Monday, May 30, 2011

Sewing project

cherry dress 2



cherry dress 1Rachel's attended 3 birthdays in the same number of weekends. The last 2 parties I made a dress for each girl for Rachel to give as a gift. This is the latest one, cherries!

Poor thing got into poison Ivy. More than likely she touched/picked up the goats and then touched her face. The last time (a few months ago) she was tramping through the woods and I was able to curb it at home, this time we weren't so lucky and Saturday landed us in urgent care talking to a doctor who tried to convince me it wasn't poison ivy but hives from something else. Fortunately the treatment is the same (Prednisone and antihistamines) so I didn't argue with him but I won't go out of my way to see him again either. He was the kind of doctor you'd like to throw your full bed pan at and hope you hit square in the face.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

This that 'n the other

Hard to believe a (school) year has gone by already! Seems like just yesterday I was getting the kids ready to put on the bus and now they're out for the summer!

A whole school year in Kansas has flown by, the thought of it sends me reeling. Winter even flew by, which is pretty hard to believe thinking last fall I had wondered if we'd make it through! But...here we are.

Plans are in place for summer work, mostly to prepare for the next winter, if you can believe that! We went through a pretty good amount of wood, that's for sure. It somewhat caught us unprepared though it wasn't as if we were working on a million other things. I somewhat dread the winter, that's for sure. Thinking about next kidding season is a lot of fun until I come to the part about having to go through winter and that doesn't really thrill me a whole lot to be honest.

The past few weeks Jeremiah and one of his students have spend a lot of time in the woods clearing out trees that have snapped off. These black locust trees we have in abundance grow super fast and it's great wood to burn but they don't last more than 15 years or so, if the ice storms don't get them first. They'll pop up anywhere too from these little tiny seeds, given the right conditions, they'll be a full grown tree in a year. Not something I want in the lawn areas!

At any rate, there's a lot of good burning wood to pull out of the woods on the east portion of the property. Jeremiah and I managed, between dropping Rachel off for a slumber party on Saturday, picking up her up on Sunday and Jeremiah attending the school's graduation on Sunday, to finally get another long stretch of fencing up. I'd say the biggest issue has been clearing the fence line to begin with!

The north property line (back of the property) we worked on too clearing these stupid sand hill plum bushes out of the way and ripping yucca out of the ground.  There's about 400' of fencing I can run myself now which I'd like to get to today. It's really not hard fencing to put up at all...a lot of walking back and forth but other than that, it's pretty simple.

But speaking of fencing, our vet neighbor about a month ago said he'd pay us in t-posts. I'm pretty darned ticked with him. First off, he's the one with "Horse". "Horse" stayed with us for about a month after we moved in until he decided to come over and ask for her back...like we were holding her hostage! Not wanting to speak ill of our neighbors or anything, but come on, that's not exactly the best way to make friends with your new neighbors, ya know? So anyway, they have dogs that yap yap yap all the time! "Horse" likes to come down to the fence line while I feed and look pitiful and here lately, I don't think she's had food for the past month. Or at least that's the way the vet made it sound so of course I feel badly and feed her some! Alfalfa ain't the cheapest thing in the world for sure!

We talked to him about a month ago about fencing. Here in Kansas the law is that neighbors share in the cost to replace/maintain. Well, this fence is definitely in need of replacing and I knew it would be a hard sell to some of the neighbors being as how it really only benefits us to have it all electrified though it's not as if I am asking them to pay for the electricity AND the is the cheapest fencing you can buy! It just so happens, in my personal opinion, it's also the best. The non-electrified 4 strand is doing just fine for the 2 neighbors with horses. Never mind they haven't spent a minute in helping to maintain it! The fence we share with the vet has 2 strands that are completely broken! The corner post in all but one corner are gone and have been/were replaced. The vet's response was something to the affect of, 'Well, this new fence doesn't really help me. What's up is just fine and I could come out here and have it repaired in an hour.' Well then gosh darnit, DO IT!

Anyway, he said he'd give us about 50 used t-posts that were just sitting around his office instead. We figured if that's all he could afford, it was better than nothing. We've yet to see them, surprise surprise. He wanted to know if he could "board" his horse in our pasture over the summer for $1 a day. You think I'll see that money? Probably not and as sad as it makes me to think horse is over there starving, I won't agree to taking his horse. For one, the whole back fence doesn't exist and for two, cross fencing will take a while and I will not take the chance that the horse does something to the goats and I will not not let the goats out because the horse is. Vet or not, the guy won't even follow through on his word with t posts, I sure don't expect to see a check for $30 a month!

His fence line is only about 350' so we figured we'd get that done before starting on the longer stretches so we'd have to put the horse up for a few days in one of our empty corrals. You know he had no problem with that! He even mentioned that all she'd need was some water and hay everyday and a can of corn; he'd bring he corn. Well, gee thanks! I swear!

So, I'm not sure what to do at this point. If I knew he'd pay the bill and it wouldn't end up just being a fight I'd send him a bill but as it is, I think it would be a waste of my time and sanity. Two of the neighbor have agreed to help and the north neighbor, well, there is no north neighbor. The property is in and out of foreclosure and I seriously doubt we'll get blood from a turnip on that one though I do know the owner's current address so I may just send them a bill. Ya never know. May as well do that with the vet too and take photos first but not make it a point to worry about it. The fencing's all bought anyway, however, we will need a new fencer. As I said, the lightening toasted the last one.

So anyway, a good portion of the summer will be spent chopping wood and repairing some things on the shop. The roof is leaking where the skylights are. The panels need to be taken off, scraped of the old caulking and then re-caulk and re-rivited. I've not emptied some of the boxes in the shop of decoration stuff because I have not painted much of the house. I have not painted because Jeremiah mentioned wanting to open the wall back up (he installed a 2 way switch to run the fan we put in last summer) to put in a line going to the outside garage light but yesterday he mentioned putting it on a motion detector instead so I am now free to tape, mud and re-texture, paint it and get another box out of the shop.

 Someone recently asked Jeremiah if he taught welding to private parties. Guess who may be running some welding lessons out of the shop this summer? It's is something he'd like to get into further later on but it's not as if we don't have 5 million other things going on either!

At any rate, the truck needs new brake bands so that's Jeremiah's chore for this weekend. I need to show clip some goats, the darker ones to be exact, for the show next weekend. The others will get done later in the week. Rachel has been working almost daily training the little girls to lead. We'll see how all that goes! More than likely she'll end up dragging them but all in a days work.

We're taking quite a few goats to the show. The youth show is on Friday evening with a showmanship class beginning at 6 PM. She's taking 2 doe kids. The open doe and buck show is the next day and I'm planning on taking 2 doe kids, 2 Sr. dry yearlings, 2 yearlings in milk and then 3 bucks! The older does have milked off their backs more than I would like and are not in show shape so they will stay. I am taking a buck kid out of a yearling who has already been sold (but is staying on his dam until we get back from Ca.). I'll show the yearling and then Jeremiah will show Prince Charming. Well, Jeremiah's showing one of each of the girls but since the buck kid and yearling buck are in a class of their own, I'll just do them myself. It should be an exciting day and I am anxious to see how the girls (and boys) do!

I have sold a few of my milkers and most of the kids as well. We're keeping 4 doe kids, 2-3 milking yearlings and then the 4 older does and bucks. We'll be bringing back a 5 year old doe and her buck kid from Ca. and I keep saying that's it. HA. We've built the herd up pretty nicely I'd say in short order. I was very pleased with the kid crop this year and next year should be even better!

 Anyway, today marks the first official day of summer vacation for the kids. The storms have passed through and there's lots of laundry that piled up waiting for a nice day to wash it and hang it out on the line. Which, you'll be happy to note, I finally have a real real clothes line. The umbrella clothes line kept sinking into the loamy soil and it's not really good for winter time drying (on the days that are warm enough to actually dry the clothes) because the line are too close together so I was either wasting a lot of space by skipping lines or the clothe weren't getting dry and what's the point of having it then? So, Jeremiah welded up some heavy duty metal posts and we concreted those in the ground a few weeks ago. It's finally nice to be able to hang sheets out again!

Jeremiah and I scraped the popcorn off Drew's ceiling so we're finally ready to paint. He first picked out a green color but now he wants blue so back down to get blue paint and I'll use the green elsewhere. Jeremiah also scraped the hallway ceiling and I can paint that now if I want...which I don't. The kitchen, oh the kitchen (!), has this ugly texture job going on on the walls. Why someone paid to have this done is beyond me though I think I must be the only one who despises it because everyone who comes in says how much they like it!

The "back" room in the basement is floored and done minus the drop down ceiling which can wait so I have been slowly moving my sewing stuff back there. I'd like to get the dresser that's currently in the living room down there and be able to paint the living room and move in the couches we bought that are sitting in the shop!

That's all for now. Time to get started with the day!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Yesterday's Storm...

Wasn't so bad...here anyway. Friend of a friend down in Ok. lost two young children. Thoughts are with them, then of course everyone still reeling in Mo., parts of Kansas and Mn. earlier this week.

Two were killed south of us when a tree apparently slammed through their car. That was just about the time when I was wondering if the children and I should take cover at the local fire station!

Monday night we were out late planting grass seed in the back yard. The report was that it was supposed to start raining early Tuesday. The next report was on Tuesday that it wasn't coming until 3. Well, I hung out clothes yesterday and by 3 PM the skies were still clear and blue. It was muggy but I figured the forecasters changed their mind and decided it wasn't going to storm afterall. By 3:30 I had Jeremiah on his way home stopping to pick up pizza and I had to go out to the shipping store in town to drop off a package and then to Walmart for some more allergy medicine for Rachel- poison ivy...AGAIN! But she's not got the worst of it. I do!

Anyway, we spent about 20 minutes in Walmart and we're heading up to the check out and I look out through the double doors and think surely one of them must be closed (the tinted outer one) until I didn't see it opening and people are walking through. It went from bright and sunny to dark and ominous in just 20 minutes! It was eerie. The cashier was saying that someone had said the thunder storm watch turned into a tornado warning and she didn't trust that report because if that were the case, we'd all be heading for cover.

We walked outside and most people were running for their cars with a few people nonchalantly walking in to the store. One gal in line mentioned that things sure got dark quick and probably saw a look of panic on my face. I didn't think I was that upset but I said, "I'm used to being completely oblivious about natural disasters, I'm from California!" She said, "Oh my, I always said I'd take a tornado over an earthquake any day!". My reply was, "No, it's pretty nice being blissfully unaware."


Driving home wasn't all that fun. About the time we were passing the airport a gust of wind felt like it picked the car up off the ground. About that time the announcer on the radio said the Hutchinson Airport measured a 69 mile per hour gust. And I'm thinking, "Crap, maybe we should go back to the fire station and take cover while this passes through because I am about to go through about 3 miles of nothing but a tree corridor." But along the route the school was there as was the church and if nothing else, the pastor's house...so, we knew of places.


We ate pizza and watched the news for much of the evening. Rachel was on edge because the NOAA radio kept going off and I can see how that can get old and thrown out the window after a storm or two! Rachel pulled all of her important items down in the basement-barbies, stuffed animals, blankets, nail polish, fancy shoes and tiara (you know, all the really important things). Both kids slept down there though it wasn't really necessary.

A wave of storms hit for a few hours. The first one breaking a pretty big limb off of a tree. We'll have to cut the whole tree down at some point. There was so much rain at one point you could barely see the trees 10 feet way from the window. The thunder and lightening was amazing! I thought Texas got cool storms.

But speaking of lightening and damage, our fencer (the thing that makes the electric fence electric) is toast. We even put in a lightening/surge arrester, though we were skeptical about it. It's basically nothing more than a ceramic piece that takes the energy from any lightening strike on the fence wires and grounds it by rods in the ground before it hits the fencer. Well, it didn't work obviously. I joked as we watched one bolt hit somewhere that our fencer was toast...little did I know I was right. So, we'll have to replace that.

Other than that, same ol' same ol' around here...just greener...and soggier.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Sutter's Mill

Dillon's grocery store, part of the Kroger Corporation, offers 3 scholarship opportunities a year at the kid's school, one each trimester, one participant for each grade for a chance to win a $300 college scholarship. Rachel has participated in 3 and finally won "My favorite natural or man-made wonder" with her entry "Sutter's Mill".

Keep in mind, parents/families are encouraged to help but children are asked to put in as much effort as they can. And while it's not an exact replica of that place in Coloma, Ca. we are so fond of, it's our rendition of what would fit in the space of the poster board, not that there was a size limit, but with all of the things that could be added, we didn't want to get carried away!

It was really more of a community effort. One of the teacher's at the high school cut out the water wheel with a lazsr and glued all the tiny pieces together by hand. Jeremiah and his students used the CNC machine to cut out the saw blade and we assembled it all at home making good use of popsicle sticks!

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Goats being goats

PJ in the woods
Pj doing what goats love!

Goats in the pasture
Girls in the East Pasture (neighbor's windmill in the background)

Goats in the orchard
The three grown bucks in what will eventually be the orchard helping clean up a willow that fell down. (The girls east pasture is on the other side of the fence line on the left and the pond is out of the photo to the right. This photo is taken facing east.)

Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring

The pond in all 4 seasons as we've watched it change. You'd think this was a favorite spot but it just so happens I've taken photos in the exact same spots during all 4 seasons...and still have done nothing about the Cottonwood we cut down (that can be seen in the in the left hand side of the first photo). Too much wood, too little time. Oh well, we'll get to it someday.


Pond in summer 2010
Summer 2010 just after we moved in. And they weren't kidding, it is deep!


BEFORE
Fall 2010


AFTER
Winter 2010/2011



The Pond, May 2011
Spring 2011

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

The Beast

Our new Beast...

The Beast

...easily hauled 3 tons of hay on Sunday!...

The Beast and Hay

...so nice not to have to put poor old "mini-beast" (a.k.a. the explorer) through that anymore!

How to Speak (and BE) Like A Minnesotan Kansan

I'm compiling a list of all the words and daily life activities that are different so that when, and if, you visit, you won't be caught off guard when someone says the following to you and/or so that you can learn the lingo and mannerisms so you'll fit right in...that is, if you want to:

#1 I suppose I've already mentioned Arkansas. As in, the Arkansas River. Not to be confused with the state I don't think, because, believe it or not, despite the fact they are spelled the same, by God, they are not pronounced the same.  So, if you want to fit in while in Rome  Kansas, say ArKansas River and not Arkansaw, for heaven's sake!

#2 Goats are not does and bucks. I would venture to say the more snooty people call them that, but here in Kansas- where the ArKansas River flows- goats are not deer for heaven's sake, they are billies and nannies!

#3 Despite the fact that we once had a vice president named Dick Cheney -pronounced Ch-A-ney- Cheney, Kansas- spelled just like the vice president!!!- but pronounced ch-ee-ney, with a long "e". Got it? For heaven's sake! Go figure.

#4 The city of gold is El Dorado. Yep, we have one too and ours is a city, not a county (for all you California folk). BUT, don't think for a minute that the city of gold would be pronounced anything like the Spanish would. Oh no, this is Kansas for heaven's sake! Catch yourself before you say El Door-ah-doh and say El Door-aye-doh instead? You can be like a Canadian, right...I mean, aye?

And that concludes the language portion...for now. On to mannerism. The following will for sure get people looking at your license plate if you near your car and if not, will certainly get a raised eyebrow if nothing else.

#1. If you walk out of McDonald's and use your cell phone to take a picture of the little sticker on the door with a small hand gun and a line through it to denote you cannot bring firearms into that eating establishment, people are gonna know you isn't from 'round here!


#2. If you rubber neck at a tractor driving down the highway with a man and and woman sitting on said tractor hauling a trailer full of livestock on Tuesday (from or to the sale barn of course) or Walmart bags on any other day, people are gonna know you isn't from 'round here!

#3. If you go to the feed store and ask them how much their hay is, they gonna know you isn't from 'round here.

#4. If you don't have a church, GET ONE! Sure enough you'll be asked by every neighbor, and passer by and little old lady at the grocery store to join them at theirs. If you decline and not mention attending your regular church (even if you don't!), they gonna know you isn't from 'round here.

I think that concludes today's lesson on how to speak (and be) a Kansan.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Gardening

I know it's been a long since I last posted. We've been so incredibly busy I've barely had time to sit down to think, let alone write about what I'm thinking.

That said, we got the garden in- corn, beans, tomatoes, peppers, squash of all types, onions (green and white), flowers in the "kids garden", carrots, etc. We've yet to plant any of the vines...just haven't had time and I was waiting on a big pile of waste hay and manure to be moved. (hich has been now that a friend let us borrow a bobcat (see right side of photo).

Garden 2011The garden is in a great location. It gets morning and mid-day sun and when the sun is at the peak of scorching, it'll get late afternoon and evening shade from trees on the west side.

I can now plant some pumpkins, watermelon, melons, cukes and potatoes. We're watering right now by a  sprinkler  with two 100' hoses stretched from the main barn, through the bucks pen and into the garden. The garden is in the area the goats used to be able to graze in/on but we've moved the pen fence north by about 100' so we've got a great big area for gardening. For now, it'll get watered with the hose but when we get time (HA HA HA HA!), we'll be trenching for water lines out to the new pastures we fenced, to the bucks pen (I currently bucket water to them which sounds like a big pain in the rear but it's not really that bad, but a spigot would be nice for sure!), and then to the garden and orchard.

Since there isn't any water to the orchard now, we cannot plant trees this year. We have enough last minute projects keeping us crazy and to add fruit trees to the line up would just be asking for trouble. Eventually we'd like to put in a windmill and new well to water the garden. For 1st water we wouldn't have to go very deep (20-30' or so because the water table's somewhat high and we've got an underground stream running right through the property to the pond.) First water would be suitable for irrigation...plans for "some day"

Monday, May 9, 2011

How I cook

Jeremiah forwarded an email to me from someone at school requesting recipes be sent in to make a cookbook for a fundraiser of a gal who passed away not to long ago. This was my response to Jeremiah.

"I feel badly for the person who has to follow my recipe(s). They would read like this...

Brown your ground beef (or turkey if you wish), add some onions (how much I don't know...use "some" as a measurement) and garlic (the "some" measurement applies), cook on low and stir...while that's cooking chop this that and the other. If you don't have this, no biggy, substitute that or if you don't like it leave it out. Before you added this that and the other, you may have thought about draining the fat. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Drain if you wish. Then add some salt and pepper and chili powder and Italian seasoning and cumin. Then some tomatoes and homemade chicken broth left over from the chicken you cooked the night before and if you don't have that, I suppose canned stock or cubes would work too, stir. Let bubble for a while, stir. Taste, add this that and the other if needed. Cover. When it's done which is in about...well, I don't know how long, it's done when it's done. Serve with green onions and sour cream and Frito corn chips and if you don't have any of those, improvise or eat it plain.

If they don't mind this type of recipe, I could write their whole book! I've got tons of them!

Want a bread recipe? That's easy! Take some yeast, put it in a bowl. Take some honey, put it in there too. Add some eggs if you want. Put a cup or 2 of warm water in the bowl, add some sea (or kosher salt) and enough flour to allow the dough to still be wet. Stir, add more flour if needed but don't overdo it, you want it wet! Don't worry about kneeding, REALLY! Cover, let sit for as long as you got and then bake at whatever temperature your oven happens to be at for however long it takes them to brown.

The end. "