18 November 2025

Gardening Game

For awhile now my husband has been talking about making a game about gardening. Something peaceful and relaxing. No rush and stress, just planting a garden.

Last night he came home and sat down at his computer after supper. He pulled up a screen full of words and told me to play.

Not being a gamer myself I was a bit confused at first. How is this a game. How was I supposed to figure out what all those lines of text meant? There was a spot at the bottom of the page to enter one number. All of that text, and one number to chose.

After stumbling around the first few times I started to get the hang of it. It WAS fun!

All the text was telling me how my garden was doing. What needed watered. What was ready to harvest. what price the crops were selling at. After the first couple harvest cycles I went from broke to actually making a bit of a profit and the lines were making sense and becoming easier to read.

While I played on his computer he sat the kids down on their computers. They had screen with colors and boxes. He explained to them how to draw using pixels.

This is right up my daughters ally. She loves designing minecraft skins and has a pretty good following on one of the skin sites. Her work is gorgeous. She quickly got the idea and created some wonderful vegetable designs for a not completely text version of the game.

My son wasn’t quite as into that art stuff. He came over and took over the game I had started. He’s not overly fond of reading, so there were some doubts about his interest in the screen full of text. He caught on right away and went right to producing crops.

My husband had made his game. Or started on it. He kept coming up with more ideas on improving it and has the not text version to finish still. Hopefully he and the kids can spend many more evenings together refining and completing their gardening game. Everyone was enjoying it immensely and it’s something they can play with fr years into the future. Maybe they can even make more games!

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

Halloween Party

It wasn’t planned. Not really.

8 had been promising his good friend a sleepover once his new cabin was finished. So of course we had to have the friends sister over too for 8’s sister. Then a friend texted about doing horse stuff together. Why not do it all at once and make a party of it!

The friend brought along her daughter and the daughters horse. All three girls took off riding. Me and the mom took her big beautiful new horse into the corrals and played.

When the girls got back my son, whose horse had been commandeered by a girl, rejoined them and both of my children managed to get stung by wasps. How in the world they managed that within and hour of each other when they’ve gotten this far in life without ever being stung I don’t know.

We carved pumpkins then roasted marshmallows and even a couple hot dogs for supper over a fire.

The kids didn’t play outside, in the dark, on the hay bales. It was too cold. The wimps.

This morning the boys went off to help dump the load of corn on the semi, help get semis up and running. They helped move them to the places the semis needed to be to dump cor in them. Then they jumped in the combine for a ride. I haven’t had any updates since then, but I’m betting they are spending some time playing in the corn in the grain trailers. Always a great time.

The friends horses both went home with the mom yesterday. So the friend who rode out with her own horse yesterday didn’t have one to ride. Pulling up my big girl pants and trying to be brave I put my daughter on my horse, Rusty. She used to ride him all the time, just never usually off a lead. She’s been riding Jerry lately and her confidence has been growing by leaps and bounds. Having friends there to watch also serves to make you brave, or at least to act that way. They rode around the yard for awhile first to make sure everyone was comfortable. The friend who has her own horse rode Jerry. The friend who comes to ride our horses regularly rode her preferred mount, my son’s horse, Lady.

Then they all headed out.

Rusty is a very good boy, but can be energetic. Lady is wonderful, but was extra zippy on their ride yesterday. Jerry can get really zippy too occasionally but her rider runs barrels and knows how to ride. Surely they’ll be fine. I waited, watching the horizon nervously for awhile. Looking for a horse to come running back without a rider. There was nothing. I finished my outdoor chores and texted my daughter before heading in. They were at the far corner of the property and still heading. I asked her to keep me updated with some idea of where they were please.

Next time I heard from her they were at the other far corner of the property and thinking about going farther. Or coming back. Who knows. Teenagers don’t exactly text clearly. But they made it that far on a cool windy morning. Hopefully the horses will be tired enough to walk home again. Walk being the important part of that. If they were going to act up, hopefully they already would have. I am loving this. We need to have friends over to ride way more often!

Category: 8, Goblin Child, Horses | 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
12 August 2025

School Bus Pickup

It was supposed to be fairly cool. In the mid 80s, that’s fairly cool for August. The kids had declined to ride over the weekend. Si thought fine, we wont ride now, but, if I show up to pick you up from the bus with horses you wont have any choice but to ride! Or to walk home I suppose.

It was pretty warm by afternoon. I saw 90 showing at home. But I had made plans and we were going to stick to them dang it! I gave myself an hour to get cows here at home checked, saddle horses, and leave with half an hour to get to the highway. Everything took longer than hoped. My dog did not want to be left behind. She had to be caught and forced to wait in the nice cool house, she hates being outside anyway. I saddled the mares and let them loose to graze. Got Rusty saddled and went to catch mares.  Lady let me grab her easily from Rusty’s back, I thought she’d be the hard one. Jerry would not let me near her on Rusty.

She was following nicely though and Rusty and Lady get crazed together when we first start out. I let Jerry follow loose and turned Rusty and Lady loose, in a different way, to use up energy and make up time dashing across the hayfield. They were off. Jerry trailed behind, sometimes falling way back, sometimes passing us. At the road I got off and caught her. Then had to get back on. Then enjoyed ponying two horses the rest of the way to the highway.

We waited in the shade of the neighbors driveway for the bus. We hadn’t beat it there by much.

I could see the delight in my children’s eyes before they ever got off the bus even. Or maybe horror. Why did I have to bring the horses? They didn’t want to ride home. Please never do this again! But, they’re out of luck. Both on that day and in the future. No one died. We’re doing it as often as I can manage.

Lady was perfect. For all the energy she had getting to the bus stop she plodded home barely keeping up with the other two speedy horses. She always goes faster away from home, she seems to enjoy the adventure.

Jerry, our slow lazy one was off. She would have beat all of us home by at least half the time if she’d been allowed to go. And that was mostly at a walk. She got to be ponied instead. That made her and Rusty both mad. Then we had to stop regularly to wait for Lady, that was even worse!

It was hot. The horses were lathered. The kids were mad, one more than the other. Lady’s rider went through a stage there where he wanted nothing to do with her but he is back and riding better than ever. He didn’t mind it at all. Jerry’s person might have been happier about it if they could have plodded slowly like they usually do. I was exhausted and not entirely sure why we think this is fun, but ready to do it again next time it cools down a bit!

 

Category: 8, Goblin Child, Horses | 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
31 March 2025

Calving Season

What a season it has been. Now that we are all of one week in.

The Goblin Child has somehow managed a one day calving season with her whole herd calving today. Her heifer calved this morning. I saw a single hoof and went to check on her. She was a bottle calf. I do love very tame heifers like that. I was able to ‘check’ for a second hoof while she stood there quietly out in the pen. It was there. The calf was big. I went back for supplies. She laid there, not terribly concerned about me while I helped her deliver the calf laying out in the pen. A pretty, not little, red heifer.

Her cow had a darling little black white face calf this evening. I think it might be a heifer too. She was brand new when I was out last, I didn’t want to bother them enough to look. That cow was NOT a bottle calf.

Over the weekend one of the cows presented a single large red hoof. The kids were with me walking through the herd. They helped bring her up. Or one of them did. 8 got in there and tried. He was too scared to actually try to stop her when she wanted past him, but he tried. His sister cowered outside the fence. We managed to get her brought up to the front. They were much better help getting her into the chute. Beg safely on the other side of a fence gave them great courage.

Once in the chute they got together and managed to get the puller down off the wall. It took some team work and they didn’t drop it on their heads. I checked the cow and found the second hoof, thankfully, and the head. The calf was all there, just big. She gloved up and helped me pull while he held the tail out of the way. We ended up not not needing the puller after all. Between us and the cow we managed to deliver a BIG bull calf.

With him moved into the barn where his mom could clean him both children who had been wonderful up until then broke down. She had gotten some on her arm. A remarkably small amount all things considered. She needed a shower immediately. And could I please do a load of laundry. He had seen more than he could handle. I thought he had helped with this before. Maybe just not as closely? It was more than he could handle. He didn’t quite empty his belly but it was close. He was rather traumatized. I felt awful. Tried to huge him, but I had more than a small smear on my arm.

He seems to have recovered nicely.

Both kids have been coming with for the night check. They bounce all over the place having fun scaring each other in the dark and generally raising quit the ruckus.

Ghost and her calf got cold in the rain and snow the day after the calf was born. I was going to bring them up to the barn to get warm and dry. The calf didn’t want to get up and moving. It occurred to me that they were laying in the straw that had been put out for them to keep warm in. I covered the calk with straw. He was toasty warm in his blanket so I went to rubbing Ghost down. Trying to get her dry so she could be warm. Then I decided to give her a blanket too. She seemed to like it. She didn’t shake it off immediately.

Category: 8, Cows, 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
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
4 January 2025

Creativity

The children have been building things. One of them more than the other but they both got in on the biggest build.

8 has been working on a little scooter thing. No one is really sure what to call it. He thinks maybe a three wheeler. Which it is. He found the pieces and has been assembling it himself. He’s doing a very good job with what he has available.

 

He had a friend over to spend the night. They went outside and didn’t come in until dark. I was starting to get a little worried. I needn’t have been. They were removing the wheels from the, thing, whatever it’s called. They never did do a whole lot with them. But they rolled them around a lot. I was just impressed that they got the wheels off.

 

Along with cousin Cade they created a sledding contraption. We don’t know what else to call it. 8 and his friend added on a little. The one piece I think is going to need to go. Sharp tin to land on seems like the worst of the bad ideas here. The black tube, culvert? The kids and I drug home in Nov. I thought it was going to be a horse toy. I was wrong. The kids took it off immediately and began improvising ways to hurt themselves with it. Or play. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. They slid down it off the swingest frame. They slid down it off their other toys. They rolled each other down the hill in it. Apparently that one hurt too bad.

When they ran out of snow to sled down they created this. You go through the tube, land on the mattress springs, then continue down the hill? I’m happy not to have seen it in action. But I’m proud of the things they are coming up with to do with it.

Category: 8, Goblin Child | LEAVE A COMMENT