The Leaves are falling

The Leaves are falling, the leaves are falling... seems to be the countrysides cry....

Actually, it's just harvest time. Time to cut the beans and milo, hopefully the corn is already picked. Maybe you need to pick pumpkins. Maybe it's apples. Maybe, just maybe it's coffee time.  How 'bout Apple cider?
The list is growing... ha.

Okay, I"m getting a little sidetracked. The beans have been cut at our house.
 Thank goodness. My Country Boy has turned into Farmer Man Who Worries A Lot.

The wheat has been planted.
It's all good.

We have started feeding the cattle at our house. As we were getting a bale of hay I snapped this photo.
The blue sky and cool crisp air have been so refreshing!
Those 110 degree days are starting to fade from memory.
Just a little.

It's hard to be upset with sunshine on your face and the cool breeze messing up your hair.

I'm sure that's what my girls think. Here they are, all ready for Homecoming week!

The fall season is full of beauty. This is the sunrise...

My plants aren't dead yet. My pumpkins haven't become mush. All is well.

Wishing everyone a wonderful Fall Harvest.
May you enjoy the season to the full.
I'm having a cup of coffee...

Happy Fall Ya'll!   :)

Hot summer countrytime

Well, It's been awhile. The farm has been here and so have I. I guess I just haven't had much to say. Probably because I'm too hot. It's too hot to do anything. Let alone farm. Geez. Mr. Country Boy did go out and chop weeds with a corn knife the other day. It was only 102 or so that afternoon. I know why he did it... but why did he do that?
Hmm, the heat effected his decision making skills. I'm sure of it.
Who else in their right mind does that anyway?
We don't know.
Well, we did have some fun early this summer. We went fishing....

This is our friend Al. The fish he caught are on the right... the fish the rest of us caught are on the left. Okay, so yes he had a good day. And there's a picture to prove it. The end.
Ha. (Can you tell we haven't stop hearing about it since?... Remember that time..... oh my)
There was some wheat harvesting that happened around here too.

I think there was more visiting about harvesting than harvesting at this point. We had some hail damage on our wheat. It had to be discussed I"m sure.
It all came out fine. Thank goodness it was discussed about first.
Darling daughter #2 had a birthday the first part of June and big sister baked her a cake.
Of course I had to get a picture of that.
Proof of sisterly love!

Darling daughter #1 did a good job! A camo cake... who would have thought? :)
The cows are still hanging around here.

Gosh, You'd think we fed them or something.
Actually, they are out to pasture. C.B. just has a plan.
He has fresh water, mineral and salt blocks up in the corral. They come up quite regularly to get their tasty treats. Some day this fall they will come up and ... whammo..C.B. will shut the gate. That will be that. He is just too smart.
C.B. is just too handy too. He can do anything. He did this...

That, my friends is a beautiful new sidewalk.
C.B. didn't like the old one. So, one day he decided to change it.
Voila....  (don't look at my ugly broom I forgot to move.) Oh dear.
C.B. has actually had some time to do some other things too.
The screened in porch is so awesome I think I could rent it out for parties now!
I don't have a picture of that yet though. It's coming.
The current heat wave is, well... it is hot. ... ha.
There's been so many days over a hundred now we've lost count.
I think it's over 12. Maybe it's been 10. No, it has to be at least 14.
There's more in store I guess. That's what they say.
Who is "they" and how do "they" know... that's what I want to know.
At least in the country it doesn't seem to be as hot as in town.
Our little town has just been hot.
We're on our own schedule out here you know... it's country time!
It still hot though....

Stay cool! :)

Super Cool

The past month has been a flurry of activity. The nice weather has everyone out and about. Including me! I've been out. Out of commission, out of touch and out of my mind. haha.
So far, Country Boy has only had 3 or 4 injuries.
Darling daughter #1 went to prom.
Darling daughter #2 won 3 awards at an FFA banquet.
I've only done 32 loads of laundry, cooked 12 meals (haven't been home) and planted a little garden.
That's it.
Nothing else happening.
ha.
Okay, so C.B. had concrete smash his ankle, an auger fall on his arm and an accident involving his wrist. Nothing fatal. Not much blood. Just soreness and stubbornness. That sums him up.
I don't have any pictures either. Man.
Now this last weekend was fun..... this is darling daughter #1:

I think a good time was had by all at the "Empire State of Mind" prom and the "All About Tonite" after-prom. C.B. and I helped with the after prom party and I've still not recovered. Something about being out until 4:30 in the morning messes up the sleeping schedules.
Oh man.
Now for #2.... daughter that is...

They were all so happy to get their rewards.
Good job kids!!
Now for the Super Cool stuff....
The cooler than cool stuff...
I just happened to be home.. it truly was a wonder.
And I heard Lucy .. she was barking around in the yard so of course an investigation was required.
AAhhh yes, she's just barking at the airplane.

The airplane buzzing by..
the cropduster guy.

It was hard to get his picture.
It just happened so quick.

You can even see the spray...

Ok.. so everthing that's happened has been super cool.
It's the little things .. and the big things.
Oh yeah, since the wheat is getting sprayed I'll have to go get a picture of that now.
C.B. has been gathering information from other local farmers and the consensus is that there could possibly be an early harvest.
Bet you hadn't heard that one before.
lol.

Super Cool.

Our Hearts are Full

Spring. AAhhh, nothing like a windy spring day in Kansas. The temperatures have been in the 70's. Even a few 80's. It's just been beautiful. The tulips are almost blooming, the trees have little leaves on them and the animals are frisky.
The farm has come to life. We had a new baby calf a couple weeks ago. It's so cute running and jumping around. The birds are back. And Country Boy has been working around like crazy. He fits right in. That's what this whole blog was going to be about until yesterday.
Yesterday really got crazy.
Let me tell you about it.
It was an average normal day until mid afternoon. C.B. had decided to do some work in the pasture, fixing creek crossings. Which had gone well for him until he got the skid loader stuck.
Yes, stuck in the creek.
In the mire and the muck.
You see, there's a creek that runs through our farm. It winds around. It divides up. It becomes two separate creeks. It becomes one again. It's a maze of creek beds and trees and stuff.
The thing about it is that it is spring fed. One of them doesn't ever go dry. (don't ask me which one, I'm already confusing myself.)
Anyway, this day that was the problem.
When C.B. throws bog boots at me as soon as he walks in the door, that is my hint.
He wants me to put them on.  haha.
So out the door I went.
We hopped in the truck and he took me to the sight of the problem and I saw this:

Well, ok. We hooked up chains to the truck and the back of the loader and started in.
A couple hours later it looked like this:

The bucket is now buried. I think we broke a few sets of chains by this point. We started calling for help. People started coming and the work kept on....

The mud and the muck just wasn't going to give up it's prize without a fight. I'm not sure of the events in the next few hours. People kept coming to help. Equipment kept showing up. Poor C.B. just felt terrible. I think he just felt so bad about getting it stuck in the first place. Then you feel bad inconveniencing people when you ask them to help. If you notice the cab, C.B. sat in there most of the evening covered in water.

Some of these pictures aren't too good. I was snapping photos with my phone while running around. I was in the creek for awhile trying to help move rocks so the water would flow downstream instead of into the cab.

Hours later we had 3 tractors and a back hoe and several men running around trying to get that darn skid loader out. We had kids, dogs and watchers too. I held a dog and ran around and watched. Then I would just run around.
It looked bad from every angle.

It just kept getting worse. C.B. was in there. Earlier my Father in law was in there. They had to get in and out by using the back window.
Well, by the grace of God, no one was hurt and we finally got it out.

Thank you to all our friends and family who helped!!
Our hearts are full.
It's times like these that the farm is the best place to live.
Friends will drop everything at the drop of a hat to help another.
Family is always close by.
We are blessed!

A Winter Day

There's nothing like a nice winter day. The sky was clear and the sun was shining. There was a hint of smoke in the air.
And Country Boy asked me to help him with a project.
It doesn't get any better than that.
C.B. usually does not ask me for help. Therefore, it means it must be a pretty big project!
I asked what we would be doing and he replied there were just a few things he needed done in the shed. (Which Shed?) Good Grief. Oh yeah, ok, the old Grainery shed. Got it.
I made a pot of coffee and started gathering my supplies.
It wouldn't be good if I went somewhere without my phone or camera. haha.
I skipped out to the shed with a pot of coffee and some cups thinking it was going to be a great afternoon. Then I saw this:

C.B. was already out there working and I spied a scaffolding. WHat??
Oh boy.

I asked how it was going.. cause it was the polite thing to do.
C.B. said it great. He just wanted me to climb the scaffolding and hold up a heavy light fixture so he could screw it in the ceiling.

No big deal.
Now, I didn't get a good picture of the scaffolding itself, but just so you know, it has wheels on it.
Yes, it does. So you can move it easily and push it around and stuff.
I was going to be on that thing.   Oh geez.
I'm not afraid of heights. Not really.
I'm not afraid to work... not usually.
I just didn't want to look down when I got up there.
It made my tummy feel funny.

I just didn't know why C.B. felt like he had to have lights out here in this old shop.
I mean, goodness, if it was dark out he could just go in the house.

We had lots of help.

Lucy is Miss Curious and would whine whenever I would climb up... But Waylon.. well, he didn't really move much. lol.

We had lots of things to do before we could pull that darn heavy light fixture up there, and C.B. made a mess...

But, it cleaned up ok.

Allrighty then,  it's time for a break. My favorite part...

We sat around on things and I let my feet dangle while we discussed the history of this ole' shed.
You see, it's been a work in progress for 18 years.
C.B. had to clean it out, take the insides out, and pour a concrete floor. Then he added interior walls and organizational things. It's been a spare time project for all these years and now he thinks he needs lights to keep on working on it. I don't know what he's thinking.
There's some little handprints in the concrete to remind us of the girls when they were little.
Kinda made me tear up. Golly, and where were they now when we needed all this help??
haha.
Teenagers are never home. You should know this by now.

Anyway....

C.B. got his lights up and all is right with the world.
They even work.
He had to go out after dark last night and test them out.
I decided it was alright.
He can have some lights out there because not only will he be able to see what he was doing...

So would I.

Let there be light!  :)

One of those days

Have you ever had one of those days? One of those days you wished would have gone different... could do over or never even happened??
Yeah, I had one of those days a couple days ago. I had to wait to talk about it.
I had to make sure it was really over. Didn't want to jinx myself by discussing the matter. Ha.
It started out a lovely morning. I worked out. Made breakfast for the family. Got ready and made it to work on time. (That always starts the day out right).
It was a busy day at work. Which was a good thing. It really makes the day go by quick.
Well, I had put supper in the crockpot before I left so I was ready to go home and eat and put my feet up. Of course that didn't happen. I got home to figure out that I had turned the crockpot on but had forgotten to plug it in. Oh my.
The next morning didn't go well either. There were still bad vibes in the air because of the crockpot.
Anyway, I made it to work on time. That in itself was a miracle. I spilled coffee on myself and all over the floor chasing the dog that didn't want to go out, forgot my phone and halfway to town realized it and had to go back and get it, then I barely missed hitting a tire in the road. That was all before 9 am.
Not a good sign.
Work was fine. Thank goodness. (As a hairdresser you'd hate for me to say that something went wrong.) lol
It was after that.. I had left work early because I needed to attend a funeral. I think it was weighing on my mind... because I forgot to make arrangements to pick up one of the kids, had coffee spilled completely down my front again.. and then I couldn't find anything to wear.
Life just catches up with you sometimes.
I made it through the funeral. I felt so bad .. it was for a dear friends mother.
The rest of the afternoon was just crazy.
Dishes were staring at me, the laundry was hollering and there was food to fix.
So I sat down.
I just had to sit down.
Obviously my brain was not functioning properly.
I have recently ordered vitamins for this.
Oh dear.
I lost my camera usb cord.
I couldn't find my notes from work.. (for my other Real Estate job)
I broke the butter dish.
Need I say more??
And all my kids can say is that they're hungry.
They are always hungry... unfortunately it's never for what I"ve fixed ...
Ok... the 24 hour brain freeze was just about over.
I fixed supper... and went to bed.
That's it.
It's never the big things that cause me such stress.
It's all the little annoying things.
Thank goodness it's over.

That's all I've got to say about that.

Happy New Year!

As I'm sitting here contemplating all the things that have happened last year.. I'm eating caramels and banana bread trying not to remember my New Years Resolution. Which of course is to get into better shape. Actually my resolution is not to have a get into better shape resolution next year!
Anyway,...
The very best thing that happened 1 year ago was the purchase of our little farm.
It's given Country Boy all kinds of things to do and work on.
A reason to tinker.. and to buy things.. (it's a deduction you know)..
And it's given him a place to hideout so I can't find him.

Now he always has something to do.
Not that he didn't before.
It's just validated now.
We are so thankful for some dirt to dig in,
our family and friends,
our health,
and our jobs.
And our puppies.
ha.
(They seem to be the entertainment around here when the girls aren't home.)

Sometimes in all the chaos of life, I forget about all these things.
It's too cold to sit on my front porch and ponder.
Although I did go for a walk last weekend when the temp. made it to 57 degrees!

Well, this year definitely had it's share of work and worry, fun, good and bad times.
I can't remember the bad ...
but I'm sure there was some somewhere.
Anyhow,
Now it's just all a memory. A moment of time that has passed.
We're looking forward..
We're anticipating greatness...
And.. we are wishing you all Blessings in the year to come.
May God Bless you and Keep you and may His light shine upon you....
and give you Peace.
Happy New year!