Cuttin' Time

It was cuttin' time this last weekend for our Alfalfa. I don't know who was more excited, the dog or all the birds! The barn swallows come out in swarms and fly low above the alfalfa to get any bugs, and the dog runs along the edge to get any rats or mice. Oh my.

Waylon

There's Waylon on patrol. You can see how tall the alfalfa was.. it was taller than the dog! All I could see was the white tip of his tail as he was running around.

The aroma of fresh cut alfalfa can't be beat. It's like a sweet song hanging in the air. The barn swallow kinda gets in the way though. They dart here and there and I just know they are going to dive bomb my head. If I could find the one trying to build a nest on my front porch I'd take care of him!!

There's Waylon following the tractor. The wheels on the tractor go round and round. haha.

Here comes Country Boy again. If you look close you can see a darn bird in this picture. C.B. had it made. It was fairly cold out and he was nice and toasty in the cab.

I like the swather. It has a cadence all it's own. You could almost dance or march to the beat. Of course the birds, dog and other wildlife wouldn't stare at you if you did that.

C.B. almost ran over me... not really. I just wanted to get closer. The fragrance was quite nice right there.

The rows are looking good!

The fence posts look good too!

There's the field all done out the tractor window. C.B. felt sorry for me and gave me a ride. I looked real pathetic out there freezing with my camera I guess.

Here we are coming up the driveway. Oh my, the tractor window isn't very clean. Oh dear, wonder if we can make it. I better not say anything though. I don't have time to be tractor window washer. I have things to do. I just know I can find something to do!

This ends the first cuttin'. Baling is next. The process is very complex.

Should we bale the alfalfa in small bales, should we bale the alfalfa in big round bales? Whatever shall we do. Should we rake it, or should we just take it? Maybe we'll just bale it in a few days. HHmmm... the saga shall continue!

Saturday Morning Coffee

There's nothing better than a lazy Saturday morning and a nice steaming cup of coffee to go with it. I like to sit on my porch in the morning and watch the steam roll around above my coffee cup. Unfortunately this morning that didn't happen. I could have tried it but I would have had cold coffee in a matter of seconds. Who likes cold coffee? It just doesn't have the same effect. It's.. well .. it's cold. Yuck!
Also, coffee just isn't the same by itself. It's meant to be paired with something. Something like this:

Chocolate chip cookies

When someone says, "Hey, want to go grab a cup of coffee?" I'm not always thinking about the coffee. I'm thinking... Hhmmm, what would we have with it?! It's the accompaniment that goes with everything.

Famous Nut Roll

This is the best thing ever to go with your cup of coffee. It's a Nut Roll from our local bakery. Now, you might be thinking so what? But I'm here to tell you that this is it. This is the best thing since sliced bread. Since the invention of the washing machine, since the pairing of driving and wearing sunglasses. Since the beginning of time, this has to be the number one best thing ever invented to go with a cup of coffee! Coffee empires count on something like this to make them complete.

Grandpa Ray

This was my donut delivery dude this morning. (sorry, the kid's are rubbing off on me!) There was a lot of visiting, laughing and joking going on around here during coffee drinking time. The donuts made it complete.

Yum!

See the cinnamon swirl inside? Buddy the Elf would have been a whole different Elf if he would have known about these! I tried to make the coffee and donut last as long as I could...

I just couldn't help myself. As my donut got smaller the stories being told around the table got bigger. Is there some sort of connection here? I think I even felt my waistline expand. I know it wasn't from the laughing, talking and coffee. It just couldn't be. It's a good thing this doesn't happen every Saturday morning. I would have to make my coffee divorce it's accompaniment a.s.a.p. It adds up... it adds up I tell you.
Coffee is great. Coffee is the life blood that fuels the dreams of champions. I heard that in a movie once. It's true. Coffee's other accompaniment is good too. Friends and family are the best accompaniments of all. I mean really, what's a cup of coffee all by itself?

Purple

What's happened to me? I'm not really sure. I just realized there's a lot of purple around here.

I look out the window and see purple everywhere I look. I really shouldn't say this but... I've always considered purple to be an old lady color. Kinda like the Red Hat club. I think the hats should be purple instead. Purple was  my grandma's favorite color. If we bought her a gift and it had purple on it she loved it. If it didn't she would say "Boy that sure would be pretty if it had some purple in it."

These lilacs are purple, it's just a different shade. It's all about the shading of the color you know.

These Iris are my favorite. They transport me back to my childhood whenever I walk by them. No, I wasn't the crazy kid who loved flowers. It's because they smell like grape koolaid. They smell exactly like grape koolaid. The old fashioned kind. You know the koolaid you add a cup of sugar to.

This one smells like lemonade. Yes, I went out and smelled it just to make sure. It smells like koolaid lemonade. (try typing that real fast ten times!)  Okay, let's leave the koolaid section now.

You see, these things attract more than people. When I walk out on my deck now all I hear is a buzzing sound. It's these darn flowers full of butterflies and bees. Goodness, you can't even hear yourself think around here. (which might be a good thing, thinking for me has gotten me into trouble recently.. haha)

See back in those trees... Yes, those are wild purple phlox. I found them on my walk yesterday. I'm surrounded by purple.

The short green plants in front of our sign out by the flag pole bloom purple too. My Grandparents gave them to me. Actually most of my flowers are from dear family and friends. Which is a good thing. Maybe I should change my perspective about being surrounded by purple because of the way all these things came together I'm actually surrounded by love. Oh no, it might be by the love of purple. I better get some new colors around here.

Details

Can I have a do over? You know, start over again. This day has been crazy! Have you ever woke up in the middle of the night, sat straight up in bed and hollered "oh no". Well, that didn't happen to me. I"m sure I giggled and rolled over at some point in the night though. I did wake up and groan and open one eye (just to make sure I was really awake) and realize that my asparagus was planted upside down. Oh no. Oh Yes, yes it was. I had to go replant the darn stuff for the 3rd. time.
Then my morning went a little wacky. I fixed breakfast and kicked everyone out the door and was going to post on my blog. Computer down. It's like saying Blackhawk down. Well, we are a multi-computer household so I thought I"d log onto the other one. No luck. Nothing comes up on the screen at all. Oh Geez.
Well I needed to hurry to town anyway. I don't remember why but I did. I got halfway to town and remembered I left my phone at home. How could I function without it? (I was expecting a work related call.) I turned around and went home to get it. Good thing too, I had left the coffee pot on. Oh my.
So I get halfway to town again and spill hot coffee all the way down my front. Wow. I got to town on time and stopped by the office. I told them I sure hoped I wasn't contagious.
So... no pictures for the blog. :(   Nothing but details.
The computer guy is coming to my house on Saturday. Can I wait that long? Can I take it till then with no internet?? I"m going through withdrawl already. I'm using my work computer to post this. (Don't tell anyone.)
Sometimes it's those little details that really get ya........

The Asparagus Experience

Everyone needs a laugh for the day. You do. It's required for stress free living. For living the good life. Well I think I can supply that for you today.
It all started with a lovely Mother's Day. I stopped by to see my Mom and it's always filled with  lots of visiting, giggling and eye rolling. (I have 2 teenagers you know. I have to roll my eyes some.)

I'm not the goofy mom on the right. It just isn't right! Oh ok... there's a better picture:

I don't know what happened. It shrunk. It's crazy. It's unmentionable so anyway,
Later in the day, my in-laws and some dear friends came out for supper. We grilled some steaks and ate like pigs. :)  As all good farmer's wives do, my MIL and I walked around the yard looking at flower beds and soon made it to the garden. I've passed the inspection so far. haha.
Earlier this spring, Country Boy and I decided we wanted to start an asparagus bed. It's important. Green Veggies are the substance of life. I found some asparagus and I thought it was going to be great. I read the package carefully, after all I've been gardening now for almost 20 years. I know how to read the directions by now. So I planted the darn things 3 weeks ago and they still looked like this:

Yeah, the package said I would soon have green shoots coming up and to continue to put more dirt around the shoots as they got bigger. ..   ok....

As you can see the only thing getting green are the weeds in the background. Great.
Well, As the garden tour continues I bring my MIL over to the asparagus bed and ask her what she thinks the problem could be. **Dead Silence**  oh no.  Then, as she is trying not to laugh, she tells me she thinks I have a problem. The asparagus just doesn't look right. Yeah, I know. What in the world could it be I ask her. Well, she says, for starters I should put the roots in the ground. Put the roots in the ground. Put the roots in the ground.

The laughing was extremely loud at this point. I had to take my glasses off I was laughing so hard. No wonder I didn't have any green asparagus shoots. The root is required to be in the ground before it will start to grow. Mine were flapping in the wind like little flags. oh boy.

Kathy is laughing while covering the roots.

Well, we laughed and laughed and laughed. And covered the roots.

Buying new asparagus plants may be in my future. Maybe not. I'm waiting for green shoots again. We'll see what happens. I still have the instructions somewhere. I saved them. I just now decided I'm not going to find them. I like to think I read them right the first time.
Turns out C.B. didn't think the asparagus looked right either. He just didn't want to say anything. Hhhmmm....
Turns out our friend Alan didn't think they looked right either. How many people saw our asparagus roots flapping in the wind?? What else around here doesn't look right that no one has mentioned to me yet?
Well, I don't know. The bird war is still going on though. After the asparagus experience the bird war may be looking a little brighter.

Mr. Owl

The weather has been really nice the past few days. The flowers are all planted, the garden is planted and the birds have really been going crazy. One bird in particular.

Barn Swallow

This bird is obsessed and possessed with building a nest on my front porch.

See the light fixture up by the window? That's the objective here. That bird wants to have it and I don't want him to. Did you know that a barn swallow can eat up to 1,000 bugs and mosquitoes a day? Yeah, I didn't care either.

Mr. Owl

We have a ton of owls in our creek and we can hear them hooting just about every night. C.B.'s grandfather grew up on a place called 'Hoot Owl Holler' and so we thought that would be fitting for our place too. Well, I bought Mr. Owl a couple years ago and a purple plastic snake from Dollar store to help me in my war against the barn swallow. Apparently you aren't suppose to shoot swallows. That was my first choice of action. My purple snake didn't help either. I guess birds aren't color blind.

I tried hanging a dish towel around the light once. That didn't do it. The darn bird just pooped on it.

Just look at that mud on there. The bird..  he's just a brat.... he just keeps trying to build his mud nest. It's not going to work. I have Mr. Owl now. He's sitting right on the porch for all the birds to see.
Whenever I go out the front door the bird is there watching me. If I venture out too far he starts chirping at me. I just know he's cussing me out. Cause that's what I want to do to him every time I walk out the door. I do not want bird droppings by my front door. I do not Mr. Bird. When I go to water my flowers by the front porch the bird swoops above my head and dive bombs me, chirping like a mad fool. Since shooting cannot be an option, I thought about getting a tennis racket. A softball bat just won't cut it. I need more square footage.

He's not very big but he's a big problem for me. When you drive by my house and see someone running down the sidewalk with their arms flailing wildly above their head, they are not crazy. The bird made them do it. I'm planning my next offensive. Mr. Owl is helping but he's just not taking care of it. Maybe I can put petroleum jelly all around my light fixture... haha. Maybe I can try moth balls, what about bird spray.....
I need another cup of coffee. Who knew your arms could get so tired just walking out to the driveway..........

Before and After

Yay.. we finally got a little bit of rain last night. My country boy was pretty excited about that. He's very excitable. I asked him this morning how much rain we did get.. and he said not very much. Not enough.

So, for some reason all that made me think of this:

And then I thought of this:

Rain is just amazing isn't it. lol. It can do all kinds of things......

Amazing things....

I went flower shopping last week and of course flower turned into flowers. They multiply. They double, they triple and they fill their pots. They fill the air full of such wonderful sweetness. (We need all we can get with a stinky dog, cat and kids.)

Next:

Before and After. Before breakfast I was starving and after I"m not. Before the day begins I'm full of energy and after it's about done I'm not.

Before my flower pot were empty and after they're not!
Before I wrote this I was somehow dissatisfied, unfulfilled, distracted, and smelling bad...
And now I"m not!  :)