Back to classes

William starts classes next week again and that means getting the rest of his things that didn’t fit in the Jeep organized and ready to go back to him tomorrow. Now the list isn’t too long that he had asked us to bring to him, so it’s not going to be a big deal to get things rounded up tonight and ready for tomorrow.

Of course I wanted to make a couple of things to bring down to him just in case he was hungry.  I wonder if I’ll ever get over thinking that there is no food where our kids are living? Oh well, they don’t complain and it’s fun to make something different once in awhile.

And of course one of the things that I’m working on tonight is a couple of pounds of beef jerky to bring along. I swear that I could make this in my sleep. Once I get William’s done, I’ll start on a batch for Kyle. It’ll go in his birthday box that I’ll be sending next week. I wonder what else I can make for his box? 🙂

 

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How does your garden grow?

Not to brag or anything – but my garden this year was pretty good. Sure I had a couple of weeks when it was completely out of control, but for the most part it looked almost like everyone else’s. SCORE!

When I would hear that people would say that gardening was so relaxing I just couldn’t get it in my brain cells that this could even be possible. Seriously, even walking past the garden in the years past would make my belly hurt. I would do the ‘I’m not looking’ thing and just keep walking. The reason that I would have a garden was to just get fresh food. And that was it.

But since I’ve been able to keep up this year I was almost at that relaxing stage that people talk about. Yea, who would have thought right? When you can actually walk into your garden and be walking on dirt instead of a carpet of weeds – well let’s just say it makes you feel so much better. I had a chance to clean it up really well the 4th of July weekend, and it has stayed pretty much in control since then.

So what did I all get out of the garden this year so far? Well I had snap peas, onions, a couple of different peppers, lettuce, parsley, chives, cherry tomatoes, and regular tomatoes. Now the peas, onions, and lettuce are gone but the rest is still in the garden.

And if you’re wondering if I learned something this year I’m here to tell you that I sure did! Do you know if you take a huge pile of lettuce that you want to clean and soak it in water, lets say for about a day and a half, that it turns to slime? Yea, literally slime! I was so excited because I cleaned out the remaining lettuce out of the garden and I had a lot! I also just couldn’t find the time to get it cleaned and so I had a great idea to soak it until I could get to it. Well to my defense it was pretty dirty and this was a great way to get it cleaned. When I finally got back to cleaning it and pulled it from a glass container, it was like a huge slime ball that was about 1/3 the original size. It was gross! So the take away on this is to not cut your lettuce UNTIL you have time to actually clean it. I pulled it all out of the soaking container and threw the wad of lettuce into the chicken coop to see if they would like to eat it. I haven’t checked back with them since 🙂

This is the before picture of the rest of my lettuce. Now it's chicken feed!

This is the before picture of the rest of my lettuce. Now it’s chicken feed!

OK, so here is some pictures that I took of the garden. The first one is some pictures of some of the harvest so far.

Some snap peas and lettuce

Some snap peas and lettuce

First tomatoes of the season

First tomatoes of the season

The picture below is an awesome picture if I say so myself. It’s a picture of a tomato plant that I started in the greenhouse by seed. It’s literally one plant that was getting so big that I had to reinforce the plant with a second extra sturdy cage. So where I’m standing is literally in the middle of the two cages holding up the plant. And to top it off it’s not only a show plant but it actually has tons of tomatoes on it. Superstar!!

This is one tomato plant!

This is one tomato plant!

And the photo of the day is this frog (or toad?) that I couldn’t get away from. He kept hanging out wherever I went. I was just trying to keep track of him so he wouldn’t become garden fertilizer! I don’t think my Niece would forgive me if she found out that I stepped on him.

My garden helper

My garden helper

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Mystery Photo 8-19-15

Any idea what this is?

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Posted in Wednesday's Challenge Photo | 1 Comment

The weather is changing

You know when you can feel that the weather is changing and it’s switching from summer to fall? Well I think that is what is going on and I’m pretty sure that I do not like it! I mean the forecast for the next couple of days is for us to get into the 50’s for a low. WHAT? I’m not ready to give up the warm summer days at all! Now don’t get me wrong I do know that it’s coming and it’s all part of this changing of the seasons – but no one said that I had to like it right. I mean I’ve got the kayak out only once this year and that sure doesn’t seem like enough now does it? But I guess I better get used to it, I mean it’s going to be September in a week or so and that is probably considered Fall on the calendar. And then soon it’ll be snowing again! Oh my 🙁

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Welcome rain!

We’ve been so dry these past couple of days that we sure are welcoming the rain that has just started. Some of the crops were getting to a critical point that if we didn’t get rain there was also a chance that we wouldn’t get much of a crop! You can sure tell the spots in the fields that are more sandy because they are the areas that react to the heat first. But with the rain that has just moved into the area it should help the soy beans fill out it sure will also help the corn.

I thought for sure with the wet weather that the little kitties would be moved by Checkers but after checking on them I saw that they were all tucked in together and seemed like they were doing OK. I’ll have to take a quick picture of them this week – they are so cute!!

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The Fishing Trip comes to an end Sunday

My fun weekend with the girls has come to an end. It’s crazy how fast times goes sometimes isn’t it?

What did we all do with our time? Well we ended up doing something this trip that we’ve never done before. Now over 35 years of heading north you would think we’ve seen it all right? Yea, not so much.

The opportunity for us to try something new came as we were driving down the lane to the cabin and with knowing that we were getting  pretty close we were feeling pretty good about everything.  Well that feeling only lasted for lets say about a minute. When we came around the corner we saw a tree across the road. Not so cool. But we soon found out that it was a rotten log and didn’t give us much trouble. Whew! A couple of hefty throws as a team sport and we got it off the path.IMG_3279 So we were off again and feeling pretty smug as we were getting closer to the final destination. But around the next corner was another tree down and this one was definitely not going anywhere. OK now we were not feeling so tough and with the time late in the night we had to figure out just what we were we going to do. We couldn’t really carry all our stuff up the lane and to the cabin so our only choice was to cut the tree apart. So through the woods us girls go and I was glad that we also had one of the girls dog with us. Now not like anything was going to get us but it kind of felt like the Wizard of Oz and going through the scary forest. I was happy that we only had pine trees and not apple trees like in the movie that grab people. Oh yea, and no flying monkeys either 🙂 But we had to get our hands on some tree cutting saws so down the path we go. Once we get our saws and our trusty flashlight on it was time to go back and tackle the tree. And guess what? With a lot of perseverance and teamwork we finally get it cut down and just like that we are Rock Stars!! Whoo Hoo  The most trouble we had was trying to see what we were doing because the lights that we used to light up the area on the car kept timing out. But did I tell you yet that we are Rock Stars !! (just in case you missed it the first time)IMG_3278

Another challenge that we’ve had to do was to get the pontoon out on the lake and let me tell you that this is not an easy task. Honestly getting the tree cut down might have been easier than getting that pontoon into the water. But we’ve done this before in previous years and we knew that we were in for a challenge. We really worked on it a long time and when we finally got it almost into the water the choice of one of us jumping on the edge of it to try to rock it off the log in the lake while the others tried to push it over the hump turned out to be a good choice.  And our very last try it actually went into the water. Thank Goodness! The reason that I say that is because we tie it up on the end of the dock so we don’t have to walk into the front water that has a lot of mud and silt in it. And I’m kind weird about the mud and silt stuff just to let you know.

We spent many hours floating on the lake

We spent many hours floating on the lake

With those two big things done and the cabin ready for a fun couple of days we spent a lot of time on the warm lake soaking up the awesome sunshine. DSCN8181

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We found a good spot to hang our towels at the end of the day

One of the coolest things that we saw this weekend was there was a meteor shower in the sky.When you’re up north the stars seem just within reach of you and then add a ton of shooting stars that seemed so much brighter this weekend – well to say it was cool is an understatement.

Here are a couple of other pictures that I took over the weekend. The first one if the trusty Pacifica that not only took us girls up to the cabin safely, but also the dog and all our gear and food.

The trusty Pacifica

What a great car – Pacifica

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Not sure what this is but it caught my eye on the outside of the cabin

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One of the rooms in the cabin

And now that our ‘Fishing Trip’ is over and we once again forgot to fish 🙂 but  it was great to stop everything and just eat a lot of good food, soak up a lot of sunshine, and have a very nice weekend with some great friends. Until next time…

A typical night sky at the cabin

A typical night sky at the cabin

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Gone Fishing

I’m off to go ‘fishing’ with the girls for a couple of days so I’ll catch up with you when I get back. There’s a group of girls that have been going to a cabin up North the last 36 years and this is the weekend that we scheduled to be together again. Now the group does change some from year to year, but the cabin and the area does not. Very cool! And because this is a girls trip, Daryl will be home on the farm and hopefully watching out for the new little kitties and giving apples as treats to the cows. OK, maybe not the treat thing, but he’ll be home watching over everyone when I’m gone.

I’ll take tons of pictures and share them with you when I get back.

Stay groovy!

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Results from Mystery Photo 8-5-15

You guys are good!

Here is the clue DSCN8144

And here is the answer. It was our old kitchen scale! Great Job!DSCN8146

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Guess what I did tonight?

Well if you guessed that I took every koozie that we own (which is about 10 million) and washed them you would have guessed right. The reason for doing this is because the other day I grabbed a koozie with a Diet Coke and when I was drinking it there was kind of had a funky smell in the room. You know that smell I’m sure. It’s the ‘could this smell be coming from me’ smell and you give yourself a once over sniff. But it didn’t take long to find out that the koozie had the musty smell and I decided that all they all were going to get a bath tonight!

Now I don’t know if you can wash them or not and with the washing machine almost done I guess I’ll find out pretty soon!

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More babies on the farm

When I was walking outside from our cellar door Sunday night I looked down and saw thisDSCN8157 These two little kitties who barely had their eyes open, just laying on the rug on our porch. Now they are pretty lucky that the dogs didn’t see them first because our dogs eat things. Like my nice little black chickens are gone and only a few feathers to show for it. Now I’m not saying for sure that the dogs are the culprits but it would be my first guess. The problem is that they don’t really do it on purpose and they don’t know any better. So looking at these little kitties I’m pretty sure our dogs would think of them as little play toys and that just might not work so well. So into a cardboard box they went along with some old towels and hopefully Checkers the mom will know enough to take care of them.

Now fast forward to Monday morning and the little kitties are gone. Checkers had moved them and Thank goodness right? I’m sure she put them in a safe spot somewhere. Yea, no such luck! Once the dogs were out it took about 30 seconds for them to find the little kitties by the milk house and soon I saw the little white kitty was right by them which was across the yard from the mom. Not cool!

When I first got to the kitty she was pretty wet and scared, but still alive and it wasn’t hard to find out where the nest was because the dogs went back for the other cat. Man I sure don’t know how this is all going to work to keep these kitties alive!

And guess what? She moved them again and it seems like Checkers got a little smarter. I didn’t notice that the potato fork fell and she’s using it as a type of a cage to keep the dogs away. DSCN8158Great idea!DSCN8162

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