9 September 2025

Privilege

My husband called as I was elbow deep in meal preparations. He needed a little help, could someone come out to the field please.

After putting in almost a ten hour day, he had left the town job a little early so he could get home and plant some wheat. He and the kids had spent a large portion of the weekend getting machinery ready to go. Now during the work week he was getting started. No weekends or evenings off for him.

The kids had come home from school and were enjoying a bit of computer time. I ordered them out the door with only minimal, token complaints.

Cutting vegetables and finishing the meal I kept a watch out for them all, worried they’d be in and starving before I got the meal finished. No sign of them. Out to the garden to get it ready for the night and pick whatever was ripe and easy to serve alongside the meal, I heard the tractor in the distance. They were finally headed in.

Husband in tractor, one child on the drill, and the other following with the 4wheeler, they pulled into the yard to park for the night. It had been a long day. Watching the children work alongside their father I couldn’t have been happier. He is the hardest working man I know. Other than my father, and grandfather, and my brother. All the men in my family actually. Hard working men who give everything they have to take care of their families.

My dad took me out with him when I was young. Taught me a little about working on cars and even less about carpentry. But those weren’t the real lessons anyway. What I was actually learning was that I was valued, that he knew I was as capable as anyone else of working hard and getting the job done. My daughter spent a good deal of time over the weekend working on pivots with her father. He was teaching her the same lesson and it was wonderful later to hear her brag about the hard work she had been doing. The lesson was sinking in already.

It’s sad to see girls whose fathers don’t care about them the same way. Who never take the time or care to make their daughters, or sons even, go out and do the work with them. The privilege of knowing how to work hard and get the job done, of having a father who loves them enough to teach them that this hard work is what matters and will get them through life, that is the privilege my children have been born into.

At supper we talked about what they had been doing. How they learned what the dangerous parts of the planter were and how to carefully spread the wheat seed out to get the last bit of the field planted without adding too much seed and needing to clean it all out. Important lessons, but not the ones that matter.

 

Category: Family, Farming | LEAVE A COMMENT
6 September 2025

First Frost

‘They’ say the full moon has nothing to do with frost.

The old stories say that frost will come with a full moon.

As much as I would like to trust and believe the collection of data, watching as the first frost rolls in every year with a big bright full moon I have to say I have my doubts.

The forecast was for mid to upper 40s. The moon was coming full, but it was going to be warm enough, we’d probably escape frost until late again this year. If we could get past this full moon we should be fine until the next time around.

Without doing any preparations to the garden we went off to do other things. My husband took a tractor over to work the summer fallow. Instead of checking cows earlier in the day, like usual, the kids and I waited until it was time to go pick him up. Get everything done in one trip.

We got to the pasture to find a handful of calves out. They have plenty of grass but have cleaned up the wheat they were grazing and think they are starving. At least that’s my theory. Maybe they sense a bad winter coming and want to com home. Now. I held the gate. The kids took the pickup and chased the calves in, no problem. There was a cow out. I walked her in. The kids took the pickup and went to open the gate. It needed the fence stretcher to get. They managed it all alone. As the cow and I slowly walked the length of the fence towards the gate the whole herd of cows leaped into a gallop alongside up and charged the gate. The kids held it!

The cow and I finally caught up. She turned two fence posts before she got to the gate and plowed through the fence.

The kids and I had the pleasure of fixing fence with the whole herd gathered around to ‘help’. They stoll the hammer from the fencing bucket. They tried to eat everything else, including my daughter as she put on the wire ties.

Finally done there we made it up to check water. Water was good. The herd didn’t come to help us with that.

Leaving, through a different gate, we found wires broke in the gate, wires broke in the fence. This must have been where the calves originally left their pasture for new fields. My son had come along without any shoes. He didn’t know we were going to have to get out of the pickup. Ever. That makes all the trouble obviously his fault. He cursed us.

It was nearly dark when we reached my husband waiting in his tractor at the field. He had been able to get more disking done than anticipated while we fixed cow problems. All squeezed warmly into the cab of the pickup we compared weather forecasts on the drive home. Now they were predicting frost. Not earlier when it would have been easier to do something about it. Once home instead of running to work in the garden we ate a quick late supper and went to bed. The garden would do whatever the garden did.

What the garden did was freeze. With next week predicted to be in the 80s again. As always, an early cold snap followed by warm weather mocking us over the blackened burnt remains of the garden.

But, the frost was kind this time. The garden is only lightly nipped by frost. The pumpkins, of course, and the east side. Why the east side instead of all of it? Looks like we will be roasting and freezing peppers today after all! We should be safe from frost until the next full moon now. Not that that has anything to do with the freezing, not according to ‘them’.

Category: Cows, Family, Garden, Goblin Child | LEAVE A COMMENT
19 August 2025

Jalapeno Poppers

My husband grows an amazing garden. Through the summer our diet largely consists of the produce from this garden. All sorts of fresh veggies. Mostly very healthy.

One of the favorite meals is jalapeno poppers. Not so healthy. Big, thick walled, juicy crisp, not so spicy peppers, filled with cheese, then wrapped in bacon. We have some slabs of bacon, not cut, just a big hearty slab, saved just for this delicacy from a small butcher shop/smoker down in Colorado. Nothing but the best for our favorite, very unhealthy meal.

Usually we eat meat from our own cattle. Processed locally. We have freezers full of fresh beef. It’s a usual meal pastime to figure what percentage of the food is all home grown, if we can get in the 90th percentile it’s a great meal. But cattle are not pigs so bacon must be outsourced.

I had a package of bacon in the fridge, thawed and ready to slice. I picked the biggest, juiciest peppers. But, as I started to cut the bacon I ran into problems. This bacon sure was cutting hard. I could barely get a knife through it. It looked a bit odd too. Finally managing to saw enough off to finish the meal I put the whole thing in the oven.

The house did not fill with the usual bacony aroma.

Peaking into the oven the bacon was brown looking and thoroughly unappealing. What in the world was wrong with this slab of bacon?! It isn’t cheap and I was getting a little grouchy. Trying a bite, better to just poison me instead of the whole family, it tasted alright. Not spoiled or rancid at least. So I called the family to supper.

The kids looked at the poppers skeptically. I couldn’t blame them and was impressed that they were willing to try them at all. They were lacking in any of the usual delectable flavor. Quite bland really.

My daughter poked around a little then looked at me. “Are you sure you didn’t like, cut up a brisket instead of bacon?”

Thinking back I realized that she was right, brilliant girl as always. I never even looked at the package or labeling. I just grabbed a slab of meat from the freezer. It explained everything. The lack of flavor, the brown color. The idiocy.

We choked the brisket poppers down. Luckily there was fresh sweet corn to round out the meal and cleanse out taste buds. It was a terrible waste of brisket that would have been delicious cooked properly. The rest of it is in the fridge now. I guess we’ll be eating brisket properly for the next meal. And a waste of perfect peppers. 1 out of 10 do not recommend brisket poppers.

Need to go find the actual bacon now. Read the label this time. We’ll have poppers for real!

No pictures of the poppers, they were pretty gross looking, brown, shriveled, and lacking in bacon.

Category: Family | LEAVE A COMMENT
9 August 2025

Flower Garden

My daughter and husband have been watching Gardener’s World, and English gardening show, together. She wanted to make a garden like those.
Of course we can never make something quite like an English garden out here in the hot, dry, windy area where we live, but we can do something.
My husband left a bit of ground when he worked up the rest of the garden. We went to work, me and the kids, transplanting all the little volunteer plants around the garden. Radishes are my favorite this year. Their airy, floaty little flowers that turn to yummy edible seed pods. Dill, cilantro, mustard, the greens that bloom beautifully and also taste good. Cosmos were coming up like crazy in last years garden plot, so was ornamental corn. Those got added in. Marigolds and zinnias were added from seed. We bought a few flowers, some moss rose and petunias.
It was pretty tiny and sparse at first. When the flowers went on sale at the stores in town I bought a bunch to fill in the holes. Then we hit that week in July when everything grows a foot or more a day, or so it seems.
The flowers I added in got dwarfed. The big wide paths we left grew in until we need to squeeze to get through.
I love to stand and stare at the pretty flowers, as I swat mosquitoes. Irrigating the slightly sloped patch is a hobby all on its own. We dig ditches and spread the water across the plot instead of running straight down. Children wander through picking a bit of whatever is growing to snack on as they go. Bees buzz about, spiders catch their prey.

I think we’ll need to do this again next year.

Category: 8, Family, Garden, Goblin Child | LEAVE A COMMENT
25 May 2025

Summer Time

School is out for the year.

The Goblin Child got to get out a day early. The school tries to do some positive reinforcement, this was part of her reward for good grades and behavior. The school fails in most of their attempts, this is one that was appreciated. She helped feed cows this morning. For some reason she is willing to drive the feed truck, in the rain, with the windows so covered in muck that you can’t see anything, but she wont drive a 4wheeler or a cor. Granted she only drives a few feet, but that’s still more than she will do in other vehicles. She’ll get there eventually.

8 had a playday at the park for his last day instead of the usual field day. He enjoyed it quite a bit. The he brought a couple of friends home with him. They played all afternoon then helped bring a cow and calf in for an attempted adoption. One went home, the other stayed the night. They started out the evening sleeping in the tent but got rained out and blown away so came in around midnight.

The next day we put everyone to work helping brand calves. Along with the neighbor kids who came over to help. Everyone worked vary hard. The neighbor kids got all grown up since I saw them last!

After the hot dry dust storm of the winter it is raining! We got rain a week ago. Once it got all soaked in it is raining again. It is supposed to be rainy and cold for the next week. I’m loving it. This will be wonderful for the grass. We should be able to get the cows through the summer with these couple inches of rain we’ve gotten. My darling husband is not as thrilled. He just got corn planted, in the fields and in the garden. All the wet without any warmth and sunshine will rot the seed. My pumpkins, recently planted, could well rot too. Droughts never break easy, there always has to be something that pays the price.

We didn’t get the terrible hail storm that went by just to the south of us at least. It destroyed everything in its path. Any corn that had already come up, cars, the poor cows. There were drifts of hail and fog afterwards.

Just before school got over, I was picking the kids up at their bus stop. The neighbor boy, not the one who helped brand, came over to say hi. He told me how one of the boys on the bus didn’t know Jesus loves me! He was horrified. I thought at first he meant that the boy didn’t know that Jesus loved him, personally. Then he made it clear me meant the song. We were all horrified and burst into a rendition of the song right there. This is the reason we don’t home school. There is still good in this little local school.

 

 

Category: 8, Family, Goblin Child | LEAVE A COMMENT
29 March 2025

Calving

By the time calving ‘officially’ started March 25th, we had ten calves on the ground, had pulled three and lost two. It’s been busy.

The weather had been in the 60s and up to 80 degrees. So hot, windy, and dry that dust was blowing everywhere. A welder was out to fix some of the older feedbunks. He quit around noon because the wind was coming up and he worried about starting fires. The kids spent the afternoon hauling water to dump on the hot spots that were smoldering away despite his quitting early.

Acorn calved. I brought her up front, really, leading her in a halter was so much easier than trying to push her and the calf. We have been milking her once a day. First for colostrum to save for future needs but now we’re starting to keep some of the milk. Made our first batch of caramel yesterday. It got burnt. Guess we’ll have to try again today! Dang. What a shame 😉  Then cheese, and butter, and hmm, what else can we do besides drink it?

The kids slept outside in the new tent they got. They said it was chilly, but it stayed well above freezing and they didn’t give up and come inside. The next morning we made them take it down. Snow was predicted.

We woke this morning to freezing rain. It has alternated between the rain, sleet, and snow so far today. Not complaining of course. This is beautiful weather. Going from 80 and dry to 32 and wet is hard on the animals, but so is not having grass to eat all summer.

The low pressure has brought on more calves. They had taken a break over those really warm days. Ghost calves first thing this morning! A big healthy bull calf 🙁 Oh well. She does tend to have bulls. We were pulling for another heifer. Maybe next year.

Category: 8, Cows, Family, Goblin Child | LEAVE A COMMENT
24 February 2025

Happy Birthday 8!

And what a birthday it has been. Hopefully it gets better from here.

8 decorated his own cake and did a wonderful job at it. We had the neighbor boys over for lunch, cake and ice-cream, and playing out in the snow. It was a perfect dya for sledding. Warming up enough the snow was starting to melt, but it wasn’t gone yet. The boys had to go, but cousin Cade showed up and the play continued. The drove out to the big hill in the pasture and tried to sled. It must of worked a little. Then they came home. Stuck the 4wheeler on the way. Got it unstuck. Then The Goblin Child and Cade dog piled poor 8.

That drove his arm hard into the ground and hurt really bad.

Their father and I went out check to check cows. I looked up and say the three of them and the 4wheeler silhouetted on top of the hill. I started pondering how impressive it was that we had made it this far without breaking an arm. Oh well, the streak had to end sometime. They would be missing the robotics tournament the next day. Then the day dream was gone and we continued out to the cows.

Where we were when we got a phone call. The Goblin Child was calling to say 8 had hurt his arm. Where were we?

So we rushed home. She had already gotten him ice for it. There was no swelling, no bruise, the bones all felt very straight. There was just hurt. Bad hurt. I got him Ibuprofen. He seemed to be ok. Unless he moved. We gave it until morning.

By morning it still hurt badly. I had had enough. We hurried to get to the clinic before it closed at noon. He was a good sport, happy and interested in the whole thing. Xrays showed a ‘buckle’ fracture. The best kind to get according to the doctor. Everything was held in place still, no need for a cast. All it would need is pain control and rest. That was the end of wrestling for the year, and with his first tournament coming up next weekend. Not prescription pain killers, just plenty of aspirin and ibuprofen and keep it iced. Nothing we hadn’t been doing already.

He was doing better yesterday and went off to school today. Hopefully the arm will keep feeling better and the rest of his birthday will be better!

Category: 8, Family | LEAVE A COMMENT
20 January 2025

Cold

It’s officially cold out. Yesterday was chilly but the temp did climb above zero and the wind didn’t blow. Today we are up to -4 with a stiff wind.

The cattle are eating as much food as we can get to them. I’m taking a short calving course from the extension office. They were just saying that 17 degrees is when a normal healthy cow starts needing to put in a bit more work to stay warm. Today they were bunched behind windbreaks looking decidedly chilly as they soaked up what warmth the morning sun had to offer.

No school today. which means the kids get to go break ice! Lucky they let them stay home from school so they don’t have to go out in the cold. Usually on weekends they take a fourwheeler and drive out to the tanks. It’s to cold to do that. Yesterday I said they could take my pickup and drive themselves out there. But it was to cold for the old girl to start. No point in even making an attempt today. That’s the only vehicle they’re allowed to drive so I went along the last couple days to drive. And help out a bit.

The feed truck can get around the fourwheeler. With a suburban parked in the middle of the lane I need to move around to get out of the way. When I got back from maneuvers today I looked over to see my son picking ice chunks out of the water with his gloved hands! I ordered him to the vehicle immediately. He may not be feeling the cold yet but it wouldn’t take long to set in. His sister and I finished pitching the ice out, with a pitchfork this time. Then we all headed back. When I got in the car he showed me his snow pants, frozen solid and stiff already from the knee down where he had been playing in the water.

They went inside. I went to check horse water. They are heated and had only a ring of ice around the edges. The horses were sleeping in the sun or grazing on their hay. They looked happy. Hopefully there wont be anything to trigger Rusty’s random cold induced lamenitis.

Their father finally made his way inside after finishing feeding the cows. He did get to ride a fourwheeler and was nearly frozen. Now we will all fight the dog for a seat in front of the fire. It’s a good day to spend looking through garden catalogues and ordering seeds for next summer. It’s nice to be reminded that although it is so cold outside seed starting time is coming soon. Spring not too far behind that. We are grateful for a toasty warm house and plenty of feed for the animals.

Category: 8, Cows, Family, Goblin Child | LEAVE A COMMENT
30 December 2024

Chores

It’s snowing.

Not enough to add up to much, but it’ll keep the dust down.

We brought the cows in from the corn stalks yesterday just in case.

The wind is supposed to get bad as the day goes on. There’s no shelter out there. So we called them to the payloader and they followed a load of hay to the corrals. The children and I on 4wheelers to bring up the stragglers and to be there just in case.

I circled one way while they went the other. A long ways from when all four of us and a dog fit on one fourwheeler together. I could see them across the field as I circled. They tried to chase heifers who, curious and tame, circled them back looking for treats. Smart kids. They quickly gave up on chasing and lead with heifers following. I came around to bring up the rear, just in case.

A couple old lame cows eventually took their place in the rear as heifers galloped off to join chase on the bale. We walked them slowly along. Smart kids, they hung back and let the old girls set the pass. No chasing and hurrying here. In no time the whole herd was safe int he corrals. Fed up good and sheltered. Just in case.

One old girl is left behind. She hurt her hip somehow since we brought them home from pasture. She’s following slowly behind. We let her follow at her own speed.

This morning the promised snow did arrive! Not a whole lot, but enough to get us wet and make the cows unhappy. I forced one child to leave her school shoes in the house and switch to mud boots. Gloves and a coat might be a good idea too?

I drove the feed truck, pouring hay and corn to hungry cows. Peering out at a water color world, colors streaked and blurred through the dripping windshield. Window cracked just enough to let some fresh air in and maybe keep the windows from fogging too much worse, but hopefully not enough to let more than a little snow and chaff in.

Through the crack I watch as the children bring the old cow the rest of the way into the corral alone. She’s feeling better, moving better this morning and covers the last little bit of ground much quicker. We’ll keep her up when we let the other cows back out. Keep her where she wont have to move at all between feed and water. The kids do a great job all on their own, then are sent off to break ice.

Through the crack I watch as they get caught by their father and brought along to cut the net wrap off bales of hay for the cattle. Not long ago they were too afraid to get that close to the cattle and cutting net wrap was too big a job for them. They get gates and do all the odd jobs that make life so much easier. All in sweatshirts, and gloves! At least one concession made to their mother.

With cows fed and tucked away we all head back to the warmth of the house. They laugh when we say the work will build character. But we know it is helping them get ready. They’ll have the knowledge, experience, and confidence ready for one of these days when they need it. Just in case.

 

 

Category: Cows, Family, It's a God thing | LEAVE A COMMENT
8 July 2024

The Aftermath

According to the radar we were on the edge of the storm. It looked like the ‘bad stuff’ was to the north of us. Right over our pasture and the bigger wheat fields. I was worried sick about my cows. My husband was mourning the loss of his wheat fields. Looking good this year and almost read for harvest.

We couldn’t get over to look until the next day, the storm came at dusk and it as dark by the time it finished.

Then my husband was busy with other work and couldn’t come at all. The kids and I headed over. By the time we got to the end of our neighbors field of corn, right next door, we had gotten out of the hail. The south end of the field was destroyed. The north end was untouched. I knew there had been hail by the pasture. I had seen video of it. But maybe not as awful as we had feared?

After a strip undamaged I came to another swath where everything had been destroyed. It was like mother nature had raked her finger nails across the earth. Strips that hadn’t been touched mixed with lines of destruction.

The cows fell in the untouched part and a couple small wheat fields.

Then bad again at the big wheat field. How bad? It’s hard to say. The wheat is still standing but the hard brittle stems, so painfully close to being ready to harvest had let loose their fruit. The ground is scattered with wheat broken loose and lost. Only the yield at harvest will let us know just how much was lost.

We were lucky though. The corn is battered, but still there. It might be early enough in the season that it can regrow? The garden looks rough. But all in all is doing alright.

Just a little farther east of us the storm got even worse. We had gotten much larger hail here on the south end of the storm and it kept getting bigger as it went. Our neighbors a mile east has trees down. Another couple miles on friends had entire fields stripped bare. Nothing left of corn or beans. Gardens beat down to bare dirt. We got lucky and are thankful for it.

My husband mourns the hard work, heart and soul, and effort that went into the crops. The money lost. The death of the crop and the love that went into it.

I mourn our swimming pool. The kids and I had spent the whole day just a couple days before this getting the spot ready and the pool set up and filled. Waiting for it to warm, we hadn’t even swam in it. The ping pong sized hail hurled at the ground had poked hole all the way around the inflatable top. We tried filling it with pool noodles. A hopeless but slightly entertaining attempt at salvaging our beloved pool. But they did nothing to stop the water from spilling over the edges. I forced the kids out to try to swim in it this weekend, resulting in the pool emptying half the water.

Oh well. We’ll need to empty it anyway.

We’ll miss that pool, it’s been a good one.

 

Category: Cows, Family, Farming | LEAVE A COMMENT