Paying for it

Posted on September 12, 2013 by farm2011

Did you ever have one of those days when you just didn’t care to do anything other than what you absolutely had to? Well that was me last night and I sure didn’t do anything what I was supposed to do on my list! So when it came to tonight – I was not only trying to get the things that I had to do for today, I was also trying to catch up from yesterday. How come some ideas just seem like such a good idea at the time?

So there was lots going on today. The morning started out with Daryl and I watching the space station go over before work. The mornings are still kind of dark when we leave, and so this morning when the space station went over, you could see it as clear as anything. It’s just amazing that when you look up at it, that people are living in there for months on end. OK, then on the way to work I saw some deer in a spot that I’ve never seen before on our gravel road. I thought to myself that I better remember to watch for them there the next times that I’m on that road. I saw more deer on the way to work and finally the ‘real’ day started. But it didn’t take long and I was on my way home again. Then as I’m driving down our gravel road, I was thinking of everything that I wanted to get done tonight. All of a sudden I slam on the brakes and the car starts sliding. OK, talk about memory retention – or lack of it. In the middle of the road where I made a mental note this morning to watch for deer, there stood one just looking at me. I was just glad that I didn’t hit it! As for tonight, some laundry, bills, washed eggs, made three different batches of candy, did two loads of dishes, went for a run, and washed our front porch. The bad thing is that I know that Daryl wanted to bring in the tractor into town tonight. He needed someone to pick him up when he dropped the tractor off and was hoping that I would pick him up. But it’s almost 11:30 tonight and I can hear him sleeping in the other room. I guess we’ll just have to do it tomorrow.

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Baling hay and eggs

Posted on September 10, 2013 by farm2011

I’m not sure how hot it actually got today or if we broke any records, but I do know one thing – if you had hay down, it was going to dry very fast! So tonight after work, Daryl got the baler out and baled our hay. He didn’t think it was going to get too many bales because it was the new seeding and also it was so stinking dry this year. But there was some and it will help with the cows during the winter. It’s always so much nicer if we have small square bales instead of the big hay bales in the winter. It seems like the cows kind of waste the big hay bales and a lot of it ends up on the ground and gets stomped on. But any bales off the new seeding is better than none and it’s now in the shed. We never did get the rain that we were expecting because the hay was cut. It did sprinkle the other night – but not much else. Oh well, we tried.

The cows are happy!

The cows are happy!

Because there was a lot of stuff going on tonight, it was late when I picked eggs. It’s so predictable if I pick eggs at night. I know exactly how it’s going to go if it’s dark in the chicken coop. I go in with my pail and then I kind of creep over to the nests. Now this is stupid. Why am I creeping ? – I have no idea. But I go over to the nests quietly and start feeling around for the eggs. You have to go by feel if there are any in there because it’s dark and you hold your breath that a chicken isn’t in it when your reaching. And to be perfectly honest I almost half squint when I’m doing looking for the eggs. I can’t imagine that it’s a very attractive sight. The reason that it’s scary is because if there is a chicken in the nest, she’ll peck your hand when you’re grabbing the eggs. Yea, not that she’ll fly out in your face or anything dramatic like that, but she’ll give you this little peck on your hand when your grabbing in. Now with that said, it really is kind of scary and you just never know at night what you’ll find in that nest. So you reach in and hold your breath and just try to get it done and get out of there. Too stupid right? Well, I’m been raising layer hens for some time now, and every time I have to pick eggs after dark it’s always the same. Maybe chickens are much smarter than we think and they hide just to see if they can scare me enough to make me jump and scream. Well, it works!

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Sunday Road Trip to Horsefall’s

Posted on September 8, 2013 by farm2011

After church, we decided to catch up a couple of things around home and then head out for the afternoon with the Chevelle.

I wanted to get a couple of cards done that I’ve been putting off now way too long. And I was pretty happy on how many I got done this weekend. I wanted to get 4 Thank You cards and 2 baby cards finished. I was also happy to finally use my bicycle stamp that I got awhile ago on the cards. The Thank You’s are for the houses that we stayed at while on our bike ride. I know… I should have sent them out awhile ago, but better late than never! Now this week on my schedule is to get a 3 wedding cards and a Birthday card done.IMG_0716IMG_0715

And where did we take the Chevelle on the road trip? Well we headed to the Mississippi River, Lansing, Iowa. My friend at work was telling me about this one shop that is there and it sounded like a good thing to do today. Once the car was washed and shined up (you can never take the car dusty – just not cool) we headed East to the river, and in no time we found ourselves parking the car outside the shop. The shop was Horsefall’s and after checking it out on the web, it looked pretty interesting. So Daryl stepped inside with me and made it for about 3 minutes and said he was going to walk across the street to see if they’re watching the football game. That was OK, because it was even pretty overwhelming for me. While I was shopping in the first of their two stores I overheard a couple of ladies describing it probably the best way ever. The one lady looked the other straight in the eye and said, “Get ready, you are now entering into another dimension”.

I thought this store had a lot, but then I went into the next one!

I thought this store had a lot, but then I went into the next one!

P1040747P1040745Yup, that’s exactly right. Now I thought the first store had just about anything that you could imagine, but there was a second store, and this one had a million times more stuff.

The outside window of the second store. I

The outside window of the second store.

I must have looked kind of scared in the second store that was just down the street from the first one, because the owner asked me a couple of times if I was alright. Just to say how much stuff was in there, if someone wanted to look at things in the aisle that you were in, you had to back out of the aisle so they could come in. If you needed something and didn’t find it at Horsefall’s in Lansing, I’m just saying you probably weren’t looking in the right spot because I’m sure that they had it.  It’s an adventure that you should go to once in your lifetime just to check it out. Then a late dinner, or early supper of pizza,  and home we went. We skyped with Kyle,  and now it’s time to get ready for the upcoming week.

 

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Fall is just around the corner

Posted on September 7, 2013 by farm2011

I hate to admit it, but I’m thinking that fall is closer than I was realizing it to be.  You can feel it in the air. I know that today was anything but a nice cool fall day, but the leaves are starting to turn and the crops are also. I guess it is September and in three months it’ll be December. Enough of that! As for the crops drying up, most of the reason is because lack of rain.DSC_0305 We had our hopes up this morning when it started to thunder, and then did start to rain. But it didn’t amount to much other than wetting the ground. So Daryl today cut hay. Usually when we have hay down, it more than likely will rain on it. You don’t really want it to get wet, but if it makes it rain… let’s go for it. Sometimes farmers are very superstitious.  I could write a lot about this – but I’ll wait for another time. OK, before Daryl could get out in the field to cut the hay, he wanted to change the oil in the tractor. When that was done off he went. We weren’t going to cut this field this year because it was a first year seeding and without much rain, it wasn’t our best crop that we’ve ever seen. But Daryl decided that even though it’s probably not going to yield the best, it might get us by for the winter with small bales for the cows.DSC_0309 copy

Speaking of cows, I went this morning to check on Tango and couldn’t find him! The ‘big’ cows were all in the shed, but no little calf. I thought… OK, don’t panic. So I started out in the pasture to see if I could find him. When I started walking, No Ears came out of the shed she was in and went to the machine shed. Now, there wouldn’t be any reason why this little calf would be in there, but I thought I’d humor her and look. Nope, no calf. She started to bellow for him. I thought for sure I’d find him now! But I started to make my way around the pasture and couldn’t find him. I thought did he get under the fence and get lost? I just couldn’t figure out where he was and I was starting to panic. But as I came around the corner of the shed, there he was with No Ears in the shed. I guess she was right after all. I went on the web earlier today to check some thing out, and the information below in blue is what I copied from an animal page. I guess they must have this secret bellow thing going on.

“Cows and calves make noises to communicate with each other and locate each other. A few days before a cow gives birth she will regularly make little grunting noises that are heard by her unborn calf. She will continue to regularly vocalize like this after the birth for a few days, while she keeps the calf alone with her and away from the herd and they form a strong bond. When they return to the herd she has a special bellow she will make to call the calf back to her side. Each calf recognizes the sound of its own mother.”

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No Ears had a baby!

Posted on September 6, 2013 by farm2011

Daryl and I have been talking lately about No Ears and Sassy the cows. Since we got Ed the bull last year, we weren’t sure if, and when,  the cows did get bred. Daryl knew that No Ears was probably pregnant, but honestly our cows are, let’s say.. a little weight challenged… and they seem to carry all their extra weight in their belly. So to visually check them out to see when they’ll have their baby, just doesn’t work. It was just literally a couple of days ago that we were wondering about them being bred and then in the morning, there was a little calf! Now if we knew that this is all it took, we would have started to talk about this sooner! But there she stood with this adorable little bull calf. What to name him? His coloring is so cool and he acts like he isn’t too shy, so I found two names that I was thinking about. They were Blossom or Tango. Both would fit. But I decided to call him Tango. DSCN7207After I was hanging out with the cows in the pasture for awhile tonight giving them apples, I saw Daryl working on the tractor in the yard. I told him that the new little calf’s name is Tango. He wasn’t sure about the name until I told him the other option is Blossom. He thought Tango sounded pretty good!  When I was out taking pictures, I laughed because the peacocks, chickens, and Reno all came with me to check out the new little calf, and No Ears wasn’t too excited about that at all. She didn’t mind the peacocks and chickens, but when Reno got a little close – off No Ears went running after Reno to get her away from Tango. I always knew that No Ears is a good mom and she proves it every time she has a calf.

No Ears with her new little calf Tango

No Ears with her new little calf Tango

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Having to choose..

Posted on September 4, 2013 by farm2011

Tonight I had to choose between two things that I would like to have done. The first one was to go to an appreciation supper that the Coop hosts every year. If you remember last year I got that really cool sling back.  The one thing that Daryl said is that this year we will want to check out the corn and stay for the presentation. OK.

The second thing that I had going on was to go and get a massage.

The 1 hour massage won 🙂

 

Other stuff going tonight was that Daryl was trying to find a local business that would fix the part that he worked so hard at getting off the combine. The local businesses are so busy with the larger farm buildings going up, that they told him that they don’t do farm repair anymore. So Daryl called my brother, who is a welder, and asked him if he’d fix it. Thank goodness he said yes!

We also got our football tickets for Parents weekend at Iowa State. It’s crazy how easy it is to order stuff on the internet anymore isn’t it? It was harder to figure out where we were going to sit than it was to pay for the tickets.  We also went last year for this weekend and it’s really a lot of fun. I’m anxious to spend it with William. and because Daryl wasn’t able to help William move into his new dorm, he’s really looking forward to going.

And to end the night, I wasn’t sure what was going on today – but check out what in front of our french doors look like. Usually Lucky the white peacock sits there during the day hoping to get a glimpse of the TV turned on. But these aren’t Lucky’s feathers!IMG_0706

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A Mouse

Posted on September 3, 2013 by farm2011

Daryl has been working on getting this one part of his combine taken off so it can be repaired. He’s been working on for a couple of days now, and tonight when I checked in on him, he was close to getting it taken off. So I was just standing by the combine hanging out, and then I saw this really little mouse jump out of some part of the combine and run to hide under it. Now in the fall when we put the combine away we try to keep the mice out of the cab because they can do a lot of damage for such small things. We heard that if you put fabric softener sheets in an enclosed area that the mice don’t like the smell and will stay away. So we’ve tried this in the past and what happened is that the mouse used it as his own little private bathroom area. Yea, not cool. But the mistake that we did was to put only 2 of these sheets down and we heard later that you’re supposed to put about 20 in there. I guess we’ll try it again this fall. So when I saw this little mouse running around under the combine, I laughed and told Daryl to be careful because I was afraid that it was going to run up his pant leg. Daryl was laying on the ground underneath the equipment working on the part and it made him just a little bit more vulnerable than me. So we laughed, but then the mouse turned and ran straight for Daryl. Now I was thinking it was going to go into his sweatshirt and he jumped up and got out of there pretty darn fast! He made some comment just where the dog or cats were if a mouse is running around in the yard. Well as if she was on cue,  Reno came around seeing what all the commotion is going on. She could smell something under the tire and was more than determined to get that mouse out. Back and forth on both sides of the tire she went. Now at this time Little Kitty came around and started to help. She was trying to get it from one side when Reno went to the other side. It was pretty funny to watch them work together to try to get this little mouse. At the end of the day I asked Daryl if it got away or not? He said he didn’t know, but he was really happy because he finally got the part off the combine to get fixed! I’m thinking he wasn’t too worried about the mouse and was thinking now when he could take the part in to get repaired.

Reno just couldn't get far enough under the tire to get that mouse out!

Reno just couldn’t get far enough under the tire to get that mouse out!

Little Kitty came to help

Little Kitty came to help

Tag teaming it to get the mouse from under the combine tire

Tag teaming it to try to get the mouse from under the combine tire

 

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Family Reunion and Big 4 Fair

Posted on September 1, 2013 by farm2011

The weather was perfect and with a little breeze in the air, it was a great time to head to the park for a Family Reunion! First things first. I literally ‘dug’ out the picnic basket so I could use it finally. I knew where I put it, so that’s always the first challenge. We got it when Daryl’s Mom passed away and even though this was a couple of years ago, I’ve never had a chance to use it yet.

Daryl's Mom and Dad's picnic basket that we have.

Daryl’s Mom and Dad’s picnic basket that we have.

So into this basket my stuff went and off I went. Daryl couldn’t make it because he had gotten called into work -so this was really his loss because Croat’s can cook! My Mom was a Croatt,  and I think this is where, not only us kids, but also all our cousins get the idea that making more the food the better! So check out the tables of food that was set out yesterday.

If you leave hungry - it's your fault!

If you leave hungry – it’s your fault!

And you just had to try a little bit of everything because it was all so good. The weather was perfect, the location at the park in West Union was perfect, and so was the reunion!DSCN7201DSCN7199

I’ve added a snack recipe that’s so easy! If you need something fast and addicting, this one works.

Ritz Snack

Ritz Snack

2 Boxes of cheese Ritz crackers

2 TBSP vegetable oil

Shake in paper bag until coated

Sprinkle 1 pkg Hidden Valley Ranch and 1 Tbsp dill weed

Shake again and you’re done!

After I got home, I went for a run because I thought that I just might have ate a little bit more than I should have. You think?? Anyway, I don’t usually run on the highway so I thought I’d give this a try. It was so different than on the gravel roads, that after I got home I decided that I better run on both the gravels and hard roads going forward. But it was a good run and then off Daryl and I went to the Big 4 fair in Nashua. We were trying to figure out why they call it the Big 4 fair and I also tried to look it up, but couldn’t find the history of it at all. I’m sure it’s because of four local towns in the county, but ?

IMG_0681We also saw this one rock that was at the fair ground that was donated that I think might have been a mooring stone, but with no other information available, I guess I’ll have to see if I can find that out also. The reason that I think it might be a mooring stone was because it had a hole in it for a peg. Mooring stones were used by the Vikings for their boats and their is supposedly a couple around this area.  IMG_0682 We did find some supper  though and then off to check out the stock barns. This fair is known for the Chuck Wagon races that they have, but for tonight we headed to a concert instead.

Hells Bells, tribute band for AC DC

Hells Bells, tribute band for AC DC

After the concert, and with some cotton candy and french fries in hand, we made our way home. It was such great weather, that I even opened the windows to get a good night sleep. What a good day.

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Getting ready…

Posted on August 31, 2013 by farm2011

It’s that time of the year again when the farmer’s are taking their farm equipment out of the sheds and checking them out to make sure that they are in good shape for the fall. As for Daryl, he brought out the combine to make sure that it’s working OK and is ready to go. Now there is always a chance that you might brake down during the harvest, but you want to try to double and triple check everything before hand to take away some of those risks.DSCN7195

We spent most of the day today working on the yard. If you ever have seen those TV shows when they say if people don’t exist you will have all the weeds grow up and take over – Oh My Goodness, I think they are spot on! We haven’t mowed for a little while now because it’s been so hot, but today we did try to knock some of it down. And the weeds were trying to take over! I’m not kidding you. And this was only for maybe two weeks? So when they say stuff like 10 years the buildings will all collapse because of the weeds, OK, now I believe them.

I also spent part of the day today going to town to get groceries, and one of the things that I bought was a watermelon. Now I know in the past I posted the chickens eating it, but I just can’t believe how clean they can get the rind after they’re done. DSCN7198

 

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Stuff

Posted on August 29, 2013 by farm2011

I was worried last night when I got home from work because our female peacock was standing in our yard making the weirdest noise. It seemed like she was looking for the other peacocks and that’s when I decided to see if I could find them. Now peacocks do make a lot of noises, but they have certain screams (for lack of a better word) for certain things. I’ve never heard the one that I heard last night. So off I went to find the male peacocks with Reno and Little Kitty. I looked in all the sheds and barns but I couldn’t find them at all. I remembered that William saw them on walking on our gravel road a couple of weeks ago, and if that’s the case they were goners. We have so much traffic on our road and with such big equipment, that it’s no match for them. So tonight I didn’t see the female peacock and now I was even more worried. But eventually I did find everyone down by the cattle yard and hopefully everyone is going to stay home now!DSCN7188

Last night a friend of our gave us a garden care package. It has tomatoes, pickles, and some peppers in it. My garden is beyond hope this year, so it was really nice to get fresh vegetables. Our refrigerator never looked so healthy!

DSCN7187

Our Little Kitty (aka Pepper) is out of control. Now I know that this isn’t the nicest thing to say, but it’s probably the most accurate. He always sneaks into the house and runs to the living room and jumps into the commode that I have on the coffee table. Then he’ll chase his tail for awhile and raise all kind of trouble when he’s in it. I have no idea why he likes this so much, but he really does!

This does NOT look comfortable

This does NOT look comfortable

I think she's sticking her tong out at me!

I think he’s sticking his tonque out at me!

And lastly, if you remember the road trip that Daryl and I took to the antique store when I picked up the cute container that I was going to use for mail? Daryl said he had one just like it up in the machine shed. Well, I bought the one at the antique shop anyway and when I got home I went looking for his. He said that he made it in shop class when he was in school. So I was determined to find it, but didn’t have any luck. Then a couple of days later he said he found it in the new milk house. Off I went to check it out and see about bringing it into the house. Well, after looking at it, it’s no wonder that I didn’t recognize it as the same as the one that I bought. But I’m thinking with a little love and a few minor repairs, I think I’ll be able to find a spot in the house for his also!

Daryl's

Daryl’s

This is what I bought earlier

This is what I bought earlier

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