I have been pretty busy at Coteau Valley Farm in the smog. All spring and summer, the Coteau landscape has looked more like the NYC skyline, than the eastern South Dakota prairie. Even with the new aerosol skyline, the work goes on and we have begun some much-needed landscaping of the front yard with rock and edging. I have also planted some grasses and flowers. There is a lot more planting to be done as I am also planning on purchasing a small tree for the front porch area. Nothing tall, more like something small and bright, like a Japanese maple or a dwarf weeping willow. The new rocks we chose to put around the house were not much of a choice, as I think that is all the company had as far as variety. We ended up just ordering them and held our breath, surprisingly they are very nice. There is a lot of color and variety in the stones. They are river rocks and have nice cuts and shapes and colors. I think they do well with the country scenery and fit with the geological landscape. We will also have the sidewalks examined this week and they will get a facelift, as they have sunk deep down into the dirt. We hired a company to blow some foam under them to lift them back up out of the mud. After they try that, we will decide if they are in ship-shape condition or if more needs to be done. Hopefully, the sidewalk will not crack or split when the foam is put in place underneath it, this company will be able to lift the cement back up as high as it originally was, over ten years ago. Before we laid the river rock in the garden beds, we laid some cardboard boxes and over that, some weed stop, followed by the river rocks. Around the plants that had been planted earlier in the season, we put some weed stops too. only this was laid more loosely so the plants could spread and grow in the future. The area was covered around the plant with extra mulch to help keep it moist. I think it is all going to look really nice in one or two years when the plants are fully matured. The edging we chose is grey in color and looks classy it has some shape to it, and nice lines. It’s cemented in place and I believe at only one dollar a foot it competes well, price-wise with the professionally poured cement edging. It looks just as nice in my opinion and so much cheaper, not hard to get into place either. A strange side tangent, while working outside I observed there were no frogs or grasshoppers or bugs. Perhaps the cold winter killed them all, perhaps, but then again I have been in a few much colder winters with much more snow and the bugs and frogs returned, so not sure! Normally I would be super happy because the hoppers are creepy and so are most of the bugs. Ironically, I miss the frogs and hope they are okay, and the hoppers are kind of endearing too, and now my heart is sad without them. Plus, I think we all kind of hope frogs are healthy as they are a keystone species, and their health reflects the health of the entire ecosystem. Okay, I am back from my random thoughts, and there are a lot more of them than you'd imagine. Back to the work that needs to happen to the house and front yard. We need a new front porch with pillars and the house will be painted too, I am not sure of the time frame. It is all coming around and looking good. I hope we will have a mild fall and winter. We need a break and an extension of warmth that we missed out on this past year. Let me know if you think the frogs are okay and the grasshoppers. It kind of worries me, the land has a quiet, that is unusual and the silence that was once filled with crickets and jumping bugs and frogs is eerie.
Coteau des Prairies
South Dakota Hobby Farm
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