Good Morning everyone from California. Our John tells me that all is well back on the farmy. Not long now and we can see for ourselves. But I am loving the Un-Bloggers series. (We must do this again.) Today our Un-Blogger Post comes from the flat, flat tundra. Thank you Mere for taking over for me today and Mere is our second to last guest blogger.. Enjoy! .. celi
Greetings from North Dakota!
We live in the coldest part of the country on the Northern Great Plains, in the gracious and proud State of North Dakota! This is me skiing home.
The winds are always blowing and our temps are extreme…from the high 90s+ in the summer to 30-40 below zero durning the winter months. Everyday seems to be a bad hair day! You look great in front of the mirror, but as soon as you step outside? Well…it’s not good! I have a kazillion hats!
Our farm is on the shores of the ancient Lake Agassiz in what is called the Red River Valley. Beautiful country.
My husband and I grow hard red spring wheat and soybeans. I am a gardener, canner, wine and jelly maker!
Hubby is a hobby beer brewer! I grow heirlooms and collect seeds. All my 7 kitties are neutered and up to date on vaccines. Excellent mousers! Even though 5 of them are toothless!
Some of my other hobbies include working on a gluten free cookbook, restoration, baking, cooking, and gardening!
I love creating or reinventing some dish and refurbishing some lovely find! Always thinking and doing something!
My sweetheart and I work together everyday and because of all the time we spend together we are very close in love and friendship! He is my best friend in the whole world! I feel lucky!
Good news! We are pregnant and our new golden puppy will be ready to come home the first week of January. I will always miss my Maisy.
She was such a bright light everyday in our lives. She was our girl. We miss her very much and probably always will. We feel that we are ready to provide a home for a new baby…one to bring happiness back into our lives! It will be nice to feel the joy of a pup once again.
I hope you enjoy my photos of home! I wish I could post more!
Sincerely, Mere Frost
The Kitchen's Garden 
70 responses to “Mere’s Guest Post from the Tundra”
Had to smile about the toothless mousers! Lovely photos.
Christine
Thank you! 🙂
I ust admit I agree with Celi..this unblogger posting has been so much fun. One day to the next we learn about different people, parts of the country and different regions…yet they are all absolutely splendid , enthralling, and entertaining….
What a store cupboard! I have never seen so much stored ..you must be very busy 100% of you waking hours.
Oh how wonderful to be getting a new baby! Your Maisy will always have a part in your heart and never forgotten…I do hope that eventually we shall see a picture of the new arrival!
Take care my friend, stay warm, stay dry and most of all stay happy
love Patrecia in Bulgaria where it gets very cold here too
I am enjoying this too! I love people! You should see my three full freezers! LOL And my floor to ceiling wine rack! 😉 Just made some cherry wine! Wish I could share with you!!! I will be getting photos soon of the new baby from birth to the day we bring her home! So excited! Maisy’s paw prints are on my heart for always…she would never want me to feel sad.
Now I HAVE to start a blog! I want to know more about all of you too! 😀
I agree! I’ve enjoyed these postings from various locations, too 🙂
Hello Mere ~ curiosity killed the cat: was almost asleep but could not wait to see where we were heading next and there was a big smile on my face when I saw that the trip took us to North Dakota! Another state in the US about which I have only read in books and seen in films! Must admit I had a lot of trouble getting past that absolutely beautiful first photo [and the second was not bad either 😉 !]. Am truly wondering whether you could be a Gemini like me, as your list of interests is so wonderfully wide. We share the gardening and cooking and I also am interested in heirloom seeds. The hipline does not allow baking 🙂 ! Am puzzled by the fact you make wine . . . in your cold climate what fruit grows to produce exciting coloured liquids? Oh, and I can see all the common traits you and our Celi share . . . thank you for the brief visit . . .
Morning Eha! 😀
The first photo is my front yard and then in the distance the fields. We are surrounded by our fields!
I am a virgo with leo rising! Which as Celi well knows makes me a cheery chatterbox! 😉
Everything interests me! LOL
Raspberries (black and red), elderberries, strawberries, chokecherries, 2 varieties of tart cherries, apricots, 4 varieties of grapes (soon more), pears, plums, many varieties of apples, june berries, blueberries, black and red currants and rhubarb! All make delicious wines, cordials, and jellies, jams, preserves, and syrups! Elderberry is my medicne chest!
I adore Celi! I wish she lived close by! 😀
Just back from ‘the butcher, the baker’ . . etc – Virgo, well that explains – Virgo, Aquarius and Gemini . . . hmm, we all seem to function alike 🙂 ! I know the Brits make a lot of fruit wines [and I do not just mean the grapes!] but I have to confess that vinophile tho’ I am total ignorance surrounds me re these: another matter to learn!! Methinks everyone who ‘happens’ on Celi’s site is struck by the utter ‘normalcy’ and warmth and caring and logic on the farmy ~ thus we adore the ‘daiky fix’ and it becomes the most natural ‘drug of wellbeing’ we could possibly espouse!!!
Wonderful opening picture. I’m exhausted just reading about your busy life….so you’re a very apposite stand-in for Celi. Nice meeting you:)
Thank you! Nice to meet you too! 😀
Hello Mere, thanks for a quick peek at your life in the frozen north. Your place looks really big, do those big buildings store the harvest or the machines that cut the harvest? And is the white building in the background your house? Wow it looks bitterly cold there, am I right in thinking the movie Fargo was made there? Such a funny movie. Very exciting about the new pup. Sally
We store all our machinery in large buildings. The barn to the north is the hog barn where I raise my chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese. The rounded barn to your right is the winter shop and to the rear of this barn is where the dairy cows were kept. To your left is a huge building for machinery. Another of equal size is the summer shop and storage for more machinery. Then there are the grain bins which aren’t shown here. We have many buildings for tools and small machinery as well. We also have our own gas and diesel station on the farm!
Our home is modern and is much to big for us now…uffda…LOL I will post more photos when I get my own blog! The family home is well over 100 years old and my 92 and 86 year young in-laws live there. Great neighbors!!! 😀
No…everyone thinks so…but it was filmed in MN! Ya! You betcha! 😉
Hi Mere, from tepid Vancouver BC where it just never gets below -5 or so! (and I think that happened once for about three hours in a January 7 years ago… 🙂 ) Having said that I wish I could ski home. I love skiing, but am restricted to the mountains. (But then, I don’t know if I could survive -40…yikes!) One year I decided to drive X country from Vancouver to Montreal and drove thru the states because gas was cheaper then. I drove thru Montana and into North Dakota and then there was this sign for Wall Drug S Dakota and then another, and another and I just had to…lol. I’m so happy to meet you and learn a little more about you because I read people’s comments and then wonder about who they are. This is lovely getting to know people, and now I want to see some photos of the new puppy when he arrives. I swear everyone should write a blog just so I can be in the know! We’ve lost all our dogs now. First my malamute Hunter and then Roberts brand X wonder dog Atlas and we’re not in a position to have a dog right now because we move back and forth between two countries for months at a time and we feel it wouldn’t be fair. But someday again. The good thing is we have cats! And our British cat is also a toothless wonder. He’s missing about 15 teeth but he brings down mice, birds and the occasional rabbit. No idea how he does it. 🙂
It is a long lonely highway driving through ND! LOL The traffic is terrible eh? 😉
I love all of you already! Celi draws the most interesting people! Now I can’t wait to blog!
Don’t want to lose a single one of you! Sorry for your loss. How we love our furbabies…sigh…
Great names! Hunter and Atlas! I think a proper name is most important too! 🙂
Your life sounds very exciting! I think our toothless kitties gum them to death! Doesn’t affect their speed and stealth one bit!!! LOL
Oh Wow! Gosh, I just love the huge barn!!! 🙂 Your place looks wonderful! And your food put up for the winter! That’s fantastic! So happy for you and your hubby! 🙂
Morning! We have two barns with two different styles. There are so many different styles of barns from one end of this country to the other! Red or white it seems, some with really cool hex signs as well! All built to last! I am happy for you too! It’s a good life my fellow farmer! 😀
Nothing could be more exciting than welcoming home a golden puppy – of course we are biased. I love your pantry, so many lovely preserved goodies. I wish I could ski – have tried in our snow fields but spent too much time on my nether regions. Thank you for sharing. Joy
Biased for sure! Goldens make everything golden! Thank you! Once you get the hang of it you can zip right along! LOL
Hello from wet and mild Ireland. Lovely to see a little window into your world, Wonderful photos.
Kim
Thank you! 🙂
Good Morning Mere, I had to look up “ancient Lake Agassiz” as it sounded so intriguing. I learned your rich soil comes from its glacial silt! (And many other interesting facts). I hope you find fossils when they aren’t buried under snow. Your home & your life are beautiful. Thank you for letting us glimpse your riches. And now I finally know where that magical place really is that Mama sang about many years ago when we were tots on her lap, The Red River Valley!
Morning jm! The Red River Valley in North Dakota has the richest and deepest topsoil in the world!
Our hard red spring wheat (also grown in MT, MN and SD) has the highest protein content and is the aristocrat of wheat for baking bread! We are most proud of it!
Will post one of the stone tools we found in one of our fields! It is in great condition! “I shall miss your sweet face and your smile! Just remember the Red River Valley….” 😉 My mom sang it too! LOL
What a lovely post and what a lovely farm! Looks like a little bit of heaven! I love that you and your farmer are best friends—that is the best way to be, isn’t it? Thanks for sharing a glimpse of your life with us!
Hi Beth Ann! Work together and play together! 😀 You are most welcome!
Oh, I was SO hoping that you’d be one of C’s non-blogger guests! Wonderful to finally see your place! And a puppy, too…so exciting! Love your huge selection of canned goods – do you ferment, too? Hubby wants me to try sauerkraut next, and I might need some pointers 🙂
Finally had a hard frost down here last night, but got some great foliage shots before the kill came…I’ll have them up soon, just in case you want a glimpse of (close to) home.
Hey Back Easter!!! LOL I lost my accent! 😉 “Paak your caaa in haavaaad yaad, lobsta and chowda!” I love and miss RI!!! I was such a little tomboy! Water and Mere, just like a golden and water! 😀 So lovely and picturesque! The most wonderful historical architecture and beautiful coastline and oh the fall foliage! Looking forward to your photos! Thank you!
I do have a recipe for kraut! Mmmmm…brats and kraut!
hello!
wonderful glimpses into your dakota life!!
Hi! Thankyou! 🙂
Good Heavens girl what a lot of food you have stored LOL. Do you and your sweetheart get to eat it all? Bless your heart for putting up with that cold – I echo Celi when I say absolutely positively HATE the cold. I freeze up and can’t move, Went to Vermont one Christmas with X husband and it got to -14 and I have never shivered so much in my life.
Beautiful pictures and you obviously have a lot of energy, with everything you do – quite wore me out reading your post (lovely post though!)
Hugs Lyn
Way too much energy! Drives hubby crazy with all my projects! Yes! We eat it all and are very healthy! No one likes the cold! Brrrrr…out here we say…”It could be worse!” 😉
My body is just starting to adjust….time for the fleece tights and uggs! LOL
Oooh more wide flat horizons and huge skies. I’m with Sally, I’m curious what goes on in those big barns. Looking at that pantry you must have pretty extensive veg gardens too! Must say I’m seeing more of the USA than I could ever have hoped to see – good geography lessons 🙂 Laura
Hi Laura!
My veggie gardens are huge! Lots of rototilling and weeding! And worth every bit of work with the food we get to eat! I save a bundle in grocery bills!!! 😀