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Happy Fall, y’all! I’m sure there’s a sizeable population that is despairing of the summer coming to an end, but this girl is all for fall. [Read: fall, not pumpkin spice.] So, what better way to spend the first day than by planting fruit trees? Shortly after we moved in, I jumped on the chance to order some fruit trees. Like, how cool would it be to just walk out the front door and grab an apple right off the tree? We have 11 trees this fall, and I left room for more in the garden. I love apple cider and pie, so we have gala, granny, red delicious, and honey crisp. Ever had a cherry hand pie? Magic. We have a lapins and a sweetheart calling our garden home. Pears are the perfect sweet add to a salad or just by itself and we put a couple of Bartletts out in our budding orchard. Now, I don’t know about you, but I like the quirky things. So we have a couple of paw paw trees that are nestled in a lower spot away from the exposed garden. The leaves are big and tropical but a little more delicate up against the winds. Now, you might be asking yourself, “Jen, what’s a paw paw?”. It’s a native fruit to the States, a tropical looking tree that bears mango looking fruits and tastes like a mix of both bananas and mango. Since that’s a pretty solid smoothie combo in my mind, I just had to put a couple on the property. When we visited our future new property for the first time, there in full front view of the covered porch was this beautiful and largely flat space that just screamed “grow a garden here!”. Once moved in, using our dear friend Dr. Google Earth, we were able to measure the approximate area of the future garden plot, and it came in at 1.5 acres. That’s a pretty large garden! So, before I just went and started ordering seeds, some thought had to go into this. Do I want raised or ground level beds? Till or no till? Seed types? There’s a lot of questions! Fortunately, I came into this with a pretty good idea of what I want: Heirloom, alley cropping, no till using the Back to Eden method. What a mouthful right? So, what is all of that? Heirloom refers to the type of seeds that we’ll be growing. These are seed varieties that are at least 50 years old. Not the seed itself, as it wouldn’t germinate. But the seed comes from the original plant, whose seed was harvested and saved, planted the following season, and so forth. Could we get seeds from the local Bomgaars? Absolutely. But this isn’t so much about genetics, resistance, or modifications so much as these seeds are tiny little treasures from a time since past. And when you think about it that way, that makes them pretty cool. Plus, when you plant heirloom, you are more likely to grow some varieties that you aren’t going to see at your local grocer. Alley cropping is basically planting rows of trees or tall bushes that create an alley way. Within that alley way is interplanting or cropping of other plants. As our recently planted trees grow and mature, their canopy will provide shade to vegetables such as lettuces, carrots, and beans that don’t require a full day’s sun. No till is pretty straight forward. We aren’t going to till the ground up to create long plots of open dirt to grow. Why? Weeds and soil health. Weeds are the bane of my gardening existence. If we aren’t tilling, how will we grow? Using the Back to Eden method is how we will ultimately create garden. This method relies on the principles of composting. I could wax eloquently (or not so much) about this, but we’ll save that for another blog. Using newsprint, compost, and wood chips through the entire garden space, we will layer these to cover the grass, smothering out the weeds, and creating a barrier to keep unwanted weed growth to virtually zero. In essence, what we are going to do is create an environment in which tiny microorganisms within the organic matter will thrive to help create a soil that is healthy and beneficial to our fruits and veggies. This beautiful space will slowly but surely house not only our orchard trees, fruit bushes, garden veggies, and herbs but will also be home to some bee hives and chickens. The concept behind this space is a bio-community and not just a garden. Fruit trees and wildflowers will be pollinated by our bees who can get nectar to create honey. Our chickens will have an enclosed perimeter run around the garden to snack on pests and provide compost through their waste bedding. When the summer harvest comes to an end and the winter months creep in, we’ll be able to plant cover crops and allow a small herd of sheep to graze. It’s all interconnected and it’s such a beautiful picture that I can’t wait to bring it to life.

Hey there everybody! I recently got back from my second fishing trip to Wisconsin and my third musky trip of the year. July is usually a pretty active time to be fishing in Wisconsin for all species. I have had some very successful July trips and was pretty anxious to get going! This year they have been having some warm weather, a lot like what Iowa has been experiencing. Hotter temps were causing even the gin clear lakes to have water temperatures to be in the upper 70’s and approaching that 80 degree mark. Warmer water temperatures means more active fish. You’ll find a lot of muskies eating boatside, taking topwater baits and eating those bigger rubber baits, buck tails and bigger baits in general. When I got there, I got the Recon 2185DCX loaded and launched with about 2.5 hrs to fish. My dad and I ended up catching 1 small Northern and seeing 2 muskies. I used a Musky Innovations Magnum Bulldawg in Kiwi UV Walleye which is one of my absolute favorites for up there. If you’re using a Bulldawg, you will move fish and catch fish! Water temps were hovering right about the 77 degree mark with some areas at 78. We didn’t catch any muskies, but it was just nice to get back out on the water and get my bearings again. I focused on weed edges in the 12-17’ mark and even hit some deeper walleye bars. The next day, we had longtime friend and professional musky guide Steve Genson booked and fished an 8 hour day with him. My dad and I fished 4 hours with him and then my uncle and his girlfriend jumped in his boat and I took my boat out and followed them for the remaining 4 hours. We saw 6 fish total; I had 3 bites including one fish that rolled on the bait at the boat but somehow got no hooks. We focused on weed edges around the 15’ mark. Most of the action came on rubber baits like the Magnum Bulldawgs and dive and rise baits like the Suick ( soo-ick) . I always like being able to take my boat out and follow Steve if I can so I can learn how he works structure and controls the boat because that is a very crucial part of musky fishing. The weather was beautiful, starting out partly cloudy and there was no wind for a while. After about 1pm we finally got a slight breeze which was great, more for us than anything! Although we didn’t boat any fish, it was great to see Steve and catch up. One thing I will say is, hiring a guide is one of the best things that you can do to learn a lake or just learn more about musky fishing in general. I highly recommend it if you’re new to musky fishing or fishing. There is no such thing as too much knowledge!               We were at it again the following day! I decided to catch up on some sleep and we got on the water about 11am after a severe storm rolled through. I kept using the Bulldawg and my dad was using a black and nickel bucktail, which is his favorite and for good reason! He has caught a lot of fish on them. We only moved fish on the Bulldawg; I tried other baits like Red October tubes, Suicks, Medussas and paddletail swimbait with no luck. We worked the same type of structure as the prior day. Weed edges around the 15’-17’ mark and deeper rock bars. Sometimes doubling up on spots and hitting them a little more shallow at 10-14 feet. We moved fish in both depths. We fished until about 8:30pm and unfortunately didn’t boat any fish, but it was not for lack of effort!               Wednesday my dad left early to head back home, so I went out to fish. I fished weed edges until about 11am and decided to try some trolling on some deeper walleye reefs. For trolling, I really like Super Natural Big Baits 10” Mattlocks, Jakes, Grandmas and Super Shad Raps. I like to run these baits at about 6’-9’ deep. Usually that runs 30yards to 40 yards out depending on the lure and line weight. Mattlocks are a bait that I really like; they have a unique wobble to them that big ones love. Out of all the trolling baits that I have, they are probably my favorite, followed closely by the Jakes and Grandmas. For speeds, I stuck to the 3.5mph-4mph range. On the shallower spots, I don’t go much deeper than 6’ or so. Muskies eyes are more on the top of their heads, so pulling baits that go below them can be a way to miss fish, so remember that you don’t have to pull them super deep. After no luck on the deeper walleye bars, I trolled a few 15-20’ weed edges where we moved quite a few fish over the past few days and unfortunately came up empty handed. The last tactic that I tried before heading in for lunch (and a nap) was jigging a Bondy Bait along weed edges. I wanted to try a new strategy and see what happened. After a much needed nap, I went back out and fished by myself for an hour or so and took my uncle and his girlfriend out fishing for about an hour and a half. I went back to my trusty Bulldawg and had a musky hit the lure boatside at the last second but that was it for action.               Thursday was the day we departed from the cabin in Hayward. I decided to leave early and fish a lake that I really like on the way home. I got there about 7:30am. Weather conditions looked great as a rainstorm was pushing through the area as I was driving down to the launch and unloading the boat. I had high hopes for this lake! I started off with a top water lure but rigged up a few other rods with a Bulldawg, paddletail swimbait, dive and rise bait and a black and nickel bucktail. On this lake there aren’t any pronounced structures so you’re just casting towards the shoreline and working your way along the weed edges. As the sun came out, I switched to the dive and rise and then to the Bulldawg. Before I knew it, it was 11:50am. I wanted to get on the road by 12 or 12:30pm. Last strategy I wanted to try was to use my live imaging and jigging a Bondy Bait in the deeper basin area of this lake to see if I could entice anything that may be feeding on the schools of walleye or crappies. All I ended up seeing after about 25 minutes was a nice school of crappies.  Water temperatures on this lake were around 75 degrees after the rain came through. Despite not boating anything, I am glad I stopped there because you never know if you don’t stop and fish.               Overall, I had a great time on this trip! Fishing in Wisconsin with my family has been a tradition since I was a young kid and one that I always look forward to and cherish. Even though we didn’t boat any muskies, we came close and made some fun memories and I gained some very useful knowledge!

Remember yesterday’s foggy morning? Now picture it with one of these beautiful creatures bugling piercing through the fog. Sounds pretty cool, huh? We thought so too. For the size of our state, Iowa has a surprising number of elk farms dotted around the countryside. And our budding ranch will add to its numbers! Now, don’t get me wrong, I love cows. I’m the one who calls out “cows!” anytime we are in the car. But raising elk is more in line with both of our mutual interests. We’ve both spent time volunteering with conservation groups. Avid hunters. And it’s tough to beat the nutritional values. Trust me when I say that an elk steak is one of the greatest things you’ll have. We are a couple years out from processing our first farm raised elk. Fences need to go up, pastures seeded for the right nutritional gains, and yeah, we need to bring our first herd on. There’s a lot of work to be done but we are teaming up with other local ranches and hope to have hooves on the ground by February. Exciting news! *Not our elk, but the featured elk at the Iowa State Fair