Posts

Spring Flings and things

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 The daffodils are really blooming now.  This is much earlier than usual, it has been so unseasonably warm.  I love these double flower ones.  I transplanted them from the old homestead on the back ridge over to here.  Daffodils are not native to the US, so I often think of who would have planted them over there on the old homestead.  Was in the sisters who last lived there...up until 1968, or was it the original Howard clan who homesteaded the place?  We shall never know...not in this world anyway.   Yesterday I got 3 bags of cow manure/compost and started working on my iris beds; combing the dead leaves and trash out of them.  Here in the bed closest to the house is this lovely flower.  I forget what it's called at the moment.  In any case it was one that was given to me when my mom died a couple years ago.  She would have loved it; she loved all flowers.   So far none of my irises have started to shoot up a bloom stalk, but they are usually a few weeks behind the daffodils.  Eve

Walking

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 So this photo is apropos of nothing really, just something to stick in here.  The only thing it really has to do with anything is that I see the sun setting behind this tree most every evening while I am walking.   During the six years I cared for my mom I really neglected my health and, as a result, gained a deal of weight.  The only exercise I really got was dairy chores, and they were not significant enough to do much practical good.  Unless you count tossing random buckets of grain into feed bunks and wrestling the occasional new calf to get a bottle into it.  But there wasn't much consistent effective exercise going on.   I have blogged on here about exercise before, and maybe that humorous entry is one of the ones I listed to the side.  But here is my practical entry on the subject.  I have found it difficult to get consistent exercise, even with gardening, due to random reasons...mostly excuses.  But the majority of the property here is dedicated to livestock and is, in sea

Beef Farming Happenings

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 This little fellow wouldn't cooperate with me for a good photo, but he is the first of our calves to go to a new home.  Gary registered all of our pure bred Angus calves.  This one is going to a place near Elkland, MO to a guy who is raising him to breed his little herd of Angus.   We have two Angus/Holstein cross calves; both heifers I think...one might be a bull, I am not sure.  We are not sure what we are going to do with them, but they will be privately sold.  As in; we will not take them to the sale barn.  Gary listed the calves as for sale on Craig's List yesterday morning and got a call just an hour or two later.  There is also a different guy who was interested in buying all of the registered bulls as he raises and sells them himself.  But he wasn't going to come look about them until the end of the week.  I'm kind of glad the guy got this first bull yesterday.  I like to know they are going straight to their new permanent home from here.  I've not let myse

Just a Random Photo

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 Sometimes I go through my camera pictures on this phone and wonder; What in the world was I trying to get a photo of with this picture?  Usually I have to think a bit, but then I figure it out. I took this picture above when I was out walking in the fenced in garden.  This weed is the first to bloom in Spring, so the bees just flock to it.  I took this because somewhere in there is a honey bee and I was so pleased to see her flying around collecting pollen.   Just last week Gary was up cleaning out around the old Homestead house on the back ridge with the bulldozer.  He pushed an old dead tree over and discovered it was a honey bee tree.  He was heartbroken that he'd done that to them.  I told him that they would find a new place and recover.  The queen would find a new dead tree and they'd make a new hive.  I have heard that they will even transfer all of the honey over to it.  Those old dead trees can't stand there forever and must eventually fall apart on the bees anywa

Happy Calves

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 Yesterday Gary had me come out and help him at the new corral.  We set up the new corral a few months ago and now he has added a squeeze chute on to it for the purpose of sorting, vaccinating and what not.  Gary attached a scale to the chute to weigh them as well.  He wanted me to help him set up and calibrate the scale.   It wasn't hard, so it didn't take long.  Then he wanted to test it, so he got some feed and tolled the herd up to the corral.  Most of the calves wouldn't go in...that would be this group here that you see.  A couple of them did though, and we got them in the chute and weighed.  Calf #286 weighed 575 pounds, and calf #284 weighed 560 pounds. Both of those are the calves from the Angus/Holstein cross cows.  They are not registered.  The other calves have been registered with the Angus association. I think they are all so stinking cute!

Certified

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  After 3 months of dinkering around I finally have a certificate to be a substitute teacher in Missouri.  It is, of course, my own fault it took so long.  I really ought to have called in to the main admin office and asked about the whole application process from the get go; but doing things in a logical manner has never been my M.O.; hence my rather disorganized life.  But, I have persevered and conquered; at least to this point. In December I talked over with Gary about my becoming a substitute teacher in our county here.  Gary was for it, so I did what the random FB posts say to do; went onto the school's website and clicked the link to apply for a job.  Then I waited maybe 3 weeks to be contacted.   *crickets* So I started asking around, asked a friend at the admin office, where I should have started in the first place.  She advised that they never did get my online application.  So I got a paper packet application from her and learned from her coworker who handles such that I

Off and Running...or walking, as it were...

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 The past 2 or 3 Saturday mornings a few people from church have been meeting at the church and going running.  Today 2 walkers joined the group; that would be me and my neighbor.  Another of the runners joined us in walking.  A---  took this photo of the runners with her phone, as she was in the center of the road.   The runners went 2 miles down the road and then back for a total of 4 miles, we walkers just went one mile back and forth for a total of 2 miles.  It was fun.  But I really need new shoes.  I just wore my old broken down shoes and now my feet hurt.   It took us walkers a bit over 40 minutes to do our two miles.  The road is pretty rolling, as you can see.  You don't really notice it that much when you are driving, but when you are on foot it's a bit of a pull up and down them all. After 3 days or so of rain and clouds it was nice and sunny today; fairly crisp actually.  It was in the upper 30s at 8 AM when we met.  But we were pretty well warmed up by the time we