Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

On Wednesday, about...oh...maybe 3ish PM, I was fixing supper and happened to catch a glance of the palm of my hand out of the corner of my eye. On it was written, in black Sharpie: 47  That's all.  47 I remembered writing it there, but for the life of me I couldn't remember WHY or WHAT it stood for or WHEN I'd put it there.  I mean, that IS my age, but why the samhill would I write my age on my palm? I finished preparing supper; we ate, did chores, went to bed. In the course of time the 47 wore off.  But my curiosity remained. On Thursday I pondered; off and on.  Well, Wed morning I'd gone to our Book Study.  But there are no Sharpies readily available there.  Afterward I'd stopped by my mom's.  We keep a Sharpie handy there.  Ellen uses it to mark off the days on the calendar to help my mom remember what day it is.  (Not that this works, but that's a different blog post altogether.) But why 47? Hmmmm I keep a  Sharp...

Last night we had just finished eating supper...maybe about 4:30 PM, when the phone rang.  It was sister-in-law who was just getting home from work, from Lebanon way.  Here's a brief version of the conversation: SIL:  "Yeah, I think your cows are out, down at the creek on P Highway." ME: "What, what?" SIL:  "They are all Holsteins and it looks like the whole herd, some are in the road." ME, talking to hubby: "She says there's a herd of Holsteins on P Hwy at the creek." Hubby: "It has to be them, their the only dairy cows in the area. Get the car, get going!" ME:  "!" SIL, half hour later:  "I asked what I could do to help, but I was talking to empty air; you'd hung up on me."  LOL Hubby got on the 4-wheeler and Ellen and I jumped in the car really quick and off we went.  It's not too far from us; just a mile around the corner maybe. When we got there only 2 cows were on the highway...

It is finally spring here in the Missouri Ozarks.  The cows are happy to forego the hay and nosh on grass and clover. There is a pasture to the west of the farm barnyard here where hubby puts the milking herd at night in the spring.  He has kept this pature shut up until now because he had to put up cattle panels to protect some new equipment we put out there this winter. So the grass and clover are ankle deep; lush and green.  Last night, for the first time in months, hubby opened the gate and let the cows go out there after milking.  Boy did they ever enjoy it.  They enjoyed it so much that in the morning they were rather uninterested in coming into the barn to eat during milking.  Hubby said he opened the door for the first batch, all of which usually come into the barn voluntarily, and they all just stood there and looked at him.  He had to go out and coax them in.  They'd filled up on green stuff. So, after milking in the mornings in sp...

   Saturday our church had our annual hayride/fish fry.  It was awesome as usual; fun times with friends, laughter, and great food.  This is a big fall tradition for our church.  And, as the evening progresses and darkness falls, the children especially look forward to the tradition of the bonfire, toasted marshmallows and hotdogs.  They anticipate this as much or more, I believe, than all the rest of the activities. There seems to be some primeval call to experience the four elements with wild abandon; does there not?  Look at the extreme sports; they most all deal with pitting oneself against nature, the force of gravity to the earth, to walk on hot coals, spit fire, to fly faster, dive deeper, or go spelunking into the most inaccessible cave possible. This struck me as I watched the kids; mostly boys, around the bonfire Saturday night.  And I have seen one of my own nephews exhibit this behaviour.  They wanted to keep throwing fu...

When we cleaned out the aforementioned Maxwell House I tried to salvage as much as I could of things that could be of any value.  I didn't take pictures of much of it, maybe I ought to take more pics of the things I found, but here are two.   In the cupboards and on the kitchen counters I found this set of Corelle dishes.  I believe there are 24 pieces in total, all in perfect condition, no chips.  I have my own set of Corelle, so I am torn as to what to do with it.  Should I keep it, should I sell it?  I dunno.  We just don't use this many dishes, and we'd never use the cups, or the different sizes of bowls and plates.  I think I will just sell it. This is my collection of lotus blossom bowls.  I like them.  They make me happy.  Why, I don't know, but they do.  I have never bought on new.  My first 3 or 4 I found at an estate sale.  The others I have added from yard sales.  Anyway. I fou...

Because I hadn't blogged all summer, here are a few pictures from our California trip.  Here is Ellen on the airplane on the way over to Denver, I believe.  Before we leave on our trip she sweats about it; she is a born worrywort, from both my dad and her paternal aunt.   But once we are in the air going she does great; mostly she reads or colors.  In this pic she is wearing her "Grace" American Girl hat.  She bought this herself; saved up her allowance and birthday money and paid for it herself. Notice that her hair is not braided nor pulled back.  After a 12 or so hour journey her hair wasn't just tangled, it was dreaded.  Serious dreadlocks.  Next year we will do things a bit differently. Below is a picture of the tail end of our journey that started on June 18th. We did not get to the Eureka/Arcata Airport in McKinleyville until about 4 am on June 19th.   All the flights out of San Francisco were cancelled.  Th...

Hubby fell a few trees and bull-dozed around and on the other side of the house and bush-hogged, so it looks fairly nice from the road. This is the view from the front of the house; which actually faces north, away from the road. Below is the sun room.  I love this room.  It wasn't part of the original house; they added it on much later.  There are no heating/cooling vents in it at all, but they put in 7 or 8 outlets.  Maybe for fans or heaters...lol.  The big windows set is actually an old panel of individual panes that they must have found somewhere and had installed when they added this room on.  We ripped out the nasty carpeting and installed laminate wood flooring.  It made a world of difference.   We brought in a friend and had a painting party: we painted every room but the sun room.  Then we had both upstairs bedrooms  and the front room and hall carpeted (this is the room where Ellen was standing among...