To cover or not to cover? That is the question.

Posted on October 16, 2015 by farm2011

I truly believe that you can make life as stressful or stressless as you like. And what am I doing lately? Well I’ve got the stressful thing going on.

What’s going on is that it’s supposed to get a hard freeze tonight. OK, no big deal right? I mean we’ve been talking about this for quite some time now. But the kicker to this conversation is that should I cover the flowers or let them die?

I had all good intentions of having them just die. I mean it’s October for goodness sake! But I talked to my Mom after work on the way home and after she said she was bringing in some of her flowers for the fall, well crap I guess I should probably too.

So out comes the sheets from the bottom drawer in the laundry room. I still couldn’t decide if I was going to for sure or not cover up the flowers and I just had to wait until it was getting dark to make my decision. Now granted this would be a much easier job to do when it was light out, but nope I was doing it at around 8:00 pm. I think there was some procrastination also happening here. And to top it off I was even kinda thinking to myself just what am I doing? The flowers that were portable that I was trying to lug across the farm yard to the greenhouse in the back yard were looking pretty sick anyway. It’s such a long process of carrying them back out and then back and forth until .. well until you just can’t take it anymore! (this is where the stress part comes in) Now my Mom takes in her geraniums and they stay looking so nice all winter long. For me? Well I’ve got just mostly have some petunias that I’m trying to hang on to that honestly wasn’t made to live a long life. But it is supposed to warm up again and maybe they’ll come back, who knows right? And it is about the only time that the extra sheets gets washed. So for now I guess that I’ll keep covering them. IMG_3426

The photo of the day is the one set of flowers that I’m not bothering to save. The dogs for some reason always think that there is gold or something in this flowerbed and proceed to dig all the dirt out. Sometimes I put in barbed wire in with the flowers to try to keep the dogs and chickens out, and it looks like I might have to do that again next year.DSCN8332

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Catching up with pictures

Posted on October 15, 2015 by farm2011

Well I finally got all my herbs and tomato puree dried and they are tucked away in canning jars in the freezer. I did end up with a little bit more than I was expecting – so now my goal will have to be just how in the world I’m going to use them all.DSCN8333

I also had a chance tonight to make a type of soap that I haven’t made before. One of my soaps that I want to seIl is called ‘Dirty Paws’. It’s a soap that you can use when your’e working in the garden or wherever when you end up getting your hands pretty dirty. This soap is kind of an experiment and once I tell you what’s in it – well I’m guessing you’ll agree! It has the normal oils in it like Olive oil, some coconut oil, and this recipe calls for vegetable shortening. For the fragrance I add some Orange, Spearmint, and Eucalyptus. Again, not that uncommon. The stuff that makes it help get your hands clean is corn meal and here it comes – washed walnut shell powder. You didn’t see that coming now did you? I’m just hoping that when I’m able to try this soap in a couple of weeks is doesn’t feel like sandpaper or something! But the soap did turn out well and it seems like it’ll be a good hard soap that should stand up. Humm.. maybe it’s the walnut shells in it?IMG_3431

Next ? Well I promised that I was going to post a picture of my ever so cool new chicken house thing. It does need some love and I’m thinking that it’s a winter or early spring project. My original first thought was to use it to display soap next spring, but Daryl mentioned really fast if I was going to hang it. So now I’m thinking if I don’t use it for soap, wouldn’t this look really cool hanging outside of a shed with flowers in it? IMG_3432

And the next couple of pictures are of our trees that we’ve planted for our parents. The first one is my Dad’s tree and the leaves are really turning the pretty fall colors. I think it’s a red maple tree, but I could be wrong. I just kinda guessed because of the red leaves  🙂 and it’s too bad that my dad isn’t here to help me because he was awesome at knowing the names for just about every tree that there is. DSCN8329

And this other tree is for Daryl’s Mom and Dad. This tree stands by the road and to me it seems like it’s watching over the farm. These leaves haven’t started to turn much but maybe in the next couple of weeks they’ll start. Without this tree turning it’s hard to tell what it is. But my guess? Another red maple.DSCN8331

The last photo is something that Daryl has been working on. He got the cow yard cleaned out for the winter months coming up and all the hay and round bales put away in the sheds. The cows had gotten a fresh bale of hay with a bale of corn stalk bedding. Yup, life if pretty good for them right now. These bales are just waiting for Daryl to tuck the into the shed for the winter. IMG_3425

 

Posted in Farming, Gardening, Pictures, Soap | Comments Off on Catching up with pictures

Farm Mystery Photo 10-14-15

Posted on October 14, 2015 by farm2011

Here is this weeks Farm Mystery Photo

DSC_0251

Can you guess what it is?

Posted in Wednesday's Challenge Photo | 3 Comments

Settling in

Posted on October 13, 2015 by farm2011

Well we all knew that it was coming. Yup, Fall is just around the corner. Even though the weather has been really really nice lately, at the end of the week it’s supposed to be in the 20’s. That’s such a dirty trick isn’t it?

So I finally gave in and decided to take in the rest of the garden produce. If you take green tomatoes and put them all together (usually in a brown bag) they’ll turn ripe. What I’ve been doing is to put them in a bigger container and in the sunshine on my counter – they’ll also turn ripe. So that’s my plan. I’ve got most of the green tomatoes out of the garden and now into my kitchen. If it doesn’t turn out so well – that’s OK too! DSC_0253

And while I was out in the garden I also decided to pick the chives to dry them. DSC_0254

I just need to get them washed and cleaned and into the dehydrator for the rest of tonight and tomorrow to dry. Then they’ll be added to my dried mason jar collection 🙂

Update: basement smell tonight? Onions!

Posted in Gardening | 2 Comments

Sunday – Fun day!

Posted on October 11, 2015 by farm2011

Man I’m telling you I had a lot of ambition this morning. I’m really not too sure why, but heck why fight it right?

The morning started out with doing some laundry. Now I’m sure you’re wondering if we are about the dirtiest people around or the cleanest. And to be honest – I’m really not that sure myself! But I did throw in a load of laundry and got some other laundry folded and put away.

Next thing? I made some more beef jerky and got it going on the dehydrator. Yup, my basement is smelling like a meat locker again.

After that dishes. Not so much fun.

Then on to putting away the tomatoes that have been sitting on my kitchen counter for more days than they probably should have. I just roasted them and then bagged them up and into the freezer they went. DSCN8326I really LOVE my vacuum sealer and I’ve worn one out already and am getting close to having this one die too one of these days. After I got the tomatoes done, I realized that I won’t have enough banana peppers to pickle so I did a quick freeze on not only on these peppers, but also on the green peppers and jalapeno peppers too that I had in my garden.

After that dishes again.

Now to move onto the dill that I was going to use for the banana peppers. Since I’m not going to pickle the peppers, I should do something with this dill. So I thought it looked pretty dry, so why don’t I take the dill seed off of it and keep it for the winter. DSCN8327Now of course I have no idea what I’ll do with it, but what the heck right? So I took all the seeds off and into a mason jar it went.DSCN8328

Then after dinner and dishes again (I am getting pretty tired of doing dishes by this point!) we decided to take the car out and go for a ride. The weather was  a balmy 85 degrees !! Unbelievable for October for us. So we grab a couple of Diet Cokes and our sun glasses and we were off. 20151011_163135At this point no idea just where we were going, but you sure would hate to waste such a good day. We decided to head East to the Mississippi river 20151011_160515and stopped in at a small town to watch the lock and dam with some barges going through.20151011_16163420151011_161431 We then decided that we should start looking for some supper and at the next town we met up with a bunch of others who we knew that were also just driving around for the day. They invited us to go to the next town with them so we were off again. But this time in a caravan of around 10 cars. It was a really good time and we ended up the night filling ourselves with some great pizza at the last stop of the day!

Posted in Gardening, In the kitchen | Comments Off on Sunday – Fun day!

Auctions

Posted on October 10, 2015 by farm2011

Now I haven’t been to an auction for like ever and I was really excited because I had a chance to go to one today. The weather was beautiful and I was so ready for this! Maybe just a little bit too ready!

I knew the night before that I was heading south for this auction and I’m sure that I set the alarm clock just a little bit too early. I mean I knew that it was going to take me some time to get there, but I decided to REALLY make sure that I didn’t miss anything. During the week I just dread when the alarm goes off, but not today. I did one of those ‘is it time to get up yet?’ things and finally I couldn’t stand it anymore. I just got up!  I wasn’t sure what I was going to wear and with the weather supposed to be around 75 degrees today (which is so unheard of in October!) I went for long shorts, shirt, and a jacket. Daryl had the truck all ready for me which was so cool! I mean, if I was him I’m not sure that I would have the truck ready so that I could take it. Do you know just how much you can fit in a truck? Well it’s a lot! But like I said he had the truck ready and all filled with gas. I grabbed my sunglasses, a couple of Diet Cokes, and then I was off to the auction.

Now I knew that I was going to get there kinda early, so I stopped off at a local gas station and went to the bathroom and just took my time. And once I got to the auction I was over an hour early but honestly I was OK with that. My heart was pounding and I was so ready! I had a little seed notebook that I carry in my purse and as I went around looking at everything and making a list , I soon realized that I Loved it all! I swear I should have lived in the 50’s, I’m just saying. Now I really came for two things. The first thing was a chicken nest.  Kinda funny right? I mean we have a chicken house with a bunch of brooder nests in it. But this one at the auction I wanted to use it possibly to display my soap. And the second thing is that Daryl wanted to see if I could pick up was a table grinder. He likes to sharpen the mower blades and could really use one of these.

But of course I had a lot more on my wish list than these two things and it gave me a reason to jump into some of the bidding going on. Then it came to game time. I found out soon that I was the proud owner of this really cool chicken nest. Yup, Score for me! And then I also was able to win the bid for Daryl’s grinder thing. It was sure a fun day! After the truck was loaded with these two things and also a few others in the cab, I was heading home for the day. Now I would like to show you the chicken nest that I bought – but it’s still in the back of Daryl’s pickup. Maybe later this week I’ll snap a quick picture to show you. You’re going to Love it!

Here is a picture of Daryl’s bench grinder – he really likes it a lot. I think I did a good job if I say so myself! 20151010_081808

Posted in Places to visit | 2 Comments

Another kitchen experiment

Posted on October 9, 2015 by farm2011

I’ve been wanting to make some lotion now for some time and decided I was going to take the plunge tonight. Now just what I’m going to do with all this lotion after  I make it – yea I haven’t figured out that one yet, but heck it’s a pretty harmless adventure don’t you think?

With all my stuff lined up it’s time to get started.DSCN8323 The recipe below is from Soap Queen (now there’s a good name right?) and here it is:

  • 1.7 oz of sweet almond oil
  • 1 oz avocado oil
  • 1 oz stearic acid (thickener)
  • 1.2 oz emulsifying wax (keeps the water and oils mixed together)
  • 1.2 shea butter
  • 18 oz distilled water
  • .2 oz phenopip (preservative)

Rinse all equipment first in a water bleach mixture to disinfect before you start.

In a heat safe container add the first 4 ingredients and microwave for 2 minutes. DSCN8324

Add shea butter to warmed oils and stir until all dissolved. Now at this point I kinda wished I paid more attention in science class at school. I’m just saying.

Put water into another container and microwave for 1 minute.

Take water and mix into warm oil and stir with spoon until mixed. Mix with stick blender with short bursts to thicken total liquid and to mix throughly. DSCN8325

Make sure the temperature is less than 45 degrees and then add pheopip as a preservative. Shazam! You’re done! OK, that was just TONS easier than I thought it would be! The only trouble that I had was that I think I was sleeping or something because the lotion started to set up before I could get it into the container that I wanted to use. I even grabbed a small funnel that I had in the cupboard and well that didn’t work so well either. I had lotion gooping out of the funnel and over the jar that I was trying to put it in. Definitely not how the youtube video showed how it was supposed to work. Finally I ended up putting the lotion into a mason jar and my sister said she wanted to give it a try. And guess what? It’s really a good lotion. Who would have known that this was so easy and is even usuable? Well sure not me!

Hummm….. I think I’ll get some containers and make another batch 🙂

 

Posted in In the kitchen | 1 Comment

Crops are in!

Posted on October 8, 2015 by farm2011

What a good feeling it is to have the crops in. Now if you listen to Daryl he would wish that he was still working in the field because he would like to have more corn to harvest and the weather has really been cooperating this year.

But for this year – he is done. Whoo Hooo!! As I’m writing this I can hear the bin running that is drying the corn and I know that what this noise really is, it is the money that is costing us to dry the corn.  For me though I think it’s very relaxing and I like it. It’s kinda like when you have the washing machine going in your house, just a constant noise but a soothing one. OK, maybe I need to get out more ! And the funniest thing about the bin fan is that you can be laying in bed and then all of a sudden you know something just isn’t right. It’s like when your kids are out at night and during the night you just know that you should get up and see if they are home or not. And they better be home right?!! Well, this bin fan is a lot like that. You can wake up during the night when the darn thing shuts off. It must be a genetic thing or something built into us. I also think it’s also a cruel joke because when your kids are older and out of the house you think you actually can sleep through the night. Yea, not so much at harvest time.

With everyone working hard on their crops and the weather getting cooler at night, I snapped a quick picture of our little kitties all tucked in for the night on our porch. Even though they are laying with Waffles and not Checkers, they seem all tucked in and warm. Kyle was wondering how they are doing and they are doing very well. For some reason these cats all think that my goal in life is to feed them the instant that I walk outside in the morning. Needless to say they are all pretty spoiled. DSCN8321

And to finish off the day I made a couple of cards for Ma. I wanted to repay her for the container of cookies that I accidentally took home and ate 🙂DSCN8303

Posted in Cards, Farm animals, Farming | 1 Comment

Field work

Posted on October 6, 2015 by farm2011

This time of the year the farm landscapes seem to change. What I mean by that is when your so used to seeing corn and soybeans, you now are seeing empty fields DSC_0229and as far as you can see there are rows and rows of corn stalk bales for the cattle. DSC_0212

I had a chance to hang out with Daryl tonight in the combine and even though I’m not on the small side, I still fit beside him in the cab. See our combine doesn’t have the fancy ‘buddy seats’ that the new combines have and in ours you literally have to turn sideways to fit beside the seat and then do a little hip swing and squeeze in. I may be kinda old, but I’m just saying that I still got the swing thing going and fit quite nice beside the seat.

It was fun and pretty relaxing just going up and down the rows. I can see why Daryl likes to spend the time doing this. But I’m not sure he was used to the company or all the questions that I was asking him.

Here’s a couple of pictures that I took while I was keeping Daryl company.

The wagons were all lined up and ready for the corn to fill them tonightDSC_0223

Watching the corn being taken into the combine from the combine cabDSC_0236

Unloading corn into the wagons DSC_0233

It was just starting to get dark when I met up with Daryl in the field and then just like that it turned dark!
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And before you knew it, the sun went away for the dayDSC_0248

And what is my photo of the day? Well it’s not really a field picture, but more of a result of when you are out in the field. The Asian Beetles were terrible today and if you don’t know what I’m talking about when I say Asian Beetles, well then consider yourself very lucky! They are these beetles that have been purposely introduced into our agriculture to eat some other bugs or something and if you ask me it was just a terrible mistake! These beetles usually come out to your farm when the crops are taken out of the fields. And they usually hang out at your house . Now granted over the past few years they have gotten better, but today? Holy smokes they were awful! You’re hands will stink when you touch them and they will bite you if they land on you. Yea, I’m not a real fan of them can you tell? So tonight they were tons of them hanging out on our front porch which made it bad to go in and out of our house. So finally I had enough! I grabbed a bottle of peppermint essential oil and after I mixed it was some water, I started to spray the doorways, windows, and anything else that I could find. I even sprayed the flowers on our porch because there were a bunch of bugs in there too! I’m not sure if this was a good or bad thing for the flowers, but honestly at this point of the game I really didn’t care! Then after my little rampage with spraying everything, I went and grabbed a diffuser and set it up outside my door. The diffuser is like a vaporizer that I also added peppermint to. With some research I found that these bugs don’t like mum plants (which I don’t have) or clove oil (again none of this in our house) so my best bet was peppermint. And for now? Well it worked! DSC_0219

 

 

 

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Crafty Sunday

Posted on October 4, 2015 by farm2011

With Daryl out in the field that gives me a couple of options. Option # 1 : mow lawn. Boring! Option # 2 : paint fences. Not such a great idea! Option # 3 : clean the basement. What was the other options? Option # 4 : Arts and Crafts. SCORE! Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!!

So the day was pretty much spent in the kitchen and craft room. The kitchen activities were to make some beef jerky for Kyle and then get one started for William. Our poor basement doesn’t know if it’s supposed to smell like soap, tomatoes, parsley, or beef jerky. For today the scent is beef jerky.

Then on to soap. I cut the Screaming Peacocks soap that I made last night and I wanted to give it some more color but I think I don’t have enough black in it. Maybe the third time is the charm.DSCN8291

Now it’s time to make a couple of cards. I needed to make a Birthday, Sympathy, and a Baby card. I’ve finally got smarter and when I make one card, I try to make a second card similar to it for my Mom’s card box. Here’s the cards I made todayDSCN8297DSCN8298DSCN8295

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After I did some work around the house which included bringing the tomato juice downstairs, I saw that on my canning shelf I had quite a few jars of the sweet apple filling that I made last year. Well to be honest I had like all the jars left. So it’s time to see if they are any good in a dessert. I found an easy apple crisp dessert to make and it turned out pretty good! Here is the Apple Crisp 11 recipe from allrecipes

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Place the sliced apples in a 9×13 inch pan. Mix the white sugar, 1 tablespoon flour and ground cinnamon together, and sprinkle over apples. Pour water evenly over all.
  3. Combine the oats, 1 cup flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and melted butter together.DSCN8288 Crumble evenly over the apple mixture.
  4. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 45 minutes.

** Because I had my jar of already prepared apples I went straight to #3. See I told you that it was easy!DSCN8287Put some ice cream over the crisp while it was still warm – yum!DSCN8289

And now I’m standing in front of my closet thinking that I should change out the tank tops and summer dresses for fall clothes. I mean I could literally see my breath this afternoon outside and know that fall is really coming.  I guess I could switch out my closet, well maybe I’ll do that after I clean the basement 🙂

Posted in Baking, Cards, In the kitchen, Soap | 2 Comments