Chicken Week continues

Posted on September 25, 2013 by farm2011

Well, chicken week continues. And it’s not as fun as hamburger week. For some reason I’m having a harder time trying to figure out what to make with chicken every night. So far this week we had broasted chicken from town (yea, not really helping to clean our freezer is it?), then on Monday we had chicken fried steak. This was in our freezer, but I don’t really know what type of meat this actually is. But since it had the word chicken in it, I’m counting it. Then leftover broasted chicken from Sunday night, and finally tonight we had chicken with rice in the crock pot. For tonight’s  supper, I made a quick dash home at lunch and went through the cupboards to find the packet of rice that I saw the other day that I wanted to use for this dish. It was a package that had rice in it that was vacuum packed awhile ago. And even though it kind of looked like a lot in the bag, I didn’t want to go to the bother of resealing it and what could be the harm right? Into the crock pot it went and I dumped in some water, gravy from Monday’s chicken friend steak, leftover cream of mushroom soup, and butter of course. Now this doesn’t sound so appetizing, but when it was done, it was pretty good. I quick browned the chicken, seasoned it up a bit, put it on the rice mixture, and put the lid on it. Back to the car, and back to work I went. When I got home from work and opened the lid – HOLY SMOKES! I thought maybe I had a lot of rice to start out with, but the crock pot was completely full with just two pieces of chicken in it. I almost died. It wasn’t just that I had so much, but Daryl’s not that big of a fan of rice and I’m worried that I’ll be eating it for quite some time. But with all the extra stuff that I added to it, it tasted pretty good, so at least I won’t have to doctor it up the next time. As for tomorrow? We’re invited to an appreciation supper, so instead of chicken, they’re grilling ribeye steaks. Sounds better than warmed up rice doesn’t it!

There is a lot of rice in this crock pot!

There is a lot of rice in this crock pot!

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In Memory of Lucky

Posted on September 23, 2013 by farm2011

Lucky our white peacock died over the weekend. I went to pick eggs,and there he was laying in the chicken house, not moving. At first I thought it was this one white chicken that my niece named ‘Duck’, but when I got closer to him, I saw his long tail feather and knew that I was kidding myself – it was Lucky.  Now we all know that there is one thing certain about farm animals and that is that they will not live forever.

Lucky checking out the new tomato crop

Lucky checking out the new tomato crop

Sometimes they get run over or sometimes they just die. And in Lucky’s case – he just died. The weird thing is that when William was home this past weekend, he said that one of his friends told him that one of our peacocks was on the road and they were afraid that they were going to hit him. Now I’m sure that it was Lucky, because he would always hang out in the field or on the side of the road. So I’m kind of glad that he died at night instead of someone hitting him on the road.

I’m sure you’ve heard the story why his name was Lucky, but for his memory sake, I’m going to tell it again.

Lucky didn't like this at all!

Lucky didn’t like this at all!

What happened it that Daryl was doing farming stuff and here was Lucky standing by the wagon. Daryl saw him and told him to get out of the way or he’ll get run over. Well, Lucky couldn’t understand what Daryl was saying so he just kind of hung out in the area. But he soon got the idea on what Daryl was trying to tell him because as Daryl moved the wagon – all of Lucky’s long tail feathers got caught under the wagon. And just as Daryl looked back, he could see Lucky’s mouth wide open and a scream that I swear that you could hear all the way to town was made by Lucky. So Daryl’s kind of freaking out, not only because he has Lucky caught under the wagon, but also because this peacock is screaming on the top of his lungs! As Daryl was trying to put the Oliver tractor in reverse, Lucky didn’t want to wait and panicked. Lucky looked at Daryl and with one huge pull, he pulled himself free. But what Lucky didn’t realize was that he literally left all his tail feathers under the wheel of the wagon. Now about this time, Lucky went running to the shed, screaming all the way! I’m thinking that this must have hurt pretty bad. Anyway, after that we called him Lucky because not only did he not get hurt under the wagon, but he didn’t hurt himself when he pulled his whole tail off!

One of the things that I’ll sure miss is him sitting on the front porch watching TV through the french doors. Daryl couldn’t stand that the peacocks did this and would have to get up a couple of times during the show and chase them off. I guess I never told him how to get them to stay off. All he wanted was some sugar cookies, so if you gave him a couple, he stayed a way.. well until the next night.

Not sure why Lucky thinks the porch is his

Not sure why Lucky thinks the porch is his

And I’m sure Reno will miss trying to catch him all the time. A couple times a night when Lucky wasn’t watching, Reno would sneak up on him and try to catch him. Thank goodness she never caught him!

Lucky would also get confused and tried to show off in front of our St. Francis statue (which is embarrassing) or the chickens. I think the female peacock that we have on the farm liked the other male peacocks, so Lucky went out looking for himself! It wasn’t so bad when he would show off for the chickens, but wow did it look really dumb if you pulled into our yard and saw this peacock in front of our house trying to get friendly with St. Francis. Yea, not cool.

Lucky looking for a new girlfriend

Lucky looking for a new girlfriend

Lucky was born on the farm and even though he sat on some of the cars, tractors,  and the truck when he wasn’t supposed to, we sure are going to miss him.

Lucky just kept following me around today

Lucky keeping watch

Posted in Farm animals | 4 Comments

Sunday the work day

Posted on September 22, 2013 by farm2011

Well since I took yesterday off, this morning I made my list of everything that I wanted to get done today. Daryl left early to go to the Vikings Football game with some guys, so the day was mine to get stuff done. First things first, I had to make my list. I started to run out of room on the paper with all the things that I wanted to get done, so I thought I better try to stick with what I had at the time. I have such a bad habit of putting too many things down on my to do list and then I get so disappointed when I come up short with getting them done. So once my list was done, off to getting the work done and checking it off. I don’t know what happened to me today, but man I got a lot done. Have you ever had one of those days and you wonder why you can’t be that ambitious more often? Well, I got a bunch of stuff done outside and then everything done inside before I headed to town. The first thing when I got to town was that I wanted to drop off a birthday present for my friend. I was glad she was home and I was pretty nervous about giving it to her. I don’t normally make gifts to give, but I did like how this turned out. It’s a picture that I took at the cabin that we go to, and then I mounted it on a canvas board. The photo below doesn’t do it justice, but you can get the idea of it.

Her birthday card

Her birthday card

I took this outside to take the picture, but it was a little bit too bright.

It’s not this bright of a picture, I took the photo outside and the sun was just a little too bright.

So I had some time to visit with her and then off to finish up my errands. I ended up the night going to a scary movie by myself. It was the first time that I went to a movie by myself, but I thought holy smokes, I’m over 50 and really kind of don’t care. Daryl doesn’t like scary movies and he was at the football game anyway. And you know what? It wasn’t bad at all. I even had half of my tub of popcorn left to give Daryl when he got home. So now that Daryl is home and as I’m writing this, I’ve got all the windows upstairs open and the crickets are the only thing that I can hear outside. Well, once in awhile I can hear Reno barking I think at the cows. This was such a great weekend. William was home for awhile Friday night and Saturday, and we skyped with Kyle tonight, so we got to see and talk to both of them. Daryl not only got all his farm equipment ready for harvest, but he also got to do some fun things. And for me, I not only got a lot of things done, but also got to be on the river for an afternoon. But it’s getting late and I better get ready for tomorrow. I sure hope that there are more weekends like this for us this coming fall. That would be great!

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Beautiful Weather on Saturday

Posted on September 21, 2013 by farm2011

I knew the weather was going to be good on Saturday, and boy was I right! I got done around the house what I had to, and then I loaded up the kayak and headed to the river. Daryl was working on the combine and his tractors, so I gave my friend a call to see if she was doing anything. Luck was on my side, and she was ready to go. Now I know that your not supposed to love objects… but I’m telling you that I love my kayak. It’s like the old saying, the only thing that I regret is that I didn’t buy is sooner! Well after having dinner with my friend, off we went to catch our shuttle to the river. Even though the water was really cold because the Upper Iowa river is fed by springs, the weather was sunny and a little breeze pushed us down the river. We did’t paddle too much, and the only noise that we could hear were the Boy Scouts that came up on us a couple of times. They were 12 year old boys,  and who ever said that 12 year old girls could make a lot of noise, never heard these boys. But we had a good laugh listening to them sign rock songs and just goofing off. We ended up being on the river about 4 1/2 hours and that was just perfect. What a fantastic Saturday.

View from my seat on Saturday

View from my seat on Saturday

Bluffs on the Upper Iowa River

Bluffs on the Upper Iowa River

Posted in Places to visit | 2 Comments

The Harvest Moon and Hamburger Week

Posted on September 18, 2013 by farm2011

Tonight was the night of the Harvest Moon, and it was awesome! I know that I’ve read that the moon isn’t really any brighter or bigger than any other normal full moon, but I was outside late at night locking up the chickens and it was so bright outside you could see the whole yard. So of course I had to look up just why they call this moon the Harvest Moon. What I found out is that the moon is closest to the autumnal equinox and the shorter-than-usual time between moonrises around the full Harvest Moon means no long period of darkness between sunset and moonrise for days in a row. Before farmers had tractor lights on their farm equipment, the light of the moon helped farmers in the fields, even though the daylight hours were getting less. So that’s why the full moon closest to the fall is called the Harvest Moon. Pretty cool huh?  I tried to take a couple of pictures of the moon, but because it was so bright, it was kind of hard to do.

Tonight's Harvest Moon

Tonight’s Harvest Moon

Every so often I look in our freezer and freak out. I’m sure you’ve done this before and if you’re saying that you haven’t…. humm….      Anyway, I’ve been checking our freezer and it has so much stuff in it, that it’s ridiculous. And without the boys here, it’s pretty boring trying to figure out what to make just for Daryl and I. So we have a new game. The game is ‘Guess what kind of hamburger we’re having for supper tonight’. Yup, that’s our game. So Sunday we had maid-rites, Monday had taco’s on the menu, Tuesday was meatloaf, tonight was spaghetti, and Thursday? Well Thursday will be hamburgers and Friday will probably be a tater tot casserole. Daryl’s been taking this whole game pretty good which I’m impressed.  So he doesn’t know it yet, but next week we will be celebrating Chicken Week. 🙂

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Honor

Posted on September 17, 2013 by farm2011

You know how you can get so busy thinking about other things that you just kind of forget about stuff that is much more important? Well, today I stopped and spent some time thinking about Dad serving in the Korean Conflict. Dad was a Sgt. in Korea and never talked much about it to us kids. We always wanted to hear stories, but the stories that he knew, I think he felt shouldn’t be shared. But there was one person who Dad always talked about who served with him in Korea. This was his friend from New York. They were such good friends that our parents went to visit them on their honeymoon. Now this might not seem like such a big deal now, but think about it 60 years ago.. and that was a big trip! We were trying really hard for years to get these two guys together and finally we were able to do it as a surprise for Dad’s 80th birthday. We were secretly talking back and forth with his friend and his family and then told Dad the surprise. And what a surprise it was! It was going to be so cool! But then about a week before his friend was coming, his daughter emailed me to say that her dad was not well and didn’t think he could travel. Oh No! It was one of those times when you are reading an email and you just start to literally sweat. I can remember it like yesterday. William walked into the room and read the email and said that this was a really bad email. You think!  I didn’t say anything to anyone just hoping that it was going to turn around. Luck was on our side and soon they were heading our way to stay with our folks for a week. Now I heard stories that when Dad and his friend got together they talked non stop about what they did in the service. But I think they were stories that were special to them and not to be shared with everyone else. And knowing my Dad, I’m sure that some of them were pretty wild! I think this was the best gift we ever gave our dad. Every time I think about it, I’m so grateful that it happened.

So like I said, I was thinking about Dad in the service and the reason was because there was an Honor Flight that took off from an airport this morning that was only about an hour away from our farm. And on that flight was our Uncle, Dad’s brother. The flight was heading to Washington DC and I sure wished that Dad could have gone there. He always talked about seeing the monuments and when his health started to fail, well we knew that it was just never going to happen. So as a spur of the moment decision today, my sisters and I headed to the airport to not only welcome our Uncle and the other Veterans home, but to also pay honor to our Dad.

Waiting for the plane to land

Waiting for the plane to land

There were a lot of these jackets there tonight

There were a lot of these jackets there tonight

It was so cool when the plane landed and all the Veterans started to walk down the aisle of American flags.DSCN7250 The whole airport was clapping and shaking their hands and I know that I just can’t explain how overwhelming it must have been for them. It was overwhelming for the crowd, so how couldn’t it not have been for the men and women who were being cheered on by the crowd and also the band playing.DSCN7247 There was one women who was sitting along the wall really quiet and she definitely caught my eye. She wasn’t really talking much  to anyone and held up the picture of who I guessed was her husband. When I asked her if I could take her picture, she smiled at me and said sure. I think of all the things that I saw tonight, this one lady with her picture just sticks in my head. When I was going to take the picture, she checked how she was holding the picture of her husband so I could get it nice in the picture.DSCN7243 I don’t think I can describe how to honor someone, but this picture of this lady is how I would show it. I sure hope we honored our Dad tonight. Even though he wasn’t on the flight, we  sure thought about him a lot.

Dad

Dad

Posted in Family | 2 Comments

Apples

Posted on September 16, 2013 by farm2011

We’ve had our apple trees for almost 30 years and this year is definitely a different crop! First of all, our one ‘normal’ tree that we usually get apples on did have tons of apples this year, but they were about half the size they should be. To put apples away for the winter, it takes some time and working with such small apples – well that was going to be a lot of work. So we just left them all on the tree and we’ll pick the ones that fell on the ground later this week. I’ve checked on this tree now on and off all summer and fall, so I thought that we wouldn’t put any apples away this year. Just kind of a funny year and check it off to that. Well tonight I was outside in our back yard when I noticed that the other tree apples really looked pretty good. I never bothered with this tree, because in those 30 years we’ve never got apples off of it. As I walked a little closer to it, the apples were really a good size and didn’t look like the apples had worms in them. (I’m kind of weird about chemicals, so we don’t spray our trees). I grabbed an apple and it tasted perfect! I kind of felt bad that I’ve never paid any attention to it, but to my defense.. I did give it 30 years. DSCN7228Now there are two good ways to pick apples at our house. The first one is to have William do it 🙂 He usually just climbs the trees and fills up bags. But he’s at school, so we had to go to plan B. This plan is to use Daryl’s tractor and loader,  and since he didn’t bring in his tractor yet to town,  I climbed into the bucket and off we went to pick a couple bags for my Mom.

DSCN7239After we got everything that we could with the bucket, Daryl got the extension ladder out and hooked it on a branch. I thought to myself, I sure hope he’s careful and then he looked at me and said that he’ll hold the ladder and I should be able to reach quite a few. OK. The reasoning is because I was lighter and it wouldn’t put so much strain on the branches. I didn’t care, I was just glad that he was helping, so up the ladder I went. It did stay hooked on the branch while I was up there,  which I was pretty happy about. There are still a lot of apples left on the tree, so later this week we’ll give it another try. DSCN7225

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Craft day

Posted on September 15, 2013 by farm2011

I wanted to paint the tractor panel for Daryl today, so I got everything ready. I set up my station on the kitchen table (where else?) and got ready. I knew that it was going to be a challenge to keep all the lines straight, so I added a LED table light that William gave me for the craft room. The weather was kind of rainy and gloomy outside, so I needed something else other than the ceiling lights. Then I started to paint. I was kind of nervous because I never did anything like this before, but it was kind of fun! The colors were perfect, but because the paint was completely off the metal in some spots and it was 44 years old and everything, I figured it was going to need a couple of coats. When Daryl came into the kitchen after I was working on it for about 2 hours, he asked if I wanted the other one also? What? What do you mean ‘the other one‘?  He said that there was two panels that needed to get painted. OK, that makes sense, but I didn’t think of that when I said that I’d paint them. But as the afternoon turned in the evening, I had at least 4 coats of paint on it and it was looking pretty good if I say so myself! I will need one more coat yet of the white and then I’m going to seal it. I don’t know how long it’ll last, but at least for the first couple of years – she’s going to look mighty fine.

Can you tell which one I painted?

Can you tell which one I painted?

After I put away the paint for this project, I started on another Birthday gift for my friend. I’ll finish that up tomorrow, and I hope it looks OK. I guess I’ll know more tomorrow.

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Good day to get some stuff organized

Posted on September 14, 2013 by farm2011

My brother had gotten the piece done for Daryl’s combine, so Daryl spent a good part of the day not only working on the combine, but also working on some of his other tractors. He started to fix up the 1750 Oliver.  Daryl’s dad bought this tractor back in 1969 and Daryl said that even though he was only 12 when they got it, he knew it was a big deal back then. Back in 1969 not a lot of the tractors that the farmers got were new. Now 44 years later, I think Daryl likes it even more. So he started to paint the green on it, and asked if I had any ideas on how to fix the side panels. Now these are the ones that I wanted to hang in the house, but that idea got shot down… so I said that I’d paint them. He wanted to first see if he could somehow spray paint them, but the best bet is to hand paint it. The Oliver sign had black, white, and orange lettering on it and how hard could that be to match it? DSCN7222Well, to find out it was hard. The closest thing to the color that we could find to the orange color in our house for a sample was a colored pencil, so I threw it in my purse and headed to town. It seemed forever to find the right kind of outside paint and the right color of orange. I looked pretty frustrated I’m sure walking around the store with the pencil in my hand and shaking my head. I couldn’t figure out why there seemed to be an orange paint shortage, until I realized that everyone was probably getting ready for fall. But I did finally find some and into the basket it went! Then off for the real reason why I went to town. I wanted to get some Round Up for my weeds around the flower beds and also some mulch. I knew that there was some on sale at this one discount store, but by now I was almost an hour longer in town that I wanted to be and went to the closest store that I could find and told these 3 kids to load up the back of the truck. With the weather being absolutely perfect outside – they didn’t argue.DSCN7221 Finally I was heading home. When I got home, I didn’t start to paint the signs tonight because I knew that it was probably going to take some time. And I didn’t put the mulch down either. To be honest, I didn’t get much done.  But what I did do was to try to tame down the Little Kitty. The other day she was stuck up in the barn and was going to jump! So up into the hay mound I go. 20130906_153323_resized_2Now today I couldn’t find her for nothing! What she does is to crawl into blankets or the laundry and sleep for hours. Finally I found her. Yup, sleeping in the clean laundry.DSCN7220

Posted in Farm animals, Farming | Comments Off on Good day to get some stuff organized

Trying to help

Posted on September 13, 2013 by farm2011

Daryl was working on his tractor for quite some time tonight, so I decided that I’d go out and see what was going on. He went to town earlier to get some ‘John Deere green’ paint, so that could only mean that he was fixing something up and my guess was his tractor. And that was a good guess. He had some of the tractor parts off and had them painted, but when I was walking over to see just what he was doing, along came Little Kitty, the chickens, and the dog. Now normally this wouldn’t be such a big deal, but just try to corral a cat and chickens so they didn’t step in the wet paint. It’s not the easiest. But when Daryl was showing me the last piece that he still had to paint, I thought how cool it was and I would just LOVE to hang it in the house. He gave me one of those looks and said if I knew it came off the tractor? Well ya, that’s why it was so cool! It had the tractor name on it.  So he’s not going for putting it in the house and is planning on putting  it back on his tractor.  I still think it would look just pretty nice in our family room above the couch. But before it goes back on the tractor, our task tomorrow is to paint it.

I don't think I can convince Daryl to give me that part of the tractor for my wall

I don’t think I can convince Daryl to give me that part of the tractor for my wall

Did you ever ask someone to help with something and then just step back to see how they did the job? Well tonight when Daryl was heading outside, I asked him if he’d put a couple of things on the clothes line because they didn’t need to go in the dryer with the rest of the things that I washed. And it looks like he did exactly what I asked. And you know what? Even though I’ve never seen laundry on the line like this, it’ll probably dry just as fast (or maybe even faster!) than if he did with clothes pins. DSCN7216

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