January 21, 2024

new animals on the farm and a snowstorm

Wow, it's been a hot minute since I've posted here.  Early December we had a bull calf born to our milk cow Lazer, we call him Little Man, though that definitely won't fit him when he gets bigger.  We also added a couple of piglets and they joined our farm yesterday.



We would have picked them up a week ago, but we ended up having a snowstorm.  It was so bad that our county plows stopped plowing around 8:00 in the evening and picked it up again the next morning.  We did head out when it was all done, and our drive was all cleared up to see what the world outside our home looked like with all the snow we had received.  

 


We had a wonderful Christmas and New Year; I hope you all did too.

October 10, 2023

texas trip

 












It's photo overload here, sorry about that.  We have had a busy September and took a trip to Texas to visit our son, dil and the granddaughters.  The photos are just a highlight of the trip.  We saw some neat sights, had dinner in the Southern Belle, took walks everyday despite the 90+ degree weather.  We picked pecans from our son's backyard, we even got up close and personal with some longhorns and I think my most favorite of all was visiting Blue Bell ice cream.  Unfortunately, the closest I have seen it is too far away where we could buy it...sigh, it is soooo good.

I forgot to also mention that we got to see our granddaughter preform in the marching band at half time.  Texas high school football and marching band is amazing.

Trying to get so many things done around here before the snow flies.  We so enjoyed our trip to Texas but it was time to head home and get back to reality.  

September 11, 2023

hello

 

My goodness, where did the week go?  Better yet where did 10 days go?  It has been very busy here, lots of canning getting done, an Amish auction attended and a 5-day quilt retreat for me, to get away and sew and visit with my dear friends who all have the same interest...quilting.

Cooler weather has arrived, but the rains have not.  We still haven't had rain and our whole property, yard and pastures are very brown and dry.  It makes me wonder if we will ever see green again when we look out our windows.

You sure don't see these old pay phones anymore.  This one is at the gas station that I stop for gas at occasionally.  I wish it was intact with the phone receiver and cord, though the phone numbers are still readable that are posted on the phone.

Times have sure changed from pay phones to cell phones.  If only we could make a call from a pay phone again, at least I would love to.

August 30, 2023

on our walk

I love walking down the lane as we call it, it's been a while since we walked this path, we were very surprised to see a lone round bale still in the field.



Along our walk we spied this berry plant growing, we both don't recall ever seeing this plant growing.  Our neighbor who usually mows the sides of the path hasn't mowed the path in a few years.  It has never been his job to do so, but he grows the hayfield above and has slowed down quite a bit and it was something that he liked to do.  Now I think since he's no longer mowing a lot of plants that would have been mowed down are now free to grow.



August is almost done, that is so hard to believe.  Where did the month, let alone the year go?

August 24, 2023

smoking hills


Last week on our way to meet and pick up the grandsons for their week stay here on our farm, the hills were smoking, and we haven't seen that it seems like in such a long time.  
We hit 103° temperatures yesterday, that was definitely a record for this year and maybe that's a record since we moved here to Wisconsin.  We have AC but don't usually put it going, we definitely have had it on for about a week now.  I'm not the fondest of AC but I will turn it on when the temps are just too hot to handle.

August 22, 2023

busy week

The trees are starting to change their color around here.  This tree always turns early and not even fully, then the leaves start to fall.

We had a couple of the grandsons here the past week and we had a lot of fun, we stayed busy pretty much every day.  School starts for them in lower Michigan at the end of the month, it's hard to believe that summer is coming to a close.  Cooking s'mores and waiting for the shooting stars to appear were one of the fun things we did.


One of the things we did when our son and dil came, was our son helped put in two wall doors that needed to be replaced badly.  When the outside trim pieces were removed this is what was discovered.  We knew that there must be a wasps nest up in behind the boards but just had no idea how big the nest could be.  Luckily no one had gotten stung.


Monday was pretty quiet for us with the grandsons gone, trying to get back to our quiet life here on our ridge.

August 08, 2023

wildflowers


My walk the other day was pleasant, the temps were not too high.  On the corner of our property, I had planted some wild coneflowers and wild daylilies, and despite having the lack of rain this summer they grew pretty nice.

August 04, 2023

fork in the road


Heading to our Amish friends the other day, this site really caught my eye as I was driving to their home.  I have never taken any photos of their place until now and this was nowhere near their home.  You can see just how many buggies go down this road just by the number of tracks you can see.  

But what struck me was that we had taken the fork in the road and it ended up with a friendship I would never have imagined having in my wildest dreams.  I am grateful for the friendship we have with this Amish family and to be able to sit and share a meal with them either at their table or ours.  

Sometimes all you need to do is take one of the forks you come upon as you are going down the road and there just might be a wonderful surprise at the end of that road you least expect.

August 02, 2023

wild coneflowers


We took a walk the other day and our neighbor has wild coneflowers growing in her yard, so I just had to stop and take a picture.  I did plant some in our front ditches from a few wild coneflower seeds that I acquired, but I don't have near as many as my neighbor has growing here.