Cloudy Sunday

Posted on October 6, 2013 by farm2011

They predicted that the weather was going to turn, and man they were right on that! I don’t know how cold it is outside, but it’s cold. It’s so cold that Little Kitty is inside the house and is being nice as she can be because she doesn’t want to get into trouble and get thrown outside. Now that’s cold! Daryl spent part of the day getting the auger lined up with the grain bins and started the heater for the bins. It’s always funny when he does this because he always has so much help from the dogs. Well this year, Reno. They knew when the bin fan is turned on, that any mice or rats that made their home under the bin can’t stand the noise and eventually come out running. So Reno will run back and forth by the bins, just trying to see if anything was living under there this past summer. She didn’t catch anything, so I’m guessing (and hoping!) that we didn’t get any visitors this past year. As for me, I spent some time upstairs trying to get it better organized. I swear that I have a lot of extra stuff that I should get rid of, but when I go to start a Good Will box, I can’t find much of anything that needs to leave. Oh well, I guess I’m just going to have to keep working on that! Mom stopped over for awhile which was nice and we also Skyped with Kyle today. We’re planning on also Skyping with William later tonight. Love Skype! Now I’m working on getting things organized for the upcoming week and next weekend. Man, another week –  where does the time go?

This is how Little Kitty spent her day

This is how Little Kitty spent her day

The couch was moved on the porch this weekend, and I'm thinking that Reno likes it

The couch was moved on the porch this weekend, and I’m thinking that Reno likes it

Posted in Family, Farming, Our dogs | 2 Comments

Sitting in the back of church

Posted on October 5, 2013 by farm2011

We had a wedding today,  and while I was sitting in church, I thought when you are the bride and groom, and the day goes so fast, you really don’t get to see everything that’s happening. The reason that I say this is because when we were all waiting in church, the anticipation just kind of grows to have the ceremony started. You know how much work goes into the wedding and are excited to have a good time! And you know that it’s getting close because all of a sudden the music changes it’s tone and then the grandparents and parents are escorted into the church. Then comes the bridesmaids and everyone is smiling and knowing that the bride is close.  Where we was sitting (in the back of church) something caught my eye in the balcony. I didn’t see the wedding photographer take a picture of it, and that was too bad because it was a really cool picture. What it was were a row of maybe 8 younger girls leaning over the balcony as far as they could without falling over just trying to get a glimpse of the bride coming in to walk down the aisle. Then as she came around the corner, I watched the people all stand and I think everyone of them had this big smile on their faces and looking straight at her. The ceremony is mostly always the same, but then when the bride and groom were saying their vows, we could see all the younger kids in the pews using their parents as kind of an anchor to help boost them up so they could watch just what was going on. Once the vows were done and the rest of the ceremony was over, now they marched down the aisle as husband and wife. So as we were waiting our turn to leave our pew, we started to people watch. We checked out who all made it to the ceremony, and who didn’t,  we found some of the kids who were in the wedding parents that we hadn’t seen for awhile, and then we watched these two elderly ladies who I swear knew everyone there. The one lady was on the one side of the church and the other lady was almost opposite of her on the other side of the church, and both were not far from us. Well, as people came down the aisle to leave, they literally either stopped at one or the other of these two ladies to say Hi. I don’t know, but the movie ‘Godfather’ is playing this weekend, and I swear that I see some similarities in these ladies and that movie…I’m just saying. While we were waiting,  we  also caught some people that we knew sneaking out to try to get in line sooner to congratulate the couple. Only to realize that now they missed wishing the couple good luck because the couple was in church and not outside. But just as they figured it out, it was too late for them because they went out the church doors and would look totally bad if they came back in again and tried to look like nothing was going on. Too funny! Then with the church emptied all but two pews, ours and the last one on the other side, it was our turn to wish the couple good luck. As we were leaving the church, I decided that my vote for the next wedding  is sit again in the back pew, it’s the best way to take in everything from the wedding!

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Messing around and ended up with a Skunk!

Posted on October 3, 2013 by farm2011

Tonight after work I had to do some errands in town, so of course I wanted to see if I could find any treasures at our local thrift store. Now it’s not that we don’t have enough stuff in our house already, but heck.. who knows right? Well, I did find this old mop bucket. I snatched it up right away, and feeling quite smug that I got the best deal of the day. But when I went to pay for it I realized that maybe not everyone thought it was as cool as I did. The lady behind the counter just smiled at me and I think she was thinking that this was the easiest way for her to make $15 all week. But I don’t care, and I put it in the car to take to our house.

Not sure what I'm going to do with my bucket

Not sure what I’m going to do with my mop bucket

When I got home, Daryl was working on the corn head for the combine. He’s hoping to get out in the field this Saturday if the corn’s fit. As for me, I decided to make ‘grab soup’. I started out with chicken (yea.. you guessed it!) and then some of the chicken broth, then whatever we had in the fridge or cupboard. Into this soup went carrots, celery, some noodles, a packet of some rice stuff in the cupboard because I used all my good rice last week, and then some butter. It really didn’t taste too bad. I made some fresh bread in the oven, so all in all it wasn’t a bad supper. While this all was cooking and baking, I decided to go for a run. Now I was messing around in town after work, so everything go a little later than I had hoped. But no big deal right? I put on my running shoes, grabbed my music and off I went outside. I knew that I’d have some extra time before supper was ready. But just as I’m leaving, the sun was hitting our neighbors round bales of hay so cool, I went back inside and grabbed my camera. I took a couple of pictures of the hay and also of the clouds and then decided that I better get going because it’s starting to get dark already.

Hay bales

Hay bales

Hay bales in the field across the road from our farm

Hay bales in the field across the road from our farm

The clouds behind our house tonight

The clouds behind our house tonight

So I’m off running and thinking about the day – what I did … and what I didn’t do. How there was a bad smell of hogs in the air and you know, just stuff. Then just as I got to the end of the road and I was turning around something caught my eye. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it was hanging out in the ditch beside me. At first I thought, why is there a cat just walking around so slow? Then as I got closer to get a better look –  I thought I was going to die! You know what it was? It was a HUGE skunk!  I took a deep breath and turned around and started running. Yea, good thing I had my running shoes on! And I sure hope no one was watching me because I kept looking back over my shoulder to see if the skunk was coming after me. It was the best motivator for running that I ever had! And when I finally got home, I asked Daryl if he knew how big skunks get? He said they get big. Yea, he’s right on that!

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Bean field clean and new chicken recipe

Posted on October 2, 2013 by farm2011

Daryl was able to get the dry beans combined  and put the wagons in the shed for the night. It’s supposed to rain and he sure didn’t want them to get wet! There are still some beans left (but not too many). These are the beans that he planted later because with all the wet weather that we had this spring, they got flooded out and replanted. With a little bit more sunshine, we’re hoping that they’ll yield. But for now, the field is clean and I always think it looks kind of ugly so bare.

Combined bean field

Combined bean field

And for chicken supper tonight? Well, I tried something new. I cut up some chicken, then also cut up some cabbage, shredded a carrot, added some celery, threw in some soy sauce, salt, pepper, and some garlic salt and let it sit while the oil was getting hot. Then I took out the egg roll papers that I had in the fridge and held my breath. I watched on a cooking show the other night this one guy making egg rolls and he made them without even hardly looking at them. So I thought  – they really can’t be that hard. Now even though I’ve never made them before, I thought I probably should give this a shot. And you know what? They weren’t that bad to make. Yea, what a shock! But I think I was only supposed to get around 8 of the rolls when I was done, I ended up with wayyyy more than that!

I'm thinking I'll have extra's

I’m thinking I’ll have extra’s

There was a chance of storms tonight and man our dog and cat were totally weird! Finally after the cat was starting to lick my leg (God only knows why) out she got tossed on the porch. Then the dog just was jumping all over Daryl when he was trying to watch TV in the other room. Now to Reno’s defense, When I walked into the room I found out that Daryl had covered up with a blanket so Reno wouldn’t breath all over him. Fact: Reno has absolutely terrible breath! But Reno just thought he was just playing.

Reno thought Daryl wanted to play

Reno thought Daryl wanted to play

It didn’t take too long for Daryl to get sick of Reno, so he locked her out of the family room and then the dog was stuck with me in the living room. Well, she lasted longer than the Little Kitty, and she did eventually settle down. I guess with the animals acting so crazy,we’ll see if it does storm tonight after all.

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Soybean harvest & chicken week continues

Posted on October 1, 2013 by farm2011

After work today Daryl was able to get the two loads of beans unloaded and since then he has filled them up,  and is working on the last one. I’m not sure how long he’ll stay out there tonight. The wind died down, so now with the dew moving in, the beans will be getting a little tougher to combine. But with the really nice warm weather today, it’s really drying them out and they’re almost too dry. There is rain in the forecast coming up later this week, so he’s trying to get the one field done and then the plan was to switch the combine head to corn and work on the corn fields. The rest of our beans were planted a little later so they’re not ready yet.

I spent the night working in the kitchen. I know that the plan last week was to have ‘chicken week’ for .. like a week, but I found this bag of 10 pounds of chicken in the freezer that was taking way too much room up. So I’ve been thawing it out and decided that I was going to attack it tonight. DSCN7300I decided to put some of it in the oven and roast it. We could have chicken salad sandwiches for supper, chicken egg rolls, chicken tacos, chicken spaghetti… (I feel like I’m on Forest Gump talking about shrimp !) Anyway, after I put some of the chicken in the oven, I put on the ‘big’ stock kettle on the stove and started to simmer the rest of it. Now if this picture makes the kettle look big, it’s actually probably bigger 🙂

Looks like it just might be too much for two people

Looks like it just might be too much for two people

I normally don’t like the smell of cooking chicken in the house, but the broth on the stove not only chicken in it, but onions, carrots, celery, and some bay leaves. Yup, it was smelling pretty good. But I did have a problem though. I kind of forgot that when I got all this chicken done, what I was going to do with it if I didn’t use it all. The whole reason that I took it out of the freezer was to make room, and now I’m guessing that I’m going to be putting some of the chicken and the broth back in. Well, I’ll just have to do my best to get rid of most of it this week.

Posted in Farming | 2 Comments

The Fall Harvest begins

Posted on September 30, 2013 by farm2011

The fall harvest has just begun for us tonight.

Daryl combining beans tonight

Daryl combining beans tonight

Daryl started the combine and headed out into the bean fields after work. He only stopped long enough for us to go into town to a wake that we wanted to go to and then grabbed some quick supper and then right back at it again. He said he was worried that not long after the sun went down the beans started to get a little tough and he thought he’d have to stop for the night. But either the air pressure changed or maybe pure luck, but he was able to keep going until he got two wagons full. DSCN7295I’m not sure what they’re yielding this year, and with all the crazy weather that we’ve had it’s just about anyone’s guess. But there was a lot of farmers out in the fields today and it always make you feel better if you are also in your field doing stuff. It’s just like when you plant the crops, if one of your neighbors are out in the field, it doesn’t take too long and the whole neighborhood is out there. As for me tonight, I was the chauffeur for awhile bringing Daryl back and forth from the field and finding something for supper that he could eat in less than 5 minutes or bring with him on the combine if he had to. So what did we have for supper? We had brats, corn, and then a baked potato. When I was at the Cranberry Festival there was this one stand that my Mom and her friend said that this one potato pocket thing was just the best!

The potato pocket that I bought at the Cranberry Festival

The potato pocket that I bought at the Cranberry Festival

Now I’m not usually found at craft shows, so they had to explain to me just what the heck it was. What it is was a sewn pocket that you put potatoes, sweet corn, or bread in and then into the microwave it goes. It’s supposed to make your baked potatoes so good . Well, I bought some potatoes tonight after work just to try this thing out. I wanted to use it out yesterday, but it was one of those times when something smells just a little funky in your basement and you’re not really sure what it is. Well it was my potatoes and lets say …  they were just not the best for eating. They ended up in the chicken coop for the chickens. OK, so tonight I got the potato ready and into the pocket and  microwave it went for around 3 1/2 minutes. When it came out, it was done and Daryl even said it was pretty good. Now why in the world this thing works I don’t have a clue. But hey, it works! The rest of the night I spent it on making some more granola bars for this weeks breakfast in the mornings. I added molasses this time in the recipe and I’m not so sure that I like it in it.

Breakfast bars

Breakfast bars

I’ll post the recipe later this week. I also needed a card to send out tomorrow so I made this one.  It’s pretty simple, but I like how it turned out.DSCN7298

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Fort Atkinson Iowa Rendezvous Days

Posted on September 29, 2013 by farm2011

This weekend was the annual Fort Atkinson Rendezvous Days held in a nearby town. This is a celebration that has been held since 1977 with reenactments of the post from the 1840’s. The reason that the fort was even built in the first place was that back in the 1830’s the Winnebago Indians were resisting moving from Wisconsin and afraid that they would have to be moved by their enemies at the time the Sioux. So General Atkinson promised them that the Winnebago Indians could stay there and it would be considered neutral grounds between the two. When the fort was completed, there was a total of 24 buildings on the land. The Winnebago Indians stayed there until 1848 when they signed a treaty and the military escorted them to Minnesota.  The weather today was absolutely perfect, so Daryl got the Chevelle out of the Roadhouse and off we went to Fort. We really wanted to see the Melodrama that they were putting on today because a bunch of our friends were in it. The hardest part of getting to the Fort is just finding a place to park. There are so many people usually at the Fort that you just know in advance that you’ll be walking. IMG_0784We made it just in time for the melodrama and joined the rest of the crowd that was there also watching it.

During the show

During the show

The cast

The cast

Now I’ve been to the Rendezvous days many times before, but never watched the show, so this was a good time! After the show, we made the usually rounds just checking everything out and seeing who’s all there. Now usually you’ll know at least 1/2 of the people because they are local’s, but today there were a lot of people that I didn’t know. I guess that’s good though. There is just about everything there that you could buy. From iron kettles, bracelets, baskets, soap, to skunk hats. And there is almost as much variety to see.

This guy was playing this old 1800 music player

This guy was playing this old 1800 music player

So after walking around and checking everything out, we made one last stop at the kettle corn. I really couldn’t believe that you could go to the Rendezvous without buying kettle corn. The smell of it is everywhere and it’s always as good as it smells. We took the corn and headed to the Chevelle to find some dinner. It was such a great day to go on a road trip, and we weren’t quite sure where we were going to go. We ended up on the Great River Road heading to Gunder, Iowa to the famous restaurant that sells the Gunder Burger.

Gunder, Iowa home of the famous Gunder Burger

Gunder, Iowa home of the famous Gunder Burger. There isn’t much in this town and the restaurant in on the left

The Gunder Burger is a pound of hamburger and all the fixings, and it’s huge! If you can eat it, you get to wear the Gunder Hat and have your picture taken.  But today we only had sandwiches. Once home I laid down for just a little bit (are you seeing a pattern here?) and was watching for Daryl outside to get the tractor and bucket to help pick up the apples that had fallen. Yea, not so much luck with that. He had most of them picked up when I realized he even had the tractor out. He thought that I planned it that way, and even though I didn’t – it sure worked out well for me! As for tonight, it’s time to get ready for the upcoming week. Daryl is planning on heading out into the fields tomorrow to start taking out the beans and we’ve got another wake to go to tomorrow night.

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A little bit of everything today – Saturday

Posted on September 28, 2013 by farm2011

Today’s weather started out not so bad which was a good way to start. There are so many weddings in the area today that I’m sure hoping that the rain will hold out until later today. But that wasn’t the case. We were heading to a wedding in our town for the afternoon and just as we were leaving, it started to pour. The good thing was that after the wedding ceremony the rain did stop just long enough to get the bride and groom out of the church and into their vehicles without getting too wet. We on the other hand was heading to a wake after the ceremony and by the time we got there the rain started again. Oh well, I’m pretty sure we won’t melt. The wake was for a good friend of Daryl’s that had her dad pass away, so it worked really well for us to make a drive over to visit with her for awhile in between the ceremony and reception of the wedding. Then back for the reception we went. DSCN7289After a good meal, we decided to head home in between the reception and dance and then made the mistake of sitting down to watch some TV. Well, I guess you could call it that. When we sat down to watch TV, bam! we feel asleep. When we woke up we debated if we should head back into town or just call it a night. So we decided to go to town and we were sure glad that we did. The dance was tons of fun!

At the end of the day, we ended up getting around 1/2 of an inch of rain which will sure help keep the dust down. And I’m sure next week you’ll see a lot of farmers out in the field.

Picture of my new purchase from yesterday. When the wind hits the fins, it looks cool

Picture of my new purchase from yesterday. When the wind hits the fins, it looks cool

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Cranberry Festival 2013

Posted on September 27, 2013 by farm2011

I took Friday off from work, and met my sister and our Mom in town early in the morning, and onto a Hawkeye Stages bus we went. We were heading to Warren Wisconsin to the 41st Cranberry Festival. None of us had been there before, so it sounded like a great reason to go. We weren’t sure what to expect, other than there are supposed to be a lot of vendors and a lot of people. I was anxious to find out more about the cranberries. How I envisioned the cranberry fields were that they were all under water and just waiting to be harvested. Yea, I’m thinking about the commercial where the guys have boots on and are standing in the fields. Well after around 2 1/2 hours riding the bus, we finally got to the town. Warren’s population in  2011 was 366 people. And guess how many people they expected were there for the festival in 2012? 120,000!!! Even though the people just swarm this little town, it’s really very organized. I guess if you have had this for 41 years, you probably got this down by now. When we got off the bus, the first thing off the bat was a huge hill to walk up.

Mom and her friend hitching a ride up the hill

Mom and her friend hitching a ride up the hill

But we found a golf cart and Mom and her friend hitched a ride. There were so many vendors all in this one little town I just couldn’t believe it. But after getting some brat’s and kraut or hot dogs in our bellies – off we joined the crowds.IMG_0743 IMG_0748But first things first.

My sister and I

My sister and I. It’s too funny that you can see our legs!

Now if you were looking for something to buy and you didn’t find it here, you just plain were not looking hard enough. There were 1200 vendors and just about everything imaginable. We even stopped to watch a pie eating contest. The one guy must have done this before, because he was done way before the rest of them.

Pie eating contest

Pie eating contest

We shopped for awhile and then off to get on another bus to head out into the cranberry fields. We had sweat in places that just wasn’t cool and decided that to sit down and ride around in a bus would just do the trick to cool off.  OK this is what I learned about cranberries. The fields only get flooded when they want to harvest them or before winter to save the plants from the winter cold. The berries grow on the ground which reminded me of hay plants, and they average around 23,000 lbs of berries per acre.

Berries still in the field

Berries still in the field

Miles and miles of cranberry fields

Miles and miles of cranberry fields

There were so many places to buy honey today and while we were on our bus tour of the fields we found out why. They said that in order to pollinate the plants, they bring in semi loads of bees. YIKES! Can you imagine? The one lady who we think lived on one of the farms said it’s just not cool being out in the fields during the four weeks that the bees are there because the farmers drive 4 wheelers and get hit by bees flying around! Once the tour was over, we  went to find some treasures to buy and soon it was time to get back on the bus. My sister and I laughed because we weren’t sure where Mom was and we found out that she got to the bus before we did.

They were waiting for us

It turned out that they were waiting for us

At the end of the day, I did buy something for our in our yard and I’ll take a picture of it this week to show. I didn’t buy any cranberries, but I did buy some cranberry wine. What perfect weather and a great day! As for me now? It’s late and I’m heading to soak in the tub and put my jammies on. Humm… is it too soon to open my bottle of wine?

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Getting ready for fall

Posted on September 26, 2013 by farm2011

I realized not that long ago that I missed fall last year. Now I don’t mean that I missed having it around …. I mean that I completely missed the season. I don’t know if this happens to you, but you get so busy that you kind of skim over some things. Like one year, about mid summer I thought that it was weird that we didn’t have Easter yet. Yea.. way too busy then! But last year I was just starting my new job and we went from summer bike rides to Christmas. So this year, I thought I’d better do something about that! My first plan of attack was to get buy some mums and get some of the flower beds looking a little bit more fallish. After work, I jumped into the car and headed to a family of Mennonites that don’t live too far from us that have a greenhouse. In this one area by us, there is a group of Mennonite families that have a total of probably 10 ? greenhouses and THE best flowers around. Now I didn’t really care what color of mums that I got, and that was a good thing for me tonight. Because when I pulled into this one family yard that sells flowers, there were two little boys playing. The boys were about 3 & 2 years old and they were playing in the dirt. After we all said Hi, I asked them if there Mom was around. They said ‘Yea’. OK, that was probably a dumb question to ask little boys. So I asked if she knew that I was there and they said ‘Sure’. So finally realizing that this conversation wasn’t going to go very far, I started to look around. There were two colors of mums there and when I came back into the yard, the Dad yelled from the house that this is all the colors that they had left. I thought it was kind of odd that no one came out to see what I was doing, but then I was on a time limit and figured that I should pick some out and get it done. So I found some that I liked and started to pack the car. Then I found this one shed that helped me figure out just how I was supposed to pay for the stuff I bought. Sometimes you can have all the security in the world and still get ripped off, but after looking at this sign, I’m guessing that they usually come up with the correct amount of money in the bucket at the end of the day. IMG_0734After the car was loaded and I checked out the other stuff that they had for sale, I told the boys to be careful in the yard and off I went home. We are still looking for a new car, but seeing just everything that I haul in this one – it’s going to be hard to beat! IMG_0736After a really good meal with Daryl at our feed dealer’s appreciation supper, I started to clean some of the flower beds. I ended up with a trailer full of junk and man oh man did it need it. But now I realize that I need a bunch more mulch. Arrgghh. So my quest to bring out the fall decorations started tonight, and hopefully within the next week, I’ll have most of it up. I’m sure going to do my best not to miss fall this year!

 

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