Rebuilding Strong!

Twenty-five years ago, Dennis built our cattle corral. Today, he's replacing a good portion of it. Several posts had rotted away, and it was no longer strong enough to push the cattle through.
He says the replacements should make it good for another 25 years, so he figures this is the last time he will be doing this little job. When he did it the first time, he used a jobber to dig the post holes. This time, he used the auger. Even so, it was a lot of hard work, and I appreciate it!
I don't know too many who would tackle it alone at his age! He does good work, and lots of it too!
I'm so blessed to have such a fine husband!


So, while he works so hard out in the heat and humidity, what do I do? You're reading it!
I'm also fixing some grub, so when he gets finished he will have just enough time to shower before supper is ready.
School starts August 25! I can't believe summer is almost over.

I found the pictures from 25 years ago in my scrapbook. Decided to scan and post them just for fun. Here's Dennis and his "helpful" dog team, building our first corral.


If you use Facebook, I have more pictures there. I have also put a lot of the pictures from my week in Wisconsin on Facebook. I think you can find me by clicking here.

Almost AUGUST!

We're just over three weeks from a new school year. Still a little time, but so much we want to do! Yesterday we did the annual corn process. Dad and Travis picked, we all shucked until we had a head start, and then we let the cutters start. Once we had some cut, Gariann went inside to do the cooking and cooling. We started around 7:30 and had picked, shucked, cut and cooked about 130 dozen ears. We don't have a final count on the number of bags in the freezer yet, but I'm guessing it will exceed 250 pints. We were a great team, and we'll all have corn to eat this winter even if we have nothing else!








































Zach finally agreed to get his hair cut! I think he's so much healthier looking and handsome with his buzz cut! Wyatt got his cut several weeks before Zach, and at first he thought he looked "like a dork". He didn't, of course! I think their buzz cuts are cute!

VERY Brief Update!!!

Since several have pointed out that I've not updated in some time, here is a very quick update.
More later, with pictures.

• Summer school has gone very well and will end July 30.
  
• Swimming party for just our family at the new pool tonight! Should be fun!
• Spent last weekend in Northern Wisconsin at Camp Forest Springs
• Spending this weekend in Northern Wisconsin at Camp Forest Springs
• Sweet corn is almost ready to pick and process for our winter supply!
• Summer is going by way too fast!!!!

It was totally unintentional, but each of those things listed started with an "S"! Here are a few more random news flashes:

• Bobbie got a new car! 2010 Prius. Very nice!
• Gariann and Kirk have new bikes! Also very nice!
• We have lots of bluebirds utilizing all those boxes Zach made.
• It's raining again today!
• Jake had his 18th birthday yesterday! WOW!
• I have become a collector of baseball cards!
  
• We're still looking for a good home for our dog. Call if you're interested!
• All three calves are doing well, growing and cute as can be.
• Lynn has ordered solar lights for our flagpoles! Yea!
• We've been reading a lot more this summer, and watching less television! Yea!!!

Well, I'm sure I could go on and on, but my students will be here in about ten minutes, and I have to be ready!
Watch for new photos soon!

10:30 PM
Just back from the pool party.

July First!

Finally! It's been so long since my last post, I really don't know where to start!
On June 11, summer school classes started at Mar's One Room Schoolhouse. I have two students attending three mornings each week. They're both very good students. I am really hard pressed to have challenging lessons for Zach. I've been having him working with multiplying, adding and subtracting fractions, finding percentages, and lots of multiplication and division problems to solve. Wyatt is learning to count by twos and threes. He's also counting by fives and tens to one hundred, which he learned in his kindergarten class, but we don't want to forget! He is reading aloud every day. We alternate between music, art and P.E. One day, we had Bobbie as a guest art teacher. They each went home with a very nice pastel picture.



Our heifers have all calved. The first two had no problems, but the third one was unable to deliver on her own. By the time we realized she needed help, the calf was dead. Kirk came to help us and we were able to save the cow. The fourth and final one also had difficulty, but we were ready this time. All three of the living calves are girls. The one we lost was a boy.

Travis has been building rafters in our barn. He's using the lumber he salvaged from Grandma Schulte's house. She'd be very pleased to know that! Dennis and Dad have helped quite a bit. They're a hard-working crew! I should have taken a picture of them while they were working. Instead, I caught them sitting down for lunch, telling stories and laughing a lot.



Today, we put up about 475 bales of hay. We had quite a crew, and everything went well. We had Tyler coming to help when he got off, but we'd just finished unloading the last wagon as he drove down the lane. It was a perfect day for it. The temperatures were in the low seventies and mostly cloudy skies. Our crew hardly broke a sweat!

June!

Wow! School's out, and the first week of "summer vacation" is already gone! It's been a full week with various activities. Lots of mowing, some planting, chasing cows, fixing fences, walking every morning with Mom and Bobbie, and baseball games are just a few of the things that have kept us busy.
We finally decided that the bird pictured in the previous post was indeed a snow bunting. He's since moved on. Last night we enjoyed hearing the whippoorwills! Lightning bugs and whippoorwills....can it get any better than that? I love summer!
The pictures below just prove that some members of our family might be a little crazy! Tyler, and his friend, Michael are laying on the ground hoping Wyatt jumps far enough to clear them. You'll not catch me doing that!

Can You Help?

We are unable to identify this bird. It's about the size of a sparrow. If you know what it is, we'd love to hear from you! We think it may be a snow bunting, but it's not quite like the pictures we have in our book.

Wet and Windy Wednesday

We hear thunder rumbling, and know it's coming. We just don't know how long before it hits. We're really hoping that the "large hail" will not get here at all!
These past few weeks, we have enjoyed watching a family of cardinals. They built a nest in the bayberry bush right next to our front porch. We observed the mother sitting on her eggs. It wasn't long before they hatched, and we watched the parents feed their babies. Both worked constantly caring for the young ones. Today, the young left the nest! I noticed the parents flitting about and "clucking" a lot. After looking more closely, I saw one of the little ones hopping around in the bush, and then it tried to fly. My fear was that the dog would notice, and kill the babies, but that didn't happen. I expect we'll see them frequently at the feeders now. I'm adding pictures in no particular order.






























Isn't he (or she) cute!
Well, the storm hit, and we got less than a half inch of rain....so far. It really blew and rained hard, but not for too long. No hail, thankfully. Our Internet service stalled out, as it normally does during a bad storm. The sky is still very cloudy, but it looks like it might be breaking up.
I hope the baby birds were in a safe, dry place!

The Family That Works Together...

...gets a LOT done! And what a blessing it is to see grandsons benefit from the skills and knowledge of Grandpa and Great Grandpa! Zach's "Make It Happen" project is to build and place nesting boxes to be used by Eastern Bluebirds. We have yet to place them, but spent Saturday afternoon in Dad's shop, building birdhouses. It was fun, and the boys learned a lot too! We're planning to put the houses out one afternoon this week.


Zach's drilling the entry holes for the houses.


Here they are putting the roof on the first one.


Wyatt is using a file to round off the sharp edges.


Here's the first one finished! Only eight to go.


I'm in countdown mode at school. There are only 18 days remaining for this year! Yahoo!
Farming, for us anyway, has not yet started. We've had lots of rain, and expect more yet this week. When it does dry up, we'll be plenty busy until it's all done.
Our heifers should start calving sometime after the middle of June. It will be fun to have babies again, but they won't be "pets" like the goats were. I sure miss those little goats.

Prom 2009

The lovely couple. Off for an evening of fun!

And the Winner Is...

Dennis! He said the car was fast, and the competition was tough! Although he's said he won't be running for points this year, I'm betting that he will try to run the entire Dash for Cash series. It's just five races and a big finale in mid-September. The only question is: Will he be able to make the May 9th race? We'll have to see how the planting season goes.