Here we go again.

I have absolutely no idea what’s going on with our cats. I mean, in the past if we had one that actually lived past the first couple of weeks, we literally thought we won the lottery or something. We’d just check it out and kind of look at it with awe. So with our little 6 pack on the front porch still alive and really starting to get into mischief, we’re thinking we’re pretty lucky to have this many kitties around. Now we do see some other bigger cats running around and on the farm it’s OK that they’re wild. You want them to hunt the rabbits by the garden and the mice in the sheds. But tonight I walked outside and saw a little kitty that might .. and the key word is might, be three days old. It didn’t have it’s eyes open and still had it’s umbilical cord. Yea she was pretty little. I asked Daryl if he found it and put it on the porch and he said that he hadn’t. So I’m guessing Reno found it and thought that someone better take care of it. Daryl made a comment that we are turning into the shelter for homeless cats and I’m thinking he’s kind of right! Well I wasn’t sure what I should do with this little kitty so I wrapped it up and had it sleep on the couch until I had it figured out. DSCN8858I thought I had a pretty good plan when I was walking through the living room and saw a mother kitty on our porch. I thought that I’d put the baby kitty outside and maybe she would take it with her. Yea, no such luck. The kitty was just lonely and with not having it’s eyes open yet  -I’m guessing it was also pretty scared. OK, so back into the house it comes and I get out the baby kitty bottle. This did not go well and the kitty was now just crying and crying. Finally I asked Daryl if he’d put it in the hay loft in the barn and hopefully someone would come and get it and take care of it. Normally I don’t give up this easy, but I don’t think I can save this kitty and my only hope is that a mother cat will adopt it.

Other than being on cat duty today, my Mom needed some stuff from town and so off we went for the afternoon. Daryl wanted to spend the day working on the lawn and trimming, so it seemed like a good day to head to town and get some shopping done. On the way to town, my brother called and said that if we drove by this one road we could see the air show that’s going on at the airport. Well that didn’t take much to convince me and we stopped for a few minutes to watch.

Some of the stunts that the air show had today

Some of the stunts that the air show had today

It would be cool to see the whole show sometime, but with the temperatures reaching around 99 degrees today,  I’m thinking that today just might not the be day. There was a wind so it wasn’t so bad, but 99 degrees is still hot. I was sure glad that we got the rain yesterday morning at the farm.

I don’t know if other collies do what ours do in the summer, but they will start to loose their fur to try to stay cool. I started to brush Reno down tonight to get rid of some of that extra fur because let’s just say she’s not looking her best lately. And when I got a couple of piles made, I decided it was enough for the night. Hopefully I’ll get her all brushed out by next weekend.

The best part of the day was being able to skype with Kyle. It didn’t work out last week, so I was glad that we could do it tonight. I know that we only missed a week, so maybe it’s a Mom thing or something.  He didn’t get his birthday box yet, but he’s got time before his birthday on Thursday.

So with the little kitty out in the hay loft hopefully with a mother cat near by, the six pack kitty’s bellies full on the porch, the dogs trying to stay cool in the barn, the chickens locked up in the coop, and me just getting out of the shower with my hair still wet – I guess I’ll call it a night and start the week all over again tomorrow.

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Check it out… it Rained!

We woke up this morning to a really good sound. The sound was thunder that we could hear in the distance. Now you wouldn’t really think that this would be like ‘the news of the day’ but in August when we haven’t had hardly any rain -it’s big news! Our crops are starting to really show the struggle with the hot and dry weather lately and honestly any moisture is good moisture!! Like I said it was starting to thunder and it didn’t take long until it started to rain. At the end of the shower we ended up getting around .7 of an inch. Not as much as we would have liked (yea.. I know always wanting more)  but it’ll get us by for another week. The soy beans are just starting to fill out in the pods and like I said, the rain that we got came just in the nick of time for our crops.

Just keep raining....

Just keep raining….

In the afternoon we had a wedding that was in our town and with the rain that came through, they couldn’t have asked for a better day. They were predicting it to be unbearable heat but they were wrong this time. I think any wedding is a great day and today’s was just that. The bride just glowed and I was really glad that we were invited by our friends to help celebrate the occasion.  DSCN8851 After the reception we were also invited to a double birthday party. This party was at the farm where we went to the one wedding earlier this year in the barn. I had a chance to check out the barn now with hay in it and you know that it was breathtaking on the day of the wedding and tonight it was also in it’s glory. Now granted it was filled with hay bales, tractors, and other farm stuff instead of candles, music, and decorations, but honestly it was just right. OK, so I’m a sucker for barns, but with the decision that a lot of people have to make with the expense of trying to do the upkeep on old barns and trying to figure out if you should fix them up or tear them down – it’s always great to have a chance to get inside one that is standing tall and if it could talk I’m thinking that it would also say just how proud it was to still the be focal building on any farm. Pretty cool.

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Zombie Burgers

We knew that we’d have some free time tonight and William needed some other stuff brought down to his apartment, so we packed the car and headed to Ames after work.

With the cows, chickens, and baby kitties all fed – off we went. We haven’t been driving the Pacifica as often as we were before we got the Volt, but with some wood for one of William’s friends in the car, we knew that it was the right vehicle for the trip. It also smelled pretty good in there. I literally took the caramel rolls out of the oven and wrapped them in a towel and we left like in 3 minutes. On the way down it looked like we were going to run into some rain and if we did we were hoping that it would make it all the way back to our farm. The fields are so dry and we really need the rain. It didn’t take long after we saw the dark clouds that the sky opened up right when we were in the middle of road construction. Isn’t that how it always goes?

Finally we find William’s apartment and start unpacking the car. His apartment is nice and it’s so much bigger than a dorm. But we noticed that it’s not as quiet as a dorm either. Now granted we were down there on the weekend before school started and it was a Friday, well let’s just say it’s not the quietest neighborhood that I’ve been in. There were kids on balcony’s, on all the streets, in the parking lots… well you get the picture right? It looked like a lot of fun and man oh man do I feel old.

IMG_2055So for supper we had planned on going to Des Moines to a burger joint. I’ve heard about it from William for some time now and we just haven’t been able to get there. After we had everything unloaded into the apartment and the car loaded back up for stuff he didn’t want we jumped back into the car and went to find the restaurant. No problems in finding it and the wait ended up being around 30  minutes which wasn’t too bad.IMG_2056 But now… what to order. With options like Dead Moines, Undead Elvis, Trailer Trash Zombie.. I chose Juan of the Dead. It had Green chile, cheese croquette, monterey jack cheese, carmelized onions, chipotle mayo and a burger of course.

Note to self: Go running in the morning!

Note to self: Go running in the morning!

There were three sizes of burgers to choose from and thank goodness I picked the smallest size. You know what? I’ve been saying for quite a few years that I don’t really like hamburgers, but after tonight I don’t think I can’t say that again! They were awesome!! IMG_2053After getting our bellies wayyy too full it was time to head back to Ames and drop William at his apartment. Now for the drive back home. It looked like it rained again around Ames but no luck at our farm. There’s a 40% chance of rain tomorrow-maybe we’ll get lucky and give our crops some much needed moisture.

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Baking good things

I went and did errands tonight and ended up by the grocery store. Now normally I’m never in town when they have the Farmer’s Market, but tonight luck was on my side. The market is set up right in the parking lot beside the grocery store so I found myself heading over to see what everyone had to sell. And of course the first booth was a food booth that a local lady was selling her kolaches. Now if you have never had a kolache from scratch – you just never have really lived before. There are a lot of different ways to make them and my favorite is from anyone who lives around the Spillville area.

Raspberry Kolache

Raspberry Kolache

Their church group or other groups always seem to be getting together for a weekend and making these sweet bread rolls. So I bought a dozen and thought that this would be good to keep in the freezer right? Yea.. I opened the bag and by the time we actually sat down for supper I had eaten 4 of them. And I’m sure that I’ll be eating more before the night is over. Now I just need to remember what days those Farmers Markets are and try to stay away!

We’re planning on visiting William tomorrow to check out his new place and I wanted to make something to bring along. I’m going to throw some caramel rolls in the oven when I get home from work so they’ll still be warm when we get there, but I knew that I couldn’t get a batch of cookies done before we left. Heaven forbid if William was hungry right? Ok, he’s only been gone one day – but he can freeze them if he wants. The only thing about these cookies is that I didn’t start to make them until after 9:30 and all I can say is ‘Thank Goodness’ for parchment paper. Now if you don’t really think that you would use this in the kitchen, tonight is a perfect example of when it works really well. I put it on a couple of cookie sheets so you never have to wait for one to cool down and when the cookies come off – so does the paper. Now I’m not sure if you are supposed to wash these pans after you take the paper off or not, but why make extra work when you don’t have to?

It's late and the cookies are all lined up just waiting to go in the oven

It’s late and the cookies are all lined up just waiting to go in the oven

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William is off to college

William gathered up the rest of his stuff that he needed for his apartment and with his car packed full, he was heading south to Ames for the next semester of college. I know that I’m not going to like having the house so quiet again, but I guess that’s just the way that this all works isn’t it. So of course I made him take pictures by his car in the yard and after about 5 hugs from me, he was pulling out of the drive way once again for the fall. He’s excited and so are we to see what this next year brings for him. I was just thinking why I always have him take pictures by his car when he leaves? I guess it’s kind of a testimony that he’s leaving and maybe this is what he’ll be driving? Not sure, but I think I do this a lot!

Below are a couple of pictures that I took. One by his car 🙂 and the other with the dogs wanting to be petted one more time.

And William is off to college!

And William is off to college!

Reno and Kaiser saying good bye to William

Reno and Kaiser saying good bye to William

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Cats

Now who would think that the 6 little kitties would be so much work? Well for sure not me until lately. OK, I know that some (or most) of all of this is brought on by me – but someone had to take care of them right? Well to give you an idea on how much work they are, in the mornings they were getting scrambled eggs with ham and bread mixed with warm milk and then at night they’ve been getting mashed potatoes and milk. But now that they’ve got a little older they’ve finally graduated to kitty food. Yea! I take the cat food and put hot water with it to soften it up. Then when it’s cooled down enough to eat – out it goes into their pan. Dump  a little milk on it … Yup, much easier! So now all I have to worry about it giving them their eye drops a couple of times a day and they are also getting amoxicillin twice a day. This is only supposed to go on for a week and then everything will be good.

Tonight we had some trouble with the kitties and Kaiser. Kaiser has these small toys that he plays with all over the yard and for some reason he thinks that the smallest of these little kitties is an orange version of his toy. He takes her and runs through the yard and throws her up in the air. Just so not cool! She’s the size of your palm and tonight she looked really bad. The poor thing just wants to always be by the dogs and that is such a bad decision on her part. So tonight Daryl came and got me and said that this little kitty was almost dead and when I looked at her, I knew that he wasn’t exaggerating. I found a nice soft bath towel and wrapped her in it and held her while I was sitting by the camp fire with William. I would peak at her and she had her eyes closed, but then all of a sudden I could her something and thought – crap she’s dying. But after I listened a little bit closer, she wasn’t dying she was purring! Now granted it wasn’t the best sounding purr I’ve ever heard but for a cat that couldn’t even walk about an hour ago and was expected to die, I’m thinking that she’ll pull through another day. Now to just keep the dogs away from her!

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We’ve got apples!

I’ve heard it before that if there are a lot of apples on the trees that it’s going to be a hard winter. Well let me just tell you that you better buy some good snow boots because if this is true we are all in a lot of trouble! We’ve had apple trees for over 25 years on the farm and I’ve never seen so many apples on our trees in my life! Now if it’s because we’re going to have a hard winter or if it’s because we didn’t get any apples last year and they are making up for it this year who knows. But what I do know is that I’m going to be making a lot of apple crisp and apple sauce these next couple of weeks!

Just getting started to pick our apples

Just getting started to pick our apples

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It’s that time of the year again…

It’s the time of the year when kids are going back to school and in our family William is one of those kids.

I know that everyone always says ‘I just can’t believe where the time went’…. but holy smokes WHERE did this summer go? It literally seems like it just started to get warm out and now some of the stores have their winter coats out for sale. I sure hope that we have a nice lonnnngggg and warm fall! OK, back to William. For this year of college he’s going to live in an apartment with some of his friends so that involves different stuff that’s needed. He had to pack a bed, furniture, and kitchen things to name a few. But he’s been working on it for now some time and seems to have it all under control. With the truck loaded, he had some good help bringing it to his apartment and he said that it all fit in pretty good. We’re hoping to get down there soon to check it out. He doesn’t officially leave until mid week so that’ll be kind of weird and quiet not to have him around the farm.  But like I said – it’s that time of the year again and school is starting.

First truck load packed and ready to head to Ames !

First truck load packed and ready to head to Ames !

 

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Places to visit – Independence Iowa

When we were on our bike ride in July,  I saw an advertisement for an ‘Underground City Tour’. Now honestly, doesn’t that title just grab your attention? I grew up not that far from Independence and I had no idea what this tour was all about. And for me – I was sure hoping that I could get back for it.

So today was the second time of the year that they do these tours and it just so happened that it was going to work for me to get back and take it. Yea!! After some laundry and other stuff around the house, I hurried up and headed to Independence. They were only offering it today and for a limited time and with about an hour drive ahead of me to get there, I was sure glad that I made it to get a ticket!

The tour starts out with everyone getting a card with 7 business names on it. I was given the instructions on how to follow this card by one of the coordinators in the Grist Mill (now called the Wapsipinicon Mill) This is where you started. And if you remember we took a tour of it back in July. IMG_1910So with my card in my hand and the camera in the other hand.. off I go to find out just what this was all about. Well let’s just say that this is truly a town with a very colorful history! I’m sure that I won’t get all the facts down, but this is most of it.

The county seat was established in June of 1847 and called it Independence Iowa. In 1853 Independence had less than 12 people living there. So I’m thinking that this is kind of a bold move – don’t you? Well, by then end of the century they had over 1500 people,  so I guess they did know what they were doing. There was a small town called New Haven just on the other side of the river from Independence and it sounded like both towns would constantly get flooded out by the Wapsipinicon River that separated the them. But in 1854 the State Legislature combined the two towns. With the river going through the town you can just about imagine how much damage it caused when it would flood, and it flooded often. So around the 1860’s the town got together and after a couple of major fires, decided that they would rebuild the stores, but they would have to have the original first floor be their basements. They raised the town 5 to 6 feet and literally buried the first level of the city. Now even though this does make sense it is just so unreal isn’t it? The store owners left their store fronts the way they were with the glass and doors in tact and filled it in with dirt. Now with the town raised up 6 feet, this also allowed the bridge to be raised up and helped with the high waters from the river.

Below are some random pictures from my tourDSCN8828

DSCN8838

They used these types of shoots for unloading merchandise when the street was raised

They used these types of shoots for unloading merchandise when the street was raised

IMG_2022IMG_2023

Picture that was at the mill when they replaced the sidewalks in the street

Picture that was at the mill when they replaced the sidewalks on the street

Picture at the mill when they replaced the sidewalks on the street

Picture at the mill when they replaced the sidewalks on the street

I had about an hour for the tour and that was just about right for me. Then at the last stop it was a little shop with both antiques and wine. Yup, what a good store to visit last 🙂 Even though I didn’t have any wine, I did check out the store. And for some reason this little table caught my eye. Now I had no idea what I was going to do with it and much less it really did need to get cleaned up. But it was cute and in my budget so off to the car I go with it. I had a couple of different groups of ladies comment on how cute the table was when making my way across the street – so of course it must be some type of treasure right? On the way home I came up with a plan for it and Daryl just gave one of those ‘you paid money for that?’ looks. I’m going to use it in the bathroom. And after I put the extra paper inside it, Daryl had a great idea to put a toilet paper holder on the side of it Perfect!

OK, she looks  a little tough....

OK, she looks a little tough….

I got the spider webs and dirt all cleaned off of it and it looks pretty good

I got the spider webs and dirt all cleaned off of it and it looks pretty good

Now I just need to get the paper holder on the side and it'll be perfect!

Now I just need to get the paper holder on the side and it’ll be perfect!

And to end the night we headed to the races in Decorah. My one brother always says that when the sweat starts to run in places that you shouldn’t talk about, then it’s time to go the races! Well it was hot today and we went to the races for the night.

Fun night at the races. Perfect weather for them!

Fun night at the races. Perfect weather for them!

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Outside stuff

After work tonight, Daryl went to the lumber yard to get some wood for the cattle shed roof. He has to put these pieces on the existing roof so that the tin has something to be nailed to. It looks like a lot of hammering nails to me! After he put the first ones on, I’m sure the rest will go up easier. He wants to get the wood on the shed done this weekend and with only a small chance of rain in the forecast, he should have good luck with the weather.

Daryl just starting the cattle shed roof

Daryl just starting the cattle shed roof

As for me? Well I checked out my garden. And if you are wondering just how is that vegetable masterpiece and a little piece of heaven going? Yea…. bad. Really bad! I took this picture to show a flowering weed that seems to be making a home in my garden. Now if you look close you’ll notice that it’s a bull thistle! That is not good. So I’m going to see if I can rescue my onions maybe this weekend and then start with Round Up on most of the rest of the garden. I’m not a huge fan of chemicals , but I’m thinking maybe I should start!

Bull Thistles in my garden

Bull Thistles in my garden

 

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