Putting Stuff away in the yard

Posted on November 1, 2013 by farm2011

With the crops done and winter just around the corner, Daryl has been working on getting the yard cleaned up. Now this might sound kinda weird, but over the course of the summer stuff just put where they were used and it just might not the be best spot. Like ladders, air compressors, buckets,.. stuff like that. So like I said, he’s been working on putting things away in the right spots. He also wanted to make sure that for the next month the cows would have enough ground corn. So I was waiting to help him and even for awhile I was hovering around by the barn waiting to guide the auger into the barn. But it was taking forever, so I thought I’d have things to do in the house while I waited. What I was wanting to help with is to guide the mill’s auger into the barn. It’s not that bad to do by yourself, but it’s so much easier if you get help. So all of a sudden I see that he was done with grinding the corn and had already backed up to the barn. Shoot! So I ran out to see if he needed help yet and he gave me this kind of ‘funny’ look and I knew that something went wrong. Can you see what happened in this picture? DSCN7410Maybe this one will show it better. DSCN7408Yup, he nailed the flower box. Now no big deal, but it’s looking kind of tough right now. He also brought home a mineral block for the cows and by the looks of it, I think No Ears is thinking it’s all hers.DSCN7406 In the next two weeks we’ll also have to catch Tango and band him. If you don’t know, or haven’t ever had to do this, it’s normally not a fun job. OK, it’s a bad job. You band young bulls to make them steers. But he runs so fast, I’m not sure how in the world we’ll ever catch him. As for my projects today, I got all the St. Nicholas Invitations out for our upcoming party in the Roadhouse with my family. It’s going to be fun! And tomorrow I’m hoping to get a lot done around both the house and yard. I guess we’ll see just how successful I’m going to be!

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Happy Halloween!

Posted on October 31, 2013 by farm2011

It’s Halloween today and even though we missed our towns Trick or Treating night (Sunday night), we were still able to have two of our favorite Trick or Treaters stop in tonight. They were my niece and nephew. One of the things that our local towns do, is that all the kids that go to our public & Catholic  school pick a night that they will have the kids go out Trick or Treating in their towns. And even though my niece and nephew were able to go out in their town and a stop at a few other places Sunday night, they still went out tonight to some of the homes that they didn’t hit earlier. I was happy that they came over, not only to get a chance to see their costumes, but also to give them their bags of candy.

We were also able to Skype with Kyle this week and he was asking if I could find a certain picture of him dressed up for Halloween when he was a kid. Of course, I could find all the other years that he was dressed up, but do you think I could find him dressed up as an ear of corn? No. But just looking at the pictures sure brought me down memory lane and it was fun to have an excuse to dig them out and look at them again. When we were talking with Kyle, we asked him if he was going to go out Trick or Treating in New York? He said absolutely not on the streets. He said that on Halloween in the city, it’s the night that gangs initiate new members into their groups. OK, that doesn’t sound too cool does it? It’s almost terrifying to be honest. It’s funny how different small communities do things. I’m thinking when the kids were little we would spend the whole night driving around to the neighbors. Now farm kids really make a haul. There isn’t too many kids in the neighborhoods anymore, so everyone pretty much expects and knows who will be stopping by. And none of this one or two pieces of candy stuff either. With only around 10 kids stopping in, they might get a bag full of goodies that won’t even fit in whatever they have to carry the candy. But I think the adults might like it even more than the kids sometimes. I also remember when the kids got a little older, they  begged if I would drop them off in town and they could hang out with the town kids. I’m sure it was a cool thing to do, but it sure made a long night by the time we went to all our farm neighbors after it. Because they were counting on us to stop in. But now it’s late and Halloween is over for another year. I guess it’s time to get ready for Thanksgiving and St. Nicholas day!

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Working outside tonight

Posted on October 30, 2013 by farm2011

It rained today, so I thought after work it would be just plain miserable!  But the sun came out and it was really pretty nice. So Daryl headed out to the field to do some disc chiseling and I started to tackle the garden. Wow, it didn’t take long to figure out that this wasn’t  going to be a fun job. But with it being a little more wet out, I pulled up a good section of the weeds and it was a start. I looked down on the ground though as I was pulling the weeds and almost died. It’s covered with seeds from all these weeds. I’m thinking that next year’s garden is going to be even more of a challenge. I never completely got rid of the stuff in the garden, so while I was weeding it, I noticed the kohlrabi that was still in the garden. And man they were huge! DSC_0344I took a picture of one of them by the shovel to show how big it was. I was going to cut it open to see just how woody it was, but then I thought that I’d do that maybe another day.   Then off to check in on the chickens. Even though they’ve molted, they still are laying eggs every day. But just not as many as they were this past summer. My next stop was to empty the rain barrel. I don’t want any water in it to freeze and crack it over the winter, so tonight I emptied the water and all the pine needles out of it and tipped it over for now. I’ve only gotten the rain barrel these past few years, and I really like having it. I don’t know if it’s just something that I think or if it’s real, but the plants seem to grow better with water from there.DSC_0345 Later I’ll put it in the middle storage of the chicken coop. I also wanted to take a picture of the round bales tonight that we worked on yesterday, and when I was doing it Tango was actually kind of tame in the cow yard.

Corn stalk bales tucked away for the winter months

Corn stalk bales tucked away for the winter months

I got my picture of the corn stalk bales and when I was taking one of Tango, No Ears thought that my camera was food and kept trying to lick it. So being the spoiled cow she is, I snapped a quick picture of Tango and then got apples for everyone.

This is one good looking calf. OK, I might be biased!

This is one good looking calf. OK, I might be playing favorites!

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Round Bales & Popcorn Balls

Posted on October 29, 2013 by farm2011

Since Daryl had gotten all the stalks chopped, after work he spent the time raking them up so they could get round baled. Our neighbor was planning on baling the stalks and it just worked out well that everything cooperated and they got done tonight. Hurray! This usually means that anything else that gets done in the fall is like gravy. It’s just the extra topping that you’d like to have, but it’s not necessary something that you have to have. So while Daryl was out in the field, I wanted to make some popcorn balls. I couldn’t find the ‘good’ recipe that I usually use, so I found a new one. And of course I had almost everything but one thing. The one thing that I was missing was orange jello. Now who doesn’t have orange jello in their cupboard? Well… other than me of course! I had cherry, strawberry, and some funky kind of blue stuff, but no orange. At first I thought I’d just make it with the strawberry one, but with it being Halloween the orange ones would be so much better. I first called our local gas station to see what they had for jello. They had strawberry. Yea. So I put some town clothes on and headed to another gas station/grocery store. After driving 10 miles round trip, I had my two boxes of jello. But you know after I started these popcorn balls, I decided that they probably are not very good for you. They had the two boxes of jello, 2 cups of corn syrup, and 1 cup of sugar in the recipe. I ended up doubling the popcorn and I think I almost should have added more when I got done. I only got 13 popcorn balls out of all that sugar!  They turned out OK, and I’m planning on sending them to William at college. I’m sure someone there will eat them.20131028_201629_resized_1 (2)

It was late when Daryl got done in the field, but he still needed to put the bales in the shed. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow and it’d be nice to keep the bales dry. As I was out in the cow yard and it was after 9 pm, my job was to watch the gate when he was driving in and out with the tractor. Now this wasn’t a hard job at all. So while I was standing there, I looked up at the millions of stars and the Milky Way. You can’t always see the Milky Way as clear as it was tonight and then to top it off, I saw a shooting star. I’ve always heard that if you wish on a shooting star, you’re wish will come true. So what was my wish? I wished that popcorn ball that I just ate doesn’t  go directly to my hips!

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Parents Weekend at college

Posted on October 27, 2013 by farm2011

It’s that time of the year again when the colleges have Parent’s weekend, and Iowa State had theirs this past weekend. It’s always such a great time, and we’ve been lucky to not only go to Central College when Kyle was there, but now we’ve been going these past years to Iowa State for William.

Saturday morning started early to make sure that the cows, chickens, dogs and cats all had enough to eat and drink until we got back Sunday night. Daryl gave the cows a bunch of hay and extra corn and since the chickens were staying in the coop all weekend, they got their water trough inside. Once everyone had enough to get by for a little while, we loaded up the car and headed south. The weather was supposed to be really nice and we were excited to see William. We made it to Ames about an hour before the football game that we had tickets for, so we grabbed something to eat and went to find our seats. Even though they were pretty high up in the stands, we didn’t really feel that the wind picked up. But we were ready for the cold weather just in case.

We had enough clothes on to stay warm at the game

We had enough clothes on to stay warm at the game

The game was fun, but the Cyclones didn’t play that well and lost. But it was still a good time just hanging out at the game. After the game, it was a road trip to Walmart to get William stuff, and then back to his dorm to check out his room. I helped him move in earlier this fall so I knew where it was and how it looked then, but Daryl hadn’t seen it before. It’s tons bigger than his last years room and I think they’ve got just about everything that they could possibly need in there!

William in his college dorm room

William in his college dorm room

We met some of the guys that William hangs out with, and after meeting up with William’s girlfriend, off to get some supper.

Waiting to get seated for supper

Waiting to get seated for supper

It was fun because we had a table full of kids with us. And if you always thought that you could eat fast, you should meet William’s friends! One of the guys ate his whole sandwich in a matter of only a few minutes and he said that he wasn’t that hungry because he just ate a couple of bowls of chili before we left to go out. Oh man, to be a kid again right? After everyone was full, we left the kids and headed to our hotel for the night. Since we had some time the next morning to just hang out before the concert, we drove around and checked out the capital and then we ended up going to a movie and eating a nice dinner.

Driving around checking out the capital

Driving around checking out the capital

We had it timed perfect, because we were meeting William’s girlfriend at a certain time before the concert started. To be honest it was even fun just waiting for the concert to start because we ended up finding some of our friends that came down for the weekend and stayed for the concert. Since this was the first concert of the year, everyone was really excited for it to start. IMG_0804 - CopyThere were four choirs performing and William was in the second one. And I laughed at myself when his choir came out because you just never get over stretching to see your kid in the crowd – no matter how old they are.

Statesmen Choir - Iowa State

Statesmen Choir – Iowa State

But as the concert was going the one director said something that stuck with me. You know when someone just makes a comment and it hits home? Well that’s what this was. It started out as a Thank you to the parents, and all the other guests that were at the concert. Then the comment was how greatful the kids were that they had the support of their families and friends over the years, and to come to not only this concert but all the past concerts. Then I thought to myself, I wonder how many music concerts have we gone to? It would have started when Kyle was in 5th grade and it still continues with William in college. So let’s say since 1996 until 2013 – that would be 17 years. Then if you figure in the choir, band and musicals, plus college stuff… well it would be a lot! But you know what? It’s some of my most favorite times with the boys and I’m so glad that we have it as a memory. I loved every one that we went to!IMG_0802 - CopyIMG_0799 - Copy

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Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho, it’s off to the vet we go

Posted on October 25, 2013 by farm2011

I wasn’t expecting this afternoon to go well, and I was right. I don’t want to be one of those ‘glass half empty’ kind of  people, but taking the dog and the cat to the local vet by myself just has trouble written all over it.

I had some errands to run in town after work before we went to the vet, but they didn’t take too long and I was home in no time to get the animals ready. Daryl and I were looking at this one Insurance Policy that of course needed to be filled out today or you loose it. I don’t know why it always happens that way, but we did it again today. But we decided on what we were going to do, and I was going to give them a quick call before I had to leave. But a quick call, turned into a little longer call than I expected and finally after another call back from them, I was able to find Little Kitty and head out the door. I left her in the house so I could keep track of her when I was going to leave. Daryl headed out to the field. Now I’m not sure what he was doing out there, but I’m getting the feeling that he wasn’t going to be anywhere near this mess tonight. OK, so I keep watching the clock and I’m running late so I grab the cat and run out the door. I head to the garage and grab the cat carrier and to the truck I go. I get the door open, and kind of shove Little Kitty into the carrier and zip it shut. What I soon found out is that this all happened way too soon for him. Just as I was shutting the door to the truck I’m thinking… what in the world is that terrible smell? Well, I take a look into the carrier and poor Little Kitty had the crap scared out of him. Literally! Well, it wasn’t going to get cleaned up now. So I find Reno up by the steel bins and get her convinced to come to the house. I looked all over in the house for her lease and then made a mad dash for the barn. Still couldn’t find it. Looked again in the house, and finally I found it. Now, not that I had any high hopes that this was going to work for her, but at least I might look a little bit better than the previous times that I’ve showed up at the vet’s office. I usually have to grab Reno under her front paws and while she’s only standing on her back feet, kind of walk/dance her to the door. Let’s just say it looks really dumb. What is it with these animals? OK, so I found the lease and grabbed some paper towels and tried to convince Reno now to get in the truck. Yea, that wasn’t going to happen. Well, I grabbed her under her front paws and did the walk/dance with her to the truck. By this time I was about worn out. But I grabbed my purse, pushed Reno over so I could buckle my seat belt and out of the drive way I tore with the truck. Now I knew that I might have to speed just a little to get to the  appointment, so guess how fast I was going? 50 miles an hour. Yea! And do you know why? Well, I kept hearing this terrible bumping noise in the truck and by this time Reno turned backwards to see what was going on. What it was, was the bushel basket that Daryl used earlier for some field stuff, literally bouncing around in the back of the truck. I thought if I slowed down to around 50, maybe it’ll stay in. Well, that wasn’t working. It was so windy today, that it was catching that bushel basket and literally picking it up in the air and then it would come down and hit. I knew it wasn’t good when Reno was watching it and then turned and looked at me like, ‘are you seeing this?’ OK, time to stop and put it inside the cab with us. When I stopped Reno wanted to get out, and only later did I notice that she tipped over a fountain drink Daryl had in the cup holder. This drink went all over Little Kitty and made the situation much, much worse for him. But the basket went into the cab and even though it was pretty cramped, we all just had to deal with it. 20131025_165819_resizedNow when we finally got to the vets office, I put the lease on Reno and she walked right into the office. What a good girl. While she was getting a couple of shots, I tried to clean up Little Kitty as best as I could. And I thought I did a good job until he was on the metal table in the office and was kind of sliding around because of his situation. When everyone had their check up done,  back into the truck we went. This time it went much better and we had no issues all the way home. But by the time I got home, I had a funny smell to me and was covered in dog hair and dog drool. I think next time I won’t be as adventurous, and I’ll split these two guys up!

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Still chopping stalks….

Posted on October 24, 2013 by farm2011

Daryl has spent all of tonight in the field chopping stalks, and he’s still out there.  I think he’s only got one field left to do yet, so that’s good. It sure seems like it’s been a long harvest season this year.

As for me, we’ll I spent most of the night working on switching my spring/summer to winter clothes over. And guess what? I actually got it done. I also was even able to make a pretty good donation pile, so that was even better! I’m sure that I won’t need the things that I’m going to get rid of, and if I do.. oh well. For work everyday I wear a company shirt and jeans. So honestly how much clothes do you need?

For supper tonight I drug out an old Dutch oven that I bought about a million years ago at a farm auction. It was one of those deals when I was only interested in the cast iron oven, but spent way too much and got about 10 cast iron skillets included! My dutch oven isn’t the prettiest, but it works.

It's a really old cast iron pot, but it works pretty good yet!

It’s a really old cast iron pot, but it works pretty good yet!

Like I said, I drug it out of the way back of the cupboard and decided to make some stew for supper. I usually make stew in a crock pot, but tonight I didn’t have time for that. So I coated the meat with a flour, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder mixture and then browned it in the pot. Then I saw a recipe that says they added some red wine and that sure sounded like a good idea, so into the pot it went. Next some bouillon cubes dissolved in hot water and parsley and rosemary topped it off. I covered it and after about an hour and then I added some potatoes, celery, onion, and carrots and covered it again. Now normally I don’t really care for stew that much. There’s just something about the smell that I don’t like. But the stew tonight sure tasted good. Maybe because it’s cold and windy outside, who knows. But I do know that I’m going to try to keep this old Dutch oven in the front of the cupboard from now on.

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Time to kick it in gear!

Posted on October 23, 2013 by farm2011

I’ve made a list of everything that I need to do – and man oh man is it a long one. I don’t know if I’m been that lazy this past month or if I’ve just got a lot to do, but I think I better kick it in high gear and get some of these things checked off my list.

My first project is to get my Secret Project done. I’ve been working on it now, well let’s just say for quite a long time and I want this to be done within a month. It will be soooo cool when it’s done and I’ve got almost all of the stuff for it. Just a few more things to get.

My second project? My terrible, terrible garden. We’ve been talking about it these past few days at our house and I’d really like to burn it to get rid of the weeds before it gets too wet. But the problem is that if I light it on fire, it might be too hot and melt William’s green house. Yea, I’m guessing that he won’t think that’s too cool! So we might have to move the greenhouse. It’s not going to be a fun project, so that’s why it got bumped to second place.

My third project? Get my fall and winter clothes switched over. It’s time to grasp reality and understand that with snow falling in towns only 60 miles from us, summer is over. Yup, winter will be here soon and all I have now to wear is tank tops and shorts. I have been doing really good when I actually have changed the clothes over in the past. Since our house is old, the closets are not made for a lot of clothes. I always try to think of how Kyle can live out of only a suitcase of clothes for almost a year and get by – so it’ll be time to purge my stuff again.

And finally a discipline thing for me. I need to quit looking at Pinterest at night. Otherwise I will keep adding more projects!

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It’s a Date!

Posted on October 22, 2013 by farm2011

When you’re married to a farmer, no matter how many acres of land you have,  or the amount of cattle that live on your farm, there is one thing for certain – that when it’s time to work in the field… you do it! So you can pretty much count on not doing much on the weekends during harvest and that’s OK. You know that the old saying is true ‘When the sun is shining, you make hay’. Well, this time of the year you shell corn. But tonight there was a home volleyball game at our school, and since we didn’t get to any of them this season, we decided to go tonight. We knew a couple of the kids playing and some of their parents are our friends. So Daryl hurried up and finished the one field that he was in chopping stalks, got cleaned up, and off to the game we went. Even though we didn’t have a clue what the rules were, we knew that our school was going to beat the other one. And they did. Since we only had popcorn for supper at the game, off we went to a local hangout to Taco Tuesday’s after the games. Then after some taco’s and conversation,  the next stop was our town to see what was going on. OK so it was a Tuesday and what could be going on right? But it was fun just to be out an about. We didn’t stay up town long and then we found ourselves home sitting in front of the fireplace. But this was quite a night for us.. and a Tuesday no less!

 

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Chopping Stalks & Laundry

Posted on October 20, 2013 by farm2011

Since Daryl was able to get quite a bit of the corn out of the field these past few days, he wanted to see if he could chop stalks today. Then once he’s got the corn stalks chopped, he was planning on hiring a neighbor to make some round bales out of them. I know No Ears & Ed would really like that, so we’ll see how much stalks there are in the field. I told him that I was planning on driving where he was working in to snap a quick picture. I usually let Daryl know so if he sees me, he doesn’t think that something is wrong and I’m coming to get him. So as I was leaving, I could see some rain clouds moving and just like that – it started to rain.

Looks like rain

Looks like rain

Well, it wasn’t really raining. It was those really big drops and you don’t know if the clouds were going to open up and pour or just blow over. Well, after I took a picture of Daryl chopping stalks, I headed back home.

Chopping corn stalks today

Chopping corn stalks today

I laughed when I started to walk to the house because now the sun was out. Just crazy! But the clouds still look pretty dark, so we’ll see what the night brings.

Fall clouds moving in

Fall clouds moving in

As for me today, well I tried to fix the clothes line earlier today and without much luck. So before Daryl went out into the field he fixed for me. I really think my idea was a good one though. I put a thick wooden dowel rod in it and it kinda held up. OK, it didn’t really hold much at all. I’m not sure what he actually put in it when he fixed it, but he said he was going to get some cement and fix it even better later this week. Hum. But I did a couple of loads of laundry and was happy to hang some everyday shirts out on the line. Yea, I know with the rain and stuff it probably wasn’t the best idea, but eventually they’ll dry. I also spent quite a bit of time today on the computer and IPad. There was some things that needed updating and just some stuff that needed to be better organized. I sure hope I didn’t mess either one of them up too bad. Other than that I had high hopes of switching over the spring/summer clothes to fall/winter clothes.. but I just wasn’t in the mood. I think I have to be mentally ready for that job. Not that it’s the worst job in the world, but maybe it’s close. I did get a Thank You card done and was happy how it turned out. I used tin foil to make the background of it. Who would have thought? DSC_0334And now another weekend is over,  and it’s another new week starting tomorrow. Man where does the time go?

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