May opened on Gardner Mountain with Jeanne thankfully still here, and David expected to arrive on 5/6/26, driving their RV out from Colorado. Soon after the (3) American Chestnut (Castanea dentata) saplings I ordered last fall arrived, Jeanne and I got to assembling welded wire cages 6’ high. Erin and Lily helped us dig holes through the pasture turf, lay down landscape fabric, and get them planted and watered in the newly dubbed American Chestnut Grove on the south edge o

We opened the month with a significant ice storm, weighing down and shearing off large pine branches along the driveway and at the back of the barn. One large limb just missed both compost bins. Thank you Ben for installing Mom’s new toilet on the 2nd floor, replacing the ancient water-saving one that no longer worked; AND for installing our new kitchen faucets! It was a quiet Easter on Gardner Mountain. I started cleaning up the garden beds, to get some fresh air. Mom

This month’s blog is going to be short and not all that polished, due to some excitement … read on! By March 9, we were having temperatures in the lower 60’s – time to get started on spring chores… First up is new wire for the electric fence at the house garden. It was off for a bit over the winter, and a lame deer broke in last month looking for tasty morsels, and now there’s piles of deer poop pellets everywhere, also in the side yards. Amazingly, the fence electrified

On the first day of the month, Erin and I spotted a coyote in broad daylight running through the pasture on the hill, heading into the woods. Just like he belonged there… Wow this month sure went by quickly…..with me spending 16 days of the month traveling to/from and in Elbert, Colorado visiting Jeanne, David and Kelly -- that explains it! Hannah was able to join us there for 5 days, at the end of her gig trip to Casper, WY. David took her up to fly the Maule during a fairl

The end of the month finds us with moderate snow cover, 7 to 8” for the month, and a total of 12.9” for the season – we are well below the typical snowfall by this time of the year (25 to 30”). We’ve been in a deep freeze however for a couple weeks (some lows below -18 degrees air temp). But we managed to miss the big national storms the last week of January. Hannah arrived January 7 for her annual post-Christmas visit, when everything Christmas stays up to mid-January.

....we finally have a month with not much going on! We started out December with an 8” snowfall, first of the season. Then found the Holland tractor front right tire was flat – so I had Swiderski out to run the routine maintenance and called Pomp’s to fix the tire with an inner tube. Back in action! By December 9, the Eller’s barn structure was completed, just in time for 7 more inches of snow. View from our barn: Mom/Grandma’s message this month: “It is my ferv

By the start of this month, the firewood room was full, and all outdoor chores were complete, except for one thing, and that one thing can wait until we feel like doing it. :-) Time to get out all the socks that need darning so I can wear them another couple years….. The weather was still unseasonably nice for most of the month with temp’s in the 40’s and 50’s and little precipitation. We must be in for an unruly winter…. On the 12 th , the aurora borealis / northern ligh

The month started with us continuing work on backfilling, leveling out dirt and putting back to normal the east yard after the septic system repair. Ben also helped me cut out the 2 large clothesline posts back there – the clothesline never got used and the posts were a pain to mow around. While the excavator was still here, Ben dug up the forsythia bushes on the east side of the yard, as they were right over the septic field. By the second week of October, I was still taki

If I thought this was going to be a quiet month, it sure didn’t end up that way….. On the first day of September, all the tomatoes that...

August opened with a girls’ weekend in Galena, IL. After I collected Jeanne from the Appleton International Airport, Erin joined us for...

We started out the month with the annual exterior log cleaning and all the prep work related to that. I’m sure glad when that’s done...

June started out with very pleasant weather and found Erin and I stripping the dead lower branches off 3 evergreens in the front yard,...

There has been a flurry of activity on Gardner Mountain this month, as we took advantage of the warmer weather to get the never-ending...

April Fool’s Day was election day here in Wisconsin – featuring a Supreme Court judge and a referendum to require an actual ID to be...

The first week of March, I set up 5 flats of seeds in the furnace room to germinate on top of warming mats and under grow lights. By...

Wow February sure went by quickly, but then we are missing a few days this month….. Big snowstorm here on 2/14 – about 8” fell in...

With this issue, we are starting the third year of the Gardner Mountain Chronicles , and haven’t missed a month yet. What a great year...

The big push is on for me to stop using my back or lifting anything – Jon and Erin have offered to bring in firewood every other day or...

November 2, I gave up waiting for cooler weather and planted all the garlic, filled the 4’ x 4’ bed with I think around 56 bulbs. We...

The weather was perfect for October…unseasonally warm and sunny all month – the leaves waited until the end of the month to start falling...