Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

As promised at the beginning of this NaBloPoMo shindig, I have faithfully kept track of all of the mail order catalogs I received in the mail this past month. We actually did order something from catalog number 2, "The Sportsman's Guide." That was a pair of insulated boots for me to use this winter while out doing chores. However, I calculated that if I'd made a $10 order from each catalog, even the duplicates (supposing I'd forgotten to order something from the first one and needed to order again from the next) and then had tacked on a very conservative estimate of shipping and handling, say $5...I'd have spent a grand total of $570 dollars. !Ay, carumba! Ha! I have them all saved up here on the computer table. Actually I got the last 4 of them today. I was going to take a pic, but it's too dark in here now. Here's the list: November 2009 Catalog list 1. Back in the Saddle 2. The Sportsman’s Guide * 3. Figi’s 4. L.L. Bean 5. The Literary

Ellen was so taken with her new doll house yesterday that she insisted on sleeping with the little "kitchen," as she calls it. It's the little stove/oven piece. She had to take it with her down to show her Grandma and Aunt this evening. **** Hubby and I were discussing, over our fresh bread from the bread machine tonight, how glad we were to be out of school. I am so glad I do not have to go through my adolescence and teen years and all yet again. Urgh! I watch what these kids go through now and I don't envy them at all. **** On that note I recall when I was in Jr high and highschool some of the fads that were out. Neon colored clothes, leg warmers, Cabbage Patch Dolls, Michael Jackson music...ummm...what all else? I forget. **** We were also discussing that spelunker who died a few days ago. He was only about 19or 20 I believe. He wedged himself into this teeny crack in a cave, upside down no less, and couldn't get out. They were unable to get him out, no mat

Once, the first year here, we babysat our inlaws kitten. As most kittens do she loved to climb, so I tucked her into my plant stand, and she was happy to sit and pose for a few shots. She is part Siamese and is very vocal to prove it. ********** Ellen got a veritible treasure trove of toys and whatnot today. A friend from church was cleaning out toys she'd had at her house and was very kind enough to bring them over to us. Ellen's favorite is the new little doll house. It's a little platic job that folds in half and comes with all kinds of accessories; bed, tables, chairs, sofa, ottoman, fridge, stereo...etc, even a house plant. It's missing the mommy though. We will have to find a mommy to go along with the daddy and two kids and a dog. There is also a 3 foot tall Winnie the Pooh jigsaw puzzle, along with several other puzzles. And one of those Buckaroo games, too. The one where you hang objects on a mule until he bucks them off. Hubby, of course, had lots of

This is not what I was going to blog about today, but by popular demand here is this recipe. It's the kind of thing you can throw together fairly quickly using stuff you have in your pantry. Ellen, aged 2.75 years, loves to help measure and stir this, so it's a good one to make with kids as well. If you are new here to this blog, pardon how boring everything else is. I have been blogging every day for 2 months straight now and am having trouble being interesting. If you want something interesting or something to laugh at go to one of the posts from the past at the right. I need to add a couple of my bull stories over there someday, those are fun too! Ha. Without further ado: Can't Leave Alone Bars (From Vera's Family Favorites -an Amish cookbook) 1 yellow cake mix 2 eggs 1/3 cup oil 1/2 stick butter (or margarine) 1/2 cup chocolate chips 1-14 oz can sweetened condensed milk Combine cake mix, eggs and oil; reserve 1/2 cup. Press remaining mixture into 9x3" pa

I think I left off at number 10 last time. 11. Dessert. What would a good dinner be without one tacked on at the end? 12. Good books. I know I included that on my What Makes Me Smile list, but it qualifies for Thankfulness too. 13. Country living. Never easy, but fulfilling nonetheless. 14. A great church. We are all more like family and everyone is so supportive. There is no infighting and everyone loves to laugh together. 15. A full fridge and freezer. You can never rightfully claim poverty if you have these. 16. Running water. My mother-in-law tells stories of having to pack water from the creek; up hill, fighting chiggers and seed ticks and whatnot in summer. And let's not even talk about ice and snow in winter. 17. A cat. Sometimes she annoys me, but there's something cozy about a purring cat. 18. The postal service. I love getting mail. 19. Dry onion soup mix. (ha) It's a quick seasoning for lots of different things. 20. Knowing how to read and wri

It's in the oven. It would seem that I have usually been asked to bring a pumpkin pie to the Thanksgiving holiday repast. And I do not have a very good record with my pumpkin pies. For some reason mine never are "set" within the recommended amount of time. Once I brought a rather soggy one to my brother's Thanksgiving dinner. I ended up leaving it there since my SIL said she would do something with it. I strongly suspect it ended up going down the drain, but I dunno. Maybe she has more patience than I have, with regards to re-doing things. On the opposite side of the coin; just a few years ago I was in charge of the pumpkin pie here to take to mother-in-law's Thanksgiving, and I made the mistake of thinking I'd just pop it in the oven an hour or so before time to go over there. Bad idea. Two hours later we were still waiting for the stupid thing to "set." I think I just finally took it and it turned out OK, but not great. My MIL said that s

It is a cool and blustery day here. It misted a bit on me when I did chores this morning, but otherwise has been dry. Glad I did laundry yesterday. This whole November has been really mild overall. I don't think we have had but maybe one or two days where it froze at night. We got another little bull calf a few days ago. He's already gone. His mother isn't much of a producer. Hubby says we are going to put on the milk meters and measure how much each one is giving and then cull the bottom producers. We usually do this in the fall. No sense in feeding a bummer cow all winter if she's not producing enough to pay for herself. My Tuesday Thankful List 6) Great in-laws. It is common to be snarky about one's in-laws, but I got really blessed in that department. No complaints here. They are always supportive and fun to be with. 7) A good husband. Maybe both of these, #6 and #7 ought to be included in #1, along with family. But it is worth mentioning separa

All month good, lovely and high-minded folks over on Facebook have been posting what they are thankful for, one thing per day for the whole month of November. They have made me look really bad. So, this whole week I am going to try and think up my 30 things to be Thankful for and post them throughout the week. 1. (This one is a BIGGIE!) I am officially KITTEN-FREE! Yay! Yay! Whoopee! One of hubby's cousins from up the road came and took both of them. They need mousers. I DO miss the little boogers, but I am thankful to be free of litterbox odors...etc. So far Ellen isn't too disturbed by their absence. She asks where they are occasionally and I tell her they have a new home and she accepts it. 2. The usual, of course; family, friends, blog friends, Facebook friends, my kid...etc. I love you all! 3. Good health. That probably falls under number 2 above, but it deserves special mention. 4. Aged 41 and still no cavities YAY! 5. Electricity. Rather a prosai

OK. We are coming down to the final days here of NaBloPoMo. It keeps getting harder and harder to come up with something to write about. Things happen, but it's hard to force myself to sit down and write about them. Gun deer season closes this Tues, I believe. Then bow season opens again. We have folks beating a path to our door to bow hunt out in our field just down the road. We are letting another guy hunt over there too. He's pretty optimistic; said he'll give us some meat. ******* No one seems to be taking me up on a free kitten or two. I think I am going to be stuck with them. I don't want them, no matter how cute they are. The only trouble is that there is a mile long list of free kitties in the newspaper every week. Hubby says way back when he was a kid there weren't as many available. He also said back then no one had ever heard of cat or dog food. They were lucky to get table scraps, and beyond that they were expected to catch their own food

Behind me Ellen is reading her "meek" books. "Meek" is her term for "music." She can say music, but meek is what she calls it. Anyway. At the dollar store a long time ago I got 4 of those little CD books, with the lyrics included. She gets lots of milage out of these. She has most of the songs memorized and can get the books and sit and sing from them. It is hilarious to hear her little falsetto chanting "Camptown Races" or "Oh, Suzanna." There are about 10-12 songs on each CD so she has quite a list to go through. And she HAS to sing each book. But some songs she skips, for whatever reason. **** C from Random Thoughts and Musings from the Island wanted to know the Biblical reason to why my husband thinks it's my job to help him out with the gift giving ideas at holiday times. He says the Bible says the wife is supposed to be the "help mate" to the husband. Therefore I have to help him with everything. It doesn

Over the past few years, since hubby has been getting certain catalogs and magazines related to this subject, these thingamabobs have interested me. Don't know why; they are just weird to look at. Then I think about how they are actually used: underground. The beating they take, and how their invention changed an industry. Well. Maybe it didn't change an industry, but in some places of the world they can make the difference between living and dying, so they can certainly be used to help change lives. Used to be you'd use a shovel, a bucket, a long rope and a LOT of sweat to accomplish what one of these can help with; coupled with the right technology. Yep. They are water well drill bits. They use them to drill through solid rock. Hubby gets several different water well drilling magazines. One story in there really impressed me. Over in Africa clean water is a critical thing. There are well drilling companies that donate well drill rigs and time and money to go over

Hmmmm.... Hmmm.... I didn't ask my husband for help today, so I am at a loss. Here instead are 13 things that I COULD write 13 things about if I were to actually apply myself. 1. Pet peeves. (I am not feeling very peevey today. Besides the biggest one of them may get me kicked out of church if I were to list it. Ha!) 2) Things to be thankful for. (I was going to wait until next week to do that one.) 3) Good smells on a dairy. (I have done that one before.) 4) Movies I have liked. (I am not much of a movie watcher, really, so it might be hard.) 5) Books I love. (It'd be easier to list books I DON'T love, as it's a much shorter list.) 6) On that same note, maybe a list of authors I like. (Hey, that's a good one! Maybe I'll do that next week.) 7) Favorite foods to actually cook! (Argh, that reminds me, I need to think of something to fix for supper tonight.) 8) Things I would like to do in my lifetime. (As in: a bucket list) 9) Foods I DON'T like.

We took a long drive to look at some equipment over in Lockwood today and didn't get back until about 15 minutes before it was time to fix supper. I have about 15 minutes until I have to do chores, after which I have to head off to church. Well, I guess I don't have to go, but I want to go just to get away from Ellen. (She's currently driving me nuts.) By the time I get back from church I am not going to want to get on the computer. Soooooo..... All of this has left little time to cogitate on what to blog about. Therefore; the following is your daily blog offering: A pirate walks into a bar wearing a paper towel on his head. He sits down at the bar and orders some rum. The bartender asks: "Why are you wearing a paper towel?" "Arrrrg," says the pirate. "I've got a bounty on me head." Heh heh heh. That also came along with the cow jokes from yesterday.

Here are some more tidbits sent from a friend in OR. I think these came from The Oregonian, the daily newspaper up there. Cow Humor Why does a milking stool have only 3 legs? Because the cow has the udder. What are the spots on black and white cows? Holstains What kind of milk comes from a forgetful cow? Milk of Amnesia Where do cows go when they want a night out? To the MOO-vies. What was the bull doing in the pasture with his eyes closed? Bull-dozin' How does a farmer count a herd of cows? With a COWculator. Why don't cows have any money? Because farmers milk them dry. Where do the Russians get their milk? From Mos-COWS. What's a cow's favorite musical note? Beef-flat What do cows wear in Hawaii? Moo-moos What do you call a cow that has just had a calf? Decalfenated Go ahead and yuk it up...then have a glass of milk. Or a bowl of ice cream. ****** We had a decalfenated cow this morning. A new little heifer calf came into the world on a cold, rainy night. Poor thin

A few months ago I foolishly joined some pen-pal website, put my email address in it. Of course I immediately began getting junk mail, tons of junk mail. I tried to go back and delete it but there was no way to delete the profile. I emailed the owner and asked for my profile to be deleted, but dunno if they ever did or not. I even forget the site now, it has been so long. The major traffic from it dried up a bit, but I think that's only because my name was pushed on down the list by new idjits who signed up. And now I get at least one or two emails a week, sometimes less, sometimes more, from people saying they have seen my profile. Some of them say they saw my profile on "DreamBook." Well, this was NOT the site I joined. I went to this DreamBook site and a flag came up saying it was not safe, so I was unable to peruse it to find my supposed profile. Anyway. Most of these emails I get from there are marriage proposals. Some of them are short and sweet, some of them are sp

Gun hunting season opened this weekend (not a couple weeks ago as I'd assumed...I think that was bow season that opened). Anyway. The guy we let hunt on our property got an 8 point buck yesterday morning. On opening day. He was pretty proud. He's going to bring us some deer sausage. He may come back and try for a doe, he has a doe tag too. He's been bow hunting off and on the past couple of weeks, but didn't get anything. There were tons of shots going off yesterday. Some of them sounded like if all the bullets hit the deer there wouldn't be much meat left when the carcass hit the ground. We saw so many hunter orange drivers going back and forth all day yesterday. I guess there are several deer camps around here. That whole deal just cracks me up. Especially what we saw go by. Hubby, Ellen and I were all outside when this Army-looking truck and trailer goes by, all camoflaged with green and brown paint blotches. The driver honked and both driver and pas

Here's a poem. I have been meaning to get a pic of that mini calf we had a few days ago, but haven't been out here with the camera. I need to get her picture anyway. Well, maybe for tomorrow. *** Anyway. Robert Frost is one of my favorite poets. He has quite the collection of poems. Here is one that seems appropriate to the season. In Hardwood Groves The same leaves over and over again! They fall from giving shade above To make one texture of faded brown And fit the earth like a leather glove. Before the leaves can mount again To fill the trees with another shade, They must go down past things coming up. They must go down into the dark decayed. They must be pierced by flowers and put Beneath the feet of dancing flowers. However it is in some other world I know that this is way in ours.

Here, out of my photo files, is a picture of Ellen sitting on her quilt. This quilt was made for her by one of my overseas pen-pals, who mailed it to her for Ellen's first birthday. I treasure this quilt and pray it will be one that Ellen will treasure also. This pen-pal is Victoria, from the Ukraine. She and I became pals way back when it was all still the USSR over there. We do not keep in touch much, and mostly by email now, but we are still friends nonetheless. She is quite the seamstress and does really beautiful work. I treasure all of my friends and pen-friends, but this was one the most touching gifts we have ever received in the mail.

For this Thursday's list I hadn't had anything planned ahead of time. I mentioned to my husband at lunch that I needed to find 13 things to list. He suggested 13 things that make me smile. And he listed off the first four... Delightfully helpful man! Thirteen Things That Make Me Smile 1) The honking of geese on their way north in spring. 2) Seeing the little radishes sprouting in spring. (ummm...can you tell he's not looking forward to winter?) 3) A kid's laughter 4) Watching kittens playing. 5) A walk by the creek. 6) Finding a dollar bill in a jacket I haven't worn since last winter. 7) Watching Ellen "steering" the 4-wheeler when she's riding on it with her daddy. 8) Getting a good book in the mail. 9) Listening to some of the tales my husband tells about the locals. 10) Getting a good email from a friend. 11) Listening to the kids at church practice for their Christmas play. 12) Seeing a friend I haven't seen in a long time. 13) Ending this

The past couple of months I have mostly been making fun of other people, so I guess I ought to poke fun at myself a bit. In Sunday's post, (or was it Monday's, or Saturday's? I forget. Who cares?) I talked about ideas city people have when they come to the country. Heh. I forgot to throw in my personal example. I came here with the fond idea of having a compost pile. You know, all the kitchen waste rotted down into good compost for the garden. Hmmmm...that didn't even last one night. Remember the wildlife I mentioned before? Yeah, well it didn't take long for them to all show up en masse; 'coons, 'possums and skunks, oh, my! Not to mention stray cats and what all else. Since I don't want to hassle with getting a compost bin, I just make sure I toss my kitchen scraps a long way from the house now and let 'em duke it out to get it. Now, I should have added yesterday's event to yesterday's post, but I ran out of time. Here goes... Ge

A friend sent me a clipping called "Desserts Gone Wrong." They are from a different blog called " Cake Wrecks ." Please click on the link to go there and get a few good laughs. Here's two examples: A good lesson: always go in to the store to order your cake and WRITE DOWN what you want the cake to say. Otherwise they might mess up the spelling, or take you literally. Ha Ha!

For the most part my garden is kaput. I have yet to clear all the vines and weeds and whatnot from the beds, but fresh produce is just a memory...almost. This is a picture of a couple of our winter radishes. They are called "China Rose" and are an Asian variety. As you can see, they get huge. That is a quarter there next to them. You'd think that they'd be woody or dry and pithy but they are actually really good; crisp and juicy and very radish-y. Hubby likes radishes more than I do. But it's something to grow and something to put on the table for him. Somewhere I have read that you can cook radishes much like you'd cook any other root vegetable, but I haven't, as yet, got up the courage or wherewithal to give it a try. And hubby hasn't been clamoring for mashed radishes or some such, so I think perhaps I will just leave it alone. Today I assisted hubby with another culvert transport. He now has a couple of driveway grading projects lined u

The church Christmas program practices are going strong on Wed nights. Thank you Lord, I am not in charge of it this year. We did fine last year, but this year they are having more of the middlers involved. I doubt my abilities to maintain control and sanity over a much larger group. The gal in charge is almost 20 yrs younger than I am...more power to her. Plus she knows what she's doing; last year I had no idea. Hubby was over talking to the renters yesterday. They are really nice. They come from St Joseph, more like city types than country. It is funny how you can tell city folks from the things they do. They have this driveway alarm that they set up. It's attached to a tree and has some kind of laser that goes across the driveway so when a car enters there's a gizmo in the house that beeps, alerting them. Well, yesterday the guy tells hubby that they have to have it shut off at night. Why? The deer were tripping it constantly, all night long. (HAHAHAHA) Oh

or....shades of jel at My Place. I have been taking random photos around here the past few days, for those times when I have blogger's block and can't think of anything to post. The windmill at sunset always makes for a good photo op, provided there are a few clouds in the sky. And that's all for today. It'll soon be time to fix something to eat, Ellen is cranky, the kittens are driving me nuts-I wish someone would take them both-and there is laundry to bring in. Hopefully I will have something more interesting to blog about tomorrow.

It has been five years today. Can you believe it? We were reminiscing about it this morning. I told him I didn't even want to remember it. I was so glad when the whole thing was over with. Never was I the type of girl who dreamt about her wedding, planned anything about it or even really thought about it at all. I could have cared less, really, especially by the time I was 36. Throw in an entire life change, a move across the country, leaving family, friends, and a job I love, then add wedding stress to it. Never again. Thank God I don't have to do it ever again. It was awful. Don't get me wrong. Getting married was the best thing that ever happened to me. I am happy, have a wonderful husband, have a wonderful family, have wonderful in-laws, and am out in the country living the life I always wanted. But I am just as pleased that my wedding day was 5 years ago and that most of the bad memories of it are receding into the mists of time. Ha. Happy Anniversary Dear!

Here is my list of 13 for today. Some time ago a friend told me that she’d read or heard somewhere that the average cook has about 10 or so meals that they make on a regular basis, as most people don’t vary their diet much. I keep that in mind as I cook and try to make different things. But then when I think about it maybe that’s not so far from the truth really. So here are the top 13 main courses I fix. 1) Fried Chicken This is hubby's favorite meal, usually involving mashed spuds, gravy and biscuits. 2) Pressured Pork Not long after we got married hubby ensured that I had a small (I think it's 3 or 5 quart) pressure cooker so I could cook this particular meal. You season and brown pork chops, then add peeled chunked or sliced carrots and potatoes, season them, add some water. Then you pressure cook it all for 8 minutes. Voila, supper is through. Add a salad or a side for variety. So easy! 3) Hamburgers and taters Another of Hubby's favorites. Brown ham

This pic is from yesterday. For some reason it just wouldn't download yesterday for my blog. She looks pleased as punch, doens't she?

Today brought a couple more adventures...all involving wood. First off this morning, after chores and Ellen's breakfast we got ready and went up the road to trim limbs from hubby's aunt's roadway. This involved my driving the big diesel flatbed in stops and starts up the road whilst hubby, standing on the bed; banged on the roof, hollered directions (back up, go forward, turn sharp to that hawthorn, ease up to that oak...etc) and did the sawing, and Ellen squalled her head off about 75 percent of the time because she didn't like all the noise. Hubby set the air brake the first stop before he got out and that set her off but good. She did NOT like it at all. But it didn't take us long and there at the end she was getting used to it. After we came back from that hubby had to go get another load of dry walnut wood for Ger. (Ger being what Ellen calls her grandmother. She came up with it all on her own, just when she was first starting to talk.) Hubby had it al

We had a teeny adventure today. At least it was an adventure for Ellen. We went down to the creek bottoms and got a load of wood. Hubby took the big blue tractor, so we didn't have any horrible adventures like he had last month. ( click here ) Here's the view I had on the way down; Ellen's tousled head and hubby on the tractor. I took Ellen on the 4-wheeler. She loved it. She always loves going down there, namely because she loves to go to the creek and throw rocks in the water. So after we'd helped load the wood, I took her to the creek for a bit. There is something mesmerizing about water. It is a necessity of course; life seems to congregate around it. But there is also something about running water that offers a certain tranquility. I love to walk out into the middle of the creek and stand there and watch the eddies around the rocks, to listen to it chuckling along. The caw of a crow, the creak of a cricket...it all adds up to peace of mind.

After two days of ranting here I thought it'd be a good day for a laugh or two. Here are some jokes. I started off with a lawyer joke, the rest are farmer jokes. Enjoy. Free haircuts A barber gave a haircut to a priest one day. The priest tried to pay for the haircut, but the barber refused, saying, "You do God’s work." The next morning the barber found a dozen bibles at the door to his shop. A policeman came to the barber for a haircut, and again the barber refused to pay, saying, "You protect the public." The next morning the barber found a dozen doughnuts at the door to his shop. A lawyer came to the barber for a haircut, and again the barber refused payment, saying, "You serve the justice system." The next morning the barber found a dozen lawyers waiting for a free haircut. Settling a cow case A big-city lawyer was representing the railroad in a lawsuit filed by an old rancher. The rancher's prize bull was missing from the section through whi

Yep; drop the "ing" and slur the "season". The bangs for a big buck are now being heard in our land. (And does too I believe.) Put'cher hunter orange caps on, tuck in yer chaw and go out and be a weekend warrior. Or whatever they call it. This is the season where we get invaded by folks from out of town who think they are bigshots because they bought a hunting license and are going to go and get a big one. There are kind of two unspoken factions here: the locals and the "furriners." The locals are the ones who oftentimes hunt, not for sport, but for their freezers. The "furriners" are the ones who come in here from out of town...sometimes out of state...and actually lease, that's right...LEASE land to hunt on. If you are a local leasing your land, it's kind of funny. There's more than one way to get money from a city slicker. If it's someone who's come in, bought up the land, lives out of town and then leases it

National Blog Posting Month is on. ********** Today in church the pastor spoke about "practical" matters, as he has been doing the past few weeks. He quoted Dr Laura (whoever she is-not having a TV I am ignorant of such matters, though I recall hearing the name I believe)as saying something along the lines of: "A society is only as moral as its women allow it to be." A quote that he agreed with. And as I ponder it, I would suppose it certainly has truth in it, though I believe that there are other things to be factored in. Women are not always in control of legislation, which to a certain extent controls morality. But if fashion has anything to do with it I would say yes, because I believe women's fashions are nearing the point of being as slutty as possible without breaking the public indecency laws. You know it is SO HARD to try and blog about a serious issue with a squirmy 2.75 year old on your lap. Well, that's my deep thought for Sunday. Happy blo