I’m back from a long weekend in Iowa where we celebrated my nephew’s first birthday, celebrated my brother’s thirty-third birthday, and burned dozens of acres of prairie on our farm. My parents bought our farm twenty-plus years ago, which at the time was an actual farm with fields of corn and soybeans but was quickly replanted and restored to its native habitat of trees and prairie grass. Every third spring the prairie gets burned in order to kill off invasive weeds and encourage new growth, and it’s always an impressive sight, with some years being wilder than others. Thankfully (for someone who always has a fear in the back of her mind of the house burning down) this was one of the more tame burns. In years past extended family and friends have come to watch or do some of the lighting, fire trucks have paraded down the lane because barge captains on the Mississippi were alarmed by the huge plumes of smoke, and swift leaf-raking has occurred to prevent a forest fire. This year the only guests were my sister-in-law’s parents, the ground was wet enough to keep the flames on the smaller side, and the only tense moment came when we decided to evacuate the house for about an hour because it was completely engulfed in a cloud of smoke due to the direction of the wind and the proximity of the house to one of the fields. That’s really the best that one could hope for when acres upon acres of fire are being contained by nothing more than a ten-foot border of green grass.
In addition to burning and birthday cake-eating, we cooked nice dinners every night, ate plenty of good cheese from the bottomless cheese drawer, sipped our fair share of wine and whiskey, and listened to Elmo sing the alphabet over and over and over again. I took about a thousand pictures over the course of the weekend, and it took a while to sort through them all, but they’re finally ready to share. Enjoy!
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- Magnus drooling over his great-grandma’s cane
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- Discovered in my grandma’s spice cabinet
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- Birthday breakfast for the birthday boy
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- Caryn made party hats and I made an attempt at a cat cake.
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- Birthday boy and Grandpa
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- Four generations
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- Cake!
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- Efficient eating
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- Decompressing with grandparents
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- Crossword time
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- My homemade bagels + Kyle’s homemade kumquat preserves + more edibles
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- Oink
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- Gnawing on a carrot
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- Posing before burning
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- So it begins
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- Spectators
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- The first field to burn
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- Don’t take my stick, Mom!
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- Change of scenery
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- Watching the flames
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- The first of many four-wheeler rides for Magnus
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- Burning the opposite end of the field
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- The same spot a few minutes later
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- And a few more minutes later
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- The aftermath
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- Almost as fun as a four-wheeler ride
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- Evacuating the smoke-engulfed house for cleaner air
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- After observing for many years, I finally did some lighting
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- Posing before the smoke shifted
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- Searching for souvenirs
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- The burn line
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- Late afternoon sun
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- Getting ready to drop some beets
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- Steamed buns in the making
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- My first homemade steamed bun!
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- Bobby’s birthday dinner: korean short ribs, curried slaw, potatoes, steamed buns
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- Owl birthday cake for the bird guy
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- Running down the lane
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- The day after the burn
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- Almost like Napa…
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- Except my glass was resting on a propane tank overlooking a burnt prarie
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- Self-portrait in a field of ash
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- Let’s go, Dad!
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- Magnus spies either a tractor or four-wheeler. Vroom vroom!
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- Red wine and mushroom risotto, grilled NY strip, steamed bun, kale and avocado salad
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- Does champagne qualify as a digestif?
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- Bonfire in the woods
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- Steak and eggs
