Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

otherwise known as "Curious George," the monkey who belongs to the man with the yellow hat, but called "Carrie" by Ellen, made a pretty big showing this Chistmas. Thank you to Portland Aunt for the package we got a day or so ago. In it was a Curious G. book AND stuffed version of the fellow. Ellen loves them. A friend of mine from CA also sent a version of CG that runs on batteries; push his tummy and he yawns and plays a few bars of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. He is dressed for bed and has a blankie and a teddy. Ellen loves him, but won't touch him yet because she is suspicious of a monkey that plays music, I suppose. She has quite the monkey collection; a blue long armed affair that hoots when you push his tummy (from MO grandma), one with magnets in his hands a feet who perches on the fridge (she loves to play with him on occasion too-from her aunt and uncle in Portland), a little red monkey her dad got free at a yard sale (it's one of those McDon...

At least I believe it is Monday. I am having trouble keeping track, I know it's been a long time since I have blogged. Oops. The theme for NaBloPoMo for January is CHANGE, but I think I will skip it this time and just blog when I can. So far we have had a good holiday season. Christmas was nice. Hubby and I had our usual Christmas "discussion" centered around whether Santa Claus really exists or not. He says Santa DOES exist because he brings him a "big weenie" every year. I say; "Bosh! The summer sausage that you get every year is from your sister who tries to disguise her sickenly perfect writing on the tag. Besides I saw her bring it in from the car when they brought their gifts down here. There were never any gifts from Santa under my tree when we were kids because our parents were more realistic." "Ha!" he replies, "You never got gifts from Santa because he doesn't deliver to doubters." And on and on. Then on Chri...

Here's hoping you have a wonderful, blessed holidays. News: Yesterday we were supposed to have a horrible snow/ice/freezing rain type of day, but it went south of us. We got a bit of rain, but it warmed up and things thawed out instead of freezing up. Thank the Lord. It has cooled off again today, and a few snow flakes actually came down out there a bit ago, but hopefully the worst is over with. I am not one of those white Christmas admirers; if I have to do chores I'd rather it be dry. Yesterday hubby had to pull a bull calf and had a first happen. This was one of those where I knew from the beginning it was going to be an issue. When I went up to feed the dry cows one was in labor with just one huge hoof and a huge nose coming out. Hubby went up later and still no progress so he brought her down here. One of the calf's legs was folded back so hubby had to shove the whole calf back into the cow and then try to get both legs coming out at once. (This sounds easy ...

But, oh well. It wasn't wise to sign up for it this month anyway. I am just so burned out on computer stuff, anyway. Let's see...what's been happening? Not too much. We got a little bit of ice and snow, just barely enough to cover the ground, but still plenty to ice the roads up for 3 days or so, they cancelled school for the kids Mon-Thurs. It warmed up and is raining now. More ice on the way though. This morning I had to catch a couple of the littlest heifers we have with the open heifer herd up in the winter pasture. This is always a challenge because the bigger ones usually chase the small ones out of the corral...meaning the little ones don't get anything to eat, and we have trouble catching them to bring them back to where they CAN get food. It was pitch black when I went up there this morning to do this job. They weren't around the corral so I had to bang buckets on the bunks and holler for them. Then I heard them coming, and if I hadn't known ...

*sigh* I can think of lots of things to be thankful for, but I don't have the time or patience to make them entertaining. I will be thankful if we don't get the nasty weather they say is headed our way tonight. I don't like freezing rain one bit. Maybe sometime this week I will be able to post something worth reading, but if we don't have any power I guess I will have to deal with that too. Right now I have a little one wanting to watch Frost again. Bye

Here's another fly by night post....nothing to post, just making a post to mark time. We went to Camdenton to pick up the new truck. Ellen didn't get a full nap so she has been cranky all day, meaning that I have had to endure. No one at church is very encouraging about this Terrible Two stuff; they all say it lasts forever. Oh, la la...I am going to go get a shower now while hubby and daughter watch Frosty the Snowman on here. Have a nice weekend everyone.

They always come around just when you need them. Like putting on your jacket in fall for the first time since early spring and finding a $20 bill in the pocket. That's all for today. I'm bushed.

It never fails to amaze me what my daughter can teach me without even trying; she just is her little self and does what she does and I learn so much. For instance: Did you know that a whole roll of paper towels unrolled off the cardboard makes a nice frothy pile in the front room that's about as high as my knee? How about the fact that Aleene's Clear Gel Tacky Glue can be used to repair a rip in the wall paper that was about as long as my forearm? I learned these things today. I also learned that I have a pretty good sense of humor because all I did was laugh. What's more fun than learning? I dunno. I am sure Ellen will teach me many more things as time goes on. I will keep you all informed.

Well, we did a quick rehearsal tonight at church, with all the parents watching. The kids did much better at their parts...at least my older teens did better. The little one were still squirrelly. But they were a bit better, I guess. I look forward to the end of the whole thing. No time to write a serious post tonight. Adios

It takes pretty good pictures and is fun to play with. This morning I did a few Christmas pics of Ellen. I was going to do more but she got restless, and she kept wanting to see the pictures and getting up to look at them in the camera. It didn't help to explain that I hadn't had a chance to take any of her yet. Plus she kept wanting to play with the gifts. I guess I ought to write more about the dairy, but there just isn't much going on right now. Hubby is having to put out hay most every day. He is also busy getting in firewood for us. I haven't had a new bottle calf in well over a month. That little bitty calf is really coming along, I was afraid she'd croak on us, but she's really feisty. Hubby has decided that to up our production he wants to find a dairy with good quality milkers and buy a few Holstein heifer calves, in the 500 lb range. Then get rid of some of ours. We'll see what we can find.

Mondays are as sure to come around as spring after winter, fall after summer, the sun after the moon. You can count on them showing up pretty regular-like. They give you a new chance to begin again, to start anew as it were, to write something original on the slate of your life. OK. So I am getting desperate. It is more difficult that I thought it would be to think up a new thing every day, something that isn't as obvious as the...well...obvious "I am thankful for" things. Ellen is beginning to parrot everything we say, and to tell what has happened to her in her recent past. We are having to watch what we say closely. I think hubby was rather put out when she started saying "buttsy." She said it in front of his mom and he said darkly, "Well, she didn't learn it from me." *sigh* I just giggled inside but didn't say anything. Then this morning I woke her up out in the barn after chores (she takes a nap out there during AM chores) and she...

Today was the annual Holiday potluck at church. As always they had great food, and good company of course. The main drawback was that my calm, bashful-in-public child was a screaming mimi the whole time. We'd no sooner get her calmed down than some well-meaning soul would get up in her face and ask her what was wrong and she'd go off again. *sigh* The pastor especially has a knack for setting her off. Poor guy, he's really nice and loves the kids, but she just wasn't going to tolerate any sympathy from anyone today. What was wrong was she hadn't had her nap out and she, as her father put it, woke up on the wrong side of the pew. Hang on, she wants to type her side of the story. n.kk4333333333rrrrrrrrrrrrrfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff...

It's a great tool. Especially if you connect to the internet. Hubby does lots of research on it. On Craigslist, that is. For the past couple of months he's been looking for a new farm truck that we can use for various other things. Today we went to Camdenton and got one. It's a 3/4 ton, extended cab '93 Ford. Only 89,000 miles on it. A bit dented up, but that made the price much less. It has lots of extras that we'd use on it, including a plate for a gooseneck trailer hitch, a winch set up on the front bumper, some other kind of odd hitch attachment on the back, A/C... He is pleased. By the way, while I am talking about hubby. His drilling paid off. This past week he took and passed the test and is now a licensed well driller. He only missed one question; something about what sediment you'd find along a river. He actually got the following question correct; How much air pressure PSI (pounds per square inch-I think it is) would it take to push up a column of wate...

She's my furry little buddy. She was born here on the dairy, in the garage on the concrete floor behind a pile of old tires. In the spring and summer she is a wild cat; never comes inside and doesn't ask for too much food. In fall and winter during cold weather, like now, she turns into a pampered inside cat...at least at night. During the day she rambles all over outside, but at night she keeps my feet warm.

Like paperbackswap.com and swapadvd.com. The only trouble is the books or DVDs I want have a waiting list a mile long. So I either have to suck it up and wait or shell out the dough and actually buy the book or DVD. Normally I don't bother with popular fiction, but I happened to run across "Wicked-the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" and I read it. And it was rather entertaining, even though I didn't really "get" the politics of the Oz that Gregory Maguire created. I have found the 3rd in the series, the Cowardly Lion's story, but I have yet to find "Son of a Witch" which is about Elphaba's (the WW of the W) son, Liir. And because I find British TV series more interesting than US I'd like to get DVD sets of some of their series, like; Keeping up Appearances. Not to mention "The Tudors" or the complete Poirot set with David Suchet. Well, I'll have to save up my credits and get on the waiting list. Anywa...

Otherwise known as milk. Rather an obvious thing to be thankful for on a dairy, don't you agree? But, there it is. Around here it's the white stuff that makes the green stuff...in more ways than one. Let me rephrase: ummm...it's the white stuff that brings in the dough. Or: On the dairy it's the white stuff that keeps the wolf from the door. Or: On the dairy milk is money. That pretty much sums it up. So as long as people keep buttering their biscuits, topping their tacos with cheddar, making hot chocolate on snowy days, and pairing cake with ice cream, milk will always be something a dairy will be thankful for. In other news. Ellen was less than impressed with the snow we got a couple of days ago. She wouldn't have anything to do with it. Acted like it was going to scald her if we tried to get her to touch it. This morning, in an effort to get her to eat more dairy products (she refuses to drink milk unless it's in a bottle, which I have almost eliminat...

There is a plethora of jokes about in-laws; mostly a wee tad on the negative side...ok, well, mostly WAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY over the line on the negative side. But I was really blessed when it came to getting in-laws. We were kind of wondering about my brother, but he did a great job of finding a wife...even if he did have to go to Japan to find her on a military base in Okinawa. She was teaching English over there. Over the years she has been a great support to me, to our family and of course a great wife to my brother and mother to their children. My family in turn, yes, they were all wondering about me too. And what really gets my goat is they didn't even blink an eye...or at least not where I could see them do so...when I told them I was quitting my job, packing my bags, leaving them all behind and hoofing it to the Mid-West to marry some internet dude. I guess it all turned out well in the end though. And, look what my mother-in-law gave us yesterday: It's a turkey pie....

NaBloPoMo theme for December is THANKS. So my first thankful post is for: Snow. We got about an inch worth of "no accumulation" yesterday and last night. People in other climes might laugh at such a piddly amount, but to Ellen it was quite a big deal. Two new vocabulary words to work on: "white" and "snow." She didn't want to touch it, or taste it or anything too personal like that. She just wanted to look out the window at it and walk in it. This morning as I was riding up the road in the semi-dark doing chores, snorting the snow out of nose as it blew in my face, and swiping it out of the feed bunks while trying to avoid being trampled by the cow critters, it occurred to me to wonder what there was about snow that I should be thankful for. Hmmmm.... *It rather makes me thankful for fall and spring weather. (There is very little that could make me thankful for summer weather in Missouri, except to be thankful for winter weather maybe, but that ...

What to post? Ellen is going to help me post today, so .an.ything add7itional, like numbers or typos are from her to you. I hope you can figure out what we are talking abo ut./ It's a rather nasty day out there. It has been snowing all day, no6thing is sticking, excep t on the porch, since the ground is too warm yet, but it's snow, nonetheless. This hasn't been an exciting ;'November for bl///////////////////////////ogging as far as dairy doings are concerned. What has gone on is too depressing to talk about really; I don't want this blog to turn into a sob fest. I haven't had the time to visit other folks blogs am much as I'd have liked to. I am going to try and do December, too, though; blog, I mean. The theme is THANKS, so surely I can think of something to be thankful for every day for a month. Well, I have a fussy kid to take care of. Blog at you later. R

It's pretty late right now, for me to be blogging anyway. It's actually only about 7:35 PM, but bedtime is less than 1 1/2 hours away and there is a baby to take care of...bedtime rituals and all that, you know. When you get up at 3:45 AM, it makes for short evenings. At the moment hubby is playing with the baby; they are stacking blocks and books to make towers so that she can knock them down. He is having great fun. Let's see...oh, yes. Today I went in to Bolivar and picked up my new glasses. They gave me a headache, new glasses always do. So I have the old ones on for now. I will have to break my eyes in to the new specs slowly. Well, only one more day left. I hope I can manage to get a blog in tomorrow. I will feel my November has not been wasted if I can complete my blogging for this month. Tah for now.

For the past couple of weeks I have been watching the complete second season of The Waltons on DVD. Last year I watched the complete first season. I remember when I was a kid I LOVED this program and watched it religiously. Hubby watched it often as well when he was younger, and he can remember what happens in certain episodes. Some of the stuff is hilarious; like when the new preacher and Grandpa pay a visit to the Baldwin sisters and get roaring drunk on "The Recipe." Though I still think it's quite a stretch that those old ladies didn't know they were making whiskey in that still. But it's one of the funnier things I remember about the show. In thinking back I am surprised my father ever even let me watch a show that included a "recipe," but I guess he overlooked it. He was VERY anti-alcohol. Anyway, watching this show makes me think back to my own growing up and how idyllic it was, though I didn't realize it at the time. I had a pretty tr...

To one and all. Not much to post today. I guess I ate too much turkey and my thinking cap is asleep. It is a lovely holiday here in the Ozarks. A good day to be thankful on. Let's see...I am thankful for all the usual things; family, friends, a healthy baby, life, Salvation, fun, health, country... It's good to be alive and well.

If I do not post on Friday, remember the above date. That is what is listed as the "Best By" date on the can of the pumpkin pie mix, the contents of which are now baking in the oven, combined with 2 large eggs and 2/3 cup of evaporated milk, all snuggled comfortably inside a homemade piecrust. We are going to eat it tomorrow, along with the year old turkey that sis-in-law got from her work last Thanksgiving. The turkey has been in the freezer. The can of pumpkin pie mix has been on the shelf for dunno how long. It smells pretty good though. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Not too much. It's my only time without the kid here, so I can type much faster, but there's not too much time for thinking. At the moment I am having a dessert crisis. Hubby ate the last piece of cake on Sunday and I haven't had time to fix him anything else since. Yesterday what I was going to fix kind of fizzled, so he had syrup on homemade bread and ice cream. A bizarre combination, but he ate it. Today I took Ellen in to her Parents As Teachers meeting with the teacher so I didn't have time to fix anything. But I remembered that I had a tub of that cookie dough I bought off of one of the kids from church. I thawed it out, smooshed some of it into a pan and am making brownies out of it. Maybe I can come up with something more interesting tomorrow to blog about.

Here is another sample of things you ought not to do on the farm. None of these were from my experience, mind you, but they are good to remember. Never assume your blind date won't notice that you still smell like hogs. Don't bend over in front of a Ram! He will use you as batting practice. Never assume you got all of the chicken poop off your head before you go to the store. Do not ever run across a sun-dried manure pit thinking "light" thoughts ... you are not that light! Do not ever leave the goat pen gate open "just for a second"...even if the goats appear to be at the farthest point away from gate. They are able to run faster than a person pushing a full wheelbarrow up a hill, and can jump OVER said wheelbarrow. PS...do not forget the grainbucket when luring goats back to their pen. PPS...put REAL grain in the bucket too...they can TELL if you just put a handful of gravel in instead. PPPS...dont do any of these things on days when it is icy. Never let ...

Hubby put a loop of rope around one of those huge hooves and told me: "Here, grab hold." The cow just continued to lay there, and would look around at us occasionally, but she was too busy at the moment to really worry about us. Hubby and I dug in our heels and pulled, except that our hands started to slip on the rope. So hubby told me to keep up a steady pull while he went and got a stick. He put the stick in the loop on our end and we both caught hold of that and pulled. We could see the nose just barely sticking out and the tongue would flicker occasionally so we knew we had caught a live one, but it was like pulling on a boulder. Progress was measured by centimeters at first. Then that nose came out and the bottom half of the face was visible. The forehead is the biggest part and once that is out you are home free. But this one didn't seem to be budging at all. Every time the cow would heave we would pull extra hard, but it didn't seem like we were getti...

Finally. Yesterday something happened to blog about. Hubby was going by the bull heifer pasture on the way home from town yesterday afternoon and saw something. He came in at about 2:15 PM and said there was a heifer up there calving, but she didn't seem to be making any progress. (Ellen, do you mind terribly, darling? It's difficult to type when you keep pushing in the keyboard.) This wasn't good news to receive at such a late hour (I start supper at 3:00 pm), but what can you do? They rarely ever do things for the farmer's convenience. So in about 15 minutes I rigged up for cold weather (it hovered at and below freezing all day) and went back up there to check on her while hubby took Ellen up to her grandma's place. Nope, no progress, just a massive pair of hooves sticking out. So I called hubby on the walkie-talkie (very useful things on the dairy, those.) and told him. I waited there while he got the other 4-wheeler so we could round her up into the corr...

This morning when hubby went to fire up the computer the monitor kept clicking itself off; wouldn't stay on. We tried another of his old monitors; it didn't work either. So, took computer in to have the pros look at it. They plugged it in, yep, actual computer was OK, said we needed a new monitor. Brought it back home. Hooked it all up. Monitor came on, all's well again. What gives? Dunno. We will see if I can finish this NaBloPoMo thing or not. Ha.

On this day I find myself with writer's block. It doesn't help that I only have about 10 minutes left before I need to shut down and cook supper. What kind of block do they call it when you can't think of what to cook for supper? Cooking block? Food block? I'm-fed-up-with-cooking block? When one has to cook 3 meals a day, 7 days a week, 365 days per year, the issue "What to cook for supper?" becomes tedious. So what is the deal with this Stephenie Meyer vampire series stuff? I guess the first book has been made into a movie which has just been released. Is this the Harry Potter replacement? They say the books are written for the pre-teen/teen set of girls but everyone else is going ga-ga over them too. I am going to read them and see for myself.

is Christmas play program rehearsal night. This is always a hoot. For one thing, when you get a group of young'uns together doing something fun, you inevitably get a whing-ding. The girls group together and yak and the boys do their best to annoy the girls. But most of them have their lines memorized and know when they come in and exit. Now we have to get them to be able to deliver their lines without giggling or snickering. The Indignant Man has trouble with this issue. He has his lines downpat, but gets the giggles about halfway through. It doesn't help that everyone else is laughing too. We also have to work on the carolers scene. They are supposed to "swamp" Wally, not mob him. Also, they are carolers, but they don't know any Christmas carols. We will have to work on that one.

For want of anything interesting to post today here is yet another picture of Ellen. Not the greatest, but she's always cute. We have a new activity that she loves to do; smell the spices in the cupboard. She recognizes garlic and cumin, and calls them by name. This morning she also recognized the cinnamon. She gets out a fair immitation of the names, she started calling cinnamon "cake," which kind of surprised me. Maybe her aunt or grandma had some kind of cinnamon cake they gave her, I don't know, I certainly have never made any kind of cinnamon cake that I can think of, or in any way instructed her on their association. She loves to use "pay-peer" and a "peen" to write with. But she has been banned from using pens unless she is stuck in her highchair. She has already written in one of her books. *sigh* That's all for today.

As the holidays approach the mail order companies go nuts and send out multitudes of catalogs. I was going to keep track of how many I received in the mail from Nov 1st until Christmas, but I didn’t know where to store them all. So I kept track for the past 6 mail delivery days. Here is my collection. I think most all of them have websites, so if you see one you’d like to order from just let me know and I will post the site address. Ha. A Week’s Worth of Catalogs Monday, November 10, 2008 through Saturday, November 15, 2008 Monday: Movies Unlimited-2008 Holiday DVD Gift Guide! Signals-Gifts that Inform, Enlighten & Entertain Ginny’s Holiday 2008 Gift Book Victorian Trading Company- Holiday 2008 Metrostyle Traditions Wind & Weather Plow & Hearth-Holiday 2008 World Vision Gift Catalog Tuesday: Veteran’s Day Holiday….no mail delivery Wednesday: National Geographic-Holiday 2008 Catalog Eddie Bauer-The Gift Book Thursday: Abbey Press presents Holidays Collections etc. Miles...

This is from a forward that has gone around this fall, complete with a warning to be careful when raking fall leaves. Kind of creepy. There is a copperhead snake in the picture below. Look very, very carefully; remember that they are poisonous. As a parody of the copperhead pic, I took the following of Matilda. Can you spot the puddy? Ha! She likes to come with me on my walks sometimes, and she loves to play in the leaves. Ah ha! Below is the copperhead. Would you have been bitten? I would have; but then again, I didn't have the patience to stop and really scan the picture for it. Hubby says usually they are coiled up, not stretched out. If they are moving I believe they are easier to spot. But I don't know. In the 4 years I have been in Missouri I haven't seen a live copperhead; no, I take that back. The only live copperhead I have seen in MO was a rather pitiful looking one at the zoo. Then hubby showed me a dead one. They get run over in the road quite frequently in s...

This has gone much quicker this year for me, seems like. But, oh la la, what to post for today? Just a quick observation; it's very hard to type legibly with a 20 month old in your lap. She likes to help. The mini calf we got a couple of weeks ago is doing well. She's grown a bit, but she is still kind of mentally slow, or at least that is my opinion. She still doesn't quite get how to efficiently drink her bottle; she has a big puddle of milk on the ground after she is done. I never have the patience to stand and watch her for too long, all I know is that she slurps on it, then pulls off of it, then re-attaches and repeats. Today we went in to Lebanon. I went into a couple of the thrift shops down there and bought some things for Ellen. I have to stop myself from buying up all of the cute little dressy dresses that they have. At only $8-$10 per dress it's hard to pass up. I have to get them a couple of sizes too large as she is so tall. She isn't that big ...

In looking for something to post; a poem perhaps, since I am running out of posting ideas, I ran across this one by Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774). Now that I am the mother of a daughter, such views of women's lives make me shiver. Thankfully things are much different now than back then. However, it is still kind of sobering to think that this is how many teenaged girls STILL feel. I believe I heard of one recently commiting suicide, in FL wasn't it, because of being jilted. I hope and pray that I can instill in my daughter the firm belief that she has great value as an individual and does not need a boyfriend to make her SOMEBODY or to give her life meaning. And if she does get jilted that it is NOT the end of the world, the Lord has better plans for her someday. Woman When lovely woman stoops to folly, And finds too late that men betray, What charm can soothe her melancholy? What art can wash her tears away? The only art her guilt to cover, To hide her shame from ev'...

In over a year of blogging I don't think I have actually dedicated a post wholly to the subject of poo. I give it a glancing mention occasionally, but haven't gone too deep into the subject. Well, here we go. Poo on the dairy. It's everywhere, seems like. And even where it isn't, the smell of it is, depending on the direction the wind is blowing. Hubby has several piles of it around; there is one fresh one here just in view of the house; it has grass and weeds covering most of it. Then hubby transports quite a bit of it into piles way up the road. After it has sat there for a couple of years it turns into lovely black dirt that is great for the garden. Except there are a TON of weed seeds in it. We give quite a bit of it away in the spring; neighbors or friends come load up their trucks. Hey, it's free. Here's where it gets really gross. The wildlife loves the poo, in all it's various forms. Birds, especially the turkeys, and raccoons eat the corn out o...

This is a collation of various posts I have made including different sayings that hubby has told me. I was going to make it a little better, but I got tired of messing with it. I am going to post it over to the side under Amusing Posts from the Past and update it from there as hubby thinks of more. Colorful Sayings * He's going to fly high and light low. (To be said of someone who's on a spending spree-he's flying high with his money now, but he'll light low eventually when it's gone.) * He's got the wrong sow by the ear. (To have made a mistake, as in: we got a call yesterday from someone who was wanting to know why hubby hadn't shown up with his skid-loader to help her out...well, she had called the wrong number.) * He's got to lick that calf over. (To have done a poor job at something and have to do it over again.) Then there are the "poor" sayings. Here in the Ozarks to be "poor" also means to be thin, or skinny. Th...

Spiders have always fascinated me. Not that I like having them actually touch me or anything. I just like to observe them and their habits. Here on the dairy we specialize in spider food; namely flies. So one of the perks of living here is having so many different types of spiders to observe. They love to hang out in the milk barn. I wish I were up on which species they were, but I do not know all of them. There is one type that weave little tunnels back in little cracks in the wall; especially around the windows. They stay put and wait for flies to come along. Then there are the wolf spiders that just wander around and catch what they can on the fly, so to speak: Then there is another type that lurks underneath things; she doesn't build a real web, but attaches multiple tendrils of silk to the floor and waits for something to wander into a thread, get stuck and start to struggle. More than I have seen a wolf spider get into this other spider's threads. Yes...and be eaten. It w...

It doesn't happen very often. My unfortunate husband learned that early on in our marriage. I iron his shirts; yes. As infrequently as I can get away with. He has a closet FULL of shirts and only wears them occasionally; like on Sundays, or on those rare occasions when he goes in to town. So I just wash them and let them pile up until the my I-Haven't-Ironed-in-a-LOOOOOOOONG-Time guilt trip gets the better of me and I hunt up the ironing board and iron. As far as I am concerned there really isn't any need of doing that actually because his closet is so jam-packed with shirts that as soon as I hang them up they get wrinkled. Yes, I have tried taking some out that he never wears and putting them on a shelf, but he found them and hung them back up. I don't bother any more. Also. He actually expected me to iron his good jeans for church. Ha. I did that for like the first month or so of our marriage. Then, my opinion being that if you are going to be so casual as t...

Well, folks, I don't know about a video of my singing performance. I wouldn't even know how to post it. But I think we will do "Silent Night" and I will do one verse in Spanish. Gotta work that college degree into my life somehow...hahahahaha Today as we were coming home from visiting hubby's granddad we went by the renter's place. The son was out front with his girlfriend's arm draped around his neck; smoking no doubt. Hubby's comment: "Well, she's driving her ducks to a poor market, isn't she?" Signifying that she's made a bad choice as far as boyfriends are concerned. I think I am going to collate all these sayings into one post and put it as a sticky over on the right. That way I can just add to it as hubby, or anyone else, gives me new ones. Oh, I keep meaning to email my sis in law about this but I forget. Ellen loves to "read" that book; "My First 100 Words in Spanish" you sent her. I think it...

It has been one of those cold, dreary days in which my cognitive skills have frozen and the creativity is not flowing. Looking out the window a line from a popular song from the past comes to mind; "All the trees are brown and the sky is gray..." I think that new, tiny heifer is going to peg out on me. She isn't drinking much of her bottle, even when I try and feed her by hand most of it goes all over the ground or all over me. We think she didn't get any colostrum from the cow and she got some kind of infection or bug. I am putting medicine in her milk, but since she doesn't drink it much, she isn't gettting too much benefit. That's all for today folks. Thanks for dropping in.

Back in March the sheriff came by for a visit because he wanted permission to put up signs on our property along the highway. This past Tuesday he was re-elected by a pretty wide margin, I believe. So today he came by and dropped off a thank you note for our support and sign space before he collected his signs. Hubby said no one else had done such before. On Ellen: She is getting more and more articulate and it is interesting how her language skills are developing; how she pronounces certain words and makes up words to suit her. She likes to end words in -er. She refers to the bales of hay as "hay-er" She refers to babies as "bay-er." She can't quite get her tongue wrapped around "grandma" either so she calls her "G-er," it sounds like she's saying "jeer." One of the ladies at church gave her a furry pink purse for Halloween and she loves to carry it around, she won't let us put anything in it, she prefers it to be e...

It's day 6 of NaBloPoMo. I am running out of things to write about already. So here is a few more things that ought NOT be attempted on a farm. This is from a list off of the Homesteading Today forum. Some of them might be repeats, but they are worth reading again. What not to do on the farm: *Don't tell your kid to write a report, complete with pictures, for their "Life Experience" project on Butchering. Some people might not find it as special as you do. *Do not tell your little sister that white gobs of old chicken poo taste like mom's Russian tea cookies ... Mom was NOT happy *Do not pee on an electric fence; not ever, for ANY reason! *When gathering eggs do not give a two-year-old an egg for each hand. They can not resist smacking them together. Then you have omelet all over the toddler and they are crying because their eggs vanished! *Don't put your cell phone in the same jacket pocket with the eggs you forgot you gathered or you will have pocket om...

In September our church had a quarterly "singing" instead of the regular Sunday night service. Afterward they served snacks...etc. I was rash enough to get up and sing a song. Now everyone has been hounding me to sing one during the Sunday AM service. Hmmmm... Well... Last Wed one of my Wed night students-forever after referred to as TW in this post-offered to play her guitar for me. TW is quite the whizbang on the guitar and is quite the singer as well. So I will get out of the boat and walk on water, as it were, and sing a song or two for them. We are going to work on a Christmas song and on a Mother's Day song. Thank you TW for holding my hand as I set out to walk on the Sunday morning musical waters.

It's off to vote we go. The road outside is nearly on fire from the amount of people driving back and forth to the polls this morning, keeping it hot. As a general rule I avoid talking politics here. I am just not of a political bent, unlike my brother and husband. However, there was a opinion column in the newspaper this past week that I wanted to comment on. He said that no matter what your opinion of the candidates you'd better ought to get out and vote. People shed blood and died for your right to vote; if you don't think there is anyone to vote FOR, get out and vote AGAINST someone. That's what I am doing. Plus, if you are a woman you'd better show your appreciation to those women who got out and fought for your right to vote. It wasn't too terribly long ago that you as a woman weren't considered intelligent enough to be able to have a valid opinion to vote. Husband is off to haul a cow up to the dry lot and then we are going to go off to do our c...

This is the quick version of a Boston Cream Cake (or pie, however you want to say it). Slice a pound cake into 3 layers; fill with custard, top with chocolate glaze and voila! I made all this from scratch, but you can use a pudding mix...I think the orig recipe called for adding 1-1/2 cups cream instead of milk to the mix for the filling, but I forget exactly how much. It got hubby's approval. I am trying to decide what to take for the church holiday potluck next month; I know I have a month, but I want to decide now. I already have some of my Christmas gifts wrapped and have started on a few cards to send out. I still have a few more gifts to get yet, but I am working on that one as well. Ellen had another "First" last night; she pooped while in the bathtub. I could have done without that "First," but I guess it's just the beginning of many incidents like that.

Last night I went with the in-laws to see "FireProof." Of course we took Ellen with us. She did really well, surprisingly enough. She sat there and helpfully pointed out and identified certain objects she was familiar with; "flag, flag," "car, car, car," "water, water." Fortunately she was sitting on her aunt's lap, not mine. But she wasn't too loud about it. Fireproof was a really good, family-values focused movie, much funnier than I'd expected it to be, though the dialogue was a bit stilted in places. But it was worth the trip. At least I guess it was worth it. Ellen went to sleep partway through and that made for a cranky, wide-awake kid when we got home. We had to have a lesson in going to sleep without mommy holding her, it took about 20 minutes of squalling before she finally settled down. I forgot to tell about Ellen's Halloween. I didn't take her trick-or-treating or dress her up or anything. We went to her Play Day e...

It's hard to believe it's been a whole year already. (You know there is a NaNoWriMo too; National Novel Writing Month. You have the whole month of November to write a 50,000 word novel which you write with your own software and then somehow submit it privately. I would someday like to try that. I checked it out last year and it sounded like fun. My trouble would be deciding on WHAT to write about.) Well, I don't have any idea of what to blog about. I think Solomon, the Grateful Guy, asked if I had planned out what to blog about. No, I prefer to blog by the seat of my pants. It's more challenging that way. Ha. Sorry. I am not doing a very good job of writing this post; I keep getting distracted because I am reading the blogs on this month's NaBloPoMo Blogroll . I like to just choose one at random and read it. If it's worth commenting on, I comment, otherwise I just lurk and move on. This blog is supposed to be about dairy doings, but it often strays....

You probably thought when you read the title that I was going to blog about Ellen playing with her food. Actually, at this point, she isn't too bad about doing such. She either pokes it in her mouth or leaves it alone. Or, she chucks her plate on the floor when she's through, if we aren't quick enough to take it when she announces; "Done!" No. I took the above photo during a trip down to Silver Dollar City near Branson, Missouri. The theme was some kind of salute to farmers or agriculture. In one building we found this; a man in a refrigerated box carving a cow and a farmer from butter. While we were standing there watching this, two thoughts came to my mind; "it must be so cold in there that the dude's hands must get stiff," and "what a sign of decadence; only in America would we play with our food like this." Hubby also had a couple of thoughts; "there must be a metal superstructure under all that butter or the cows spindly legs ...

Here is a pic from the past...not too terribly distant, but with my 4th anniversary coming up I have been thinking about when I first came out here, in June of '04. We went on a float trip down the Niangua River; this was one of the pictures I took. Dairy News: The flies and other insects are having their last hurrah now. It has been hovering at or below freezing during the nights now, but warms up in the day. We spend our days chasing and swatting the flies in the house. Also yesterday we saw the first of the nasty Asian ladybugs coming in. Ick. Anyway. I do have a story here. Hubby takes this flyswatting seriously. He just HAS to get them no matter where they land, or might land after having been swatted. Last week we had just finished eating supper when one landed on the light fixture above the table...SWAT! went hubby. And splat!..right into my plate, thank you very much, kicking its last little death throes. We hadn; 't had dessert yet, so I took the plate and put ...

"No, dear, it's not a regular pineapple upside-down cake; it's an upside-down pineapple gingerbread." This was a conversation my hubby and I had about the above cake. It was alright, but I probably will never make it again. The topping was really, strongly, molasses-y....if you know what I mean. I just like making new things. Lots more to write...no time to do so. I think I will NaBloPoMo again next month...stay tuned.

Hi, I'm back again... This past Friday Ellen had another play day with the Parents As Teachers program in Buffalo. It's offered through the school system. The focus of this particular session was on brushing their teeth, though the gal from the health dept wasn't too prepared for her presentation and focused more on the older kids. (This play day deal focuses on kids birth through pre-school, I believe, though based on the name I think it's as much for the parents as for the kids.) But she passed out toothbrushes to all the kids (and adults too for that matter) and for the little ones she had these as pictured above (taken with an old adult tooth brush for size comparison); an infant-toddler safety toothbrush. I haven't tried it with Ellen yet. So far Snoopy is doing a pretty good job. However, I am going to try it. Another bit of info I picked up is that "they" are now saying that you ought to begin flossing your baby's teeth as soon as they sta...

"No, cousin, I am a gen-you-wine registered black angus from the upscale Blank Angus farm just west of here. I haven't a clue how I got here, this place stinks, you all are too tall and I want to go home NOW! BAWWLLL!!!" This angus, on the right, got lost. Was in one of our pastures up the road and of followed hubby home when he brought a calf and cow back here from up there. He shut her up last night and left a message for her owner, but no response. He did call back this morning. He's in Montana and ranch hand in charge was out of town for a week. This is one of his three prize registered cows who might have a set of twins up the road. Great. Well, they are going to try and get her tonight, I believe. When we first had her shut up back here (I took this pic early this AM, so their eyes are gleaming wickedly.) we were looking at her and thinking the same thing; hmmmm...nice steak potential. But we wouldn't do that to a neighbor. It's funny how ...

It was a busy weekend. On Saturday Ellen and I went to the annual church hay ride and fish fry. I was hesitant to take her because I knew the ride would last forever, but it turned out to be fun; she enjoyed it. This has become more of a community event than a church event so there were quite a few people there, many of whom I did not know. There were 4 wagons of people, both kids and adults. What it amounted to was a tour of one church member's fields with various stops along the way to chat with Biblical characters. The first stop was with Zacchaeus (or however you spell it, I always forget), perched on a limb. He told us about how he was inspired to repay all he had cheated from people, after he had an encounter with Jesus: Then one of the stock ponds became the Nile River where we saw Moses in a basket by a clump of reeds. Taking his life in his hands the preacher (who did all of the interviewing with a portable microphone) braved the inflated plastic crocodiles to interview Mi...

Lately we have had quite a run with getting heifer calves. The day before yesterday we got a set of twin heifer calves. This is only the second set of twin heifers that have been born since I came here about 4 years ago. The rest of the twins, and there haven't been too many of them, have been 2 bulls or a bull and a heifer all of which we have sold because of the risk of the heifer twin being a freemartin (sterile). At any rate, that made 10 calves on the bottle for us, which is quite a few for such a small operation. We average between 30-40 milkers in the herd and only have about 100 head or so. I told hubby I'd have to get out there at the time he starts milking to be able to get them all bottle fed, and he said "Yes, the milk man would show up and the tank would be empty because we were feeding it all to the calves." HA. Well, with 10 on the bottle that'd make about 20 gallons of milk down their gullets every 2 days, which is a whacking chunk out of th...

Hedge apples. I had never heard of hedge apples before I came here, but they are pretty common. They come from trees known as "Osage-orange". They are commonly used to repel insects, but it is said this is a myth. I dunno, I have never tried. These "apples" are sticky to the touch and are just plain weird. They aren't edible, you can find out more about them at this website. Dairy News There really isn't too much going on that is newsworthy on the dairy. Lately our new first calf heifers that come on line to milk have been pretty disappointing as far as production goes. Their udders are pretty much non-existent. Last night hubby said something to the effect that this last one was a dud. I had one of my rare insights; "Oh," said I, "she is a milk dud." Bwa hahahaha! (OK, so you had to have been there to really appreciate it. Plus you have to know that a milk dud is a type of candy.) Never mind. One other time I had such a...

Not too much exciting to post about lately so here is the latest picture of Ellen. I took this on Sunday after church. She does really well posing for me at home. I need to get more formal pictures at a studio again, but I haven't because I dunno how she'd react to the photographer. She might be grumpy. For those of you who have been wondering; yesterday she FINALLY took her first steps on her own. At 19 months she certainly hasn't been in a hurry to walk, but she's on her way now. She uses the little push walking toy she has quite a bit and likes to walk holding our hands, but she has been too cautious to venture on her own. No so any longer. We were excited. Other news: Not sure if I have mentioned it on here yet or not, since I haven't been posting much lately, but I have found myself in a "situation." Ha. For the last two years a family at church has run the Christmas program for the kids. This year they have too much else going on so they decl...

This actually happened in early Sept, about a month ago. It was a blazing hot Friday and I had just spent the morning in town doing the dreaded grocery shopping trip. At about 1 PM or so when baby was asleep hubby came in and asked if I would consent to go up the road with some grain and catch the cow that had just had a calf. He'd caught the calf earlier, but the cow wouldn't follow at the time, so he'd left her for later. Oh, sure, I said. It's not that big of a deal to whip up the road on the 4-wheeler, chuck out some grain and shut up the cows when they come in. Providing of course that they want to move from their shady spot on a warm afternoon. So I buzz up there. They didn't seem disposed to move themselves from the shade on the other side of the pasture so I buzzed over to them. At this point the 4-wheeler died; right in the middle of shifting gears. I did everything I knew to get it started. But no lights worked. I figured it was the battery. I th...

The acorns are clunking onto the buildings. The leaves are falling, though they haven't started to turn nice colors yet. I dug my sweet potatoes week before last and have used a few of them. I got about a 5 gallon bucket of them. They are nice to have on hand, so expensive in the stores. I made some sweet potato biscuits. They are pretty good, husband liked them. Ellen has learned how to open the fridge. So far she hasn't made a habit of it, but soon I will have to install a lock on the door. One of her "things" now is getting into the laundry basket, finding a pair of my underwear, sticking her head through a leg hole and wearing them around. I now make sure and put a clean pair on the edge where she can get them. She has figured out how to get in and out of her rocking chair and likes doing that off and on. She has figured out how to get off of the little rocking pony, but she can't figure out how to get back on so she sits there and howls until I put ...

( Disclaimer: if you are offended or grossed out by potty humor or things of a more visceral nature perhaps you should skip this post, but it IS a different kind of potty humor so read on if you dare.) Yesterday evening along about 6 PM a little fancied-up S-10 pickup truck went by here slowly and then pulled into the driveway and parked. Hubby was out in the barn milking so I just peeked out the window to see what was going on. The window was open so I could hear some guy on the phone talking about how they had a flat and no way to fix it, so please come help...then he gave directions. Because I knew hubby would be curious as to what was going on, I picked up the phone to call him out in the barn. He was already on the phone with one of his buddies so I just butted into the conversation and advised him. ( Of course at this point the buddy had to tell one of his stories about some drunk dude knocking on his door at 1 AM wanting to borrow gas to get home on. It's inevitable th...