Summer flowers or should I say Winter flowers?

Posted on November 13, 2015 by farm2011

Mom was over the other day and wanted to know why my flowers were still alive. I guess I never thought about it until then. It’s one of those things when you walk by something every day and see it, well you kind of become blind to it. I’ve walked past these flowers for months and months and when the temperature got down to the 20’s the other day, I didn’t even think of covering up any outside flowers. And honestly if I did think about covering them up, well that wouldn’t have happened! But she was right, they do still look pretty darn good for mid November in Iowa. IMG_3445

So I thought I better check on my flowers that I stuck inside the greenhouse. I put them there because I wasn’t sure what else I should do with them at the time and it was as good as a spot as any other. And what I found was that they also were looking good for little or no water on them. I told my Mom that I would get the geraniums transplanted from these planters and give to her to keep over the winter. She usually has good luck keeping them from year to year and my guess is that they have a much better survival rate being at her house than mine when the snow starts to fly.

As for the rest? Well I’m going to ride it out and see how long they will keep alive. My guess is that I’m thinking Christmas. Yup I know that this is pretty optimistic – but who knows right?

Posted in Gardening | 1 Comment

Veterans Day and remembering Dad

Posted on November 11, 2015 by farm2011

I was looking through all the old photos that I have of Dad tonight, I decided on this one to post for Veterans day. It’s a picture of Dad with my two brothers many years ago. It’s also one that Mom likes quite a bit so it’s a win win. img520Dad was in the Korean War and even though as we got older and understood what actually happened in a war, he never talked about it much to us kids.

What I do remember him saying is that they were always so cold and hungry. One time someone got a ham sent to them that was from a packing plant in Iowa and I can still hear how it tasted so good! Now I don’t know if it was because they were so hungry or if it was because it was from Iowa, but it was one of the stories that Dad would tell us and it still makes me smile when I think about it. 

For a Christmas present one year we surprised Dad and gave him the gift of one of his army buddies from New York was coming for a visit for a week. It was one of those deals when you think it’s an awesome idea and then you start to worry. And for good reasons! We never told him, but only about a week before the visit was going to happen, his army buddy got sick and didn’t know if he could make the trip or not. WHAT?? Since I was the one who was talking back and forth with his friend at the time,  when I heard the news I instantly started to sweat and came the closest to having a panic attack that I probably ever will. Dad was so looking forward to the visit, I thought do we tell him or don’t we tell him? Daryl said that maybe we should ride this out and it’ll be fine. Well I’m telling you that I literally held my breath for the whole week! And I’m not kidding about that either! Mom and Dad were making plans and getting the house ready for the rare occasion of houseguests. When you live on a farm you really never have houseguests and much less for a week. Holy Cow! Yea, who was going to tell Dad that this whole thing that was planned for around 8 months might fall through?  Not me. So I would lay in bed awake for most of the night that week just worrying and worrying about it. And I knew that this was something way out of my control and just stop worrying, yea like that didn’t happen.

Well, it must be the clean living that I do (not really, I just said that 🙂 ) but his army buddy was able to make it and I think they all had the best of times. See Mom and Dad went to visit this buddy and his wife when they were on their honeymoon in New York and always had plans to go back out again someday. They would write back and forth keeping each other up to date on each of their families especially around the Holidays. Dad and his friend 1952 in New YorkThis picture is Dad and his friend in 1952 in New York. Mom must have taken the picture – check out the top of Dad’s head. Yup, it’s cut off  

Well Dad started to have health problems and one thing led to the next, and the visit to New York the second time just never happened. So it was just perfect that their friend was able to come visit him.

Dad died that same year as the visit on November 9th, 9 years ago and his friend died Fourth of July weekend the next summer. As I think back about this Christmas gift, I think it was probably one of the nicest things that us kids ever did for our Dad.

So here’s to all the Veterans out there, and especially to my Dad and his New York Army Buddy! 

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Good-bye Earl, Good-bye Giggles

Posted on November 8, 2015 by farm2011

Yes it’s that time again when the cold wind starts to blow and we take a good look at what cows we need to keep during the winter and which ones will need to find new friends.

And sadly this year both Earl and Giggles went to another farm.

Now even though I know it’s coming it sure seems kinda sad. Earl has the biggest eyes and he just kept looking at me as if he was saying ‘Why’?  Yea, it wasn’t the best place to be tonight. IMG_3453But it’s part of farming and while we were loading them up to take them to the sale barn, the other cows just couldn’t believe it. They just stood by and almost seemed like their mouths were open in amazement. OK, maybe that was a little dramatic, but they did seem pretty scared and nervous.IMG_3457

I tried to give Earl an apple before we left but he was too scared to eat it. And what a racket that Giggles was making when we got to the sale barn. We thought at first the holsteins that were just getting unloaded in front of us were making all the noise, you know how those holsteins are 🙂  but we found out that it was Giggles just bawling. I think dropping cattle off at the sale barn is like your first days of Jr. High. You are in a new place, everyone is checking you out, you are checking everyone else out, and there are even some loud ones in the group. You also know that you’ll make new friends soon. The only difference is that the lunch hour just might not be the same as what you were used to. I mean do you think their new owners will buy them apples to give them as an afternoon treat? I don’t think so.

I’m going to really miss Earl. IMG_3450It’s not that I didn’t like Giggles, but he wasn’t the most friendliest.IMG_3451Nice, but not just someone that you could walk up to and give him a good head scratch. I think Daryl thinks that I might get too attached to our cattle. When I told him that he will never.. and I mean NEVER sell No Ears he just looked straight ahead while he was driving the pickup and didn’t move at a muscle. He must have  practiced this look because he didn’t even flinch. And I was looking pretty close! I said that she can grow old and just eventually die on the farm. Again – no movement from Daryl. But I know he was listening because I could see him giving me a sideways glance like we’re going to have to talk about this some more.

But for now – Good-bye Earl and Good-bye GigglesIMG_3458

Posted in Farm animals | 1 Comment

Girls day out – Whooo Hooo!!

Posted on November 7, 2015 by farm2011

Today my Mom, 2 of my 3 sisters, my two sister in laws, and my niece spent the day shopping, eating, and then ended the day going to a Play. We had a great time.

The day started out with a little shopping. I know that I’ve said this before, but our Mom ROCKS when it comes to gift giving. And while most of us are just starting to put together our Christmas lists, Mom is almost done with all her shopping. So today she was the only one that was able to get two more gifts checked off her list. The mall wasn’t crowded at all and with a lot of sales going on it was a good time to pick up a few things that she wanted to get.

Next was to go to grab something to eat. My nephew and his family joined us and that’s always fun to see them. The weirdest thing happened to us though at this restaurant. OK, so there was 10 of us in our group and we were seated and looking at our menus on what we should order. Well honestly everyone was talking at once and no one saw that one of the workers came to the table and talked to my sister and Mom. What we found out was that this worker who greeted us didn’t do it correctly or something (no sure?) anyway that she apologized and wanted to make it up to us. First of all we didn’t even know that she was supposed to greet us and then What?  So we all were given free desserts compliments of the house. Now normally I don’t order desserts, but if it was that important to her… I guess I could order one 🙂 We all had a round of glasses filled with cheesecake topped with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Yummm.

The night ended up with all us girls heading to the Amana Colonies to the Old Creamery Theatre. The play was “The Church Basement Ladies in The Last (Potluck) Supper” IMG_3438It was so funny that I even caught myself laughing out loud a couple of times. This was the last play that was wrote for the Church Basement Ladies and it sounds like all 5 plays these past 5 years have been amazing. The brochure said that nearly 30,000 tickets were sold in the first 4 years for these plays. We had such a good time and I sure hope that we can do something like this again soon.

And what did Daryl do while I was gone? Well he saw that the bale feeder which seems like he bought not that long ago, is looking a little tough. I’m not saying who’s responsible for it looking this bad but the name of the cow is two letters and starts with an ‘E’. So here is the feeder that is currently being used IMG_3442and here is Daryl unloading the new one that he bought today. IMG_3439Just a little different right?

And the photo of the day is one of our chickens. When I was in the cow yard, I noticed that the chickens found a good spot to get out of the wind but still be in the sunshine. They are inside the shed with the corn stalk bales. Come to think of it, I should probably check to see if they are laying eggs out there.IMG_3443

Posted in Family, Farming, Places to visit | Comments Off on Girls day out – Whooo Hooo!!

Invitations

Posted on November 6, 2015 by farm2011

We have my side’s St. Nicholas Party coming up and with the challenges of trying to get everyone all together at once, we decided to have this annual party to include the Christmas gift exchanges. Now granted this isn’t a small little task to get everyone all together. The last time I counted there are 57 people who will be joining us this year and honestly doesn’t that sound like a party just waiting to happen!!

But with that many people also comes a challenge of where we can have the get together. So this year it’s going to be at our farm and I couldn’t be more excited. Now the planning begins! And what comes with planning? Well… spreadsheets of course! The first one is one that I’ve made that divided out all the food that we will need for the party. Each family will be bringing a food category (desserts, salads.. ) and hopefully it’ll work OK. It should, but since it’s the first time that we’re doing this I guess we’ll see.

So the spreadsheets that I made look a little too boring and I realized that I needed to personalize them a little bit. I decided to make up some St. Nick’s cards quick to go along with them and I think it might have worked. I gave two of them out last week and these are the ones that I’m planning on hand delivering tomorrow. They all had the same theme but just a little different.

Christmas Cards

Christmas Cards

Posted in Cards, Family | Comments Off on Invitations

Roast Beef

Posted on November 5, 2015 by farm2011

We are not big roast beef eaters and to be honest I don’t know that we’ve ever eaten a whole roast after I cooked it.Usually we become very good friends with our cats and dogs. But I was determined this time to make it so good that we’ll eat it.

So of course I wanted to get it into the crock pot as soon as I could so I had to think fast on my feet. I thought it those people on that one cooking show can make full meals in 30 minutes – heck bring on the challenge!

I ran quick to get the crock pot heating up while I started to brown the roast beef. Next thing to do was to put some type of base in the crock pot so I grabbed an onion. I mean onions go with everything right? So I sliced that up and into the crock it went. Then I saw some celery in the refrigerator and some carrots – so they joined the party. The only thing that puzzled me was why in the world wasn’t the crock pot getting hot? Well, I found out that I had it only on warm! Good thing I’m not on any cooking show. But to my defense, I lost the knob a couple of years ago, so you have to use the ‘feel’ method to see where you’ve got it set. OK, now we were cooking and I mean literally! I had some green peppers that I had in the freezer from this summer so I put some of those in the pan and then added my roast. Well it kinda looked bland so I sprinkled a packet of powdered Ranch dressing over it. I crossed my fingers and left it alone for a few hours. After it was done, I took the cooled broth and pureed it for a gravy and reduced it on the stove to make it even thicker, oh yea and I added some butter to it 🙂  And guess what? It’s really pretty good! I think I’ll serve it over mashed potatoes or noodles. Come to think of it , probably homemade noodles – yum.

Posted in In the kitchen | Comments Off on Roast Beef

Painting in November!

Posted on November 4, 2015 by farm2011

Painting in November … and in Iowa! Who would have ever thought? My plan is to take off work early and use some vacation hours to try to get some painting done. Well anyway that was the plan.

So I was able to leave early and beat it home to get organized and also to grab something to eat. Of course I couldn’t find anything that I thought looked good, so I made a huge pot of spaghetti noodles. After they were cooked, into a bowl they went with some butter and salt and pepper. Yum! Well at least for the first 10 minutes it was Yum and then I swear they expanded in my stomach Yimerz! OK, it probably didn’t help that I put almost 3/4 of the box into my bowl that probably should be feeding a family of four –  but I was pretty hungry! Now to go outside and work it off!

With my new paint brush in my hand off I went. I scraped the wood  last night so I knew that a good part of that was done. It was going to be windy today but I just needed to grin and bear it because you all know how much I just love wind! 

First thing is to find an ice cream pail. I like to use these pails for my paint instead of lugging around a big 5 gallon pail. Makes sense right? Then I changed my clothes and I’m ready. 

Well I started on the old milk house and to say that I had troubles is putting it mildly. I stopped a couple of times to see if my pail was leaking because I had more paint flying that I have ever had in my life. My ‘nice’ barn clothes were not anywheres being nice now! But I didn’t find any holes in my pail so it must be just because it was windy. With the time changing it gets dark so soon so I knew that there wasn’t any time to waste!  So I have to tell you what I did. As you can tell in the pictures – this is the shed that Daryl replaced the window. And when I painted the first coat on that spot, the holes where the nails were looked really bad. Well it kinda bugged me and after I got the other sides done I went back to look at it. And guess what? It still looked bad. So I thought about it for awhile and came to the conclusion that I think I knew how to fix it. I headed to the bathroom and found exactly what I was looking for. Toothpaste. Yup, Toothpaste. I mean if I can put butter on our garage doors and make them work better, why can’t you put toothpaste in the holes to fill them up?  I couldn’t come up with any reasons why not so that’s what I did. 20151104_124545And did it work? You bet! After it dried I put another coat of paint on it and it looked really good. It might not be the fix for everyone, but it sure worked for me! 

Just needing a little Love

Just needing a little Love

Looking Good!

Looking Good!

The only real trouble that I had (other than paint flying) is that I had a big wasp or hornet nest in the top peak of the roof that I had to knock down because I had to paint there. Well I did knock it down but the wind caught it and just like that it was in my paint! Of course your first instinct is to grab it and I was sure glad that there wasn’t any hornets in it when I palmed it out! Next was the cow yard fence. I sure was hoping that I didn’t need to fill in any holes on this fence because I was out of toothpaste for the night. But after putting the first coat on it last year I was sure that it was going to be OK. But what wasn’t working so well for me was my stupid paint brush. It was new and cost me around $10 and seriously should work so much better than what was going on for me. I even looked at my ice cream pail again to see if it was lop sided and was spilling paint. Dumb idea yes, but a Desperate idea! Well at this point I thought just roll with it and in no time – BAM this fence was done!

Just needed another coat to make it pretty

Just needed another coat to make it nice

Finished both sides of the fence

Finished both sides of the fence

I could tell that the day was winding down and I was getting even a little cold,  but I had one more fence on my list. And finally I figured out what was going on with my paint brush. The paint wasn’t sticking to the bristles for some reason. After I stood and looked at it with paint on it, the paint oozed out of the bottom of the brush. It was like if you cleaned out a brush with water and the water was coming out. Soooooo not cool! But the sun was on the West side of the farm by now and I just had to hurry to get it done. And guess what? Shazam!! I got it finished just as it was almost too dark to paint. Check it out. Whoo Hoo! Looking good even if I say so myself! With it being kinda late when I got done, I was sure glad that the rain isn’t supposed to come until later tomorrow night. 

I should paint two coats on it but for now she's only getting one

I should paint two coats on it but for now she’s only getting one

Done for the year!

Done for the year!

And for the paintbrush? I took the ice cream pail and paintbrush and threw them away for good! I also have to remember to pick up more toothpaste for tomorrow 🙂

 

Posted in Projects completed | 1 Comment

Thank goodness for yard lights!

Posted on November 3, 2015 by farm2011

The weather has been absolutely perfect these past few days and I mean perfect!! It almost hit 70 degrees today with a light wind AND being in November – who could ask for anything more?

So I decided that tomorrow I’m going to do some painting. I know it’s kind of late in the season, but honestly if the good weather is only supposed to last until Thursday this week, and tomorrow is already Wednesday, my options of getting it done is pretty limited. It’s funny because when we finally got the farm all painted a couple of years ago we made a deal that we were going to gradually paint things as we needed them and not wait so long. Yea, we really haven’t painted anything since! So much for reaching that goal.

Daryl and I both had places to go after work tonight, so we got a little bit later start at getting things lined up for tomorrow. I’m taking a half of a day of vacation to get a LOT of stuff painted and the amount of time to get all that done – well let’s say I think I’ll be running around the farm. And I mean literally running!  Some people take vacation days to go shopping, travel with their friends, go golfing… but I’m taking my vacation time to do some painting and to be honest I’m really looking forward to it.

So like I said Daryl was helping me tonight and got all the ladders around and spent quite a bit of time stirring a couple of 5 gallon buckets of paint. We had two half of pails and one full pail. I sure hope it’ll be enough! 20151103_165300As for me,  I worked on scraping the old paint off some of the buildings and fences that are on my list to be painted tomorrow. All I can say is Thank Goodness for yard lights! Because it was dark when I finished, and really was grateful for the extra light in the yard. At first I thought I’d get my flashlight that goes on your head, but the neighbor was in the field by us and I’m thinking he would just wonder what in the world kind of neighbors we are. I still debated on it because I thought well he really wouldn’t know if it was me or Daryl 🙂 But it didn’t take that long so I just used the yard light instead. I think I got most of it scraped and I guess I’ll find out tomorrow just how well of a job that I did.

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Daylight Savings Time

Posted on November 1, 2015 by farm2011

Daylight Savings Time.

 

I hate it.

 

I hate it as much as I hate wind. And that is a lot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Daylight Savings Time

Craft Shows, whew!

Posted on October 31, 2015 by farm2011

There are some people who are Craft Show people and then there are others that are not just built that way. As for me? Well I usually don’t go to craft shows. Now don’t get me wrong. There is always a lot of stuff there that is really cool! But I’ve more stuff in my house that I usually know what to do with, so buying additional things probably isn’t the best idea for me.

But I did go to the craft show today. So I’m sure your’e wondering why since I just gave my spiel about really not needing too much right? I went purely just to scope it out. I think I might want to try to be in a craft show maybe next year, so I thought I better see just how people set their displays up and also how it all works. OK, I also went to stalk out my competition! Not surprised are you?

Well let me tell you that there are some pretty cool displays on these shows! The craft show that I went to was a two day show and I went the first day and in the morning when it started. I tried to be nonchalant when my eyes caught a glimpse of the first soap vendor. She looked me straight in the eyes and I tried to give the look back like, ‘oh you sell soap’ and then I switched my eyes to someone’s else’s stuff  and looked very intensely at the braided rugs at the vendor on the opposite side of the hall. Yup, I’m going to have to be cool if I want to learn the craft show skills from these guys. First impression is that it’s a tough crowd. I hope I’m wrong.

So I made it all around the huge hall and came up on another soap vendor. This one didn’t seem like she was so interested in what my motives were, so I really checked out how she did her display and also how she wrapped her soap. Now I did really like how she finished off her soap with the outside wrapping, but they were manufactured someplace because they were absolutely perfect and colored! Yea .. colored!! Again, they were pretty cool but I’m thinking at this point I might be still in the red in my ledger books so I better stick with printing and stamping mine upstairs in the craft room or at the kitchen table. I mean I haven’t even sold a bar of soap yet since I have my name established!

Finally I made it back to the first lady selling soap and I said, ‘oh I see you sell soap’ I don’t think I fooled her, but oh well. Then out of my mouth come the comment ‘you must do melt and pour soap’. Now she knew that I was also a soaper and said that she did. Well I was making small talk but when I was asking her a couple of questions about her soap and she wasn’t able to answer them, I thought that I better back off. I think she is getting suspicious. OK, I needed a new plan. So I started to ask what was in this one container. What it ended up being was a bath soak and when she wasn’t sure what was in that (weird huh?) I said that I usually just take equal parts epson salt to baking soda and then add some lavender essential oil. She gave me one of those looks that was close to a stink eye look and said that she was selling this to make money. Well I might not be the brightest light bulb in the room but I definitely got the hint! And honestly I wasn’t even looking for trouble but I was sure finding it and finding it fast! So I said something like that her bath salts probably smells better than mine (I fibbed) and said that her soap really smelled awesome (fibbed again) and then walked away. Man these craft shows are tough!

When I found myself heading back to the car and just finishing off my purchases of the hot dog and water that I bought earlier- I realized that I will probably need to go to another one of these craft shows for practice and try not to get in trouble the next time.

But for now – this is the soap that I made today. It’s called Pickin’ Apples and I tried something new and put in layers of soap and mica and then topped it off with mica. DSC_0324Kinda cool. 20151101_084926

And my photo of the day is Sassy. I had some apples that I bought today while I was in town and after I saw some of the cows just hanging out when I pulled into the yard, I just couldn’t resist sharing.20151031_134430 How can you not share when the cows have such a CRAZY taste for them? HaHaahaa20151031_134505

Posted in Farm animals, Picture of the day, Soap | Comments Off on Craft Shows, whew!