few times, it didn't all-out rain much and the weather stayed pleasantly mild, albeit a bit muggy.

Shamu stadium at SeaWorld

We also did a lot of sitting on a buses as we shuttled from place to place. I enjoyed looking out the window and taking in the greenery and wildlife that was persistently abundant, despite all the development and human mayhem going on around it. There was a ditch with a small pond just outside the hotel and I saw five species while simply sitting on a bus, waiting to leave for a parade. Pretty cool stuff. We also ended up parking by a lake near the Citrus Bowl stadium and I saw six species there just walking around it to the stadium. The plant life was also incredibly diverse. There was such diversity in every garden I saw and, while many things were going through their dormancy period, there were still some things flowering. I can't imagine what it's like in spring and summer. The air must be full of the smell of tropical flowers. Not sure I could handle the summer temperatures though. I'm too much of a northerner that it might do me in. 

White Ibises

We also got to spend New Years in Florida and spending it with a group of people I've come to cherish so much made me incredibly thankful for the opportunities being a member of the marching band has given me. This trip was the last time I performed with that group and it was incredibly bittersweet. But what a great way to end it. Only thing that could've made it better would have been if our football team had won the game. Ah well. 

Citrus Bowl Stadium

All the amazing Gopher fans who came out to cheer on the team.

But now it's back to reality and, thankfully, I still have until the 20th off of school, meaning I'm back home in the Upper Peninsula for a while to enjoy my last winter break ever. It may be cold here, but spending time at home is worth it regardless of weather. 

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to anyone out there reading this. I hope your holidays were merry and bright! Sadly, here in Minnesota, our Christmas wasn't very white. We usually have a good amount of snow by now, but a warm weekend after a few weeks of now snow left us with dull browns and greens. Thankfully, that meant no ice for those who were out and about on the holidays to skid and slip on. I'm sure there were a lot less car accidents and sprained accidents because it was so dry.

I'm back in Minnesota for the time being as I've been spending Christmas with my mom's side of the family. I also get the awesome opportunity to fly down to Orlando, Florida for the Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl soon! It'll be my last bowl game trip with the Minnesota Marching Band and I'm SO PUMPED that we get to go somewhere warm and exciting. Hopefully the Gophers can pull off the win over Mizzou. That would just be the icing on the cake. Once I'm back from that, I'll spend a good amount of the month of January back home in Michigan before finally coming back to Minnesota for my last semester of college.

I try not to think about next semester too much. It kind of ruins vacation when I worry about school too much. I think being busy during school makes it really hard for my brain to "turn off" during vacation, so I always feel like I need to be doing something. I have to sort of train myself to turn my brain off sometimes. I think that is going to be one of my New Year's resolutions is to learn how to just stop and chill out. It'll probably help my sanity in the long run, especially as I come up on college graduation.

Since I probably won't post again until after the New Year, I hope everyone has a lovely New Year's Eve!

Winter Solstice and a Holiday Decoration Tutorial

Winter Wonderland

It's great being back home in Michigan's Upper Peninsula especially because when it snows, it actually retains the look of a winter wonderland for a while. Minnesota is blustery, knocking snow off the trees soon after a storm, if not during. And living in a city means that things are brown and slushy almost instantly after a new snowfall. Not so at my house. Snow looks like it's supposed to. Pristine and beautiful.

Dad and I took our family's dog, Molly, out for a walk to gather some branches for outdoor decoration I've had in mind for a few of my mom's ornaments. She has so many that they don't all fit on the Christmas tree anymore! Across the road there's no development, just trees and the ghost of an old railroad grade that used to run there. Down the hill and through the woods to the sparkling river we went. Molly runs at full tilt, no matter where we're going. I don't know what we'd do with her if we didn't live by the woods where she could run, off-leash.

I forget how low the sun sits in the sky around this time. It was mid-afternoon but the sun still seemed low to me. But it made for some lovely photographs of the light coming through ice and snow coated branches. The cedars are one of my favorite trees. Evergreens in general I have come to miss greatly in the mostly-deciduous Twin Cities.

After collecting branches, we went back to the house and took the car to town to pick up some suet for the birds. Our chickadees sure are spoiled.

Feeling that the dog needed some more exercise (when doesn't she need exercise is the real question) we drove to the beach, a stretch we know to be usually empty. Perfect for throwing her tennis ball. She always astounds me, leaping into the freezing, hypothermia-inducing water after the prized orb. Dad only throws it there a couple times over the course of our stay, just to get her clean. The rest of the throws are land-based, getting her body-temperature up as she tears down the beach, flinging water and sand in every direction.

The waves are still high, but not as high as Monday when we'd attempted to come to this beach. Molly had to have been disappointed when we found the beach being totally eaten by waves. There was no tennis ball chasing for her that day. But today I found some gorgeous aftermath of the high waves, some broken branches covered in a mesmerizing membrane of ice. It caught the sun in such interesting ways and enhanced the color of the wood beneath.

Unrelated to my ice and snow adventures, coming home meant harvesting out as much as I could carry from my plant propagation greenhouse, carting it home with me and offering it to mom. Peppers, tomatoes, basil, a poinsettia, and lots of other things put to good use.

Back in Minnesota, I left some perennials on the unheated steps that lead up to our upper duplex unit. I'm hoping I can get them to go dormant for the rest of the winter. The rosa rugosa my mom offered to take and I have a mum, a hardy hibiscus and a hydrangea that I'll have to find a home for. It might be a relatives house or just a bigger pot on my small porch this coming summer.

Do Your Science

Caution: Rant ahead.

One of my pet peeves in a lot of my college classes has been the sheer lack of research that my peers decide to base arguments off of. It seems that, to many, finding a few sources to back up your argument is enough to go into a presentation or paper with. Sorry kids, but research doesn't simply mean "find some other people that say the same thing as you and use that", it also means reading about all sides of an issue. If you come in and say "I think Statement A is valid because of Sources 1, 2 and 3," you bet your butt I'm going to come in and say "Well sources 4, 5, and 6 say otherwise." Am I stating those sources because I agree with them? Not always, but if you go to any scientific community, they are going to use the facts that you conveniently forgot to mention against you.

The other thing that I always like to bring up is source bias. In reading opinion articles, it's often easy to get sucked in by the fact that the writer is published on a website. While information from individuals and organizations is a good thing to read while doing research, it is often biased by the opinions that individual or organization represents. Usually, either side of an argument can argue the bias of the other. Let's take the GMO debate. While many who decry GMOs and argue that the science that says these organisms is biased, they then turn right around and direct people to websites and sources that are obviously anti-GMO. How is this less biased?

These arguments aside, it makes me sad to see students taking research far too lightly and becoming misguided on the subject in the process. Today in one of my classes specifically, I saw so many presentations by my peers that were well thought out and well executed. But I also saw many that that could have been compelling, but shot themselves in the foot when they made mistakes that could have been remedied by even simply reading a Wikipedia page or two. I can understand how, to many, these things are simply assignments that they need to finish. But the way I see it, this sort of behavior is setting us up for failure later on. In our workplaces, knowing a few facts to back up your own argument or statements is necessary, but knowing the other side just as well is absolutely crucial. We will only fall short and continue to add to stagnation of education if all we look at is a single side.

Winter Has Come

Like most of you in the Northern and Eastern US, we got hit with snow this weekend, bringing to an end the fall that we thought would last us at least through Thanksgiving. Unlike our usual first snows in Minnesota, this snow (and ice) has stuck, with daytime temperatures hovering in the high 20s at most.

A picture of my walk into St. Paul campus taken from my phone.

Despite this, things are heating up in my Plant Production class and being able to work under the sunlamps a few days out of the week is a godsend. I definitely picked the right major for that reason. My crops are doing well now that I've learned what I need to do in order to fertilize them properly and our lettuce crops are about ready to take home for salad. Now I just need to find a way to get my boyfriend to actually eat salad...
I've also got an eggplant, two cucumbers and some cherry tomatoes that I'll be taking home next week. I'm not a huge cucumber fan so I'll have to find something creative to do with them, or just find a person who likes cukes more than me to take them. If I have the time, I'd love to try frying the eggplant that I have with my roommates deep-fryer.

For my World Food Problems class, my end-of-term paper is looming ever larger on the horizon and I'm still torn about what I want my topic to be. I have to have it finalized by next Tuesday so I'll have to dive into some research this weekend. My original idea is researching the importance seed-saving has in African cultures and how that relates to food security... But if I can't find enough written on that I might have to change to something else. I have a lot of strong feelings about GMOs (although not in the normal hell-bent against them sort of way) that I could write a paper on... Speaking of which, I will probably at least post something here about my opinions on them soon. Regardless, I need a topic that I can research and write about easily because I want to make this paper actually meaningful.

The last few things that have been happening lately have all been reminding me that I'm almost done with school. I met with my academic adviser to finalize my class schedule for next year, I register for those classes tomorrow and, after next week, I'm done with the regular season of marching band for the last time. I don't really know how to handle all of these emotions because there's just a huge, jumbled, confused mess of them. I'm happy and sad and nervous and everything else all at the same time. As many of my friends would say "#SeniorProblems".

And speaking of being done, yesterday was my last home football game as a member of the University of Minnesota Marching Band. Symbolically flipping my uniform overlay to the maroon side of a graduating member at the game was so bittersweet and leaving the field after my last halftime show was one of the hardest things I've had to do. This group has given me so much over the course of my college career and I've made some of the best memories I think I'll ever have of college as a member of it.

Me and my family who came down to see my final show.

I think that's what this winter has mainly brought with it: the realization that I'm going to be done with this stage of my life soon and I have this huge stretch of uncharted territory in front of me. It's not really like the rest of life where I have a set system to work inside of. There's no school where I can just work my way through a more-or-less comfortable set of hoops. Basically I have to be a real person and that's sort of terrifying. Exciting, yes, but definitely terrifying.

Hermit Thrush in the Garden

Yes, it's another post about birds on my gardening blog. This is slightly related to gardening, however, because I saw this cool bird in the University's Horticulture Display and Trial Garden. A couple mornings a week I like to sit on the bench by the water feature, drink my tea and watch whatever birds happen to be around. They like the water feature, so it's a great place to spot things.

Yesterday morning seemed really quiet, with not many birds flying around in the crabapple trees like normal. But as I was about to leave early, a bird slightly smaller than a robin fly right by me into the brush next to the bench. It hopped out the other side and into another bush where I could get a picture of it. It seemed to look at me, wondering why there was a giant creature sitting by it's water source. It was also bobbing it's tail up and down the whole time.

I had a vague notion that it was a thrush of some sort, based off of it's similarities to a robin in size, reddish tail, and in the white eye-ring it had. I pulled up the Cornell site on my phone and decided that Hermit Thrush fit my bird just right. 

Note the reddish tail.

In the meantime, the real bird had decided I wasn't too much of a threat and had hopped over to the small pond to get a drink. After, he rooted around in the leaf litter under a shrub for a while, looking for food.

Success! A tasty morsel for breakfast.

I was sad I had to leave to make it to my class on time and couldn't stay to watch this neat bird, but the fact that a quiet morning had turned into a life bird for me.

Duluth Adventure

To celebrate three years of being in a relationship, my boyfriend, Michael, and I took a day trip up to the lovely city of Duluth, situated on the shore of Lake Superior. It was my first time visiting the city, but my boyfriend had a small amount of prior knowledge, having visited several times with his family. Despite this, he still hadn't been there for several years so I had to do a little bit of research into where we should go and what we should do. I knew right away I wanted to go up to Hawk Ridge to try to see some of the spectacular views of the raptor migration they get there, and Michael wanted to visit Gooseberry Falls and Canal Park, places he and his family had been several times before.

With these ideas in mind, we set off on the two and a half hour drive to Duluth yesterday morning, excited that the day promised more beautiful weather than we could've wished for. Sunny and mid-60s, the day was starting off good before we even got there.

Upon our arrival around lunchtime, Michael suggested we get sandwiches from a place he'd been during past visits, Sir Benedict's, so we enjoyed some hearty French Dip sandwiches before heading up the hill to Hawk Ridge.

We hit the dirt road on the way up the ridge and knew we'd found the right spot when we saw the cars lined up along the road. Unintentionally, we got there during the times recommended on the signs posted at the ridge for the best viewing times. This time of year is also best for seeing larger raptors migrating, as the smaller species had mostly made their way through the area earlier in the fall. I had brought along my own binoculars and Michael picked up a pair from the Hawk Ridge station where they had loaner pairs for those who needed them. We already had seen several Sharp-shinned Hawks fly over us as we got there, a smaller species that was having a harder time battling that day's winds out of the south. Michael is not as into birding as I am, so I was hoping we'd see some larger bald eagles and red-tailed hawks to catch his interest. I knew that we were in range for Golden Eagle migration, a species I had never seen in the wild before, but wasn't expecting to see them at all that day. They weren't as common as the other species, so I didn't want to get my hopes up. 

But boy was I wrong. About 30 minutes after we got there, one of the birders taking the official counts from the platform up on the ridge said "Looks like we've got some Goldens coming in from the lake." My heart started racing as I eagerly scanned the area they indicated. I could see several specks waaaaay far out that I could tell were soaring birds, but not much more than that. Were these the Golden Eagles? I couldn't tell for sure yet. But luckily for me, Michael and the other 20 or so birders up on the ridge, one of the adults was going to give us a spectacular flyby not long later. In he (or she? I never actually heard if they knew the sex or not) came, soaring around and around and finally flying the length of the ridge right along where all of the birders stood in awe. It was beautiful. Huge, with a golden head, almost like a mane of feathers. The second that came in decent range of us still stayed off in the distance over the treeline. This one was a juvenile, with prominent white spots under his wings and a white band on his tail. We even got to see this one in comparison to a juvenile bald eagle that came into the same viewing range. 

Not a great photo, but here's one of the Golden Eagles!

Besides the Golden Eagles, we saw lots of Sharp-Shinned Hawks, several Bald Eagles, several Red-Tailed Hawks and one Northern Harrier. And this is just in the hour-fourty five minutes we spent there! Michael was thoroughly impressed with the Golden Eagles and the other raptors we saw (he kept bringing up how cool it was throughout the rest of the day), and I was happy he'd had such a good time birding. It was also really great that the nature guides up at Hawk Ridge gave a running commentary on what was flying over and information on the species we were seeing. It was both helpful and educational.

After Hawk Ridge, we drove down to the highway out of Duluth, still basking in the glow of our Golden Eagle sightings, and headed the 45 minutes to Gooseberry State Park. This was another place Michael had been before with his family, so he knew generally where to go once we got there. We spent an hour climbing and walking around on the rocks near the falls and taking pictures. The leaves were almost completely off the trees except for a few smaller maples that were still clinging to their fall colors. But the trees in this area were primarily evergreens and birch that had shed their leaves already. It made for a really neat scene with the birches starkly standing out against the other colors of a fall landscape.

Heading back to Duluth, we decided to head over to Canal Park to look at the lift bridge, walk out along the wall of the channel the large boats go through to get to the bay and just generally poke around. The lighthouses by the canal stuck out enough into the bay to get some really nice views of downtown Duluth. The bridge itself is also pretty neat, with a center section that doesn't split apart and lift like other lift bridges, but complete lifts up to the top as one section. In my pictures it's down because there were no boats going through at the time.

We had some time to kill before dinner, so we headed to a brewery situated right on the boardwalk area. Canal Park Brewing Co. had a large selection of craft brews and, thankfully, another couple who had been there before and arrived around the same time as us, offered their recommendations on which ones to try. Nuthatchet Brown turned out to be our favorite, and the others I sampled were good as well. I'm not a huge beer person and I still liked everything I tried. The day was so mild that we could still sit outside on their patio area comfortably at 5pm in the evening. There was only a slight, southerly breeze so the temperature was incredibly pleasant. Turned out they also serve food as well as beer, although we were planning on dining somewhere else that evening, but I'd like to try their food another time. It's definitely a place we'll be visiting again on return trips to Duluth.

We left to walk up the boardwalk to the restaurant we'd chosen for dinner just as the sun was setting, which turned the sky pink and gold.

Just up the boardwalk a ways was Fitger's the restaurant that we ate dinner at. Fitger's is a huge complex of stores, a hotel and restaurants, but we ate at their main restaurant. They also brew beer here so Michael tried one of their brews as well. The food was delicious (I had the Friday fish & chips special while Michael had one of their burgers) and I probably over-ate, but we left to walk back down the boardwalk to the car content. We even got to see the lit-up lift bridge in action as one of the large ore boats went through the canal. It's amazing how someone could pilot a boat that huge through such a small channel. Once it was through it honked it's massive horn, which echoed off the city. Since Duluth is basically situated on the side of a huge hill, it was a pretty impressive echo.

It's cliche, but the day was pretty much perfect. I can't think of a single thing that could have been better. We both had so much fun, the weather was amazing, all the food we ate was great and all the outdoor experiences we had were awesome. I'm definitely excited for the next opportunity I have to go back.

Farm Internship Reflections

It definitely crept up on me, but Monday was my last day out on the Cornercopia Student Organic Farm as an intern. It was definitely a bittersweet day because I'm really going to miss working there. I have learned so much and I'm so thankful I was given the opportunity to work their this growing season.

Panoramic view of a storm rolling away from the farm.

There have been so many parts about this internship that I have loved, it's hard to list all of them. I really enjoyed working with the other interns, many of which come from different majors and backgrounds. It made the job interesting when I got to hear about the different perspectives on food and farming that everyone had. My boss has been incredible in teaching me a lot about what it takes to run a farm. She also was super understanding when I and the other interns would goof up on something (like putting tomatoes in the cold cooler or picking the wrong leafy green vegetable) which made our mistakes much more of a learning opportunity than something to be ashamed of. I have learned so much from her and I really hope that, eventually, I will know as much about plants, organic farming and organic food as she does.

All of us goofy interns and our boss, Courtney.

But more than anything I have learned the importance of food and the importance of appreciating where our food comes from. I can eat a tomato any day I want and not even think about it, but after seeding, planting, weeding, and harvesting the tomatoes I ate this summer, something about the fruit just tastes different and better. Maybe it's the emotional connection to the food, maybe it's simply because it's organic, but knowing more about your food definitely makes it more special.

Tomato picking party!

I now also hugely appreciate those that work with food as their profession who make it a point to use local and organic food. University Dining Service chefs and the chef at our on-campus restaurant Campus Club, have been huge supporters of the student organic farm and buy large amounts of our produce to feed to their customers. I specifically remember hearing from the head chef at Campus Club who talked about how a carrot soup she makes just doesn't taste the same unless the carrots she uses are organic. The flavor just isn't there with conventional carrots. I'm also very glad that we are a produce source for the food eaten by students on our campus. As the University of Minnesota works toward a more sustainable future, I think that food has a huge role to play in that shift. I'm hoping that buying produce from us is just the beginning of the U starting to source it's food more locally.

Coupon for lunch provided by University Dining Services.

And, of course, I have learned that food certainly creates community, whether that be here at the University or with other groups in Twin Cities area. Seeing how good food makes people happy was another thing I loved about this job. I hope that I can contribute to these food communities and continue connecting people to good food even more in the future with the knowledge that I gained at Cornercopia. 

 

Fall Colors and a Harvest Feast

Fall really started suddenly here. Probably because we had a strange warm spell a week ago when it was near 80 degrees outside and it felt like summer. But the temperatures have plummeted and now we're seeing the normal 40s-50s and even had our first frost advisory this weekend. The colors have been lovely, especially on some of the early changing trees like the Kentucky Coffee trees by TCF Bank Stadium. They really did a good job with landscaping around such a huge structure, don't you think. They definitely knew what they were doing when they planted trees that would turn one of our school colors (gold) in fall during football season.

Out at the farm we're seeing lots of fall wildflowers popping up in the perennial area. Mainly asters this week were displaying some lovely purple and ethereal-looking whites. 

We had to bundle up some of the crops for the potential frost that was going to hit this weekend. Below you'll see a picture of some of the covered rows of ground cherries. That white fabric was definitely difficult to put on in the 30mph winds we had that day.

Because of the potential frost, we also had to harvest as much as we could before the frost got to it. We went all out on what's left of the tomato patch, got the remaining winter squash in and scavenged for anything else that was left.

In my personal plot, I harvested out as much as I could. I came home with quite the bounty. My zuchetta plant was still going strong, so I picked whatever was there, small or large. Tomato yields were pretty good as well. My favorite variety for the year was Sunset Bumblebee. I'll probably do a seed saving post on those later. Otherwise, my basil plants have had good yields, but I only got one orange pepper for the whole year. Had some volunteer tomatillos in my plot as well.

Once I laid out all the produce I knew I was going to have to do something with them now or else risk letting them sit around in the kitchen where I would procrastinate on using them only to have them go bad.
Luckily I had just ran out of my preserved basil the week before, so I put another round of basil and olive oil into the empty ice cube tray and stuck that in the freezer. This is probably my favorite way to preserve herbs because they're easy to pop out and use whenever you need them. I also use a lot of olive oil in dishes, so this method is perfect for me. Preserving in the ice cube tray is also nice because usually one cube is just enough for sauteing in the size pan that I own.

With the tomatoes and some of the basil, I whipped up my favorite One-Pot-Pasta recipe. This is a great, fast meal because everything happens in the same pot so you don't have to worry about watching different things. You can make this in several easy steps:

One Pot Pasta
Step 1) Start to cook the amount of pasta you need for the number of people you're serving.
Step 2) While the pasta is cooking, cut your tomatoes into small, bite size pieces. I usually use cherry tomatoes that I halve and quarter.
Step 3) When your pasta is almost done, strain off a large amount of the cooking water, leaving a little still in the bottom of the pan. You need this for the base of the sauce.
Step 4) Add the tomatoes (and onions, garlic, basil, whatever else you like in sauce) and cover the pan.
Step 5) Cook until added ingredients are soft and have incorporated somewhat into the the water.
Step 6) Cool and enjoy!

I had several zuchetta squash that had broken ends and needed to be used straight away, so I sliced them into thin rounds, threw them in a pan with some olive oil and sauteed them until soft. Once they were soft, I lowered the heat as low as possible and covered them with shredded cheese and some garlic salt. When the cheese had melted, I served them as a side to my pasta dish. They were pretty delicious. The picture below is a bit blurry, but you get the general idea.

 

Overall, it was a lovely fall harvest feast. I brought the kale, tomatillos and most of the tomatoes to my parents who were in town this weekend, along with two winter squash my mom asked me to pick up from the farm. I feel like I'm turning into their own personal CSA since I seem to bring them vegetables every time I see them!

Now I'm off to the farm for work, and thankfully we have a lovely, sunny fall day to make up for the terribly cold and windy day we had last Friday.

Cheers!

-Abby

First Week of Classes

So I've finished up my first week of classes, and while I can't honestly say that I know for certain how busy I'll be this semester, I know that having only three classes instead of two is really nice. While the workload for the classes seems to be rather heavy, having less of them makes things a lot easier. My initial impressions of my classes are generally positive. All of my professors are engaging and seem to genuinely care a lot about the course material and the success of their students which is always a plus.

In our first Plant Production lab we planted A TON of stuff that we'll be growing throughout the course of the semester. The best part is that we get to keep any of the produce we grow over the season. We planted tomatoes (3 varieties), sweet peppers, melons, cucumbers, squash, chard, kale, several varieties of greens (bok choy, etc), and herbs. For flowering plants, we planted cyclamen and poinsettias. All of these are greenhouse grown, so they'll be flowering and fruiting into November and December. There will be many more things that we'll be planting in future labs as well. In the lecture portions we also discussed plant communication and how plants use different signals such as chemicals to signal to other plants, pollinators, and the predators of pests that might be harming them.

World Food Problems is also very interesting. It's a night course so I only have it once a week for 3 hours, so I haven't had enough of the class to really get an impression as to what the course material will really be like. It's co-taught by an Agronomy professor and an Applied Economics professor, which makes it an interesting combination of the two subjects and gives the class material a lot of different perspectives.

Intro to Entrepreneurship seems as if it will be challenging and work-intensive, but not unpleasant. A lot will depend on the group I end up being placed in for our gigantic project that takes up most of the semester. So we'll have to wait and see on that.

I'm still working at the organic farm until the end of the season, so we're pretty much in harvest mode at this point as we attempt to pick everything as fast as it fruits. Pretty hard with the crops like the tomatoes which seem to never ever end. Not a bad problem to have, but it's a lot of tomatoes to deal with. Otherwise, we've been harvesting potatoes, cucumbers (still), strawberries (as they're a day-neutral variety which fruit later), broccoli, and apples. The best part about the strawberry research project taking place at our farm is that there's always an over abundance of strawberries, and I'm constantly going home with free quarts. Free, organic, delicious strawberries? It's the actual best.

One of the strawberry quarts I took home this weekend.

If you want to read up more about my farm, we were featured in the Minneapolis Star Tribune today. A lot of the article is focused on the research we're doing, but also talks a lot about how we provide food to several different places on the University of Minnesota campus. :)

I've also started to see a good amount of food come out of my personal plot at the farm this week as well. I took home cherry tomatoes and basil that I used to make a margherita pizza, which turned out delicious. Otherwise, I did get things into the ground a lot later than I would've liked, so we'll see what more I get besides the tomatoes and possibly some peppers. The weather has been cooling off so there might not be much more time for things to ripen up.

Beginning of the Last Year

Whoo boy, it's getting closer. T-minus 12 days until the start of my senior year of college. How insane is that??? From this Thursday until the end of the month I'll be completely occupied with the Minnesota Marching Band's pre-season training camp (can you say 12-hour rehearsal days?!) I figured I'd do my semester intro post now so that I'm not scrambling to get it done once school rolls around.
I'm only taking three classes this semester (whoo-hoo!) which is down from my usual four. This is the awesome part about senior year. I only need to take six more classes to graduate so three per semester sounds like a mighty fine option to me! I will say that technically I'm taking 5 classes because both marching band and pep band count as classes because I receive credit for them. But honestly, they're not academic classes with homework and tests and all that, so I don't generally count them when people ask me how many classes I'm taking.

So what classes will be taking my time away from blogging and gardening you ask?
First, we have my one and only horticulture class this semester: Plant Production I. This class is all about nursery operations. So I'll be learning about crop data, utilizing economic data, pest management, and governmental regulations in relation to the nursery industry. I'm a little up in the air with how much I think I'll like the class. It's a required class for the horticulture major, so I have to take it, whether I like it or not. It's not really something that's related to the focus I'm trying to take with horticulture (education/sustainable and local food) but who knows, maybe I'll really enjoy it.
Second, I'll be taking Intro to Entrepreneurial Management, another class that I have to take to finish off my degree. Because I chose the "Business Option" in my degree (as opposed to the "Science Option"), I'm required to take so many business-related classes.
Third, and finally, I'll be taking World Food Problems. This is the class I'm looking forward to the most. We'll be talking about food security, food production/storage/utilization in developing countries, and how ethical and cultural values, population and technology affect these things. This is the class I'm taking that is most related to my area of focus in my studies. This is a class that's also helping me finish off a requirement for my Sustainable Agriculture Minor.
And that's it! No fourth class to weigh me down this semester!

Besides classes, I'll be doing band (obviously), working at the farm until the growing season is over, working at the UMN Admissions Office once my farm job is done, serving as Historian for my band fraternity and volunteering time through service projects for the Mortar Board Honor Society. Yay busy life! Hopefully I'll still have time to blog, although it may not be as frequent as my blogging during the summer. But now I must get some sleep so I can have a blast running the farmers market stand tomorrow! Goodnight all!

Leaving/Going Home

The bad part about loving both the city you currently live in and the city that you call your hometown is that when you leave one to go to the other, it's incredibly bittersweet. As I've gotten older, leaving my hometown after spending time at home with my family has gotten more and more difficult. I'm sitting here, it's 12:13am and my flight back to Minneapolis leaves in just over 12 hours. A lot of me wants to just stay here, but I'll be glad to be back in the Twin Cities. I think another thing that's making this difficult is that the end of this mini-vacation to my hometown also means that my summer break is almost over and it's my last real summer break for, well, ever. After I finish this next year and graduate from college, summer break really isn't a thing anymore. How weird is that?

I've only got ten days until pre-season camp starts up for my last season of marching band (during which I will be on hiatus from my blog and related social media, but we'll address that at a later date), and 22 days until my last year, my senior year of college starts. I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around all of these last things that I'll be encountering over the good part of next year.

I haven't posted much at all this week, mainly because I've spent my time enjoying my time off at home instead of on the internet. So I'll probably have a post or two more for you before my marching band hiatus. Since things at the farm are going to get hectic as the harvest season gets into full swing, there will probably be at least one post about those goings-on.
Hope you all have had a lovely week!

Visiting Upper Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula

This weekend I took a trip up to the UP's Keweenaw Peninsula to go camping with my family. We've been making this camping trip for over 10 years and I've always enjoyed my time there. The Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan has a lot of great activities for those who enjoy the great outdoors. My experiences have been primarily set in the summer, where it's generally a lovely daytime temperature in the mid-70s/low-80s, and comfortable, cooler temperatures at night. Whatever your outdoor recreation preferences, this area is a great place to do what you love. I've put together a brief travel guide that touches on some of the great activities you can do in this area, and maybe you'll find that you're interested in adding the Keweenaw to your bucket list.