Rock Star Farmer!

Posted on September 1, 2017 by farm2011

Daryl is a Rock Star! 

Now I’m sure you already knew that but just in case you were wondering, well let me tell you why this time. 

See last year when we were baling hay, our baler broke. The part that ties the bales broke and if you’re making small square bales – well that’s an important part! So last year we didn’t get any small square bales made and luckily we had some leftover from the year before. 

So fast forward to this year. We really wanted to get some small square bales made and so Daryl went online to see just what was broke and what he had to get. Thank goodness for the internet right? He not only found out what he needed to buy, but he also went on Youtube to see how to get the part out of the equipment and how to fix it. 

The funny thing is that he found out even though the baler is about 60 years old, the same part is used on the new balers. They told him that it works so good and so why would they change it? So he was able to pick one up that same day at the implement dealer. The only bad thing is that it didn’t cost what it did back in 57! 

Well, with the part in the baler it was time to get it out in the field to see how (or seriously if) it was going to work. 

And guess what? It worked PERFECT!! Yup, Rock Star!!

With the hay bales in the barn for the dogs to play on for the winter, and available for the cows when the winter weather is too bad to bring in some big hay bales, they’re also good to have for our annual hay ride in the spring with the family!!


 

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My delivery person

Posted on September 1, 2017 by farm2011

Now I know that I can get a lot of ‘stuff’ delivered to my house and honestly I’ve been so lucky in the past that the delivery person brings what ever has been ordered up to my house and by the front door,  that it’s been a sweet deal! (well for me anyway)

But the last shipment of soap supplies really caught me off guard. 

See I’m still working on building up my soap inventory so that means that I’m still buying supplies. And this week is still that same pattern. But I’m really trying to be careful on how much I’m buying because well honestly right now I haven’t been called to be on Shark Tank or anything with my high profitability  🙂  

So this weeks shipment is around 120 lbs. of oils and another 30 to 40 lbs of other supplies for a total around 150 + lbs.  And I had to laugh tonight when I got home from work because I’m thinking my delivery person just had enough!! Here is where they put the supplies. Yup, they set them at the end of the sidewalk by our driveway.  

OK, I get the hint! Next time I’ll split the order. Or at least I’ll try to split the order. 

 

 

 

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Peacocks on our farm

Posted on August 29, 2017 by farm2011

Well it’s been a week or two since I brought Charlie home and after the first couple of days he’s getting more used to our farm. 

The first couple of days I had to carry him around the farm which in my opinion made him look a little silly (much less myself too!) 

But I came home for lunch today and when I pulled up the garage I could see the Peahens laying in a group beside the shed and when I got closer I saw that Charlie was hanging out with them. Hurray!! 

They really seem to be getting along pretty good and have even found a new spot to hang out together in the farm yard. If you have ever had a peacock before, well you know that they like to sit high so they can see everything that’s going on. And we really laughed when we saw that they all have their own ‘spot’ 

 

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Happy Birthday Kyle!

Posted on August 28, 2017 by farm2011

Skyping with the kids is always one of my favorite times of the week, but this week was extra special!

It was Kyle’s Birthday!!

And because of the logistics of where everyone is living, the best place to say Happy Birthday to him is when we Skype.

Now I should have had his Birthday box there already so he could open it when we are all together, but like almost everything lately in my life I just didn’t get it done! I had a few things ordered that wasn’t delivered yet and with Labor day this coming weekend, it looks like he’ll be celebrating his birthday way into next week.

So to get ready for tonight, I was in the grocery store and I literally stopped and looked at the birthday candles that they had there. Now we normally have a bag of birthday candles in the cupboard and I knew that we were short a couple of numbers… but seriously what would the odds be if we were short the ones that we needed for Kyle? And honestly I didn’t like the candles that they had their anyway. I usually use the yellow ones and these were silver or something. Well, guess what? Yea, I should have taken the silver ones! We didn’t have either of the two numbers so I had to do some surgery on a couple of the other ones that were in the bag! And when I got done, they didn’t look the best but I was hoping that they would do. But with a pin to hold one of the sides of the 3 together, and quickly lighting it so to if it held, I found out that it wasn’t going to work so well and we’ll just have to know what it was supposed to look like.

But for now? Well it’s great to see and talk to everyone and with Kyle being a great sport he blew out the candle’s for us on his cake!

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Our newest addition

Posted on August 26, 2017 by farm2011

Well I was hoping that we’d have something exciting happening this weekend and Mother Nature came through! 

We knew No Ears was close to having a baby and well I guess we really didn’t know just how close! 

So when Daryl was doing the farm chores this morning, he came back in and said that No Ears did indeed have her calf and it was cute! 

Honestly any calf is cute right? Well I wasn’t prepared to find out just how cute this little girl was! And boy oh boy she is sassy! For being born probably only last night in the pasture, she was running by us and literally kicking up her legs. You know when you have a feeling about something and it’s pretty much spot on? Well I’ve got a feeling that this little calf is going to be a handful!

But now to focus on the real problem. See these past couple of times No Ears has had babies she gets Milk Fever. And trust me that’s not good! And with this new little calf she was down again and couldn’t get up. So Daryl called the local vets to come out to give her some calcium to hopefully get her up again. 

I had to smile when they showed up and the first thing that I heard them say was ‘we were wondering if it was No Ears that was in trouble’ 

After an IV to get calcium in her, I was happy she didn’t look like she had the last time after she had her calf. That was bad. 

So as the IV was going into No Ears and the rest of the ‘gang’ surrounded us to see what was going on, we all kept checking out the new little calf. Man, she is Cute! And just as the Vets were leaving, No Ears got up and was walking around with this new little calf right beside her.  Thank goodness! 

And what will her name be? I’m going to ask Kyle to name her because it’s his birthday on Monday and I’d like him and Kelcie to see if they can come up with a name. 

But for now? Check her out … it’s the first black calf we’ve ever had from a registered polled hereford before. The color must have come from No Ears side?

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Soap, Kitties, and Golf.. oh my!

Posted on August 25, 2017 by farm2011

This week has been pretty uneventful. I’m not sure where the time went, but here we are and it’s Friday already. 

When I look back at what I had worked on, I guess most of my time was spent on soap. Getting an order ready for a wedding, ordering more supplies not only for soap but also bath bombs, and making sure that when I’m ready to wrap the soap in a couple of weeks I’ll be ready for that. 

I’m even planning on being more prepared for Christmas with my soap business.  Last year I thought I was ready but that wasn’t anything further than the truth! I had hundreds of bars of soap ready and within a few weeks I sold them all! Now this is a good thing, but when it’s just the beginning of December and I had to turn away Customers – well it’s not the best thing either. 

Other things happening around our farm is that I can’t believe Checker’s (one of the original fearless 5)  had taken care of her babies and I also can’t believe that she’s pregnant again! See we were kind of thinking bad things about her because we knew she had baby kitties but never seen them anywhere around the farm and she for sure didn’t look like she was having any kitties nursing on her. But when I was walking through the yard and saw 4 kitties by the Roadhouse and in the flower bed – I’m thinking I need to change my attitude toward her! Because she did a great job. And one of them even looks like Smoochie which I’m very excited about. But they are extremely wild and it’s going to be a challenge to try to get any of them tame. I mean after digging around in the bushesI couldn’t even get a good look at them much less to try to catch one. 

I continue on my golfing quest this year and once again on Tuesday my friend and I planned on meeting at the course. The only thing was that when we pulled up the parking lot it had tons of cars in it and there was a tournament going on! OH NO! Well I tried to convince my friend that we should just go to a local town for the night for food and refreshments, but she was determined to keep us on track for golfing tonight. After waiting for about an hour,  they said we could go on the course. Well we didn’t get a whole round in and we really didn’t do so well either.  I’m thinking that maybe we were just a little bit too relaxed by sitting around? But we did play 4 holes and had a great pasta meal for supper that they were serving – so I’m glad she convinced me that we should be playing golf tonight.  

This week also meant some town meetings that I’m involved with and of course from any meetings comes more action items for us to do. But it’s all for a good cause and I’m super excited about the progress that we’ve made on the exercise trail so far in our local town. 

Other than that laundry and dishes were on the daily list, it’s been pretty uneventful. Hopefully this weekend we’ll do something fun and liven it up a little! 

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Eclipse 2017

Posted on August 21, 2017 by farm2011

How exciting today is! I mean we’re going to have a total solar eclipse!! Whoooohoooo!! 

With my glasses in hand and watching the forecast in the morning before work – well it wasn’t too promising that anyone was going to see much of anything in our area as far as an eclipse was going to be.  

But there was hope. I read on the internet that when the moon goes in front of the sun it changes the temperature of the earth and could cause the clouds to go away. And since it was on the internet – I’m just sure it’s true right? 

So I took a late lunch and headed home. The ‘best’ time was going to be around 1:10 pm for the total eclipse and I for sure wasn’t going to be sitting in my office with no windows at THAT time! 

Around 12:30 I got in my car and went north to the farm. And guess what? It was very very cloudy! Arrrgghhh!! But I kept my hopes up and with my trusty eclipse glasses on I spent a lot of my lunch hour outside staring at the sky. 

And guess what? The sun would peak just out of the clouds and you could actually watch the eclipse SCORE!! It was a pretty cool thing to see. 

And I’m guessing if you would have seen me with my glasses on you would think I was pretty cool also 🙂 (secretly I was pretty nervous about anyone driving by and seeing me standing in the yard) 

When I got back to work and checked outside later,  the weather was absolutely perfect with little or no clouds in the sky. I guess the internet was right about the clouds going away … just not so accurate on when they’d go away! 

p.s.: Do you have any idea on how hard it is to take a selfie with eclipse glasses on? Trust me – it’s very hard. After more pictures then than I want to admit – I now have a better understanding on how blind people deal with selfies and it ain’t good! 

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It’s State Fair time!

Posted on August 19, 2017 by farm2011

It’s that time of the year again when it’s the Iowa State Fair!!

We haven’t gone now for a couple of years and I was super excited to have the chance to go again. With the car packed and my brother and sister in law with us – we were off!

The weather looked absolutely perfect and the only dilemma of the day was if we might need a coat for later on. See we were not only going to spend the day at the fair – but tonight we’re planning on going to the John Mellencamp concert tonight!! Whooohoooo!! It’s going to be fun!

Once we found a spot to park, the next thing was to figure out what food we should eat. We planned the day to have to eat at least twice at the fair and with a ton of vendors to choice from, we just had to figure out what we wanted.

See the Iowa State fair is known for it’s good food and they totally live up to their reputation. So what was my choice for dinner? Well maybe not the most nutritious dinner around but it was awesome! It was homemade chips with jalapeños and then cheese and then some kind of smoked meat on top of that smothered in barbecue sauce.

I’m thinking about like a billion calories but hey, if you only get to the fair every once in awhile – you better make it worth your time right?

After scoping out some of the displays and for sure seeing the butter cow we took a tram ride to see if we were missing anything important. And then we saw it. I’m talking about the ultimate ride called the Skyscraper! The ride went up 165 feet at 70 mph. Yup, pure fun! So after we took off our shoes, sunglasses, removed our keys, wallets, and purses , we gave them more money than we probably should have for a ride we got in line. Seriously the ride was so tall that when you stood in line you couldn’t even see how high the ride was going. And was it fun? It was AWESOME!

Now to watch the Budweiser team drive through the fair and to get some more food in our bellies before the concert. The opening act started just as it was getting dark and when John Mellencamp came on it was pretty much dark outside. You could see him singing on the stage and then you could see all the rides lit up from the fair. It was a perfect night for both! Here are only a few of the rides .. 

After the concert we went on a couple more rides before we left for the night and looking back I knew today was going to be fun but it was even better than I was hoping. We laughed and had the best time ever! And guess which barn I liked the best? Well the calf barn of course! You can just never have enough calves. 

This calf was getting ready to head out on the show ring soon and was smelling pretty good if I say so myself. And Daryl couldn’t go to a fair without some of his favorite food 

After the fireworks were donewe headed over to the kids apartment for the night. And the funny thing is that they weren’t even going to be there. They were in the cities visiting some friends 🙂 But they trusted us that we wouldn’t trash the place and we were super careful not to mess anything up. 

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Snack time!

Posted on August 18, 2017 by farm2011

When we were up at the cabin a couple of weeks ago, one of my friends brought a big container of snacks. With a trip planned for this upcoming weekend, I decided to see about making some for us for the road and the hotel room. 

As I was making the batch I soon realized that the huge batch that she brought wasn’t a double or triple batch, but maybe just a single batch! 

So this is what I put into my snack mix and it’s pretty additive if I say so myself! 

Box of bugles, box of Crispix cereal, bag of red licorice bites, container of nuts, bag of caramel corn with caramel pretzels, a big bag of M&M’s, and a bag of corn chips. Yea, it makes a big batch so be prepared to be eating it for about a week!!  It’s got cereal in it, so it can’t be all that bad now can it? 

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Vegetable Stands

Posted on August 17, 2017 by farm2011

Since I don’t have a garden this year and when I heard that some kids had set up a vegetable stand in town, well I’m going! 

The story was that their mom had too much in her garden and some of it might be coming from their grandfather’s garden, but whatever the case I’m telling you it was awesome! 

I’ve seem some pictures of 5 little girls standing behind the cash register on some social media, but today there was only one girl behind the stand selling. Now there was more girls in the area but they were ripping it up with some electric Barbie car and wasn’t too interested in selling much of anything that day. And don’t think that these girls are out here by themselves, they have their Mom close by to help with any questions that might come up. 

So today I headed there on my lunch hour and it was even more fun than I was expecting. I wasn’t for sure where it was in town, but with heading in the right direction I knew that I had found the stand as I turned the corner. See the stand was built by their grandfather and it not only had a great curb appeal, but there was a bunch of other customers out front. I had even gotten a tour of the backside of the stand and with stools and extra storage space in the back, along with a built in cash box, I’m thinking that this grandfather really kicked it up a notch when he had these little granddaughters in mind! 

Well once I got to the stand I wasn’t sure what I was going to buy, but I knew that I better make it worth these kids time! So I bought some tomatoes and into the bag they went. Then they asked if I needed anything else? OK, I looked around and bought some peppers. Into the bag the peppers went. Now what should I buy? Well I bought some pickles and cabbage and a huge bag of green beans. 

And when I got back to work and told a coworker what I bought she was wondering what I was going to make with all those vegetables? Seriously, I had no idea but I knew that these kids were pretty excited to make a sale and were really cute and I guess I just got carried away! 

Just take a look at the stand and the girl who’s selling the items for the day and tell me you wouldn’t just pick one of everything up too! 

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