The most beautiful bicycle in the whole wide world.

Our good friend Tom came to visit last week. He brought us happy tidings from Oregon, including Jeremy’s bicycle. The most beautiful bicycle in the whole wide world. It didn’t take long to get Radish on board. Farm dog turned parade princess. She totally digs it. The bicycle is a bakfiet-style cargo bike, designed to carry heavy loads efficiently. Jeremy built it.

We’ve been doing a lot of moving hops these days. As it turns out, the field behind the house is the largest hop field in South Dakota. Shouldn’t be a problem, except that we want to grow vegetables. So we’ve been shuffling hops around, out of their rows in the field and towards the edge – where we’ll set up a dual-purpose, hop trellis/deer fence. We’re so grateful to have had fantastic help in digging – thank you, friends.

Here are some miscellaneous feel-good images from around Cycle Farm. I’ll explain. First: we’ve been working on getting more work space and storage in the kitchen and just last week we finished a section of counter and shelving. The counter is a stunning 3″ slab of white pine. We pulled out the lindseed oil again for this, the smell immediately making us both desperately homesick for the Bain’s in Glorieta. Second: most everything is germinating safe and sound in trays inside, but there are a few little things going in the ground outside. Arugula, beets, spinach, peas, and fava beans. These are spending most of their time tucked under thick, insulative, white farm blankies. Third: there are several fruit trees on the property, pears, apples, an apricot. We’ve never pruned fruit trees before, but we studied up and climbed in. Overheard someone at the brewery suggest pruning trees such that you could throw a cat through the branches. (That’s the sort of instruction I can understand.) Borrowed an extendable tree pruner with a draw string; high tech gadgetry, very Spaceman Spiff. And in the weeks since we’ve got them all pruned up, they’ve opened up in blossoms. Fourth: Randi got these here muck boots for me, for my birthday. I love them, so smart. I like to wear them, muck around. And then talk about them, when I’m not wearing them, post photos on the interwebs.

And here are a few more photos from around the farm, pretty pretty.