My poor garden

Posted on July 1, 2014 by farm2011

I’m still on a mission to have my garden look better than it did  last year and to be honest it’s giving me a run for my money. I’ve walked past it a couple of times these last few days and Wow does it look bad. But I’ve still got hope and my biggest trouble now is all the water that’s in it. I took a picture of me standing in it to show just exactly how much water I’m talking about.

I don't think I'll have to water my garden any time soon!

I don’t think I’ll have to water my garden any time soon!

Now this photo is about the water so try not to look at my ugly leg. I had to take the picture holding the camera upside down so I could see using the view finder and I got just waaayyy too much of myself in this one. But I guess it is what it is.

I worked hard to try to get the water out of the garden as much as I could, and I found a spot that I could dig out between the outside wood and I was able to remove most of it.

It was like opening a water spout!

It was like opening a water spout!

When I was standing in the garden, my flip flop literally got stuck in the mud when I was trying to get out. It was like if you ever went swimming in a river and ended up in a mud spot. You just hated to put your down, but you had no choice. Gross! And as you can just about imagine when I got out of the garden my foot was covered in mud. I tried to wipe my foot off on the grass with what I thought was good luck. But once I got into the house I realized that I kind of just ground the mud into my heel and now what was I supposed to do? So I grabbed one of those Mr. Clean white eraser pads and used it on my feet. And guess what – it worked! Now it didn’t work as good as a pedicure at the Spa, but I also didn’t have one of those Spa girls looking at my foot and then giving me the stink eye either. And it did work better than when I was trying to scrub it off with a cloth so I’m calling it a success. I saw an article once for this product and it said that there was a million uses for it.  I’m kind of thinking that there is a million and one!

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Sunday, more rain and storms!

Posted on June 29, 2014 by farm2011

I knew that we probably got a lot of rain last night because when we met Daryl’s brother and sister in law for breakfast, they said that when they left Saturday night they could see quite a few flashers on the roads by our farm already! And it turned out this morning that the County had put up 3 road cautions by us last night after the storm and honestly they should have put up one more going west because that road was also flooded. I think maybe they just ran out or something. Who knows – but what I do know is that we really need some nice warm weather.. oh yea.. and also it needs to be dry! What crops are not flooded or washed out, is now turning yellow because it’s  been quite awhile since they saw the sun. We’re all hoping for better weather. Rain amount this morning was around 3 inches.

We didn’t know if we were going to get a bicycle ride in yet today and after dinner the decision was made for us. It started to rain again. OK, time to just relax and get some things done around the house. There wasn’t any good movies around the area to go to, so we just hung out watching TV.  And it’s a good thing that William was live streaming the local news station upstairs because it said if you were living around the area where we live, put your cars in a safe place – because there was hail heading your way! So off we all head outside for what is becoming a ‘normal’ routine for us. Daryl puts the tractor in the shed, I put the cars in the car shed, William puts his car and the truck in the Roadhouse. Next we flip the trampoline so it doesn’t blow around and stack all the lawn chairs. Yup, we have this activity down which in itself is pretty sad don’t you think? But then it started to blow and lightening. And I mean it was getting worse as the storm was passing by. It started to hail and at first it wasn’t so bad, but then the hail got bigger and bigger and the wind was also getting stronger. This is how the North sky looked –IMG_1772 and this is how the South sky looked –20140629_205118_resized_1IMG_1766 IMG_1765I was in the house and I thought for sure that the windows were going to break from the hail and also our siding was going to be wrecked. But good thing – neither of these two things happened. I snapped this quick picture of the guys outside watching the storm. IMG_1762Then just as fast as it came, it seemed to be over. But then another storm was brewing in the south and we were just hoping that it would keep going East! We never did get that storm, but we ended up loosing our electricity for about an hour and a half. I took another picture of Daryl sitting outside watching the rain and storms. I’m sure he’s mostly just worrying about our crops and hoping that they didn’t get too much damage.20140629_213945_resized_2

Before the electricity came back on, William went and got the handy dandy inverter that I bought for one of the local parade floats. We had a light and a phone charging. I mean what else do you need? IMG_1781The electricity finally came back on just in time to change all the clocks and head to bed. I think we got around 2 more inches of rain tonight. Man, we need some sunshine! I’m sure we’ll be wishing for rain in about a month – but for now it’s enough!

The photo of the day is some flowers outside our front door. The sky was kind of an orange after the storm and the color of these flowers were just beautiful!DSC_0074

 

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Fun Day at the Farm 2014

Posted on June 28, 2014 by farm2011

I got up early to do a couple of things that still needed to be done and plug in the roaster and crock pots that needed to be heated up. We weren’t sure on how the weather was going to hold out, so not only did we have some outside games ready, but we also put together some last minute inside games in case we got in a jam. The weather started out not too bad and then all of a sudden the sun came out. SCORE! Daryl kept looking and looking at the lawn and finally he made the decision to hurry up and cut some of the grass. He just couldn’t stand it being so long and then if we were going to have company. With all the rain that we’ve been having, we were only able to mow the lawn once this week and that was early in the week, so he hopped on the lawn mower …and I couldn’t believe it. He got everything mowed that wasn’t under water before anyone came. He was right that it did look much better.

So around 10:30 people started to show up. It was a noon pot luck and it didn’t take long until the two long tables and a card table just wasn’t enough space for the food. Since we were in the Roadhouse it makes it pretty easy to just grab another table. Yup, real easy. We had around 40 people for dinner and like every other potluck, you filled your plate first with the dinner food and then you went back for desserts. Man my belly was full!DSCN8554 copy

As the day went on, the baby chicks were a hit with the little kids. I moved them from the house to the tent because people were coming and going into the house and so was the cat. I think it might be devastating for one of the kids if Little Kitty came out of the house with a baby chicken’s leg sticking out of his mouth! And even though they got handled A LOT, I couldn’t believe that all of them were still living at the end of the day. With 10 little kids taking turns feeding and holding them.. I think that everyone really did a good job.DSCN8564DSCN8585

The day was spent with bean bags, frozen T-shirt contests, egg toss, farm Bingo, and other games and we even had a couple more just in case the weather got bad. But luck was on our side and the weather and the day went really good.

Oreo races

Oreo face races

DSCN8601DSCN8584

DSCN8595DSCN8574 crop Some of Daryl’s family made some nice comments on the day and I think everyone had a good time. And it does take a little work to get everything ready, but that’s a good thing for us. It makes us look at the farm and put the mulch down, plant the flowers, and get things organized. Like I said – it’s a good thing for us.

Kyle wanted to be home for the day, but that just wasn’t going to happen so we picked a time to Skype with him. I laughed when I just started up the computer because there were a couple of the little girls in the kitchen and they were really excited to talk to Kyle in South Korea. They said that I could go and get the other kids and they would talk to Kyle by themselves.DSCN8610 I went out and got the first round of family and then the second round came in to say Hi! It was really nice that they all came to talk and see him.DSCN8612

Then it started to rain. And I mean RAIN! I threw in some pizzas into the oven and as it was raining, the pizzas were being carried from the house to the Roadhouse. It’s kind of funny because even though we’ve been literally eating all day, the pizzas tasted pretty good.

Because it was raining the hay ride, bonfire, fireworks, and outdoor movie was cancelled. I guess we’ll just have to plan them for next year!

The wagon was ready for the hay ride

The wagon was ready for the hay ride

And at the end of the day the Home Farm was the perfect spot for the family get together. The day was spent with kids on the trampoline, family catching up on with each other, playing games, and a lot .. and I mean a lot of laughing. I keep thinking of what Daryl’s one sister said. She said that she knows that their parents would be proud of what we’ve done with the farm. But you know what? Even thought that’s a really nice thing to say,  I think Daryl’s parents would be very proud of their family and the good times that they have when they get together.

Daryl's brother's and sister's

Daryl’s brother’s and sister’s

The photo of the day is  Daryl teaching one of the kids to drink out of a hydrant. I guess I never thought of it before, but kids just don’t do that anymore.  It didn’t take long and she got the hang of it.DSCN8588

 

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Waiting for paint to dry

Posted on June 27, 2014 by farm2011

I’m literally waiting for paint to dry tonight.I’m working on a project that I needed to do some painting, so I jumped on the internet and Kyle was on Facebook. I know that I’ve said this before, but it’s so nice to be able to talk to him when he literally is 14 hours a head of us for time. So after catching up with what’s going on there – I’m about ready to finish the projects that I started. I wanted to redo some photo’s of Williams that I matted that didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted them to. My goal is to get to bed before 12:30 so I can get up early and get a couple of things ready before anyone comes. I just checked the forecast and there’s a 60% chance of rain for tomorrow. Yuck! But then there’s also a 40% chance that it doesn’t rain. I sure hope luck is on our side and it doesn’t rain. We’ve not only got enough for awhile and  the fields are starting to flood, but we also are having a lot of people over tomorrow and it would be so nice if the weather could cooperate. I guess time will tell right? I better hurry up with my project  – it’s 11:53 already!

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I went to work and came home with this

Posted on June 26, 2014 by farm2011

I went to work this morning and it was definitely a good day! Our company owns property by the walking trail and some of the guys were clearing the path where literally trees had fallen with the last storm we had. Some of them knew that I was looking for fire wood for our campfires, and they said to bring the pickup to work today and they’d hook me up. Score right?! So after work I headed down to the trail and there were some guys down there cutting up some of the trees. I thought to myself, I sure hope I can load the truck up with the firewood and not look too clumsy. Not that I care that much how I look, but I just didn’t want to get teased for weeks and weeks. But everyone pitched in and it took maybe 10 minutes and the back of the truck was full. IMG_1756Like I said – Score for us! It’s wet wood so it’ll have to dry out for next year. Anyway, it poured on the way home tonight so it’s pretty wet anyway. We’ve got some dry stuff in the calf shed for this weekend.

And I also picked up something else tonight. I got 5 new baby chickens. I was trying to take a picture of them and either they were pretty shy or they were pretty mad – I’m not sure. When they would see the camera, they would run to the one side of the box. Then when I moved the camera they would run to the other side. IMG_1752So this is the best picture I could take of the group. It’s just a picture of their backside. Well everyone but the yellow one. But I did snap a couple of pictures of two of them on our piano that turned out OK.DSCN8546 DSCN8548 But honestly they’ll have to get used to having their picture taken if they live on our farm right?  I’m thinking they’ll be held a lot these next few days. We’ve got the family fun day tomorrow with Daryl’s side and with all the little kids coming these chicks will get handled a lot. The only trouble that I’ve got so far with the chickens is that when the front door of our house opens, in comes Little Kitty. And guess where the baby chickens are? They’re in our laundry room for now in an open box. And the laundry room doesn’t have a door –  so it would be easy picking for the cat. I did have them at first in the bathroom, but I thought it was a little bit too cold. After this weekend I’ll see about putting them in the chicken coop. But for now? As long as they don’t smell, they’re kind of fun in the house.

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New posts are in

Posted on June 25, 2014 by farm2011

I mentioned earlier that the county was putting in new telephone posts in our area,  and they had the ones by us doing a leaning thing for about a week now. But this week they started to work on getting them replaced. So I could see that they were working their way down the road so I grabbed my camera and tried to get a good picture of them. But I couldn’t really get a good picture of them and I didn’t really want to walk on the road and snap a picture of them. I didn’t want to creep them out or anything. So when they got close to our farm, I was in the Roadhouse with William and I snapped a couple of pictures looking out the window. It was really kind of interesting how fast they could get those poles replaced. Everyone had a job and knew what their job was. Now they also looked like they were having a good time, which I’m sure makes the days go faster. Because when I took this picture it was around 7:00 pm. I don’t know the last time that these poles were ever replaced, and if they were since we’ve been living on the farm, I sure don’t remember it. Below are my paparazzi pictures of the county workers.

Getting the area ready for the pole

Getting the area ready for the pole

Moving the pole into place

Moving the pole into place

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Tuesday – the ‘To Do’ list

Posted on June 24, 2014 by farm2011

On the list for tonight,  clean the house, do laundry, take back recycling, take back cans, do bills, do dishes.. well you get the picture. But take a look at what I really did tonight. Yup, went golfing and then out for supper (it was Taco Tuesday you know!) with my friend. We’ve been trying to golf now for about 5 weeks and even though there was more than enough stuff to do at home, we went anyway. And guess what? It was tons of fun!

Jackson Heights Golf Course.

Jackson Heights Golf Course.

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We got a lot done tonight!

Posted on June 23, 2014 by farm2011

Tonight we all worked really hard to get some things checked off our list. This coming weekend we are hosting Daryl’s family, and that could be up to 45 people. It’ll be a lot of fun, but we’re just not quite ready yet. I’ve been spending most .. OK, all…. of my time working on the Irish Fest stuff for our town and now it’s time to buckle our shoes and get some stuff checked off this weekends to do list.

So my first activity was to work on the flower beds. I did have some good luck growing some of our flowers in the greenhouse, but we’ve also got this little puppy that thinks that some of the flower beds are for digging holes to China! I’m really cheap,  so I waited until they went on 50% off in town and then I just got what ever they had left on the shelves. I did have pretty good luck and once I had them planted in some pots around the farm and the holes that the dog dug up, they looked kind of nice.

While I was doing that, Daryl was working on mowing the lawn and then he went out and cut a grass way that we will use for bales for the hay ride this weekend. I’m hoping that it’ll be fit so it can be baled before then. Otherwise – maybe it’s a good job for when the family comes over this Saturday. Just joking!

William worked on taking photo’s for farm bingo that we’re playing this weekend and then he had to work on his school work. He’s taking some summer classes on line and needs to stay on top of them. The farm bingo will be fun and I’ve got to get some funny prizes for the winners sometime soon. Well at least before Saturday right?

After I got the flowers planted, it was time to drag out the high pressure sprayer. I needed to bug William to help get it started because Daryl was working on the yard work at the time. Now it’s not hard to figure out, but I also didn’t want to wreck it before I got the house cleaned off. I found out that even though I hate flies, after I washed the house off I think I hate them even worse. They seem to want to make a mess on our siding for some reason. Dumb flies! I have a friend from Colorado and they don’t even have screens on their windows because they don’t have bugs. I think that this is just amazing!

I quick drug out the hose and got the porch and sidewalks clean. I think this will have to be done again before Saturday, because the chickens were all watching me and looked just way too interested in the clean cement.

William worked on his outdoor movie screen so we can have a drive in movie theater night, well without the drive in part of course. It’s an over-sized king size sheet that he attached to wood so it’s like a huge screen to use with his projector and movies outside under the stars Saturday night. Now that’ll be fun and I can’t wait!

And the night ended up with Daryl leveling off the NEW gravel in our driveway.DSCN8492 Getting new gravel is kind of a big thing for me. I know that sounds pretty weird, but we don’t get a load of gravel every year and when we do get it, the yard looks so nice. But the problem that we have is that one good rain and just like that it’s all washing down onto the road. And then the road grader man spreads it out on the road and good bye new gravel. But hopefully this year we’ll be able to get it to stay a little bit better.

You have to admit - it looks really nice!

You have to admit – it looks really nice!

The photo of the day is two of our male peacocks. I have no idea what they were doing, but if you ask me I think they look like they’re gossiping about something! Hey, maybe how nice the gravel looks 🙂IMG_1745

Posted in Family, Farm animals, Picture of the day, Projects completed | 1 Comment

Sunday – Irish Fest and rain

Posted on June 22, 2014 by farm2011

Our town’s festivities were still going on Sunday,  but we weren’t too busy at the Hardware Store so we decided to start cleaning it up and getting it organized. It wasn’t expecting it to be too bad and Daryl and I were even hoping that I might get done early enough that we could go on a bicycle ride or take the Chevelle out for the afternoon. Now I did get done somewhat early, but just as we were finishing up – BAM! It started to thunder and rain. Yup, there goes the afternoon! But thank goodness it didn’t do this on Saturday during the parade. And for us – we can’t even mow the lawn now. (OK, that isn’t such a bad thing on a Sunday anyway) But it does put a damper on what we could be doing. So we ended up just hanging out around the house for the afternoon. I did some laundry and caught up on somethings so I guess it wasn’t completely wasted. But I must say that I think it sure would have been a lot more fun if we were able to get out and enjoy the afternoon.

Now if you’re wondering how many of the books that we sold for the Irish Fest, the tally as of Sunday morning was 100 – SCORE! I’m glad that people like them. Next years will be a little bit harder and we’re going to work on doing a business book. We want to start it earlier than we started this book – so I guess time will tell if we actually do that or not. And now that the weekend is almost over, I’ll be glad to get a good nights sleep. I’ve been worried about making sure we have everything ready for the exhibit and guess what? I didn’t really need to worry after all. It went really well.

So the photo of the day is this picture. It’s a sign just outside of our town and it’s pretty appropriate for this past weekend. IMG_1737

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Saturday – Irish Fest

Posted on June 21, 2014 by farm2011

Saturday was day two of the towns  festivities and the weather is holding out. That’s such a relief! It seems like it can rain easily these past days and just before the parade was starting this morning, it started to sprinkle. Everyone thought ‘Oh no’, but it never did rain and it didn’t take too long and then the parade was on it’s way. The parade was about an hour long and normally I really don’t get into parades that much, but I really enjoyed it. It’ so funny because in our town’s parade,  families get together and have their own entry.. 10500439_558842320891563_2572696245601438053_n10431526_558842244224904_6830839297225089454_nNow there were some pretty creative ones, but the one that I got the biggest kick out of was the one with a farm spreader on it. How funny! They became a Century Farm and are proud of it. Which they should be! IMG_1702Now I think some town people might wonder what in the heck is going on with that! But I think it was my favorite one of all. Nothing too fancy, just plain funny! The second entry that I would vote for being really funny was a local electric company’s business. The guy had a Superman cape on and was being lifted and lowered like he was flying. The wind would catch his cape and fly behind him. It was a hoot! IMG_1711And now for candy – there was TONS of it. I was thinking how much candy we threw out last week at the town that I work in’s parade and I really think we have to kick it up a notch for next year. The reason that I say this is because the kids by us today were getting handfuls of candy thrown to them. And all those kids ended up with grocery sacks full! Yup, we definitely need to get more next year for our business. After the parade we joined everyone else and headed downtown to catch some of the local fun and grab something to eat from the vendors. Below are a couple of pictures that I snapped along the way.

Blow up activities for the kids

Blow up activities for the kids

The Photo History sponsor - Kurt Croell from Lawler

The Photo History sponsor – Kurt Croell from Lawler

Guest speakers in the Hardware store

Guest speakers in the Hardware store

Putting the coins into the sand for the kids

Putting the coins into the sand for the kids

We spent a couple of hours downtown and went home to do the chores and get cleaned up again and back to town we went. We wanted to support the local Lions Club for their chicken supper and found out that if we were going to eat there tonight before we had to do our volunteer work, we needed to inhale our food. For some reason we didn’t come to town early enough and now we had only 7 minutes to eat 4 pieces of chicken, coleslaw, beans, buttered roll, and potato salad. Guess what? Even with the pressure on – we did it. Now to be honest, we only took 3 pieces of chicken 🙂  We were glad to get served right away because we heard that last year they served over 1000 people. Pretty good considering our town only has 439 people living there.

The crowd for the Lion's Club chicken dinner.

The crowd for the Lion’s Club chicken dinner.

Now to get to  the Entertainment Tent. We signed to work in the beer tent and even though this was the first time for us to work in there, it went well.It was kind of fun being on that side of the night for a couple of hours. Our shift went fast and we ended up the night hanging out listening to the music. What a great day and it was really fun! You can tell that everyone worked really hard to make the day seamless and it really paid off! And for Daryl and I? Well, we’re ready to call it a night and hit the hay.

OK, so I have two photo’s of the day. The first one that I took of some boys watching their friend in the dunk tank. I really like this picture. To me it represents small town life in the summer.

Boys with the best view in town

Boys with the best view in town

The second one is some girls in the coin finding contest. They put money into the cement mixer and then mix it up with a  load of sand. After it’s dumped,  the kids dig in the sand to try to find as much money as they can. I just love this little girl in the tutu giving it all!

Digging for treasure!

Digging for treasure!

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