OK, just one more thing about my soap

Posted on January 6, 2015 by farm2011

I know that you are getting pretty sick and tired of me talking about my soap – but I just want to say one more thing and then I won’t talk about it for awhile. I took the peppermint, lime, orange ‘Sunshine’ soap out of the mold tonight and holy cow does it smell. I know that peppermint is supposed to keep away spiders and bugs – so I’m thinking it’s going down in the cellar to mellow out just a little bit. Whew! So if you live in my neighborhood and notice a couple more spiders on your farm – we’ll I’m just saying , blame it on the soap! I’m also not sure that I like the ‘extra dried lemon peels’ in it. I think this will have to be something that I will have to see if I like it once I use the soap. But for now it might just seem a little excessive. I’m just saying..

Sunshine Soap when I took it out of the mold

Sunshine Soap when I took it out of the mold

The bars cut up

The bars cut up

The weather today was supposed to be really bad and for once I’m glad that the weatherman was wrong! We got a couple of inches of snow yesterday and today we were supposed to get 35 mph winds and a LOT of blowing snow. Well you can about imagine 35 mph winds and fluffy snow can’t you? It’s like your’e own personal snow globe or something. Well, it didn’t happen .. so yea!! I’m especially glad because William is getting things organized to head down to his apartment tomorrow for the next 8 months. I’m thinking after these last two weeks and now all the kids gone, well it’ll be pretty quiet in the house again. I know that I like the commotion much better! But I do have to say that I need to spend some time to organize the Christmas stuff better and get rid of about half of what I’ve got. I confess that I don’t have it all packaged away and because I only put out about half, why in the world am I keeping it all? So my goal is to get rid of some of the stuff that I never use. Honestly, I couldn’t even find this one big tote of Christmas stuff, and the only thing that I missed out of it was our nativity scene people and animals. I tried to fake it and just set out the Nativity scene, but it kinda looks bad with only straw in it and nothing else.  Well I talk pretty big, but I’ll see how good I do once I try to downsize.

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Bagged a good one!

Posted on January 5, 2015 by farm2011

I was walking through the living room when Daryl pulled into the yard tonight after work. Now no big deal right? Well, the truck caught my eye because I could see something in the back of it and realized that it was a knipco heater. I knew that he was having trouble with ours and talked about getting it fixed now for a couple of weeks. But the problem was because it’s been around the block a couple of times – well no one really works on them anymore. So the next step was that Daryl was researching the parts needed on line to see if he could order them or have the Implement store order them and then have it fixed. So when I saw Daryl pull into the yard tonight, my first thought is that it was our old one. Then I realized that it was a brand new one! It was sticking out of the back of the truck as if it was some kind of trophy. I’m not kidding you. It was like if you are a deer hunter and if you get a big buck with a huge rack, you just have to drive one more time through town. Yea, kind of like that. The only difference was that instead of some dead deer, he had bagged a bright new shiny knipco heater. Shazam!! So into the barn it goes and come to think of it, I haven’t seen Daryl, William, the dogs, or the cats much since 🙂

As for me? Well I’m staying in the house and making more soap. I took out the first ones that I made last night out of my handy dandy soap mold and it worked slicker than snot! And I think I even like the scent. I guess I’ll know more once it’s cured, but for now it’s not so bad.  DSCN9481 So then I thought to myself, maybe I should make another batch of something else?  So back to the drawing board I go and found a soap called ‘The Sunshine Soap’ It has Peppermint, Orange, and also Lime in it. It’s supposed to wake you up in the morning. It was a new recipe again, and I guess it’s the only way to learn which ones are good. So I also saw that you can add stuff in between the layers of the soap so I decided on adding some dried ground lemon peel. I think you’re only supposed to add a little, but a little more couldn’t hurt could it?

After supper and the kitchen was all cleaned up, I decided to make William a cheesecake. For some reason I always forget that I don’t have to send tons of food with him when he leaves, but honestly it doesn’t hurt anything now does it?

Vanilla Cheesecake with cookie and pecan crust

Vanilla Cheesecake with cookie and pecan crust

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Just hanging out

Posted on January 4, 2015 by farm2011

When we woke up this morning and when I looked out the window – it looked like this. DSCN9452Now granted it could look worse right? So why in the world am I kind of complaining about it. Seriously I’m not trying to complain, but we’ve been so lucky this winter that it almost seems like we shouldn’t have any snow this year. But that’s pretty much an unrealistic dream and with hearing the upcoming weather forecast – I guess I better get used to this white stuff!

I got a message early this morning that the kids made it back OK. Kyle caught literally the last bus leaving the airport for the night and that was good. He has the next day off to get unpacked and catch up on his sleep. Even though he’s flown this trip multiple times, it still has to mess his sleep schedule up. Good thing he’s a kid!

Daryl spent the morning taking down the Christmas lights and garland off the front of the house and man does it look boring!! Now I don’t know why we think lights on a house or garland make the house (and farm!) look so much prettier, but it sure does. We were talking about this today and the question that came up was are we just conditioned to think it looks pretty? Well who cares right? It is a lot of work to put them up but it sure makes you smile and for me it brings back memories when I was growing up. When I was a kid we would literally take the branches off the evergreen trees that lined our grove and make our own garland. Now I just can’t believe that this was good for the trees, but maybe it was a way to keep all us kids quiet and busy so that’s why our parents never really cared! Not that we were loud and crazy.. but sometimes we were a little on the wild side and maybe just a little loud and crazy! Then we would hang the garland and all the big Christmas lights that are getting popular again around the outside of our picture window in the living room. We did this every year that I can remember as a kid and maybe that’s why hanging garland, hopefully from the nursery, just makes me smile.

As for me? Well, today after the Christmas tree was out of the house and a couple of pounds of beef jerky was in the dehydrator, I settled in to find a good soap recipe. William made me a new soap mold to put the raw soap in to cure, so I just had to find something to make!

My fancy new soap box

My fancy new soap mold

I also kind of made people take my soap over Christmas so I really did need to make more. Today’s recipe was using 4 different types of oils and then came the hard part- trying to figure out what fragrance to use.

The oils were all melted - the next step was figuring out the fragrance

The oils were all melted – the next step was figuring out the fragrance

The scent that the soap recipe called out I didn’t have, but I thought honestly how hard is it to pick out a good smell? Yea.. let’s just say about 1 hour later I finally just settled for something that was literally in one of my storage containers. Did you know that you’re supposed to have 3 levels of scents in a soap? Well, me either until today! The first level is the one that you smell first – OK, that’s a no brainer!, then the second one should be the strongest, and the last one is what you remember the soap to smell like. And what did I put in mine? Well, after doing that hour of research on what should go together and then loosing the website where it talks about the ‘levels’ – I just literally guessed and put in some Lemon as the 1st level and Ylang Ylang as the base. Is it right? I have no idea. But does is smell? You bet! The Lemon oil is to revitalize and uplift you, while the Ylang Ylang is supposed to be a stress relief along with lowering blood pressure and prevent wounds from infections and speeds up the healing process. Whatever! It’s what I used and it should be OK. Like I said the recipe was a new recipe and when I was making it, it seemed a little smaller batch. It did end up being about a half batch and that’s OK too. I’ll just cut it differently tomorrow when I un-mold it.

As for the rest of the night? Well I headed to town to pick up some groceries. Not only did we need some, but there’s a big storm brewing that is supposed to hit tomorrow night. Man I sure hope that it isn’t too bad and we don’t get snowed in!

The photo of the day is a really cool one! My brother called and said that he was out driving and noticed the moon dogs out tonight. So I grabbed my camera and headed out to snap a few pictures. Even though the ‘official’ full moon or the Wolf Moon, Old Moon or Moon After Yule isn’t until tomorrow night – this moon and the moon dogs look pretty awesome! Take a look

Moon dogs

Moon dogs

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Traveling

Posted on January 3, 2015 by farm2011

The alarms went off in time this morning and soon everyone was getting showers and ready to head back to South Korea, New York, and Iowa. With a McDonald’s just literally at the end of the block from our hotel, Daryl went out to make a breakfast run and came back with a bunch of breakfast sandwiches. Now you would think that we shouldn’t be hungry, yea…. After the sandwiches were gone and confirmed that the flights were all on time, it was time to head down to the lobby for the kids to catch the shuttle for the airport. I was pretty proud of myself because I’ve gotten so much better at the ‘good-bye’s’ with the kids. But maybe this time wasn’t so bad because we’ll see each other again in the Spring. DSCN9443

Now for the 6 hours to drive back to Iowa. This morning we were woke up by the city trucks and just knew that it had snowed outside. But once we looked, it wasn’t too bad so we weren’t too worried. We wanted to wait until it got a little warmer outside to get the roads cleared and then we would start to head back. At the front desk the check out person said that the roads were really slippery this morning so good call by us to head to Chicago last night! Once we got started the roads were pretty much melted and we were feeling pretty good about the drive. DSCN9447Then as we were talking about how good the roads were, all of a sudden the traffic started to backup. And not just one lane but both lanes. As we all inched our way what seemed for miles, we finally found out just what happened. Someone lost control and crossed over the medium and was hit broadsided. It didn’t look good and we found out later that the young kid who was driving was killed. So everyone was just a little more conscience of how the roads were and we eventually drove out of the wet weather and made it home around 5 o’clock that night. Pretty uneventful drive and which in this case is good!

The picture of the day is that of the bridge by Dubuque going over the Mississippi River DSCN9448 copy

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Packing suitcases

Posted on January 2, 2015 by farm2011

I took a vacation day from working in town which turned out to be a really good idea. Kyle and Kelcie were packing their suitcases and I needed to get some things organized around the house. Now could I have done this last night – well yea… but it’s so much better to do it during the day. I started to clean out the refrigerator and freeze what we won’t be using these next couple of days. We ended up having a huge spread of take out Chinese for supper last night, so today everyone was on their own for warm ups. After dinner the kids kept working on packing and Kyle said that his suitcase just literally had died. The material was so thin on the bottom, I was worried that it would just fall apart. But this suitcase sure put in it’s time! Kyle got it 10 or 11 years ago and it has been around the world ever since. Come to think of it, maybe even twice!DSCN9430 So out to the burn barrel it goes and we had another suitcase that will hold up better for him to use.

Once Daryl got home from work and the car was packed, it was time to head to Chicago. We debated if we were going to go tonight or wait until the morning, but I think it’s better to be safe than sorry if the weather turns,  and we decided to get a hotel room for the night in Chicago by the airport. Before we hit the Illinois border, we stopped to put gas in the car. It was the lowest price that we’ve seen so far this winter! 6279_872927529413593_7452223178335292478_n At this price, we should seriously take more trips don’t you think? Well for now, we’re on our way to Chicago and the weather is really good for driving. We got to the hotel around 10:00 pm and had put in an order for some Chicago pizza to be delivered. Even though the drive wasn’t bad, it didn’t take long after the pizza was ate for everyone to head the sack. We just have to make sure that we get up on time for the flights. In our room the alarm clock would get set and then when you looked at it later it went back to 12:00 and just kept blinking. Crazy thing! So we set our phones instead. Now that sounds even crazier doesn’t it?

The photo of the day is one that I took looking outside our hotel window tonight in Chicago DSCN9440

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Happy New Year!

Posted on January 1, 2015 by farm2011

As the 2014 year closes and we bring in a New Year – it’s hard not to think back on everything that happened in the past year. And when I’m looking back I think of just how lucky we’ve been. Our families have been pretty healthy, which is a good thing!  No major bad things happened and a couple of really cool things did happen. We added to our family a couple of new little babies which is always awesome and we went to a lot of weddings which is also pretty cool.

Both Daryl and I are working close to our farm so we don’t have to drive too far to go to work and both boys will also be working this upcoming year. William will be working at an Internship and Kyle will be finishing off his contract in South Korea in March.

On the farm our cow herd continues to grow – We have Ed the bull, No Ears (THE best Mom cow ever!), Sassy and her new baby Giggles

Giggles

Giggles

Scarlet, and Earl. Yup, that’s quite a crew if you ask me!

And looking forward to the New Year we’re starting out with the lowest gas prices in maybe a million years IMG_2188The chickens started to lay eggs again  DSCN9406

and all is well in our neighborhood.

I love this chicken because he takes the best pictures!

I love this chicken because he takes the best pictures!

The only thing that kind of went wrong, well… it happened last night. We played the rubber match of cards with the boys last night and this is how it ended. Yea, not so good The boys won again 🙁DSCN9425

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and let’s see what happens next year on the farm

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New arrival to the farm!!

Posted on December 31, 2014 by farm2011

When I got home from work today, William met me to tell me great news that we have a new baby calf! I was worried who was the mom because Sassy was such a terrible mom the last time with Scarlet, and he said that it was Sassy again. oh nooo But when I talked with Daryl, he said that Sassy was really being a good mom and was letting the little calf nurse and was watching out for him. So that was good. Maybe she saw that we have to take the calf away if she doesn’t take care of them by herself. We were under a wind chill advisory this morning and even though he was born outside in the shed, he looks pretty healthy. They were put in the barn only because the wind has really picked up and let’s not push our luck!

So what to name him…. He has a patch over his one eye, so the obvious would be Patch right? Well that is too obvious. Then I was looking for some pirate names to go with his patch and couldn’t really find anything that I like. Then I saw his picture again and have come up with a name. His name is Giggles. Yup, Giggles it is.

Giggles and Sassy

Giggles and Sassy

 

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Mystery Photo 12-31-14

Posted on December 31, 2014 by farm2011

Let’s give this one a try for this weeks Mystery Photo

Here is the clue: DSCN9422a

Posted in Wednesday's Challenge Photo | 2 Comments

Mystery Photo 12-23-14 results

Posted on December 31, 2014 by farm2011

No one guessed last weeks photo and I must say though the guesses were pretty good guesses.

But here is the clueDSC_0386a

and here is the answer. It’s our grain auger that we use to transfer corn to the steel bins. DSC_0386

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Euchre rematch

Posted on December 30, 2014 by farm2011

It’s pretty common that our family will get together and play a game of cards at the kitchen table. Now to call it a ‘friendly’ card game can be left up to the bystanders, but it is an intense game at that! So the last time we played the boys won and we haven’t heard the last of it since. They had to take their picture by the winning ticket number and it’s been posted on the refrigerator ever since. So the rematch was happening tonight. Daryl and I got off to a slow start and by the end of the first game we hung our head and knew that we had lost. There was a lot of gloating going on from the boys and of course a lot of teasing! We had time to play one more game and even thought the losers of this game lost much worse than what Daryl and I did – I would hate to say who actually did win. Maybe this picture can help …DSCN9414

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