Giggles – bad calf!

Posted on March 31, 2015 by farm2011

It was one of those days again when I pulled into the yard and noticed something (or someone!) that wasn’t supposed to be there. And guess who it was? 

Well if you guessed Giggles – you are the winner!!  Yup, Giggles was just kind of hanging out by the cattle yard and the only difference from the last time that he did this was no cattle were mooing. I guess they think that first time shame on us, second time shame on you. OK, maybe they just didn’t care because Giggles was so much older. But whatever the case may be – he was out! 

But getting him in is pretty easy. All you have to do is to keep the other cattle from following you and then you open the gate. And if you’re wondering how to keep the cattle from following you, it’s as easy as giving them corn for the night. Once you do this – well all you do is open the gate and tell Giggles to get back in. He’ll look at you and then walk like he hasn’t done anything wrong and that’s that. Seriously I don’t really care as long as he stays close and will go back in. 

Notice who is on the wrong side of the fence?

Notice who is on the wrong side of the fence?

I remember a couple of years ago the cattle got out and were walking on the road by our farm. All I had to do was to tell them to come home girls and soon we had a parade in our yard with me leading the pack. You know as I’m writing this is sounds a little crazy doesn’t it? Too funny! 

Well when Daryl got home from work tonight he went straight out and wanted to haul manure from the cattle yard. It’s been such nice weather lately and before he could even get started tonight he had to see if the fields were too ‘greasy’. They would be OK for tonight so he worked until dark to get as many loads hauled as he could get. 

Daryl hauling manure tonight after work

Daryl hauling manure tonight after work

I took the photo of the day when I was getting some corn for the cattle. I had my camera with me after I took a picture of Giggles and so I snapped this one quick. It’s always so nice to have a fresh new pile of ground corn that was just milled a couple of days ago. It not only looks good but also smells pretty good. IMG_2754

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Just like riding a bike

Posted on March 30, 2015 by farm2011

I haven’t made candy for .. well a couple of months now and with Easter just around the corner and after I promised that I’d send a box to New York for Kyle, I thought I’d better get it in gear! First things first. What should I make? Well my Mom had made some of her famous Rose Mary bars and they were for sure going in the Easter box. Now if you’re wondering why they are called ‘Rose Mary bars’ well it’s a pretty simple story. The reason that they are called this is because my Aunt Rose Mary always made them when I was a kid and what better name to call them? As you can tell life in my world is pretty simple 🙂 Now not to get too caught up on these bars – but I don’t know too many other Mom’s that have made a specific bar that qualifies her to have shipped these bars Internationally! Yes Sir!! She has shipped her bars to China, United Emirates in Dubai, South Korea and now they will be also be shipped to the East Coast – New York. Not bad Ma.. not bad at all! So I’m going to publicly rename these bars to Ma’s Bars. You go girl!! 

Ma's bars

Ma’s bars

But what should I make? It had to be easy and also travel well. Shipping to New York can be either a 7 day trip or a 3 day trip. You just never know. So I finally decided on some chocolate peanut clusters and home made turtles. But I haven’t made either of these for a couple of months and I literally had to get out the recipe book. It felt kinda weird to be honest.

Diane's recipe for chocolate peanut clusters

Diane’s recipe for chocolate peanut clusters

Home made caramel pecan turtles all ready to go!

Home made caramel pecan turtles all ready to go!

Once they were both done and I didn’t run into any issues, it was time to pack the box. I didn’t make it too big and was able to get everything that I wanted into the box. I’ll head to the Post Office tomorrow on my lunch hour so it will get to the kids by Easter. Keep your fingers crossed!  While I was in the kitchen I kept hearing a whole lot of noise coming from outside. I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised because it is Spring and for some reason when Spring comes around – well so does all your machinery! Daryl was getting the planter out and some other equipment out to get it all washed up and ready for planting. Now doesn’t it seem like I just wrote about him doing this not so long ago? So here is the photo of the day – it’s called ‘Getting ready for Spring’DSCN9703

Posted in Candy, Farming | 2 Comments

The Boys – Sunday

Posted on March 29, 2015 by farm2011

What a great day today was!

It started out with William home for dinner at our house. Not normally do we have the chance for him to be home on the weekend and much less stay for a Sunday dinner. So of course I wanted to make sure that whatever I made was something that he would like.

I started out with baking some salmon that had lemons and a pepper coating on them. But if he wasn’t going to like that, I marinated some chicken breasts and had them on the grill.. you know just in case. For the potatoes I thin sliced them and slowly friend them with onions and then I made Daryl run to the gas station to see if they had any green beans for a green bean casserole. I don’t know why, but it always seems like in our house we’re missing something for this casserole. And it literally only has 4 things in it! And for dessert? Well I made some cookies, a batch of chocolate lava cup cakes, and rice krispie treats. I don’t think Daryl and I have eaten this good on a Sunday for a long time!

After dinner William had to head back to his apartment and we just kinda vegged out for awhile. I’m thinking our bellies were so full we couldn’t move to be honest!

Then we skyped with Kyle. YEA ! He made it safe to the States from Korea and even though he wasn’t home – he was closer than he’s been for awhile. And the time zone? Instead of having him 15 hours ahead of us – he was 1 hour! Yup, it was nice that his travels went well. He’ll be in New York for a couple of weeks and then back to Iowa.

Now that the day is almost over and it’s time to get ready for work tomorrow – I’m wondering if I could sneak in a batch of soap quick? Maybe not – but it was worth a shot!

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I’m going to take the plunge!

Posted on March 28, 2015 by farm2011

Today I had pretty big plans. I have been thinking about getting a new laptop now for .. well maybe about a year now. So with money for the purchase in my purse – I was ready to get to town and just do it. 

I’ve been really struggling with trying to decide if I should get a new laptop or just fix mine. In order to fix the one that I have, it’ll be over $100. Now that’s not the end of the world, but I don’t think that I want to put more money into it. I know that it’s pretty dumb not to just make up my mind – but getting a new laptop is kinda like getting a new phone. It takes a lot to get it set up just right! 

So in the mean time with my laptop I have to be so careful. Without the screen I have to hook it up to a monitor and if I move my hands just wrong, well I mess up pretty much everything that I was working on. My screen will go blank and I usually just end up erasing everything. yea.. not cool! 

Like I said -this was my goal today. Not to come home without a new laptop. 

Wow. That’s all I can say. By the time I got to the store  I sure had great ideas to purchase one and once I was in the store for only about 10 minutes I knew that I was in trouble. I had no clue which one that I wanted and finally gave up and walked back out again. 

So for now – this is what my laptop looks like and maybe I’ll figure out just which one that I’ll get by this weekend . Oh yea, it also looks like maybe I should dust my keyboard to this week 🙂DSCN9700

 

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Roamin’ Catholics

Posted on March 27, 2015 by farm2011

It’s just crazy that Lent is almost over! Wow!! I hardly made up my mind what I’m going to give up and just like that – Bam! it’s going to be over. 

And like in the previous years – we do fish fry tours throughout the Lent Season. Now come to think of it – maybe that’s why it goes by so fast? We have just the best time every week trying to come up with a place that were going to visit that is serving fish and it’s always a great time. We’ve gotten some pretty good suggestions from others that have been out and about and found some out of the way places to visit. We take turns driving every other week with my brother and his wife and it’s safe to say that we just never know where we’ll end up! 

This weeks fish fry on our Roamin’ Catholic tour was to head south east to a school in Strawberry Point Iowa. The school puts on a fish fry every year and it’s to raise money for things that they need. This years funds from the fish fry are going to new wresting mats and by the look of the crowd when we got there, I’m thinking that they were pretty successful in their fundraising. I had to laugh because one of the guys at our table where we were eating at asked us – where are you from? and then the next question was ‘how did you end up here? I think they knew we weren’t part of the local crowd. 

So now with only one more week left for Lent, it’ll soon be time for us to think about what we should be making ourselves on Friday nights. Humm.. I think they serve fish all year round in our town. Now that’s a great idea too! 

 

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My next adventure

Posted on March 26, 2015 by farm2011

I had this great idea today and guess what it is?

I decided that I like making soap so much, that I’m seriously thinking about doing a Craft Show this year. Yea.. who would have thought? Well, not me that’s for sure. I’m not really a craft show person, but I thought today that this is a great way to have someone buy my soap and me to get at least my cost out of it.

OK, I would like maybe to make some $$ with it, but honestly – I think it’s a fantastic idea.

So the next thing is to decide what should I name my Soap Company. Now here is where the second great idea comes in – the name of the soap Company is ‘ Life on the Farm’. Yup, I must have been eating my Wheaties this morning because I really like the whole way this is going.

Now to just figure out what soaps to make. So here is goes – I’m going to make soap that is named after stuff on our farm. An example is Squeaky Windmill (white fresh smelling soap) and Dirty Paws (a garden soap), one more… Barefoot in the grass (green soap with lemon grass)

So I’ve got what I’m thinking is a really good idea! Next thing now is to perfect my soaps. And no better way to do that then to start making them!

And first on the agenda is a milk, oatmeal, and honey soap.. the name of it  is Moooving Along. Get it? Moooo for the milk in it. Too funny!!

Check it out

A little soft when I unmolded it tonight

A little soft when I unmolded it tonight

Moooving Along just drying in the kitchen.

Moooving Along just drying in the kitchen.

Posted in Soap | 1 Comment

Mystery Photo 3-25-15

Posted on March 25, 2015 by farm2011

For this weeks Mystery Photo I’m going to give a clue: The item is made of metal

And here is the Photo Clue. Can you guess what it is? DSC_0436b

Posted in Wednesday's Challenge Photo | 2 Comments

Mystery Photo 3-18-15 Results

Posted on March 25, 2015 by farm2011

Once again, a lot of good guesses for the Mystery Photo from last week

So here is the clueDSC_0411a

And the answer was ……… DSC_0411

SMOOCHIE the cat!!!!

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Snow of the Robins’ tail

Posted on March 24, 2015 by farm2011

I can’t believe how many people haven’t heard of this old saying.

The saying goes : Spring will come when it snows on the Robins’ tail 3 times. So what that means is that once the Robin comes back, it will snow three times and then the winter will be all over.

So it’s snowed twice so far since the Robins been back and all we have to wait for is one more time. I decided after work to grab my camera and try to take a picture of one of these Robins. Yea.. no luck with me trying to find one.

But since I was outside just kinda hanging out, I decided to look for my Wednesday’s Mystery photo. I thought I had the perfect picture. I was hoovering down by the cow yard and just feeding apples to the cows and was ready to shoot the picture. I wanted to get a picture of the cows teeth. Now about now I’m guessing you’re thinking to yourself – WOW that is a great idea!! Well, not so great. This was my first picture.. no teeth – but not a bad picture anyway of No Ears. DSC_0427Then all of a sudden I wasn’t sure what was going on and then saw this coming at me!! Yea.. so this is my next picture.

No Ears licking my camera and caught me off guard!

Sassy licking my camera and she really caught me off guard!

It’s a picture of Sassy getting wayyyyyy  too close to my camera. Seriously who has cows lick their cameras? Well other than me of course!! And to top it off, I looked at my lens after it was invaded and had a lot of chewed hay to go with the friendly lick. Too funny!!

Since my picture taking tonight doesn’t include any Robins, I quick snapped this picture from our living room. DSC_0438It’s a picture to show that snow is on the horizon for tonight. Well at least it’ll be the 3rd snow for the Spring.  Now where is a Robin so he get’s his tail out here !

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Yesterday I wore flip flops…

Posted on March 23, 2015 by farm2011

Remember when I said something like ‘ bring on the snow’? Yea.. maybe I shouldn’t have said that.

Yesterday I wore flip flops home from the concert and seriously how much snow could we get. I mean they were talking 2 to 3 inches and that’s hardly nothing.

Well, this time they were wrong. Yup, really wrong! We must have got around 8 inches and a co-worker that lives North of us got 14 inches of snow. Now that’s a lot of snow!

They said that we need the moisture and that this will help out the soil. OK, I’ll give them that. But when I was laying in bed last night and hearing the snow/sleet hit the East window in our bedroom literally ALL night.. well I wasn’t thinking about the soil moisture so much! It turned out that we still have William’s Jeep and today was the day to put it to the test.

On my list of things to do this week, the one thing that I was going to do was to wash the house. But I’m thinking that it’s just going to have to wait. Don’t you think so too?

The cow yard was cleaned out just in time!

The cow yard was cleaned out just in time!

Spring was last Friday right?

Spring was last Friday right?

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