Getting ready!

Posted on March 23, 2016 by farm2011

We’re supposed to get such a terrible storm tomorrow and with the weather still not too bad, Daryl decided to clean out the cow yard. 20160322_155353_resized_1Now Sunny is still hanging out with Sassy in the hay shed, but my guess is their days are going to be numbered and they’ll be put out with the rest of the herd.

As for me? Well I had ordered some treasures for my soap (I know, I know.. soap, soap, soap!) but it’s kind of the world that I’m living in right now. I tried to order a little bit of all the designs they had for soap dishes and they were delivered today. Yay! Now I’m just trying not to keep about half of them for myself.

And finally I had the best gift this week! I asked Ma if she would make some Easter cutout cookies and of course she made TONS of them. I literally counted over 75 cookies in this pan! 1924094_1104607546245589_8410921824322478673_n So I asked if I could freeze what was leftover after I sent some of the kids? She said they’ll keep for quite sometime in the freezer and it wouldn’t be a problem. Now granted I sent a bunch to the kids and because Ma makes THE BEST cut out cookies – well I found out that there really isn’t too many to freeze after all!DSCN8815

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There is a fire going in the country

Posted on March 22, 2016 by farm2011

When I was coming home tonight from work I noticed a huge grey smoke off in the distance and I don’t know about you, but my first instinct is to mentally drive the road to our house to see if the fire is on our farm. And if you are one of those people who do this also, you might just be squinting your eyes too as you’re doing this pretend drive (just guessing)

But with the weather today around 60 degrees and the forecast tomorrow is for a winter storm warning or something, everyone is trying to get the scrub trees that they cut down last fall burnt or some tall grass in the ditches cleaned up.

I had to laugh last night. Daryl was busy transferring corn from the bin so when I brought him out some supper I had to look around to see if I could find him. Guess what he was doing? Well he was using his new bench top grinder to sharpen some macheti knife. When I asked him just what in the world was he going to do with the big knife, he said he had plans to clean up some scrawny trees in the ditches. To be honest, he really works hard to keep the field fence lines and the ditches cleaned up from any trees and it’s almost a full time job! And another thing about this is that I think he secretly likes doing it no matter just what he says about the job 🙂

So along with most of the county burning today, we had a couple of our ditches also on fire. I never did get a chance to ask Daryl if he got to use his sharpened knife or not, but my guess is that if he didn’t get to use it today, he’ll be looking for some small tree to chop down very soon.

Well fast forward to later on this evening and I went to town to do some errands and when I noticed that the neighboring town farmers were also burning their ditches, I thought to myself that it seemed a little smoky driving through the town. And I kid you not, just as I was thinking this at a 4 way stop, I looked to my left and saw the fire truck just pulling out of the shed. Now they didn’t have their lights on or anything, so I’m guessing  it was a monthly check of their trucks, but I laughed to myself about the coincidence almost all the way to the next town.

Happy burning and be safe!

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Soapy Sunday for sure!

Posted on March 20, 2016 by farm2011

Yes it’s starting to become a countdown until the first craft show and even I know that I’m probably thinking too much on this. I mean I’ve been reviewing articles on the web to see what to do and what not to do on your first craft show. And guess what? There are a LOT more what not to do than to do’s if you ask me. Then the funniest thing is that after they list a huge list of the bad things they usually end up with ‘but have fun’! Just too funny! 

So like I said today was a soapy day and man did I get a lot accomplished. The first thing was to order some soap dishes to have available if someone needed one or if they wanted to put together a small gift that included my soap. This is my strategic move on being diversified. And honestly I think it’s a kinda smart move. My second thing that I got done is to see how my new table cloth (craft show requirement) looked. Now granted I’m using a six foot table instead of an eight foot table, but it’s not too bad. I’ll give her a good bath this weekend to see if I can get the wrinkles out of it. I’m working on what and how I want to display on the table and haver pretty much taken over the back parlor of our house! DSCN8814Then I went through all my inventory and ordered more supplies. This is where I can get carried away so I wanted to be really careful just in case I’m not doing too hot in the sales market this month. On to working on my table flyer for the business and with the help from Kyle I’ve gotten some good photo’s to work with and I just have to figure out how I want the flyer to look. And then lastly I made a double batch of Pickin’ Apples and with the apple smell in the north part of our house and the whole room full of soap in the other end of the house – well let’s just say it’s smelling pretty darn good!

Now with a new to do list made for the upcoming week and still a lot to figure out for my table (vintage cloths, wrapping the soap, …) I really need to stay focused. Well anyway that’s the plan for now 🙂

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Saturday – Snow Day!

Posted on March 19, 2016 by farm2011

I had heard that we might be getting some snow today and well to be completely honest I was thinking maybe a flake here and there. So when it actually did start snowing I thought ‘hey it’s kinda nice’ I knew it wouldn’t last so what’s the harm?DSCN8805

OK, so then it snowed and kept snowing until I thought to myself enough is enough.DSCN8810 I know we will want the moisture in the heat of July for our crops, but for today? Well I wanted to hang laundry on the line and possibly get a run in. And honestly neither of those things were going to happen. Even the dogs were hoping to get inside today, but with their feet pretty dirty that wasn’t going to happen either!DSCN8806

As it kept snowing during the day, I knew I should be grateful and it kinda reminded me of when I was a kid growing up. Have you ever been told that you should eat something like… well like LIVER because it’s good for you and there were starving children all over the world who would just love to have this meal? OK seriously what normal child would want liver? I’m just saying. Anyway when I was told that about the starving children I would think to myself  ‘Let’s just box this up and send it to them”. I never dared to tell that to my parents but I’ve thought it more times than not! So this snow today is kinda like that. We all know that it’s good for you, but hey.. let’s send it up to those Wisconsin people who might just like it better 🙂

The photo of the day is that of our chicken’s. The sky outside was so grey so I wanted to see if I could capture the feel on the picture.  DSCN8812

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Roamin’ Catholics

Posted on March 18, 2016 by farm2011

We finally had a chance to get out during this Lent Season and enjoy a local fish fry. We haven’t been doing too good roaming around looking for new restaurants so I was glad we finally had a chance this weekend. Now I’m using the words ‘local’ kinda loosely. See we were headed to Minnesota and about 100 miles round trip. No big deal and honestly I thought it was even further than that.

Some of our friends have told us that the Sweets Hotel in Le Roy Minnesota was a great place to eat and especially go there if you want some good fish. So it didn’t take us much convincing and off we went.

After doing a little history investigation on the place, I found out that it was constructed in 1898 by William Sweet. And through the years it changed hands many times and it the current owners are working on having it restored. Since I had suggested this place, I was a little nervous if it was a good place, but once we walked into the building I knew it was a good choice.  It was pretty cool! We parked on Main Street and walked into the building from the main door and found out that most of the locals were using the back entry door to come in. But I was glad that we used the door that we did because we walked by the open wooden stair case that led up to the 8 restored rooms upstairs. With a full crowd, we really got our food fast and our friends were right – it was really good fish! So with our bellies full and the fire place going beside us in this old 1800’s building – life was pretty good. Yup, it’s a good time of the year to be a ‘Roamin’ Catholic’

Here is a picture that I found on the web that shows the outside of the hotel LeRoyG93

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It all started with a little wine

Posted on March 16, 2016 by farm2011

Yes, it all started with a little wine….

Kyle and I went to the local winery about 2 weeks ago and was on a mission to pick up some wine for possible gifts. No big deal right? Yea, that’s what I thought also. But it just so happened to be the time of the year when the owners of the winery was having a garage sale and had a bunch of things that they were selling of their Aunts estate. Cool.

So we had picked out our wine and decided to take a gander at the treasures for sale. When  we walked into the room there was the usual things for sale – books, doilies, household things, and then jewelry. OK, now I’ve always said that I’m probably reincarnated from the 40’s and 50’s and when I saw something shiny on the table from that period, well I just knew it had to be mine. What was it? Well it was a gold watch that was pretty cool. At this point I didn’t know if it worked and so I offered the lady $2.50. This was a fair deal because what happens if it doesn’t work? She was $2.50 ahead and I could be down the $2.50 if it doesn’t work.

Well of course I could’t get it to work so I brought it to a local jewelry store to get the scoop on it. It didn’t take them long to say that it was broke and to clean it the cost would be around $50. They also mentioned that it was a cheaper version of a Bulova watch and if it wasn’t an heirloom I should probably pass on getting it fixed. Wow, that was honest salesmanship if I ever heard it. So of course I said that I just liked watches and took a chance.

The next step happened so fast I’m not sure that I am totally clear on just what went down. The salesperson said that she had a Bulova watch that she got at an estate sale and she said it was so cool. Did I want to see it? Well heck Yea!

So out she comes with this totally awesome watch. As she was showing me this watch I was thinking to myself, I have my mother-in -laws watch and I really love that watch too. But this watch? It was so different and I’ve never seen one like it before. I stood there almost drooling and I’m sure at this point the salesperson thought that I was hooked. But I mustered up all my energy and said that I really didn’t need it and should be saving my money instead. Well she talked about layaway and I smiled and said that I probably will be back.

Now jump forward to the next week. In the morning I was digging around for something in the little car and came across the garage sale watch. No big deal right? Well later that afternoon I had a hair appointment and when I had parked the car I was right by the jewelry store again. At this point I knew it was fate.

After my hair cut and as I was walking to the car I looked up and thought to myself, it sure doesn’t hurt to look again at that watch now would it? So I went in.

The salesperson looked up from the cash register and smiled at me and went in the back room to get the watch. When she put it on my wrist I knew that I was going to buy it. OK, to be honest I knew I was going to buy it when I walked across the street  to the car 🙂

So as I’m talking to her about it and said that it would make a great watch for our son’s wedding and would look great with any dress that I would wear she gave me the most puzzled look. I guess she hadn’t come across too many people looking for justification for purchasing something. But if I was going to wear a watch, this one would look great!

Now at this time the jeweler was coming out to see what was going on and when I asked him what was the value of the two small diamonds in it, he slid his jewelers glasses over his face and then smiled. When I asked him what it ended up to be he smiled and said ‘not too much’. How funny is that?

Well needless to say I am the proud owner of a Bulova watch with two tiny diamonds in it from the 50’s. Yup that’s true.  I even was shown how to wind it from the jeweler and he reminded me that I had to wind it every day.DSCN8804

And to think it all started with just a little wine…

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Spring Rains

Posted on March 15, 2016 by farm2011

Today was one of those spring days when it rains on and off all day and night and you can just feel the dirt getting cleaned. OK, that does sound weird, but it’s kinda true. The dirt has been just laying around all winter and getting driven over and pushed around. Now that it’s raining it cleans the rocks off in the driveway and takes away the top layer off of the grass. See, it kinda cleans the dirt.

BUT I did hear a bad word today on the radio at work that said that in the next couple of days we could get some snow mixed in with the rain. And even though if it this does actually happen it would probably melt as soon as it hits the ground. But it sure doesn’t sound like something that I would vote on!

So for tonight when I was checking out who was hanging out on our front porch, I saw the usual team : Smoochie, Reno, and Kaiser. And then as I was shutting the door I could even hear frogs somewhere in the area. Now without any pond or anything you wouldn’t think we would have frogs would you? But they must be living in our ditch or something  and there must be a lot of them!

Here’s what our porch looks like on a rainy night. Lots of activity going on!DSCN8798

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Guess what we did on Sunday?

Posted on March 14, 2016 by farm2011

Well if you guessed that we bummed the whole day on Sunday, you are the winner! We had our church supper on Saturday night and even though the last count of tickets that were sold was around 150 for the supper, it still takes as much effort to plan for 150 as it did for 300. And poor Daryl – because he’s a nice guy he’s been asked to help more and more on the committee that I’ve been helping with. But he does a great job, and he’s always there to help someone if they need it. What a good guy to have around! 🙂

So back to Sunday. We were kinda tired of being in the committee mode and so we got in our car and drove north. OK, so North from our place could mean many things but for today it meant heading to Harmony Minnesota to check out the antique store. With the craft show literally a couple of weeks away, I wanted to practice on how my table is going to look like. Now this is probably a really crazy idea for those of you out there that are good at this, but for me it’s kind of a necessity. So we were checking out the store and came across a couple of really good ideas. And just a note: When I’m watching the tv show where they take old stuff and repurpose it to different stuff, and I’m not thinking Daryl is watching. Well I couldn’t be more wrong! He had some ideas that I didn’t even see that we could use. But I ended up getting a few pieces that I’m going to see if it looks OK, and if they do I have to repurpose the one to make it fit better with my overall design.

Now that my supper is over at the church and our town book is coming along nicely, I’ve got time to think about my soap and I’m getting pretty excited! I thought today that I haven’t even made soap for probably about a month now and I better think about making some more soon. After the craft show I’ll either have a lot left over and if you’re on my Christmas gift list you’ll know what you can expect (I’m just saying..) or I’ll need some more. I guess time will tell right?

 

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It’s a Sunny Day!

Posted on March 13, 2016 by farm2011

Now I’m just betting that you thought I’d be complaining about Daylight Savings Time weren’t you on this post? Well normally I would and before this upcoming week is over, I’m guessing that I’ll have a word or two on how much I absolutely can not stand it! 

But today? Nope, I’m not complaining at all because it was a great day on the farm. See we’ve been watching Sassy these past few days to see when she was going to have her calf and this morning on a wet and damp morning she had a new baby. Yup! She’s a new Mama! 

So when Daryl came in from chores this morning and said that Sassy had her calf I wasn’t too surprised. But he said he needed some help getting her into the barn. I quick grabbed my chore boots and I found myself sinking into the yard and I was headed to the barn. The rain that we got overnight really caused the yard to get soft and it seemed to have pulled up the rest of the frost from the ground. 

When I finally got into the barn and saw the little new calf I knew instantly that I had fallen in love with him. Now granted a girl would have been better because they can stay with us on the farm and when the steers get old enough they have to be sold. But I’m sure hoping that I can get him tame enough and have him as long as I can!

So the reason that Daryl needed help was because he couldn’t coax Sassy into the barn to be with the calf to keep him warm.

No one was moving in the cow yard too fast and what a muddy time of the year is!

And even though the calf was less than a day old, he was pretty strong already and wasn’t too excited either about staying in the barn without her. After a lot of coaxing and trying to keep Scarlet out of the way (she wanted to be beside us seeing what was going on and just exactly who was in the barn) we finally gave up and put both Sunny and Sassy in the hay shed for the night. DSCN8796

Now I gave it a lot of thought today on what his name should be, and if we truly are having Daylight Savings to extend the sunlight hours, I named him Sunny. Check him out and I dare you to say that he isn’t about the cutest calf that you’ve ever seen! DSCN8791

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Getting ready for Spring

Posted on March 12, 2016 by farm2011

Can you believe that it’s actually getting nice and warm outside? Hooray!! The sun has been shining more and more lately and the temperatures have been hovering around the 60’s some days. I’m so anxious to get our bikes out and even to start in the garden. Well I guess more on getting our bicycles out than cleaning up the garden to be real truthful!

So along with the good weather can you guess what Daryl’s been up to? Well once you take a look at this picture you can get a good idea that he’s starting to get the machinery out of the sheds and giving everything a good bath for the Spring.DSCN8758

With our equipment stored in the machine shed and with having pigeons and other birds hanging out in the rafters, the equipment can get a little messy if you know what I mean. Now I know that Daryl thinks that the peacocks are to blame – but I”m sticking to my guns and saying that it’s those dirty pigeons instead! I’ve wanted a gun to help reduce the population but for some reason Daryl is just a little hesitant on getting me a gun and much less for an anniversary gift. You know come to think of it, maybe I’ll get him a gun that I really would like for our anniversary 🙂

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