A Farm Wife's Life

All I Wanted was a Cup of Coffee

2012-01-27T10:07:00.000-06:00

So I am not a one of those people that have to have a cup of coffee every morning. I really like coffee and but just make it every once in a while.

Well yesterday morning I decided I wanted to make some coffee. I had emptied the package the last time I had it, but I had since bought another package to replace it. I had put it in my pantry for safe keeping...

Well I spent about 10 minutes looking through my pantry and still couldn't find it, but I don't know why...

It's not like my pantry was a mess or anything...lol

Well by now I wanted a cup of coffee really bad, so I made up my mind to do what I had been putting off for a long time and clean and reorganize my pantry.

My little helper just sat and watched as the madness began.

And then when it was all said and done this is what we had. A nice clean pantry.

This shelf became...

This shelf and...

This madness turned into...

This! Life is good!!

Oh and by the way about 30 seconds into this I found my coffee...lol But I decided to continue with my cleaning and boy am I glad I did!!

So not only did I get a cup of coffee but I also got a clean pantry.

Hope everyone has a great weekend and if any of you are in Wichita at the Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers Conference look me up. Caleb, Chester and I are headed that way for the weekend.

Lots of Love,

Janet

Sale Day

2012-01-23T17:00:00.000-06:00

So back at the beginning of the month Caleb and I sold the calve that we had weaned back in the fall.

Of course Chester went a long with us, cause he goes every where with us and so far has done really good.

Some friends of ours who had a little girl back in November was talking about taking all the "first" pictures. They said they had gotten her picture of her first time going to church...

Well I try to do the first pictures, but I didn't think about doing the first time we went to church...

but hey, give me a break he was only 5 days old when we got there,

But we did get the first time we rode in a tractor and the first time we went to the sale barn. I try.

These pictures aren't of our calves in the sale ring, but when our calves sold, Chester decided to to start fussing and I had to take care of him and try and get him to go back to sleep.

He liked looking around and watching all the calves come through.

We did fall asleep on daddy's lap for a little bit, while we were waiting for our calves to get in there.

This picture just cracked me up...

As you can see we have mastered the art of blowing spit bubbles...lol

All in all we were very happy with how our calves sold and as always had a good time watching them sell.

Trouble

2012-01-19T08:52:00.001-06:00

First off I have to warn you in these next few pictures you may see an extremely messy desk, but pay no attention to that. I'd like to say it's not normally that way, and it's usually clean, but that would be a lie. So to help with that problem we got a huge roll top desk that we can shut and hid all the mess when people come over.

For all of you out there who have messy desks, I know you understand...

and for those of you who don't, well I hate you...

OK, I don't hate you I really love you, I just hate your desk...

Or maybe it's I hate that Caleb and I can't keep a desk clean like that.

Now lets get back on topic here...the trouble I am gonna be telling you about is not the messy desk problem. It's...

It's the face that both of my boys are setting at the computer and looking at equipment on TractorHouse.

For those of you who don't know what TractorHouse is, well it's every farm wife's worst nightmare...

So that might be a little dramatic, but it's a site where farmers can look up used farm equipment that is for sale.

I'm pretty sure Caleb has an addition to it and I'm afraid that Chester is probably gonna have that same addition some day too.

"Excuse me Momma, but daddy and I are conducting important business here would you please take your camera and and leave us alone."

"I don't know what you are so worried about, you still have about two years before I figure out how to use this thing to look at tractors."

Yikes...it's already started the crazy addition to farming and farming things.

Oh heaven help me...lol

Actually I wouldn't have it any other way, but my checkbook may think other wise some days. :)

Hope everyone is doing great.

Later,

Janet

Rescuing the Farmer

2012-01-14T12:00:00.000-06:00

The weather so far this winter has been just wonderful. It has been in the 50's a lot of the time and we are just loving it! And so far we have seen less than an inch of snow. Since last winter was so harsh, I am hoping for many reasons for this one to be a little milder...

First being that because of the HOT dry temps we had this summer the pastures didn't fair so well and neither did the hay crop. Most of the ranchers in the lower plains states didn't have near as much grass to mow for hay this year and what they did have they probably had to start feeding a lot sooner cause their pastures all dried up. So a mild winter would really help the hay stretch a lot further!

Second I would like a mild winter cause well I really don't like winter. I am much more a warm weather person. This summer was crazy hot and I don't care for that but that was more because it was so dry too and killed all the crops, all the grass, and my garden. But I can't say the temps bothered me all that much. Since I was pregnant all summer I just stayed inside a lot.

Anyways I sure hope it stays mild...those negative and single digit temps are for the snow birds.

Well since it has been a so mild and dry the fields have had a chance to dry out and allow the farmers to get in and start doing some field work and getting things ready for spring planting season.

Caleb loves anything that involves driving a tractor. So as soon as it was dry enough he was getting everyone rounded up and going.

And earlier this week they along with many other farmers in the area were out there breaking open some ground and getting it ready for planting corn in April.

I know April seems like a long way off, but a lot could happen between now and then. the ground could freeze up and we could get a bunch of snow and then it might not dry back out till we were ready to plant, so we work ground when we can.

Since Caleb was working ground Chester and I were put on hay feeding duty. Which is fine be me. Cause we get out of the house for a bit and I get to go and see all our ladies, who love you...

As long as you bring them hay!

Well I was just finishing up feeding the last group when my phone rings...

What would we do without cell phones!

Well it was Caleb...

"Hey, where are you?"

Me - "I am just leaving the last pasture. Why?"

Caleb - "Can you go over to Pop's and get the log chain? I buried the tractor."

I proceeded to laugh like a good wife and then told him I would head over and get it and head that way.

Now you remember me saying "what would we do without cell phones." Well part of the reason this happened was because Caleb was on his phone and wasn't paying attention...

Oops!

I will say in the 4 years I have been around this is the first time we have gotten a tractor stuck like this

Caleb had also called our hired man, Jeff, to come over in the 4-wheel drive tractor to pull him out.

When we get stuck, we don't mess around.

Before we started trying to pull the tractor out Caleb decided he needed to go get something else that would help with the pulling process...

But he didn't make it to far.

I will say Caleb's dad had some dirt work done in this area earlier in the year and had some trees buried and we are thinking that is part of the reason why it was easy to get stuck in specific areas.

Well Caleb then decided that what he thought he needed was not so important after all, so...

He walked back and they hooked everything up and started pulling the tractor out.

And then we were out!!

After pulling the tractor out Jeff came and pulled my truck out and we were on our way...

Well at least Jeff was, I didn't make it very far until I was stuck too.

And by stuck I mean I just sank! There was no way I was getting out of this one without a little help that's for sure!

So my knight in shinny armor...

Well actually farmer in brown Carrhart bibs and a dirty seed hat...

Came to my rescue and pulled me on out and then I was finally able to get out of that field and back onto solid ground.

Oh, Chester slept through the whole thing like a good little boy!

Lots of Love,

Christmas Shopping with My Little Man

2011-12-22T09:53:00.001-06:00

So yesterday I finished up the last of my Christmas shopping with my little man. He enjoys riding around the mall in his stroller...

He is already very much a people watcher. He just sits there checkin' everyone and everything out.

Well while we were getting some fabric cut, for a project I will be working on here sometime after Christmas, Chester started getting a little fussy and squirmy so I would talk with him and and stick his pacifier in, but he would just spit it out. I was starting to think that my shopping was over for the day when all of a sudden he lets out this monsterious toot...

And there was more than just air coming out. I just laughed and and made the comment that I was gonna be changing a diaper as soon as I got out of there...lol.

Well by the time I got out of the store he had already passed out in his stroller...

I guess pooping is a hard job and we need our rest when we are done...lol

I hated having to get him out to change him, cause he was sleeping so good, but we were getting ready to head home and that's an hour+ trip and I didn't want him to sit in that all the way home.

Now a lot of people know I am using cloth diapers...

And I love them...

But since I have been using them I haven't had a blow out that has escaped them yet. and he has had some really nasty diapers. The real test will come when we get to eating solid foods.

Since it's been a while since I shared pictures of Chester here are some that I took when he was 2 months old.

I couldn't decide which ones to put on here so you get to see all of them!

We just put this outfit on for pictures and if you notice there on the right there is a wet spot...

Well of course we had to spit up right before mommy started taking picture...lol that's how it goes!

We had to show off one of our cloth diapers.

Just like everyone else, when we get a good smile our eyes are closed...lol

2 Months already...

Wow how time flies!!

Well if I'm not back here before Sunday then...

Merry Christmas!! Don't forget to Thank God for sending his Son here to die on the cross for each and every one of us, so that we can have eternal life. Seriously there is no better gift than that! So while all the craziness is going on take a deep breath and reflect on that.

Love ya,

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-20T21:56:00.000-06:00

Here is our Christmas Card for this year....Thank You Shutterfly for making such great cards!!

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

Did you do Christmas Cards this year? I didn't get mine out near as soon as I should have, cause it was forever before we actually got a family picture.

I am hoping that after Christmas is over I will have a little more time to sit down here at the computer and do some blogging once again, cause I miss it and I have so much catching up to do on here.

We have a Christmas Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday...

and two of those are in Missouri, so if I am not back here before then Have a Merry Christmas!!!

Lots of Love,

Janet

Winners and One Month

2011-11-11T15:52:00.000-06:00

Yea, so I was suspose to announce the winners last Friday, but well I got a little busy and it really hasn't slowed down since then.

But before I announced them here are some more pics of stinker who turned 1 month old...

gosh how time flies!!

Here's our just born photo again so you can see how much we have already grown!

Here's Stink in his Halloween outfit.

So we really need a shirt that say's "Spit Happens" cause it happens a lot arounf here!!!

Caleb thought this photo was gross...I just thought it was funny!!

OK now for the winners...

Gail

It's Our Life

Giant Sis

Congrats to all the winners.

Shoot me e-mail to me @

jphillipsblog@hotmail.com

and I will e-mail you the code for your 25 Free Shutterfly Cards.

Have a GREAT Weekend!

Chester's Story

2011-10-31T17:24:00.002-05:00

Ok, so I promised Chester's birth story and a birth story you will get. It took me about two weeks to get this written, cause well I've been a little busy, but hey I finally got it finished! So here ya go...

So back on October 3rd I posted our maternity pictures cause that was our due date and well there was no baby.

Every time I would visit the Doctor she would ask about contractions, I would tell her that there were maybe some small ones but really there weren't much of anything.

Well on the 3rd I went for a big walk in the morning around our pasture in hopes to get things going and well the only thing I got from that was finding and smelling a dead cow and discovering the neighbors cows were out in our bean field and no contractions. Later that day I went for my Doctors Appointment where I found out I was dilated to 2 cm. My options were to be induced or to wait for Stinker to come on his own.

I had already decided to that I wasn't going to have an epidural so I really didn't want to be induced, because I heard when you are given pitocin to induce contractions that the contractions are worse than normal...

And it's true cause I had to have pitocin for the last hour and half, but I will talk more about that when I get there.

Anyway, I decided to wait for him to come on his own. So my doctor stripped my membranes and I went home. Oh, by the way stripping the membranes really stinks!!

Side note: I chose a long time ago not to have an epidural. It was a personal choice. I don't think any less of a woman who has one or any more of one who doesn't. It each persons choice, just like if you bottle feed or breast feed, or if you use cloth or disposable diapers. It is each persons personal choice and personally I don't care what you do as long as you are happy with your choice.

Ok, now that I've said all that lets get back to the baby story.

After I went home nothing really happened. I felt pretty much the same as before. I went for another short walk later that evening. The only thing I did notice is that the baby dropped some more.

Well I went to bed and got up the next day (Tuesday, October 4th) and still no contractions...grrr!!

I don't really remember what all I did that day, I do know that I felt a few different pains, but still nothing I would call a contraction. That evening we were over at Caleb's folks house at a wiener roast and I remember thinking that we should go home relatively early cause I just had a feeling that some thing was going to happen. I didn't tell anybody, cause I was getting sick of everyone asking about how I was doing and if I was having contractions...

Seriously people I will tell you when it happens

So we went home and that's when I told Caleb that we will probably be going to the hospital sometime tomorrow.

So we shower and hop into bed at about 10:45...

Well I really didn't hop into bed, I kinda waddled and crawled but I got there just the same.

At 11 o-clock I wake up with my first real contraction. I stay in bed and try to get some sleep for as long as I can. That lasted till about 1 a.m...grr

So at about 1 a.m. I go ahead a get up. I piddle around the house getting the last few things packed up and ready. I had been timing my contractions and when they got to be 5 minutes apart I was told by my Doctor to head to the hospital. Well it didn't seem to take very long to get there, so I at about 2 o-clock I decided I had better wake up Caleb. So we pack everything up in the truck and head that way.

We get to the hospital at about 3 a.m. *yawn, stretch*

When we get back to the OB department they put me into my room and hook me up to the machines that check contractions and the babies heart rate. After about 30 min to an hour of being hooked up and them getting readings, I had them un-hook everything cause I needed to move around. I walked the halls some, and just got up and sat in different positions.

At this time Caleb was curled up in the recliner that was next to my bed with a warm blanket trying to sleep...Don't worry I told him he could do this cause I really didn't need him right then.

Every so often they would have to hook me back up to the machines to take readings and make sure everyone was doing alright then I would get un-hooked again so I could move.

Some where between 7 and 8 in the morning my Doctor came in to check on me and see how I was progressing. At this point I was still only dilated to about a 2 or 3, so we still had a ways to go. She went ahead a broke my water to help move things along. After this I remained hooked up to the machine for a while and then once again unhooked me so I could move around some.

It was after this that I got into the labor tub...it was great!! I wish I could have gotten into it sooner, but they were understaffed during the night shift so I had to wait till the day shift got there and someone could be there with me the entire time. It was pretty much this huge bathtub with jets...AWESOME!! I know some places will allow you to give birth in the tub, but they wouldn't at my hospital...and I didn't want to anyways.

I'm not sure how long I was in there but sometime later I finally got out and went back to my room. It was at this time that I did get some drugs in my IV to take the edge off...they were great. It helped me relax and get a little rest in between contractions. Sometime after this is when the also gave me a morphine button too, this also helped some too.

Some where around 11:30 a.m. - 12 my Doctor came in to check me and I was then dilated to 8 cm only 2 cm to go...this shouldn't take long to get to...

Yea Right. Let me remind you Chester wasn't born till 4:16. Those next hours seem to take forever.

I tried pushing a little when the Doc was there hoping to get things moving, but nothing happened. So it was back to laboring for a while. At one point they had me get on my hands and knees to labor for a while and that made some difference, but it was a pain getting into position.

Oh somewhere in this time period they took the morphine away from me cause it was effecting my breathing which was effecting my ability to relax as well.

I can't remember how often I could push the button, but Caleb was wanting me to push the button every chance I could, cause he didn't like seeing me in pain. But what would happen is I would pretty much fall asleep in between contractions and then I would wake up when they were terribly bad and would freak out and not be able to do my breathing techniques very well, so I am glad they finally took it way.

At about 2:30 my Doc was back and checked me do found that I was now dilated to a 9....grrr!!

She then told me that I had another 30 minutes and if I didn't get to a 10 then she was going to give me an epidural so I could relax fully and dilate. Well I done this much without one I really didn't want to have to get one when we were this close. So once again they put me back on my hands and knees and I think it was in less than those 30 minutes that I was ready...

I just needed threatened to make it happen...

Why didn't they threaten me sooner?!?!

Well the Doctor got over there somewhere around 3 p.m and I started pushing and continued for the next hour and 16 minutes. I think it would have been so long, but my nurse wasn't telling me when to push so I wasted a bunch of energy pushing when it wasn't needed. But once we got the pushing figured out he came out.

I just remember how strange it felt as I pushed him out and Caleb yelling "It's a BOY!!!" I was rather exhausted and they told me to look down at him and all I remember saying is "I can't see him because my belly was in the way" lol Like I said I was kinda out of it! The nurses helped me lean forward and I just remember thinking how big he looked.

They then clamped the umbilical cord and Caleb cut it. Then they took him over and weighed him. That's when he surprised the heck out of us weighing in at 10 lbs even....

I just remember thinking "HOLY CRAP" that's one big boy that I just popped out. After they weighed and measured him they gave him to me to nurse, while my Doctor sewed me up.

Caleb made some calls to tell everyone what we had and then had to go get the baby book so they could put his prints in it.

The nurses asked me if there was anything I needed and I said "FOOD" I haven't had anything to eat since 8 p.m. the night before, so I was ready to eat!

Once we got everything taken care of, I got to get up and walk to my room where my folks were there waiting to meet their new grandson.

Now I will say that things below the belt were sore, but it was nothing compared to what I had just experience, and once he was finally out I felt a million times better. My mind was drained and I had a hard time concentrating the rest of that day, but really I felt pretty good.

I have had people ask if I would do it again without an epidural and the answer is YES!! Yes there was lot of pain, but I felt so great when it was all said and done that I would do it the same way again!

Now I have had a lot of people tell me that I am an amazing woman for having a 10 lb baby without an epidural, but I'm really nothing special, I'm just a normal woman who did the same thing woman have been doing for years...

Had a baby.

Well here are some of the pics for those first few days...

Here I am right after we got back to the room attempting to send a text to everyone telling them we had the baby...

My mind was so drained that it took me about 2-3 hours to get it sent...it didn't help that I could only send it to 20 people at a time.

Here we are attempting to swaddle Chester...

I'm not very good at this!

The Proud Daddy and his little man.

I am Happy to say that Caleb made it though it all without fainting. He did great and there is no way I would have been able to make it thought it without him!!!

Our First family photo, right before we headed home.

Both sets of Grandparents were there to greet us that first night.

Getting our picture taken for the hospital sign

These were our two nurses who helped me when delivering Chester...

I couldn't have done it with out them!!!

Our first night at home.

Three days old and we were taking our first tractor ride with Daddy.

It's hard to believe that this coming Saturday Chester will already be a month old...WOW this month has just flown by!

Also don't for get to check out my giveaway.

Hopefully I will get to give ya'll a farm up-date soon, cause there has been tons of things going on around here!

Un-till then,

Janet

Shutterfly Christmas Cards and A GIVEAWAY!!

2011-10-29T16:00:00.001-05:00

Christmas....

Say What?!?!

Seriously Janet Halloween isn't even here yet, not to mention Thanksgiving.

I know, I know, but If you are like me and like doing the Photo cards then you need to be thinking about that now, cause before you know it Christmas will be here and if your not on top of things you won't have your Christmas cards and all your friends and family will be sad that didn't get one from you. :(

So, years ago my sister told me about Shutterfly and our family has been using it ever since! I have ordered Photos, Photo Books, Christmas Cards, a Canvas Print, and even Stinkers Birth Announcements, which I will share with you when I share his birth story...which is almost done, I promise!

So this year Shutterfly has some wonderful templates for Christmas Cards and here are just a few of them...

Seriously how do you choose?!?!

I'm not sure how I will pick one for our card this year, cause I had a hard enough time picking the ones to share with you on here! Needless to say there is one for everybody out there, so check them out!

Now I got to get into gear and get a picture of Caleb, Chester and I together for our card, then all I will have to do is pick a design...

And to make things even better, if you remember my title had the word GIVEAWAY in it...

Well Shutterfly has given me three sets of 25 cards to giveaway to three of my wonderful readers!

Wahoo!!!

So here's what ya got to do...

Leave me a comment telling me what your favorite holiday food is.

Mine is homemade noodles...yummy!!

One entry per person

*You can earn a second entry by blogging about my giveaway and then leaving a second comment with a link to you post.

* You can also earn an entry by sharing a link for this giveaway on Twitter and Facebook just leave a comment for each that you choose to do.

Entries will close at midnight on Thursday, November 3rd at midnight and the winners will hopefully be announced the following Day.

Good Luck,

Janet

Stinker Has Arrived!!!

2011-10-12T16:49:00.000-05:00

Well last Monday I shared with you our big belly baby pictures and told you that our baby was due anytime and...

A week ago today we welcomed into this world a healthy baby.....
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What do you think it is.....
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BOY

Chester Caleb was born on October 5th at 4:16 pm.

He weighed 10 lbs....yes I said 10 lbs and he was 22 1/4 inches long.

Thanks to my friend Carrie over at Life in the Slow Lane for these cute onesies and 12 months of stickers so we can document our first year of life. We love it! You can get them or many other cute Monthly Onsie Sticker at the Apple Eye Baby Shop on Etsy.

In a day or so I will share some more pictures of Chester as well as the story of his birth.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Lots of Love

Janet

Where Are you Baby?!?!?!

2011-10-03T10:59:00.002-05:00

As of today we are 40 weeks along, but I am sad to say there is no sign of Baby Phillips....grrrr

I know it's been forever since I wrote last and I am sorry. I am also very sorry that I haven't been keeping up on reading everyone elses blog.

I have had baby on the brain as well as different family events and Church responsibilities, so I would rather sit on the couch with some Oreos and Milk than at the desk working on the computer.

So I am SORRY!

Since today is my due date and well it doesn't look like I will be getting any pictures of Stinker today, I thought I would share with you our Maternity Pics.

I stole Caleb away from working ground one morning and made him take some pics with me.

On the Day these were taken I was 38 weeks and 4 days along.

Me, Caleb, my tripod and wireless remote went out to one of the farms where we have some of our cattle and went to town shooting pictures.

Fact: This farm is also the same farm where Caleb proposed to me 3 1/2 years ago.

I wished the cows would have stayed around a little longer, but oh well it was fun to have them there for a few pictures!

Caleb wasn't a fan of all the ones I chose. He said there were too many "smooching" pictures. Personally I like those pics, but also in all those pics I didn't think my face looked so poofy...

And since it's my camera, and I took the pictures and did the editing and it's my blog and I am the one that is pregnant, well I get the last say of which pictures I show to people!!! LOL

An of course, it wouldn't be us if there wasn't at least one silly picture.

I am hoping we will soon get to meet our little one and find out if it's a Girl or a Boy and then take oodles and oodles of pictures of him or her.

Any guesses on what we are gonna be having and what day he/she will be here??

Lots of Love,

Janet

Rat Attack - What To Do and What Not To Do

2011-09-08T12:04:00.001-05:00

I know it's been a while since I last wrote a post or even since I got a chance to read anyone else's blog post, and I am very sorry!

Even though Corn Harvest wasn't to good this year, it was still a very busy time, taking meals to the field, running after parts and a dozen other things.

On top of the crazy corn harvest, I am a full time incubator and that sometimes wears me down. Along with that we have been having some wonderful baby showers, but once I get home from them, I have to figure out where to put everything...not an easy task. To be honest most of my time spent on the computer here lately has been spent looking up baby stuff...I guess you could say I have baby on the brain...

Stinker is due to come in less than 4 weeks! Kinda crazy!!!

Anyways I tell you all that to say I am sorry for not posting for ever!

Ok, lets get to the title of this baby...

So we got through all our baby showers and just finished Corn Harvest, and then the very next morning we wake up and look out at our good truck and see this...

Jasper sniffin' around and acting all crazy. My thought is maybe he scared a little mouse up there and is tryin' to get it...

No big deal, I can handle a mouse.

Then I go out to the truck and lift the hood to look in and well it wasn't mouse poop that I saw...

Sure enough it was rat poo, which means we have a rat that has taken up residences in our truck...

grrrr!!!

Well Caleb heads out there to see if it's done any damage...

And sure enough the nasty little beast has chewed on a bunch of wires.

Well now we have to figure out how to get the beast out of our truck...

AKA: How to kill the rat.

Caleb's Uncle has told us how he has killed rats before...

Well Uncle Ben's "secret" ingredient is...

BEER!!

Critters love this stuff!!

So Ben said to add some beer to rat poison and the rat would eat it instead of carry it off...

He also heard that rats can't burp so if it drank some beer it would just bloat up and die from the gas in it's stomach, so I filled this cap up with beer and sat it in there too.

We didn't have a rat trap, so we also set a mouse trap hoping it might do the job.

But...

The next morning we wake up to find the rat poison all gone...

Good, Right?

Well all the rat did was carry it off and stuff it around the engine, I guess it just liked the smell of it an wanted to use it as an air freshener.

The cap that had the beer in it was empty and...

The trap had been tripped and the beast ate the cheese and then carried it off an stuffed in by the engine.

So what did we find out from this...

Well first was that we didn't have just a ordinary rat, but a pack rat instead and they are a huge pain to kill!

Second that pack rats can burp and they love beer!

So after this we went and bought a rat trap and bolted it down in there so the beast couldn't run off with it, and then we baited it...

Well one of the nights that we had this trap set I got up to go to the bathroom...

I do that a lot right now, any women who have ever been pregnant know what I mean!

Anyways I heard the dogs barking at something so I thought I had better go and see what's going on. I thought they were getting a possum or something, like normal but...

I get outside and see them sniffin' around the truck. At this point I am thinking the trap went off and they heard it and that's why the are barking.

So I pop the hood and look in at the trap and see that it's still set. Darn!

It's then that I look down and 6-12 inches in front of me is the nasty little beast...

Well I am still half asleep and had I been thinking I could have just whacked the beast out of the truck, but I don't and it gets away...grrr!!!

Well the rat trap doesn't work at all, the rat would some how trip it every night and just eat whatever we had on there.

In the processes of this I asked all my facebook friends for help and it was there one of my friends reminded me of something my folks use to kill raccoons in their sweet corn...

Fly Bate...ya know those blue crystals that you set out to kill flies, well it also works to kill rodents too.

By this time we were sick of messing with this beast so we took maybe a teaspoon of the fly bate pellets and put them in an old cat food can and since we didn't want this guy to just haul the pellets off and we knew how much it loved beer we added that to the fly bate and...

It worked!!!

As you can see it wasn't a small rat either! I was just glad Caleb was able to find the dead beast in our truck cause this was when we still had some of those 100+ days and it wouldn't take it long to be stinky!!

So Caleb took the rat and a shovel and got rid of it. We didn't want to take the chance of our pets getting a hold of it and eating it and dying. Don't know if that would happen, but we didn't want to take the chance.

So...

Fly Bate + Beer = A Dead Rat!!!!

FYI: If you use this make sure no pets can get to it cause it will kill dogs a cats too! So be careful!!

So I forgot to tell you this earlier...it's called "mommy brain"...Neither Caleb or I are drinkers so we didn't have any beer on hand, so I had to go the the convenient store to pick some up and the 24 ounce Natty Light was the cheapest. I got a few strange looks as I walked out with it! Also we really didn't use that much trying to get rid of the rat so we currently have that can still sitting in the the fridge mostly full...lol...we are stocked up for life for killing rats, but I hope I don't have to do it again!!

I will be working on getting a Post up about this year's Corn Harvest so stay tuned!

Lots of Love

Janet

Shootin' Cattle

2011-08-16T09:57:00.001-05:00

This morning we needed to give a sick calf a shot. Usually this involves Caleb getting on the back of the truck with a rope and me driving around chasing the calf...

usually until the calf gets tired enough we can chase it down on foot or Caleb is lucky enough to get the rope around it's neck.

Yes I said "lucky enough" cause he's not much of a roper and well neither am I. But if you don't believe me check this story out about what happened last winter.

Anways, I really don't like doing it this way cause all the chasing and running really stresses the already sick calf.

So once we catch the wore out little guy we pull out the syringe and needle and give it a shot.

Well yesterday morning we tried this way and well it ended up in a fight and us not catching the little guy...

I didn't want to chase the little guy cause it still had a lot of energy and we were just gonna make him worse, and I knew we had access to an easier and less stressful way...

We'll just shoot the beast...

and yes with a gun.

WHAT!?!?

Don't worry, we might be using a gun, but the calf wont get hit with a bullet...

It will get hit with a syringe and needle full of meds.

The great thing about this method is the animal really doesn't have a clue whats going one till they get hit with the needle and well all it feels like is getting a normal shot.

The gun we are using is Caleb's dad's gun he bought earlier this year...

Umm it's amazing!!

So when you get to the field you have your gun out the window and ready.

Then once you have a clear aim at your target...

Pull your gun up and fire.

And since the gun is a 22 there really isn't much noise, so you don't freak out all the rest of the cattle.

There you can see the needle stuck in the little guys rump. Once it hits the calf it delivers all the meds and then will eventually fall out.

As you can see this little guy just walks away like nothing happened. No stress...

I love it!!

It's a 22 caliber rifle that is set up to shoot a medicine filled syringe out and not a bullet...

Tractors

2011-08-11T05:53:00.003-05:00

Every Farm has it's favorite / most used tractor and our farm is no different. Around here it's Pop's loader tractor...

It's used for hauling hay...

Feeding hay...

Feeding silage...

Doing dirt work...

Just about anything you can think to use a loader for and then some we do with this tractor.

Caleb has often made the comment that if this tractor goes down we are in trouble cause we really don't have a good back up.

Now there is another loader tractor on the farm, but it's not as big and doesn't have a cab and really isn't all that handy to use except for on the small projects.

We had this little beast down at our house last winter to help with the cattle chores and clearing snow last winter...

and it wasn't long after this picture was taken that Caleb thought we should be looking for another loader tractor with a cab!

Well finally about three weeks ago he found one in our price range and with the amount of hours he wanted on it and in the condition we wanted it to be in...

and it was only a couple hours away.

So Caleb, Pop and I make the drive over there with the truck an trailer to check it out.

After driving it around and checking it over Caleb gives the owner a call to haggle on the price a little and when they finally come to an agreement...

The guys write their checks and...

Load it up and head back home.

It took us about three hours to make it home and had to change one flat tire on the way, but all in all we were pretty happy with our new toy.

Doin' Up Peaches - A Slice of Heaven on Earth!

2011-07-29T06:16:00.006-05:00

I would say a good fresh peach would have to be my favorite fruit in the world. Yeah, it even beats out a nice ripe watermelon which I can devour. I just love peaches and I was so sad when last summer I didn't come across anyone selling boxes of them.

Two years ago I put up a box full of them and I only had about 3 quart Ziploc bags of them left and that isn't even close to enough to last me through the year, but I managed and every once in a blue moon Caleb and I would eat them with our meal.

So this summer when we saw a guy selling them by the side of the road I made Caleb pull over cause I wasn't gonna pass up the chance to get some delicious little things.

Often people will just buy a dozen or so of them, not me, I want the whole box. I payed a lot more for this box than I usually do, but I didn't want to take the chance that I would see them again.

And I'm glad I bought them, cause I haven't seen any more ever since.

Umm, seriously don't they just look so delicious...

Oh, they were!!!

I was talking with a good friend of mine the other day who was gonna be getting a box of peaches. She asked about canning peaches and what all I did well I had to let her in on a little secret about how I put them away and I thought I would do the same for you guys since its that time of the year when they are out there.

So, when I was younger my mom use to can peaches in the pressure canner...

Umm, I think my mom would agree with me that they weren't all that great. The problem was the canner would end up cooking the peaches and they weren't really that good.

Then when I was in high school we started slicing them up and placing them in freezer bags. I think it was because there for a while at my school we would have frozen peaches with our school lunch. Well needless to say once we started doing them this way we never went back to the old way.

The short story is I peal and pit them, then I slice them up add a little sugar and stick them in a bag and throw them in the freezer and there ya go we are done!

Ok Let me show ya with a little more detail how I do it that makes things easier.

First we will talk about pealing the peaches. It's a lot easier than you might think.

First stick a large pot of water on the stove and bring the water to a boil. Fill it about 2/3 - 3/4 the way full.

I used one of my dutch ovens cause I didn't want to get out my big ginormous pots.

While that's heating up fill one of your sinks basins with cold water. You want it ice cold if you can. We usually have some cups in the freezer that have big frozen chunks of ice in them and these work great for this.

Now what we are going to do is shock the peaches...

or scare the skin off of them.

So once the water is boiling remove it from the stove and set it on a hot pad next to your sink full of ice water. Then start placing your peaches in it.

Don't over crowd your peaches, you want to make sure that everyone is completely cover with water.

Let them sit in there for about 30 seconds then...

With a big ol' spoon dip them out and place them in the cold water. This will make them stop cooking anymore than they might have already.

I will send two batches through the water before returning it to the stove to bring it back to a boil.

The second batch that I run through the hot water I will usually leave in there a tad bit longer.

While the pot of water is coming back to a boil you can start pealing. IF everything works out like it is suppose to then the skin will just slip right off.

I usually try to start pulling the skin off where the stem was. This is what works best for me, but you will have to see what works best for you.

While you are doing this you will want to keep a bucket or bowl to throw the scraps into.

Ok first if you don't have any Tupperware "Thatsa Bowls" then you must go get you one cause well they are a necessity when it comes to putting produce away!! I have three and sometimes I feel that's not enough...lol!

Ok back to the peaches...

Ok, now it's time to pit the peaches. For this you need a good pairing knife. All you do is slice them in half, pull the halves apart, pull the pit out and...

throw them into a bowl.

Once you got them all pitted, then just start slicing them into small chunks.

I'm pretty sure I could eat all these without any help.

Ok so this part is optional, but what my mom and I always do is add some sugar to the sliced peaches.

How much, if any sugar is up to your discretion. I only added about a cup, but would have add a little more but I was out of sugar...

Oh how sad I was!

Once you add the sugar just give it a stir.

The sugar will help the peaches produce some of that yummy juice that you want to drink up.

Now you can let them sit for awhile to get more juice or you can start bagging them up right away, it really doesn't matter.

Now I've said it before when it comes to getting freezer bags don't skimp out and get the cheap ones. They aren't as thick and don't do as good of a job keeping your produce fresh. So spend the extra $1 and get the name brand bags. Trust me you will be glad you did!

So to fill the bags I usually get a "1 cup" measuring cup to do the scooping and I will put about 2 cups in each bag.

When closing make sure to squeeze as much air out as you can to keep them from getting freezer burn.

Then I like to lay them flat to freeze cause this makes them easier to stack and handle in the freezer. I also place them on a cookie sheet to carry cause it's a lot easier.

Oh and make sure to write on them what they are and what year you put them away.

I also wrote which bags had sugar and which ones didn't so I would know. I bagged some without partly because I ran out and and partly because if I wanted to give any of these to stinker then I didn't want it to have all the sugar added to it.

Now when it comes to serving them I will usually only get out about 1/3 - 1/2 a bag for Caleb and I to eat.

I will usually stick them in the microwave for about 30 seconds to get them to thaw so I can break them apart. Then I will place them in a bowl and sprinkle on a little sugar if needed and then if they are still really frozen I will do another 15 - 30 seconds.

Now you don't want them completely thawed out cause they aren't as good that way, trust me...

You want them still partly frozen and slushy cause they are soo much better this way!

So that's what I do with my peaches. If you try it this way I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

As always if you have any questions shoot them my way.

Lots of Love,

Janet

Wheat Harvest 2011

2011-07-26T10:43:00.001-05:00

Ok, so it has been way to long since I last posted and I am so sorry about that. July is usually a little slower than this, but we have been going like crazy here on and off the farm. It's really hot and really dry here right now so the normal summer stuff isn't so normal, but I will talk more about that in another post.

I have been crazy busy tryin' to get stinkers room ready and other things ready for stinker. I don't have it completely don just yet, but it's getting close and when it is I will show y'all what it looks like. I have also been a little busy in the garden...with what's left in the garden that is. Trying to get things canned and put away, so we will have food to eat! ;)

On top of that I have total "mommy brain" going on right now and it's driving me crazy!!! If I don't write something down then it's pretty much gone and it takes me a million times longer to do things because of this!!

Anyways, I was going to to a big post about wheat harvest and bean planting but well that ain't happening, so I am just gonna show you some of the pictures from it.

I was the official "gofer" and would go running after everything for the guys, so I didn't get as many good pics as I would have like, but I still got some! We can pretend it's a "Wordless Wednesday," only it's Tuesday and there are a lot of words here. ;)

OK So I will shut-up and let you enjoy the pics and if you have any questions be sure and let me know and I will do my best to answer them...

On the final day when we finished harvesting our last field Caleb wanted to a group photo with the equipment, but first we had to get everything lined up just right...this took a little bit...

But We finally got it and here is the good looking group of combine drivers, truck drivers, planter operator, cooks, and even the the 'gopher'. (My belly isn't near that small any more, just thought you should know!)

Well I hope you enjoyed all the pics and I promise it won't be three weeks till I post again.

Janet

Updates and the 4th

2011-07-07T06:00:00.004-05:00

1. I'm pretty sure I posted more in corn planting than I have been lately...

and I thought this was suppose to be the slow time of the year.

2. Speaking of corn, ours is drying up and dieing. We really need a rain right now. But you know even if we get one, I'm not sure that it will do that much good for the corn, but our beans and pastures would sure benefit!

3. Last week was Vacation Bible School at our church and boy was it fun!!! I was in charge of the games and loved it, the only problem was I couldn't play all the games like I wanted to cause of a certain thing in my belly. I'm hopping I will get to do games again next year, so then I can play with the kids more!

4. Speaking of the belly I also went to the Doctor last week, and I officially weigh more than Caleb now...lol

It was bound to happen. He only weighed 15 lbs more than me to start with. I think I should make him carry around some 10 lb weights to help me out.

5. Another Belly story -
First I must tell you that I inherited cankles from my Great-Grandma. Nobody really notices them, but that's because I wear jeans 99.9% of the time to hid them.

Fact - I can't wear ankle bracelets, or those cute sandals that have cuffs that go around the ankle as well as most knee high boots are way too tight and the calves....oh and skinny jeans, yeah right. Also my thighs are 2 inches bigger than Caleb's and my ankles are 1 inch bigger.

I tell you all this because the other day at the Doctor, I was wearing shorts and she looked at my ankles and mad the comment "I notice you are starting to have some swelling"
I then had to say "No, that's just what they normally look like."

Seriously....

6. In the middle of last week my fridge decided to give me fits.....grrr

7. Caleb and I went and looked for a new one in town, but couldn't find one so he got on-line and did some looking and found one he liked the rating on...we ordered it and well never ordered one without looking at it first. We got it on Tuesday and I hate it! Oh it works fine, but it said it was bigger than my old one and it's smaller...grrr

Needless to say I'm stuck with it and I'm not happy!!

Oh and to make things even better the delivery guys ripped our vinyl floor...yeah yesterday wasn't a good day!

8. On the 4th we got all dressed up and went into town to watch the fire works.

I am now 27 weeks along and my due date was 3 months from the 3rd....

I'm not even close to being ready...lol

I was able to get a few good pics of the fireworks, but then my battery died and I was done :(

9. Lucky Update - She's still alive and doing ok. We are hoping she will pull through still.

10. Oh and I finally got a name for my last bull...We have Benny to already and the third one will be Leonard...after Leonard from the Big Bang Theory...I love that show....Thank You Julie for the idea!!

Well that's all I got for now

Laters,

Diggin' Tatters

2011-07-06T10:18:00.000-05:00

So earlier this year I did a post about Panting Potatoes and I got a lot of response to it. My friend Carrie ask me to do one about harvesting potatoes and I am more than happy to oblige.

Usually the potato vie will grow and be full and robust and then bloom and then it will slowly die off and that's when you will harvest them, but that wasn't the case with mine this year.

Ya see mine had a problem with disease and I wasn't able to get out there and spray them near as much as they needed so the plants looked pretty bad and...

Some of them just died off. When this started to happen I decided it was time to get out there and start diggin' them.

Harvesting potatoes is really easy and young kids love it.

If the plants are still pretty strong one of the easiest ways is just to grab hold of the plant and pull the tatters out of the ground...

I thought I planted all red potatoes, but I ended up with some white ones. I guessing this was one of my shriveled up ones, other wise I have no idea how I got it.

If you aren't able to pull them, like I couldn't very much this year, then you will need to dig them. There are a few different ways of doing this...

You could get a potato fork...

and use it to turn the ground over and...

expose the potatoes, but...

Every once in a while you might get a causality. Throw this one on the top of the pile and make mash potatoes with it later, or if you have a lot of potatoes just chuck it.

(A potato fork is very much like a pitch fork, but the tines are flatter and straighter. You can get them at any farm and home store.)

Now even if you use a potato fork or you pull them, you will still probably have to get down on your hands and knees and do a little diggin' cause there will be some down there hiding from you.

What I found to work the best for me is to straddle the row and just go to town turning the the soil and bringing them to the surface.

Now I won't lie, I really thought I wasn't going to have many tatters this year since I had the disease problem but...

I was wrong. This what I got from one row so double this and well I have tatters coming out my ears!!!

O-well they keep pretty well. If you have a cool dry place that is best for storing them.

I have to settle with a just a dry place, cause there is no such thing a cool around here right now.

As you can see they are pretty easy to harvest, the only thing you have to worry about is not finding all the tatters when you are digging. So if you are having little kids help with the digging, you might want to follow them to make sure they found them all, cause I'm sure they will miss some along the way.

Once again if you have any questions feel free to ask.

Good Luck,

No-Bake Cheese Cake

2011-06-27T06:00:00.004-05:00

Ok so one of my favorite deserts ever is cheese cake! I didn't really grow up having it. It wasn't till Jell-O came out with the no-bake box mix that I really had a cheese cake, I won't lie I loved it. Then I had a baked one and they are good, but I was still stuck on that no-baked one. I liked the creaminess of it.

I had always assumed that you either had to have the Baked or the Jell-O one, but then...

While watching Master Chef...I think that was the show. It had Gordon Ramsey in it...

Anyways, the little southern girl that won it made a no-bake cheese cake from scratch and well that got me thinkin' I need to figure out how to make that.

It was then I found out just how simple it is to make them. Once you try this recipe you will never go back to the box kind of no-bake again.

First I will say this recipe is my adaption from The Pioneer Woman's cheesecake and Martha Stewart's no-bake cheesecake.

Ok let's get started first we have to make the crust. This came from The Pioneer Woman's recipe, but I had to tweak it so I could fit it in a regular pie pan since I don't have a spring form pan...

What you need: Nilla Wafers, Pecan's, Butter, and Vanilla Extract

If you have a food processor this would be a lot easier, but if like me you don't and have to improvise here's what I do. Throw about 3/4 the box of Nilla Wafers and 1/4 Cup of Pecans into a gallon zip lock bag...

And then using the flat side of a meat pounder...

Smash the crap out of them. You could also use a rolling pin, but best case scenario would be you have a food processor and you just throw then in it push a button and you are done.

Now if you are having to do the zip lock bag way you will need to dump all the smashed up goodness into a bowl, but if you are using a food processor then you can just do the easy mixing in there.

Now add in 1 1/4 stick melted Butter and 1 tsp Vanilla

Now grab a spoon a mix it all together...

or if your one of those losers who has a food processor just push a button.

(Don't mind me, I'm just jealous, but soon I will have one...probably before stinker gets here. Anyone got recommendations on what to get?)

Now pour it into a 9 inch pie plate and either with your fingers or with the bottom of a glass smash it down...

I use my fingers cause I don't want to have to wash the glass.

No if you can find room, which I have a hard time doing, stick the pie plate into the freezer while you work on the filling. This allows the butter to firm back up so the crust will be more solid.

If you have a recipe for a gram cracker crust that you like better then go for it, but I love the mix of vanilla wafers and pecans...yummy!!!

Ok now it's time for the good stuff!!

Filling:

What you need: 2 packages Cream Cheese, 1 Lemon, 1 can Sweetened Condensed Milk, and Vanilla Extract

Now with an electric mixer mix the cream cheese till smooth.

Then add the sweetened condense milk a little at a time. Mixing it in between each addition...

Until creamy and smooth.

Now add 1 tsp of vanilla extract and...

the juice from one lemon.

(Martha's recipe calls for more lemon, but I find if you add any more then your cheese cake won't set up as well)

Once again blend those until creamy.

Now simply spread the filling into the crust, cover and refrigerate for 2 -3 hours till firm.

Now just top with your favorite cheese cake topping of server plain.

Wa-la, your done. Easy right!?!?!

So I totally forgot to get a picture of the finished product, but it was good.

I hope ya'll make it and enjoy it!

No-Bake Cheesecake

Makes One 9-inch Cake

Crust

¾ box Nilla wafers

1 ¼ sticks butter

1 tsp vanilla

¼ cup pecans

Filling

2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature

1 14-ounce can (1 1/4 cups) sweetened condensed milk

1Juice from 1 Lemon

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Crust

Put vanilla wafers and pecans in a large resealable plastic bag, and crush them with a rolling pin or meat pounder until very fine crumbs form. (Or place them in a food processor and pulse the mixer till they are chopped fine)

Pour crumbs into a medium bowl; melted butter and vanilla extract and stir until well combined.

Press the crumb mixture into a 9-inch pie plate or a spring form pan, spreading it 1 1/2 to 2 inches up the side; press flat. Chill crust in freezer at least 10 minutes

Filling

Using an electric mixer set at medium-high speed, beat the cream cheese in a large bowl until smooth. Beat in the condensed milk a little at a time, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary. Beat in the lemon juice and vanilla.

Pour the filling into the crust; smooth the top with a rubber spatula. Cover and refrigerate until firm, 2 to 3 hours.

Hope ya'll Love it like I do!!!

Janet

Lucky

2011-06-23T10:43:00.005-05:00

So a while back I wrote a post titled "Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day". I never really went into detail about that day, but I will tell you it had to do with working cattle.

FYI: Any time a farmer is having a Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day it will almost always involve one of two things...Either every piece of equipment they touch that day has something wrong with it or it has something to do with cattle. These two things will make up 99.9% of the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day's on a farm.

Ok now that we have that cleared up back to what I was saying.

Back in March when this happened I really didn't want to talk about it and I'm not gonna say a lot about it now but just that it involved, pulling a monster calf, the calf dieing, chasing cows, and poking a heifer's eye out.

A short synopsis, but that's what made up our day that wasn't soo good. So why am I telling you this now and why is this post titled "Lucky"?

Well they all fit together. Ya see that heifer that lost here eye, there is more to her story.

They eye, how did we poke it out. Well actually there was no we, it was just me. We were trying to get her in to load her up to take her out to pasture. Well I was trying to hit her on the nose to turn her when she wasn't doing what she was suppose to be doing and some how I managed to get her in the eye.

Ok so I never played softball in school....why...well because you could throw a 100 balls at me and I might hit 1.

Well unfortunately for Lucky her eye was the one.

Oh by the way we named this heifer Lucky and her eye was strike #2.

(I felt terrible after this happened, it made me sick to my stomach and not because of the the blood. She ended up loosing the eye as a result of it)

Strike #1 was the fact that she was a teenage pregnancy.

We were planning on keeping her for a replacement heifer, but now that she is missing an eye we were going to sell her, but only after she has her calf...

Umm looking back we wish we would have just sold her as soon as her eye healed up.

Ok so all of this brings me up to last Thursday. We have been out in the wheat filed all day and the guys were still there finishing up. I was headed home, it was about 8:20, and I drove by the pasture where are heifers are and that's when I see it...

A heifer on of the heifers off by herself with a little discharge hanging out her back end...

Which means she's tryin' to have her baby. We will usually give them an hour than go back and check on them and if they haven't made any progress then we will get them in and pull the calf.

So I called Caleb and told him what was going on and an hour later I go back an check on her. There really wasn't any progress so I called Caleb up once again and told him he had better head this was so we could get he in and to bring the pullers cause we will probably need them. By this time it is dark, but we go out there with the trucks a push her in and you know she was the easiest cow we have ever had to get in...

But that's where the easy part ended.

We got her up in the corral and got her penned behind a gate and Caleb started to work on her. He reaches his hand in her to find the feet and that's when things got a little weird. One foot was coming out strait while the other was at a weird angle. When he felt the head it was also weird feeling.

If you think of someone diving into a swimming pool well that's what a calf is suppose to look like coming out of it's momma....

front feet, then the head, then the body, then the back feet and it's back bone is suppose to be parallel with the mothers.

Well this calf was more or less laying on it's side. They always tell you to call the vet if you reach in a feel something weird so we do and of course our vet is out of town at the time and can't come help us, he suggested for Caleb to try and push the calf back and then turn it...

umm yeah right. he tried, but that didn't really work so well. He also recommended another vet to call for emergency. So after finding the number for the vet...thanks to my smart phone...we give them a call but still don't get anyone, so we leave a message and go on messin' with Lucky. Well after trying for a little bit longer we decide there really isn't any more we can do and we will have to wait till morning.

So we head home and by now it is 11pm. between the long stressful day in the field and this we are beat. about 11:30 we finally hear back from the Vet. He said we would need to bring the heifer down there so he could do a c-section. Well their office is at least a 40 minute drive on top of having to go get the trailer and load her up and get going. Well by the time we did all that we wouldn't get there till about 1a.m. and wouldn't be home till 3am or later and then we would have to still get up and at 6am and get going in the wheat field.

Well by this time the calf was already dead, so we opted to wait till morning and take her down.

So the next morning we go and check on her and still no progress...

It's never good when you see feet hangin' out. (Don't worry that's the worst picture you will see.)

So I take Lucky down to the vet and at first he tries to pull the calf out in pieces...

Which is not nearly as gross as it sounds.

But after trying for a while with no luck we then had two options...

Put her down or do a c-section, which is expensive and we only have a 50-50 chance that she will make it. We decide that we will go ahead with the c-section since she was still standing and doing ok.

Caleb was mad that I didn't take any pictures of all this cause he wanted to see it, but there wasn't a lot of room for taking pictures and I didn't want to get in the way...but I will say it was cool to watch, but I never want to see it again....at least not on one of our cows.

What they do is clip all the hair back on the spot they will be making the incision in and then make a 12-18 inch cut and pull the calf out. Lucky had to have an 18 inch cut, because her calf was huge!

After they remove the calf they will a sterilized garden hose and flush her insides out with water. They do this in hopes to get any of the "nasty" that might have came off the dead calf out and this will decrease your chance of infection. Then they proceed to sew her up and they have 5 layers of material to sew individually.

After they got her all sewn back up they gave her an antibiotic shot and we took here home.

And there she is, with her stitched up side.

Come to find out the reason the calf was twisted inside her was because she had a twisted uterus. But even if the calf was coming out normal, it was so big I think she might have been paralyzed by us pulling it and that would have been a bigger mess.

I said "I hope her luck changes" but Caleb said "she is lucky to have made it through all these things."

I guess we will see. We still have little while till she is out of the woods, but so far she is doing good.

Update

I told you a while back about our bulls and asked for some help to name our new ones and here's what I have so far.

Far left is: Benny

Big bull on the far right is: Tom

I am still thinking on a name for the middle bull. Hopefully he will have a name soon!

Well I have some cleaning and a millions other things to do, so I had better get back to it but I will have a post soo about Wheat Harvest and Soybean Planting as well as Diggin' Potatoes...

Laters,

A Weeks Worth of Catching Up - A List

2011-06-13T15:16:00.000-05:00

I know it's been a while, but I was gone all last week and was crazy busy the entire time I was gone, but there will be more on that later. I thought I would give you a little up-date / catch up on what's been going on around here.

1. We have gotten all the fescue mowed, raked, baled and put away.

To be honest I really didn't do all that much this year. I raked some and hauled some, but that was it. I love mowing but Caleb didn't share the mower one bit this year he keeps sayin' something about me being pregnant...

Wait I am pregnant....

And here's the belly to prove it....lol

I can still see my feet, but I am sure it won't be long till I will forget what my toes look like.

2. The wheat has been turning fast!!! We have had at least two weeks of 90 degree weather with no rain.

In some fields there is still a little green, but they started cutting this past Friday, but then it rained...

But we really wanted the rain so there were no complaints.

And Actually Caleb said they were gonna get back to it and start cutting again this afternoon, so there will be a lot more wheat pics to come!

3. Like I said I was gone this past week. My sister and I took a spur of the moment trip to Nashville for the CMA Music Festival.

It was HOT, but we still had a blast! We got to hear some great music. My favorite was Brad Paisley and Alabama, as well as Jason Aldean and Zach Brown Band. I wasn't too impressed with Reba, to be honest she was my least favorite.

Stinker also like Jason Aldean and Brad Paisley.

I left last Tuesday morning and got back home Saturday night.

I didn't take all that many pics, cause I really didn't want to lug my big ol' camera around with me. I mean I am already hauling around an extra 10 pounds in this 90+ degree weather and since I don't have a zoom lens for my camera it really wouldn't be worth the hassle.

I did take my little point an shoot, but I am not all that happy with the pics.

4. Before I left I had to get some things done, like Pick and pit all the cherries. There weren't near as many as we had last year, and they were barely worth my time. They were really wormy this year and there was barely enough for one person.

I am planning on canning them like I did last year, but since I didn't have a lot of time I just pitted them and froze them as well as all the juice I got from them. Later this week I'll get them out and can them, but until then they are doing just fine in the freezer.

5. I also had to cook my hubby some meals before I could head out, cause I didn't want him to waste away to nothing while I was gone.

6. Jasper is rotten!!!

End of story.

As I am getting all the last minute things done Tuesday morning I go our side to find Kit and Hank being goof....for once and then I find Jasper looking like this...

Why, you may ask, does Jasper look like this??

Because...

He did this to the place where I had some of my plants.

Ya see I go out side to find him trying to get an armadillo back here in this spot. The armadillo had dug a hole that was about 10-12 inches deep.

This is what is left of my citronella plant...

and here are the rest of them...

One was completely destroyed and another one was luck to still be alive.

Needless to say I wasn't a very happy person when I found this.

This would make at least 5 if not 6 armadillos that have lost their life here in the past 2 months.

7. Since I took enough clothes to last a month, I have a lot of unpacking to do as well as laundry.

Well I had better get back to it.

Lots of Love,

Janet

And the Winner is....

2011-06-01T18:54:00.002-05:00

Sorry I didn't get this posted sooner, it's been a busy day here around the farm.

Thanks for all the complements. I had a question as to if I sold these or not and....

I tried selling them for a while but really didn't have much luck, but I really do enjoy making them.

My dear friend Nicole asked about where to get stuff to make these...

I would buy things from about everywhere.....

Michael's, Hobby Lobby, eBay, I even got a few glass beads a Wal-Mart a time or two...

Oh and Nicole by the way you are the Winner!! Shoot me an email with your address and the necklace of your choice and I will get it too you!!!

The 2nd necklace goes to Gale.

So Gale you can send me an e-mail with your top two choices and your address and I will send you your first choice if Nicole didn't take it and your second choice if she did.

And....

Because I'm feelin' froggy today I am gonna give a third necklace a way as well.....

Oh Heck Yeah!!!

So Lucky number 3 is...

The Newly engaged Crystal.

So Crystal, shoot me an e-mail with your top three choices and your address and I will do my best to get you your top choice!

My email is jphillipsblog@hotmail.com ...

So let me know what you want Ladies and I will get it out to you!

And since every post needs a pic...

Here's me and stinker today out in one of our corn fields.

Thanks to all of you who entered!! I love ya all...

And Congrats to the winners!!!

JP

Bulls will be Bulls

2011-05-31T06:03:00.001-05:00

So First don't forget about my giveaway that ends tonight at midnight.

And now to my Post....

So the beginning of May Caleb and I spent a lot of time looking for for a few replacement bulls for our cattle herd. Last year we ended up loosing 2 bulls, so we needed to replace them. We also decided to try and find a third young bull who will be the replacement for one of our bulls who is 8 years old and this will probably be his last breeding season :(

These are our three new boys

Bull # 1...

Bull # 2 here on the end...

And Bull #3 there on the right.

As for our other 5 bulls they have been hangin' out in a pasture together without any ladies. Before they are allowed to go back out to pasture with the ladies we first take them to our vet and have them semen checked to make sure they have a good amount of "swimmers."

(I didn't get any pictures of this process cause well I really didn't think ya'll wanted to see that!)

Getting them in can be trying cause there is usually a few of them that think they need to strut their stuff and see who is the biggest and the best.

But eventually we get them separated and sorted off and loaded.

So something to know about me and my bulls is that I name each and every one of the guys, so let me introduce them to you...

First we have "Shot Stack." He is a three year old Gelbvieh / Angus Cross that we got last year.

Next is "George" who you have met before. George and Shot Stack came from the same farm and he is also a three year old Gelbvieh / Angus Cross that we got last year.

This here is Louie. He is the one that everyone else likes to gang up on. He is a 4 year old Angus bull.

Here we have Henry. He's a 3 year old and not really our favorite looking bull, but I am hoping that he will grow on us a little more as he gets older. I will say that Henry does throw some nice lookin' calves so that makes up for us not liking him as much.

And this is my boy Billy. He is my favorite and he is our 8 year old bull and this will be his last breeding season on our farm. He is also an Angus bull.

Things to know about Billy is...

He likes to eat and is very vocal about telling you that every time you see him...

Billy is also a "horn dog"...

The Pasture we had the bulls in was right across the road from all our heifers and a group of our cattle as well and the only time Billy got very far from them was to go and get a drink so...

Needless to say he was very happy to finally be put back out to pasture with his ladies!

When I dropped him off every one came up to see what was going on....

And Billy had to let him know that he was their man.

He had to sniff a little tail...

(it's a good thing he didn't try to rid this lady cause she's suppose to have a "bun in the oven")

Then one lady had something to tell Billy...

And this means...

That she was ready to make a baby and Billy was more than happy to help with....lol

Caleb thought I was crazy for getting these pics and sharing them with ya'll, but this part of life and how we get all those cute little baby calves and make our living.

Now I need your help, at the beginning I showed you our three new bulls who have yet to be named and I would love to hear some ideas from all ya'll on what to call our new Boys...

Give me your ideas...

Girly Giveaway - x2

2011-05-26T12:34:00.002-05:00

So it has been way too long since I have done a giveaway. So after doing some cleaning out of some closets I found some of the jewelry that I made and have just been setting there collecting dust so I thought I would give 1...

No 2 of them away to a couple of my lucky readers.

So here's a look at your options...

#1 Simple turquoise multi-strand necklace

I like the simplicity of this necklace. I will see other people wearing similar ones, but I never think it looks as good on me as it does on others.

#2 Turquoise and crystal chain

I think this one is soo pretty, but I have so many different turquoise necklaces that I would never wear it so there is no need in me keeping it around.

#3 Red, White, and Blue Flower

I think this one is just pretty it would make a great one for the 4th of July.

#4 Turquoise Crystal Cross

I'm kinda in love with this one and almost hate the idea of it going, but I have others that are similar and I can make me another one if I really want to...

And for all you K-State Fans out there...

#5 Purple and Black Crystal Cross.

I love this one so you might think that I would want to keep it for myself...

But I already have one that is similar and I wear it all the time so I don't need two that are almost exactly alike.

(BTW - that's me with my brother and one of my sisters last summer when my hair was still long)

I know that this is kinda a girly giveaway, but Guys these would make a GREAT present for your momma or your favorite girl.

OK Here's the Rules:

Just leave me a comment telling me which necklace you would choose.

The first person I choose will get first choice at whichever necklace they would like and the second will get to choose between the other four.

One entry per person

*You can earn a second entry by blogging about my giveaway and then leaving a second comment with a link to you post.

* You can also earn an entry by sharing a link for this giveaway on Twitter and Facebook just leave a comment for each that you choose to do.

Entries will close at midnight on Tuesday, May 31 at midnight and the winner will hopefully be announced the following.

Good Luck!!

Janet

Corn Planting 2011

2011-05-24T06:00:00.001-05:00

First if you missed the post about the tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri I made a link to it on the side bar.

So I was planning on doing some explaining of all we do during corn planting, but I did most of that in my 2010 Corn Planting Post so this year I am going to let the pictures tell the story instead.

Ok I will still add some different tidbits in here and there, but I'm not going to get really in-depth.

But as always feel free to ask as many questions as you would like and I will do my best to answer them.

This year we put in about 1,700 acres of corn, so we were hopping when we were going.

This is was my ride when I was doing field work. The tractor has a harrow hooked to it.

The harrow is used to level out the soil and make the seed be nice and smooth and ready for planting.

Before Caleb fills the planter he will grab his planter note book and will write down what variety of corn he is putting in each box.

Since I am "knocked up" I was not allowed to help load the planter cause each bag of seed corn weighs at least 50 lbs and some will weigh up to 65 lbs.

So instead of hauling the bags to the planter I was taking pictures...

And opening the bags for for the guys and having them ready to haul to the planter.

During planting season there is a lot of time spent on the phone trying to get things ironed out.

Seriously, what would we do without cell phones...

Everyday, before he would start planting Caleb would go through and grease the entire planter to make sure that all the parts would run smoothly so we can keep going.

Occasionally Caleb would get some help hauling bags to the planter.

Well it is spring time around here so we had a few days where the wind would blow like crazy.

To make sure the planter is doing what it says it's doing Caleb will stop and do a check with his pliers.

He will dig up a row and find the seeds and then measure the distance between each seed.

No he's not working on the planter, he's just greasing it once again.

So last fall we got this new beast for the farm, and one of the up sides to getting it was that it had auto-steer on it...

Well that's true, but it's no good if the auto-steer doesn't work...

We had the guys from the dealership out a number of times to try and figure it out...

Caleb had to use the row marker most of the planting season because of this problem.

So with about 300 - 400 acres to go we finally got the auto-steer working...

But if you notice there is still a row marker mark there in front of the tractor, that is because Caleb didn't fully trust the the auto-steer system so he would make sure it was working by putting his marker down.

He was trying to pretend here that he didn't use the marker...

There now it looks like he's fully using auto-steer.

So we made it through almost all the acres without any problems...

That was till we got to the last 150 acres.

We were still needing to put anhydrous on these acres...

and where we normally get our anhydrous was always out of it.

To add insult to injury when we finally got some anhydrous our 4-wheel drive that we were going to use to pull it with had some problems and went down.

Now I know there are some of you out there that will say it was because it had red paint on it, but our green planter also caused us some problems and slowed us down too.

Once again all of this happened on the last 150 acres that we need to get planted.

So with the new tractor hooked back up we were able to get the last few acres of anhydrous put on.

While adding seed or changing out anyhyrous tanks we would fill the tractor back up with fuel.

This was another one of my jobs.

Giving directions one where to back the tractor up to hook up the new tank.

Today was dress like your dad day at work.

Thank you to Sales Brothers Seed for making sure guys always have something to wear.

If it wasn't for all the seed dealers out there, there would be a lot of farmers who would have nothing to wear!

Some times you would need to get off the tractor and move the corn around to even out the seed boxes so you can go longer before you have to fill up again.

This was our last fill up and boy were we happy to see it!

About 24 hours after getting the last of the corn planted we got about 1/2 - 3/4 inch of rain in about a 20 minute period...

That's never good...

So Caleb was out checking the seed to see how it was doing...

And we were happy to see that the seeds were doing fine.

The first corn we planted was popping out of the ground after about 6 days.

And it didn't look back!

Ok so I lied...

I wrote a lot more than I had planned but that's just what I do.

So there ya go there is my 2011 Corn Planting Post.

If you have any questions feel free to shoot them my way.

Laters,

Janet

My Heart Breaks for Joplin, Missouri

2011-05-23T10:39:00.002-05:00

So my intent was to post all the pics from corn planting this morning, but after what happened in the area yesterday evening my heart was just pressing me to do something else.

If you have turned on your TV this morning and watched any national news you will have seen that there were some terrible storms that went through Southeast Kansas, Northeast Oklahoma, Northwest Arkansas, and epically Southwest Missouri. Namely Joplin, Missouri, where a tornado ran right through the heart of the town.

It is a sad report of everything that has happened . The path of the twister was reported to be 6 miles long and anywhere from 1/2 to 3/4 mile wide. It has destroyed about 25 - 30 % of the town.

Not only did it take out major businesses such as Home Depot and Walgreen's but it also destroyed the high school and took and majorly hit one of the towns two hospitals. The hospital had to be full evacuated and all the critical patients take to the other hospital as well as setting up a make shift care facility in a local convention hall, where people who weren't critically injured can go.

The current death toll is at 89 people and is expected to go even higher as they continue to search through the rubble throughout the day.

From what I understand this number is just for the Joplin tornado and not counting any other tornado that may have touched down as the storm continued to hit surrounding areas.

What is going to make this extremely difficult is that they are going to be getting more rain today which will make the search and rescue even harder. As well as the possibility of tornadic activity once again.

This morning as Caleb and I were doing our morning reading we came across a verse that I learned as a small child and had forgotten where it was but I think it is such an encouragement in moments like these.

"So do not fear, for I am with you, do not be dismayed, for I'm your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." Isaiah 41:10

Reading this is a comfort to me know that my Lord and Savior is here with me at all times and will be there with me. This is not just for comforting when large catastrophic events happen, such as what has happened in Joplin, but in everything that goes on in your life. Weather it's the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, or whatever may be going on.

You know with all these terrible catastrophic events that have happened over the past few years around the world there have been may people that will say things like "there must be some bad people over there." or "God must be punishing them for their sins." but all that is terrible horrible things for people to say. These events have nothing to do with God punishing them because even though there may be some very immoral people in these different areas, there are also many wonderfully good people in these areas.

As it says in Matthew 5:45 "He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."

Which means it doesn't matter who you are or what you have done bad things can happen to us all. How we handle these events and what we do with what we have learned from these hard times is what really matters. God is there for each of us and wants to help us through these tough times.

Here are some pictures of how horrible the damage was. I pulled these pictures from The TODAY Shows website.

Here is a link to that page where you can watch video's about what has happened as well as some more photos of what has happened.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43132174/ns/today-weather/t/cut-city-half-death-toll-rises-missouri-tornado/

This is the hospital that was hit hard.

This is what one of the main streets in Joplin, where all the stores that you would do a lot of shopping at. Just last week I was driving down this street doing a little shopping, it's hard to believe that it now looks like this.

These pictures just tell a part of the story of what has happened in this area.
I know many people may be wanting to help but have no way of making it to Joplin. I have been looking but since it just happened there really hasn't been that much done so far, but one organization that I know will be going strong helping all the victims is the Red Cross of the Ozarks. One of it's offices is actually located in Joplin and I can imagine that they are already out there working hard to help all of those who were affected.

http://www.redcross-ozarks.org/donate/

Above is a link to their page where you can donate if you feel so inclined.

I didn't do this for any other disaster that has happened, not because I didn't care about what was going on, but probably more because it didn't hit as close to home. This was a tragic event that happened in an area that I was in just a week ago and that I visit a bunch of different times throughout the year. On top of that I have some very wonderful friends that live in that area who have been affected by this.

Here are a few links to the local TV stations websites where you can find more news.

Local ABC / NBC, KOMA 7, Fox 14

So PLEASE say an extra prayer for all of those who have affected by this as well as those who are out there working hard to find more survivors.

Love and Prayers for Joplin,

Janet Phillips

*Sadly I just heard that the death toll is up to 116 people and they are still searching. On the positive side there have been 7 people rescued alive today even though there has been rain coming down a lot of the day.

Another Organizations to support for help:

Convoy of Hope

It Won't Be Long

2011-05-17T10:44:00.000-05:00

It won't be long till we are hot in heavy in the middle of hay makin', which means I will be busy taking pictures of hay...

Ok I will also have my butt stuck in the tractor seat too, but that's ok with me.

Actually Pop has already cut some early fescue and will be bailing it up today so we will be hauling it soon too....grrrr.

This is a picture from last year I thought might get you guys in the mood for hay season. I know I will need it cause well the whole hauling hay part I'm not looking forward to. ;)

I am finally able to sit down and work on the corn planting post and will hopefully have it up before we get to haying...

Audios,

Little Stinker (aka Baby) Up-Date

2011-05-13T14:30:00.001-05:00

First I want to say thank you to all of you who made comments the other day on my post. I'm glad to know that there are other hard workin' mommas out there!

About a week and half ago we had another Doctors appointment where we had an ultrasound so I thought I would give you an up-date on the baby.

First I have to say, they gave us a disk with pics of little stinker on it, but I have no idea where it is so I had to take a picture of the picture we had printed off and here's what we got.

There is our little alien child. This was done when I was 18 weeks and 1 days along. They did a bunch of measuring in which little stinker wouldn't hold still. They actually measured it a week ahead of what my due date is...which would put me at the same time as my friend Steph, but since I was on clomid and had to chart everything we know exactly when everything took place, so my due date is still October 3.

Stinker weighed about 10 oz and was doing great!

I have been feeling the little guy moving around for a long time now, but I've only known it since about Easter.

Here's what I looked like at 18 weeks along. Also I chopped about 10 inches off of my hair cause it was just getting too long!!

At my appointment they said I had gained about 5-6 lbs and I was just fine with that.

I have been feeling great the entire time.

The only food I have had any problems with is milk. It will upset my belly some. What stinks about that is I have want to eat some oreo's and milk. But it has gotten better and usually I just deal with the sour stomach.

I haven't even started working on the babies room yet. I have thought about it, but that's as far as I have gotten.

Yesterday in the mail I got my first diapers for little stinker.

Yes, I am going to do cloth ones for a number of different reasons.

1. We don't get trash pick up and diapers don't burn.

2. Even though they cost more up-front they are cheaper over the long haul.

3. It is less diapers going into the landfill.

Will I ever use disposable diapers? YES, I am sure I will.

Do I care if others use disposable diapers? NO, to each their own. If you are a stay at home mom and have the time and the want to do it than that's great, but if you don't that's great too. I am choosing to mainly cause I don't want to get trash service just for diapers and it is a lot cheaper over the long haul.

Two diapers won't last to long, but ya got to start some where.

* Just because they are blue it doesn't mean anything. I will put a little girl in blue. I don't plan on getting any pink cause I won't put a little boy in pink!

I finished this last night and was soo excited.

I did it all by hand (because I didn't know how to thread my sewing machine). It's not perfect, but I am sure happy with how it came out!

Don't worry color doesn't mean any thing, I have blue to make one for a little boy.

The pink was leftover form a project I had done before so I decided to make a quilt.

My mom has since been down to my house and shown me how to thread my machine so for the next I will probably do a lot of the sewing with the machine.

My inspiration for this was my baby blanket that my Great-Grandma made me. It's not in too bad of shape for being 28 years old.

I have got a few outfits for stinker, but I didn't get pictures of them. Most of my clothes buying will have to wait till after it's born when we know what we have.

So there you go. As of today we are 19 weeks and 4 days, so almost halfway there.

I hope you all are having a wonderful week and have a great weekend!

Lots of Love,

How to Get Your Husband to Help with Things Arround the Yard

2011-05-09T19:32:00.000-05:00

Intriguing title eh??

I know I have the attention of all those ladies out there with the hubby's that when you ask them to help with something on your to-do list they always say they have some thing else to do and are busy, or they will help you later...

Later yeah right...

Well I am always trying to get Caleb to help me do things around the house and he always has an excuse...

Like...

"I'm planting corn." or

"I'm feeding the cows" or

"I'm trying to make a living for us and put food on the table."

Seriously what kind of "crap" excuses are those...

lol, I'm just kidding. I don't make a fuss when he tells me these things. I just wait patiently until the non-done project bothers him a lot or my nagging bothers him...

Which ever happen first! ;)

Well I am the kind of woman who isn't afraid to do things herself so the things I can take on by myself, I do, or I start a project and then Caleb really can't stand the mess I made and helps finish it...

Ok so what did I do?!?!

Well last Thursday evening I was tilling up my garden so I could finish up the last of my planting.

Ya see my garden is broken up in to two different patches. I have the bigger patch where I planted my potatoes...

And then there is this patch that is a little smaller where I plant all my vine crops, cause they can kind of get out of control and take over. If you have ever grown pumpkins or watermelons you know what I mean.

Well as you can see this patch doesn't get near enough sunlight. Now this picture was taken in the even, but really from about 2 pm on there isn't near enough sun in this part and it just gets worse as the sun continues to go down.

Well like I said I was tilling and while I was tilling this patch I started looking at the trees in the fence row and noticed that a good chunk of the ones I wanted gone were not very big and well I got an idea...

(If you have been following my blog long you may remember when I took on a hedge tree that I hated mowing around...)

Hey we have a chain saw in the garage and those trees aren't that big so...

I went and got the saw filled it with fuel and oil and went to town on some trees...

When I was just about done with all that I was going to cut down Caleb came home and well he wasn't too happy with me.

Not because he didn't want the trees to go, but well because for those that don't know I am 19 weeks pregnant.

Now before I get all these comments from people who think they must tell me how to live my life and how to carry my baby, my doctor like all the others doctors out there tell women to stay active and exercise while they are pregnant. There are women out there that will run miles while they are pregnant and that is more of a workout than cutting the few branches and small trees is.

So you know the trees and branches were no bigger than 4 inches in diameter and seeing as I have cut down some trees that were closer to 24 inches in diameter or larger before they were nothing. Also I had a job where for six months I spent at least 6 hours or better cutting trees down so I have had a few hours behind a saw.

With that being said me and the baby were in no danger and planting the rest of my garden wore me out more than the little bit of chain sawing.

Now like I said Caleb didn't like that I was out doing this just like a lot of you think I shouldn't have, but ya know what I got him to help do some more clearing of some bigger trees that I wasn't going to take on since I was pregnant.

This is what it looked like the next morning after Caleb and I did some cutting the night before.

I trimmed up all these cedar trees that had these terribly low branches that were terrible to mow under...

and I do most of the mowing around here.

Caleb didn't like how my trimming show the nasty old fence, but...

First he wasn't the one trying to mow under the branches...

Second, nobody can see it from the road or even if they pull in front of our house and...

Third, I am hoping it will bother him enough that he will FINALLY take it OUT!

Here Caleb is cleaning up the stump of this mulberry tree that I have been wanting cut down for two years now. It was mostly dead and I couldn't mow under it.

And now I am happy to say it is finally gone!!

Now the worst part about this is when you are done cutting you still have to haul all the brush off...

But when there is two people working it makes things go a lot faster.

We ended up with I think 6 loads on the back of the truck a long with one large branch that we just drug out with a chain hooked to the truck.

And now it looks soo much better. My garden will be much happier and I can grow a lot more food for the little stinker, that is growing inside of me, to eat!

So how is it that you get your husband to help?

Well ya need to be about 5 months pregnant and go run the chainsaw some and you can get him to help with just about anything!!

Love ya,