Strawberry Apocalypse: Ducks Blame Laws of Physics

A late June lesson in gravity, pressure, and misplaced faith in a Y-connector.

Disclaimer: I’m not a particularly smart guy—especially not when it comes to fluid dynamics. Or gravity. And like most farms with a market cap under $100,000, we’re working with the infrastructure we’ve got. We fix what we can, make do with what we have, and stretch every dollar. We don’t have the money for multiple hose bibs, and we certainly don’t have frost-free hydrant money.

On a late June Sunday packed with birthday parties and family dinner—I was lucky enough to get a strong dozen strawberry runners from Katey over at Lumberjack Apiary. These weren’t just any runners—these were future pies, jam, and sticky-kid-smiles-on-a-Saturday-morning type strawberries. I was excited.

Most of the day was booked solid with cake, candles, cousins, and chaos, but I carved out time in the evening to stop by, grab the plants, and get to work. I had already prepared a bed—bounded, amended, and ready—with pre-punched drip irrigation tubing neatly in place. I even set a program on the timer so I could plug and play as soon as the plants hit dirt.

Despite some light rain and occasional thunder and lightning cracking in the distance, I got them all planted that night. Then I kicked on a manual hour-long watering session to make sure the soil was saturated and the transplants got the welcome drink they deserved.

The next day, I was still feeling pretty good about the setup. But after work, I walked out to check and found every single plant looking like it had survived the nuclear apocalypse from Terminator 2. Limp. Curled. Fried.

This wasn’t just transplant shock—this was a grab-a-chain-link-fence horticultural apocalypse.

I figured it had to be water. I ran another manual cycle on the timer. Nothing. I uncapped the end of the line. Still nothing. Walked to the timer, cracked the fitting where it meets the hose. Bone dry.

Now I’m walking backward, checking each step. The hose bib was on. The other side of the Y-connector? Flowing fine. This line? Nothing.

What’s weird is that it had been working. Or at least I thought it had. It wasn’t the last time I checked it, but probably wasn’t the last time it actually ran.

And that’s on me. I trusted the setup without verifying it.

Then I spotted it—downhill in the chicken run, where the geese had turned their automatic waterer into a full-time marsh. A whole 8x20 section was soaked, which the ducks probably thought was fantastic. But the garden? Not so much.

Turns out, with the poultry side pulling full pressure at the bottom of the hill, the line going uphill to the strawberries didn’t have enough pressure left to get water where it was needed.

Fluid Dynamics 101, Farm Edition:

• Water doesn’t go uphill when it can go downhill.

• Gravity is free. Pumps are not.

After the kids went to bed, I figured it out. Got the water flowing again. Even felt the cool drip on my fingers.

I’m hoping it was just a rough day in the sun and not a cremation.

Acquired Indifference

Today I picked the girls up from horse camp. They wanted to show me the stables — proud, confident, already moving like they belonged there. I’m not a horse guy. Horses are big, and I don’t always know what they’re going to do. So I stayed back a bit. Watched.

Morningside Stable

There were twelve-year-olds carrying feed and water, squeezing past huge animals without blinking. Just doing the work.

I stood there in kind of stunned disbelief. Somehow I was the coward.

And it clicked — this must be what people feel when they step into the chicken yard at Carlson Harvest. The ducks flap, the geese hiss and snake their heads back and forth like a king cobra, and Edward — the current roosters — gets bucky like he’s got something to say. Most folks hesitate. I don’t. I move through it without thinking. But that ease? I wasn’t born with it.

I grew up with dogs. No barns. No birds. This is all learned. I’ve been pecked and flapped at enough that it just doesn’t shake me anymore.

It comes from showing up, again and again. Ripping out the chain stitch on a feed bag and saying, “You look hungry.”

Edward.

Looking like he’s got something to say.

This is where it starts.

That’s what I saw in those girls — including mine. They’ve been around animals. They work. They’ve fed them. They weren’t just visiting the stable. They were part of it.

When you feed people, or animals, or a place — you stop being a stranger. You build trust, without even trying. You hand someone tomatoes, and they remember you. You share eggs, and a door stays open.

I don’t have all the answers. But I’d like to see more people on the street who aren’t strangers. I think we’re all hungry for that.

Feeding folks.

One jar at a time.

Mid-June Honey Pull – Wet Spring, Angry Bees

First honey harvest of 2025. Not much to brag about — wet spring slowed things down — but enough to justify firing up the extractor.

Bees were angry. Suits weren’t optional. Smoke helped — except on Hive 2, which made me question why I even bothered lighting the smoker. That’s a special kind of hate, the kind only bees feel when you’re stealing their spring savings.

We’ll probably do it again in late July if the second flow shapes up.

We ran it as a three-man crew. I pulled full supers off the hives and loaded them onto the side-by-side. My dad and J followed behind with the blower, knocking bees off pulled hardware — frames, boxes, bee escapes — anything coming off the hives. Dad said it’s incredible having a third set of hands — which is high praise for anyone, to say nothing of the fact that it was about a four-year-old.

It is cute seeing a kid in a bee suit — especially when it’s your kid. Or in little Carhartt coveralls, looking like they belong in the work. We all pretend at first. But at some point, pretending turns into actually doing the thing.

I think all any of us can really hope for is to be useful. Add value. Put in more than you take out.

I hope my kids feel that — because they sure do.

Mothers, Grandmas, and Tornado Wranglers

A Carlson Harvest Mother’s Day Note

This farmplace, like many farms, runs on invisible labor and relentless devotion. Whatever Carlson Harvest has built, we built with the tools handed down by generations who didn’t flinch.

We didn’t inherit the land. We didn’t inherit the buildings. We built them.

This sign still hangs in my parents’ kitchen. My mom took it from her father’s implement dealership—a quiet gesture of steadiness when the doors closed for good.

What we did inherit were the habits. — Hustle. Backbone.

Now a Mother’s Day note risks shrinking larger-than-life people to a few neat lines. So trust this: the names here carry more story than best-selling novels could hope to hold.

Both of my grandmas, Etta and Vi, grew up during the Great Depression, and they carried its lessons throughout life—not as folklore, but as rules to live by.

Etta, my dad’s mom, never let leftovers leave the table. She’d portion them out by name—

“Andrew wants a little more. Tommy wants a little more.”

She wasn’t making suggestions. She was making sure nothing got wasted and everyone left the table full. That’s how she showed love—through presence, thrift, and consistent care.

Etta tried an MRE the week I left for Iraq during the Surge—her way of showing support when words weren’t enough.

Vi, my mom’s mom, grew up in southwestern Minnesota. She could pick off a pheasant with a shotgun and still manage the books for my grandfather Frank’s farm equipment business. She was the reason the business stayed afloat while others didn’t. No fanfare—just results.

Vi with a pheasant from the fields behind the shop—books balanced, birds cleaned, every part put to use.

My mom was a schoolteacher. She raised me and my sister with the efficiency and expectations of an old-country taskmaster—although for her, the old country wasn’t much farther than the South Dakota–Minnesota border.

My mom, mid-project with a needle gun—one of the skills I brought back from the Navy, now applied to a rusted-out boat trailer we’re turning into a rolling coop. Getting more done before lunch than most manage all day.

She didn’t play around when it came to doing things right—and early. Now in retirement, she’s still mucking the coop and putting ducklings on pasture, getting more done before breakfast than most folks manage in a day.

And then there's the one who keeps us steady today—holding the entire operation together with three kids in tow, a budget to balance, and honey labeled, boxed, and ready for pickup.

Picture someone who rides the tornado daily— with a to-do list in one hand and a half-packed lunchbox in the other.

That’s the reason this place doesn’t tip over when things get loud, fast, or sideways.

If Carlson Harvest stands for anything, it’s this:

You build on what came before.
And what came before was made by people who showed up, held the line, and made it work—without applause, without permission, and without needing a spotlight to make it count.

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Mother’s Day Sale | Friday @ 1500

We’ll be stocked up with fresh honey by Friday at 3 p.m. Pick some up for the mom, grandma, partner—or tornado-wrangler—in your life.

They’ve earned it.

—Andrew “Carl” Carlson
Carlson Harvest
Farmhand | Owner Operator | Raised Right