4 November 2026

Halloween ’26

Another Halloween is come and gone.
Another season for the books. It is a month long celebration, the actual night is usually bittersweet. I am left with the joy of an evening well spent and the sorrow of fall being almost over, of pumpkins and fog, of fallen leaves crunching underfoot and beautiful decorations being rapidly replaced with red and green and Christmas things.
Halloween is wonderful not for the gore and ghosts that people sometimes want to celebrate but for the beauty of fall and the joy of dressing up.
We spent the evening in our small town, children turned loose to run with us parents trailing slowly behind. Not because they need watched but to share in the enjoyment of the night. They ran and shrieked dashing house to house. They disappeared inside of houses without a worry or care. They left us far behind as we old folk needed to sit and rest a moment watching as Halloween passed us by.
Children came and went as we tried to keep a basic count on the children we were supposed to have along trying to figure out who various extra masked creatures might be. Night fell and fog rolled in drifting over lights and decorations. Having covered most of the town and lost the majority of extra monsters we staggered exhausted back to the car, ready to be home to rest.
The children chattered excitedly recalling friends they had met and houses they had visited. No demons just joy. Plans for the next year. And sadness as we say good bye to the beautiful pumpkins, fall leaves, corn, all the best things in life until next year.
Category: 8, Family, Goblin Child | LEAVE A COMMENT
30 October 2026

Hemingford Trunk or Treat

We stumbled into it by accident.
We were there on purpose but we hadn’t expected quite so much. There for a haunted house put on by the school as a fund raiser we found the whole street blocked off and children wandering about in costume.
At first we were confused. Were we in the right place? Had they forgotten to mention that this was an even for every small children?
Hesitantly we got out of the car and followed the trail of families.
As we passed one business then two, we realized it was an organized trick or treat. Every business in town was decorated and handing out candy. The first one we passed insisted the kids each take a piece of candy as my children politely tried to decline because they weren’t in costume.
Each place we passed insisted just the same. Teenagers handing candy out of the back of old pickups laughed and joked making conversation. Small children waddled along next to parent. Laughing and surprised we joined in.
Up and down main street we walked admiring and accepting candy forced upon us in that typical midwest hospitality. The weather was cool, the trees dripping golden leaves, the small town was picturesque. It could not get any better.
We did finally make it to the haunted house. It was delightful, quaint in the best way possible as high school kids got to play dress up and enjoy themselves without the requirement to be cool that is the normal in daily life.
Leaving town we wandered down side streets, looked at the decorations in yards, admired the beauty of a small town. This is what Halloween is about.

Category: 8, Family, Goblin Child | LEAVE A COMMENT
7 October 2026

Cat Math

Cat math is like chicken math.
We lost one cat so my daughter had permission to get one more.
We ended up with three. They were settled in the barn where they could keep the mouse population nicely under controll. Until they moved to the house and joined the others in patrolling the back door least we should try to come and go from the house in peace.
Then the stray kitten wandered in. She began her life here by trying to walk under the hooves of all four horses. At once. Having survived that my daughter took over and moved her to the barn where she was fed, watered, and thoroughly loved.
Until we tried to work on equipment with her underfoot. She nearly died, several times. We all did really. So she was brought to the house to join the others. At least she’ll only trip us as we walk here. Better than being smashed as heavy equipment is worked on.
And then I tried to work horses.
All of the cats dove underfoot. Under the horse’s feet that is. The yellow one sat behind Sunshine, their coats matching perfectly, and batted at his tail. It might have been the yellow one again who dove under my youngest horse as I held her. Causing her to try to dive over the top of me. The newest black kitty who my daughter cherishes, has no fear of horse hooves. She would stand between them while I held my breath and tried to shoo her away. Which resulted in twining about my feet purring.
In the end I moved my horse trailer/tack room clear across the yard. The big yard. It is far away from cats and the haven’t found it or me yet as I try to work horses. The long walk is well worth it to not smash any darling kittens beneath the horse’s feet.
Dangs cats, I mutter under my breath as I swing yet another purring kitten into my arms to scratch. We need to cut back on all these dang cats.

Category: 8, Family, Goblin Child | LEAVE A COMMENT
28 September 2026

Butter

My kitchen is a mess. The sink is over flowing with dirty dishes. Strange pink stuff is splattered everywhere
And I couldn’t be happier.
The house is full to over flowing with children. Near to bursting at the seams. Four children total, but it feels like more. They are laughing and playing and generally being kids.
The boys have been out climbing the hay bales.
The girls decided to ‘cook’. They settled on poke cake. Jello poured over a cooked cake. These directions called for a whipped cream frosting. They poured my cream, carefully kept on hand for coffee, into a bowl and began to mix. I left them to it, both wanting them to have the time to themselves and needing a small break from the joyful noise.
Outside working on Halloween directions, I got a phone call. They had messed something up, could I please come back? Don’t worry, nothing was broken.
Glad nothing was broken, I was still concerned, what could they have messed up making a cake? I hurried inside.
Exuberantly mixing the whipped cream they added in some of the jello, just like the recipe called for. They talked as they mixed, hanging out and having fun. They only looked away from the bowl they were tending for a minute.
When they looked back it had separated. Curdled? It was a lumpy pink mess. They were sickened by it. I stuck a finger in and tasted. Worked a clump between my fingers and thought. It was impressive really.
They had made butter. Ooops.
Not a total loss. I scooped it out, squeezed it relatively dry and put the pink butter ball in the fridge. We’ll have it on muffins in the morning.
This sort of day is exhausting to me, but at the same time it doesn’t get any better. Children laughing and happy, experimenting and getting dirty. One of my favorite podcast was saying today as I listened between talking to children that they make life harder, but better. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, we need both the hard and the better.
After cooking and climbing the two groups joined together again and carved some pumpkins. More messes were made, outside this time. Without those loud, messy days life wouldn’t be near as fun.
Category: 8, Family, Goblin Child | LEAVE A COMMENT
31 August 2026

Lost Treasures

Many years ago, when the kids were much younger, we stopped under a tree in the pasture imaginatively called the creek pasture. The water hole we sat by was full. The tree offered shade. A picnic lunch was packed and in the pickup along with fishing poles.
There was never any hope of actually catching fish in the water hole. That wasn’t the point.
We threw the lines into the water anyway. We ate in the shade and played on the tree trunks. It was a lovely afternoon.
It wasn’t until the next day at least that I noticed my cap was missing. My son had worn it that day by the water. He had found it and latched onto it refusing to take it off. Until he forgot he was wearing it. It may have fallen along the way, it may have been taken off to wipe the sweat from his brow or to better enable tree climbing. The only thing that was for sure was that it was gone.
I went back and searched, walked up and down the creek banks, looked under and in the trees. The cows were in that pasture at the time, it was brought into question whether they could have helped with the complete and utter disappearance of the cap.
I was sad. The hat was gone. It was all mostly forgotten.
Today I walked down that same creek bed. There hasn’t been a drop of rain all year. The grass, what grass grew, was mowed short by cattle. The creek bed is dry, any hint of a water hole there long gone. Walking I kept my eyes on the dry creek bed hoping for some wonderful discovery, an arrow head, bones, some treasure from times long past.
Glancing up from my studies I saw the trees on the bank and recognized the spot of our long ago picnic play day. I remembered the cap. Making a circle around the former water hole I saw it. Laying there on top of the cracked dry mud.
It was the cap!
Years later, at least five years later, in children years that’s a lot, it had turned up again. Bones or arrow heads would have been slightly more exciting, maybe. But this was right up there.
It is nothing more than garbage now, chewed by cattle or mice we will never know, and worn by water and weather. But it is a reminder of that long ago summer day when the kids were young enough to want to play in the trees by the waters edge. One of these days they’ll get old enough to want to play again.
One of these days it will rain and there will be water there again.
Category: Family | LEAVE A COMMENT
18 August 2026

Toads

We are inundated with toads.
That’s not a bad thing. It isn’t a curse of toads or a plague of toads. It’s just toads.
There was one rain this summer. As in it rained for real once this whole year. There have been a few sprinkles, and even a couple of measurable amounts of moisture since then. But only one real rain. It was beautiful. There were puddles everywhere. The sounds of toads croaking filled the nights following with their deafening music.
They came out of their drought induced hibernation for three or four nights.
Apparently they were very busy for those few nights.
Then they were gone again.
Every puddle left by the rain was quickly filled with tadpoles. The water hole in the horse’s pen started squirming and frothing as it dried. That was enough to make me go look. There in the puddle were more tadpoles than water. Some had small leg bumps starting to appear. None of them would be ready to hop away before the puddle dried.
So I sent the children out. They got filthy. They played. The laughter could be heard from the buildings. They scooped as many tadpoles as they could get and redistributed them to water tanks.
Now, every time we travel along our driveway we have to slow and watch carefully for toads hoping happily across. Not all from the tadpoles the children scooped up. They must have hatched everywhere. The come out when the pivots spray across the road. Whether driven out of hiding by the large water droplets or if they just enjoy hunting the bare roads, they come out and slow traffic.
The children and I both love to jump out of the car and follow them along. Maybe scooping them up for a moment to admire their big fat bellies. They’re all the same size, which makes sense if they’re from the same hatching.
We will enjoy our company while we can. Soon they will burrow back down again, cocooning themselves in a layer of sloughed off skin to preserve moisture. There they will wait for another big rain. Another chance to come out and procreate. Another time to serenade us with their beautiful music.
We’ll just have to drive very slow until then.
Category: 8, Family, Goblin Child | LEAVE A COMMENT
10 August 2026

The Best Laid Plans

Three of us were loaded in my pickup, headed out to check cows. The dog panted in the back, determined to come along no matter the heat. Windows were rolled up and the air-conditioner blasted, making it possible for us to squeeze in the single cab together. The radio sang happily along.
My daughter commented about the speaker. It was doing a thing, maybe like the one in a different pickup likes to do. I pondered that absently. It never seemed like my speakers had any problems. As I listened though I began to wonder. Was that sound part of the song?
Turning the radio down the noise was still there. That wasn’t good.
I stopped and stepped out to check tires on my side. Parked in the middle of the two track dirt road it was easy to see that the tires were fine. My son hopped out the passenger side and stopped immediately, there was definitely a problem.
Walking around to look I saw my rear tire shredded. The rim sat on the remains, nearly flat against the ground. My poor baby. I’ve had my pickup far longer than the children or husband. She is dear to me. And here she sat lame, injured, out of commission.
We were barely two miles from home. It was almost 100 degrees. The dog panted happily in the bed.
I called my husband.
That’s what you do when things go bad right? It’s what I do. He fixes things. Especially things like tires. That is not my area.
He came on a four-wheeler and looked it over. The rim wasn’t on the ground, it was protected by the remains of the tire. We could probably drive slowly home. So we began backing down the road. The ripple of shredded rubber the new sound track of our trip. He drove along side, watching to make sure the rim was alright.
The spare tire sits next to the pickups usual parking place. It fell off of the bottom where it had a special carrying spot. Luckily it fell of next to a cow tank. I pulled up to check water and there sat a random tire. Where could that have come from? Oh, it fell off my pickup.
So it went in the back. But I had to haul four-wheelers, or goats, or calves, or fence posts. So many reasons it was cast aside, temporarily, never to be put back where it goes.
Finally to the yard I let the children out. They get restless at slow speeds. Then we limped slowly on to the quanset where there was tire changing equipment. My husband stopped and got the spare. He made quick work of the job. In the hundred degree heat. My pickup was sound again. We could make sure the cows had water.
Thank Goodness for spare tires and good husbands.
Category: 8, Family, Goblin Child, It's a God thing | LEAVE A COMMENT
4 August 2026

Fencin’ In The Dark

I’m thinking Fencing in the Dark, to the tune of Fishing in the Dark. It’ll be a catchy song.
We got a call at dusk. Our cows were out, they had crossed the street into the neighbors cornfield. They were very polite, manners are so important on both sides of these things, but could we please get them out?
The kids and I rushed to gather four-wheelers, fencing supplies, drinks. My husband took care of pleasantries on the phone call then joined us. We rushed to the pasture, quite a few miles away, ready to do what we could in the near dark. We were ready to run down the cornrows on foot chasing those dang cows. We met another pickup on the way who pulled up and stopped in front of our pasture. It was the neighbors .They live even more miles away from their cornfield than we do from our pasture.
I ran to block the gate, only a few head of cows, twenty or thirty or so, were already out. Others had noticed and were coming quick to follow. As I rushed to block the newcomers from the gate I realized it was the gate they were heading out. It was laid flat on the ground wide open. It is a gate that needs fence stretchers to open because it is so tight. Interesting. I turned the on coming cattle back.
The neighbors got out their drone. My son went on down the road past the gate on a four-wheeler to keep the cows from going that way. The drone headed out over the cornfield. At the other side of the cattle it’s lights came on and it flew in low behind the herd. They bellered and ran, diving back towards the gate. My son brought up the roadside rear on the four-wheeler, I held cows in that really wanted to join the others. Until the others started bolting past them away from the horrifying thing in the sky. They were off and running for the far corner of that pasture.
Which was good. We would lock them in the next pasture over until we could see if there was anything else wrong with the fence besides the opened and dropped gate. We thanked the neighbors for sparing us a late day stroll through the corn fields. We spent a very dark evening making sure the fence in the other pasture would hold them. The only thing worse than cows getting out is cows getting out twice. As the moon rose huge and red over the horizon I enjoyed the cool breeze. We marveled at the millions of stars twinkling in the sky. It really wasn’t a bad day, night, to be out there. The cows had come in amazingly well, we didn’t have to run after them through the corn. It was the best possible outcome of a bad situation.
I kind of like fencing in the dark.
Category: Cows, Family | LEAVE A COMMENT
8 July 2026

Fixin’ Fence

The fence needed work. That was obvious. The exact type of work took a little more digging to figure out.
A huge post jutted out of the ground in one corner. Loose and wobbly it had never been set, just sat in the hole. No wires attached. That part was simple. I set the kids to digging dirt and tamping it in.
I left them to tamping, and complaining about the heat, and went to work on the next corner post.
It wasn’t great. The post was obviously broke, or barely holding. But it was braced into place and holding. As long as we didn’t tighten wires too much it would hold enough to keep the cows in for a little bit. The stubble of a wheat field being grazed only because of the extreme drought, not because there is much actual feed in there, it isn’t worth putting too much work into.
I stepped over the wires strewn about the ground onto the neighbors side, into their tree row, to better access the post. There was a tall metal pole sticking out of the ground next to the post on that side. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it. Figured it must be a survey marker showing where the boundary was supposed to be. The neighbors were gaining a few feet of ground here.
Fence pliers in hand I stepped up to the post planning on removing the wires still attached to it. I never thought about looking down.
The ground disappeared out from under me. The post jabbed me nearly in the armpit as my leg dropped into a hole past the knee. It hurt, in so many different places. It was more than a little concerning.
Dragging myself out of the hole I looked down, better late than never.
At first I thought a badger had dug out the survey marker. I peeked in carefully to make sure no animals were going to be following me out. The hole was suspiciously square. Interesting. I wiggled the corner post I had been working on putting to use. From this angle and with the grass above that hole cleared, it was completely broken off at ground level. Oh dear.
The children showed up about then. They had grown weary of tamping. Or maybe they had secured the other post firmly in the ground. One of them leaned over and actually read the label on the ‘survey marker’. Professional tamping bar it read.
Everything snapped into place.
A job stopped completely at a random middle point. One post sat in a hole but never tamped. A hole dug but no post inserted. The tamping bar left sitting waiting for the job to resume, but no one came back for it.
I’ve been around for quite a few years now, no one had touched that fence in that amount of time. Not from this side. Those corner posts have been sitting there partially finished all that time.
It sure made life easier having a post hole ready to go. I searched the random piles of stuff in the pasture. Found a solid post. We had more tamping to do. But now we have an actual solid post in that corner. Maybe eventually we’ll even finish that job started so many years ago.
Category: Cows, Family | LEAVE A COMMENT
13 December 2025

I Just Need A Minute

There are so many jokes out there about farm and ranch husbands calling their wives away from cooking or cleaning or whatever horrid house work they’re doing to come help outside for ‘just a minute’. Of course in the joke the minute turns out to be hours. The meal is cold, or burnt. The clean pretty clothes she was wearing are trashed. Se’s grouchy.

Why are there no jokes about the wife doing that?

I believe this is a terrible act of sexism.

Today we lived the joke. But in the proper direction. With the wife as the antagonist.

My children had been working hard all morning. We sent them out into the cold with a list of chores to remember. They called regularly to check in and make sure they were getting everything done and done properly. They did a very good job. Then I gave them permission to go inside where it was warm.

Then, as I continued my work outside, I ran into their father. He had more work for them to do and wanted to know why they were back inside already.

Ooops. My bad. Guess they were carefully checking in with the wrong person. So maybe this does fall a little into the usual trope.

I called my daughter. They had just gotten inside and stripped the layers of warm clothes this weather requires. “could you please come back outside?” I asked.

There were deep sighs and groans from the other end of the line. They had JUST gotten undressed. WHY did I tell them they could go in if I was going to ask for more work of the poor beleaguered souls.

“Get out here” I ordered. “It wont be so bad. We just need you (meaning the younger of them who is willing to drive but the older needs to go too for moral support and because it’s not fair to only make the youngest do the work) to come drive the feed truck. You probably don’t need to put coats back on. You’ll just be sitting in the feed truck.”

So out they came. With very little grumbling which I must give them credit for. I delivered the truck to them then went for the payloader. We got it loaded with very few problems as we all tried to remember from last year how this was done. Chatting back and forth over the radio, they were cheerful and not complaining about the work dropped on them after they had been dismissed. It was warm in there and they were fine in the sweatshirts they had come out in. They parked the feed truck and thought they were done.

Then we found more work for them.

I was taking a bale out to the cows because the cows had heard the equipment running. So they had come running. Now they were plastered up and down the fence line complaining about being starved. They may be slightly spoiled and I hate to see them look sad. So I was getting a bale, but wanted help with gates and twine. My husband was cleaning out the lane of the feedlot and wanted help there too.

He got our son, the one that will drive. I got our daughter, the one who will walk amongst the cows. Neither job was inside. It was cold out. So cold. A bit too cold for even doubled up sweatshirts. And boy was I in trouble. I had TOLD her to only wear a sweatshirt. I TOLD her they would be inside the feed truck. Why would I lie to her like that.

I mentioned that putting on a coat is always a good idea. You never know what you’ll be getting into. I had suggested that they would probably be fine without, ut she is perfectly capable of deciding these things on her own.

No. That was absolutely not true. I had TOLD her to go without. There was no excuse and there would be no forgiveness.

I offered my hat and gloves. They were not appreciated and would not in any way help to keep her warm.

We rushed through getting the cows fed. She told me the whole time how awful I was. She wouldn’t drive the payloader even if it would make the feeding go faster.

With the gate shut behind us we met her brother dashing about on the 4-wheeler. He had been dismissed from his duties. They could go back inside! Finally. The poor mistreated children that I had drug away from their warm place in front of the fire. That I had forced outside without coats. Their computers had missed them and possibly even gone to sleep. How could this damage ever be repaired. Poor, poor mistreated children.

 

Category: 8, Cows, Family, Farming, Goblin Child | LEAVE A COMMENT