Summer Color on the Farm

Red clover above, white clover below.  Clover reminds me of two things--the Clover Farm Store of my youth and of course the 4-H with it's 4-leaf clover symbol.  Dad always looked for 4-leaf clovers and got so he could spot them anywhere you asked him to look.  He said the best hunting was on field edges where traffic damaged the plants as he believed they were often the result of plant injury

Dandelions are spreading seeds and apples ready for spraying

Alsack?  

When the seedling geraniums take hold and begin to bloom, I probably will take down the holly wreath!

Grandpa Eugene Hanson made a cart from his mother, Anna Beebe Hanson's old wheel chair (she died in 1936).  The wheels are original, the axel pipe fittings and the handles from some other scrap.  Eugene passed away back in the 1970s as I remember.  He couldn't resist a good pair of wheels. 

The seedling coleus and begonia bulbs are still idling. 

Scott ties down an old riding lawn mower, rusty wheel chair, and below the 1950s apple sprayer and engine for a ride to Freiberg's Gone Green recycling at Frederic.  A $44 load because it included a 63 lb damaged old electric motor (.25 per pound) rest at $145 a ton--about 500 lb load.  

Uncle Ralph Haselhuhn and Dad (VR Hanson) started a barn white-washing business together back in about 1951.  The gas engine and piston pump with a barrel and nozzle on a trailer was the equipment.  You mixed a sack or two of unslaked lime with water (it heated mightly) and then sprayed the brilliant white lime onto the cleaned barn walls and ceilings to give a fresh Grade A look to the whole inside.  When they finished the neighbor barns there was really no more work, so they business quit and Dad turned it into his apple sprayer for DDT and other insecticides.