My Heart Breaks for Joplin, Missouri

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.

It Won't Be Long

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,

JP

Little Stinker (aka Baby) Up-Date

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,

JP



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

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,

JP

sTuPiD cOwS

Good grief it's been a while. I think I was doing a better job at posting when we were in the corn field than I am now that we have all the corn planted.  I thought things would slow down once we got the corn planted, but to be honest we have been goin' like crazy working cattle.

And the days we aren't working cattle we have been going like crazy trying to catch up on everything else...

For me that means laundry and cleaning the house, which involved cleaning the spare bedroom / soon to be baby room so my parents would have a place to sleep. I soo meant to take a picture of it cause well it was a disaster you couldn't see the bed or the floor...

and the sad thing is no one sleeps in there now...yikes!

Throw in Easter with all the family get together's that go along with it and well lets just say its been crazy and I can only imagine what it will be like next year when there is a little one to throw in the mix.

Anyways enough about all that lets get back to why we are here...

sTUPID cOWS...

Yeah, we've got them.

Now we see this a lot...

You will get some crazy cow or calf that will shoot it's leg out the side of the shoot.

It's annoying, but they will usually get it back in without a problem.

This also will happen once or twice when we are working...

Some ol' pushy broad will get a little too excited about getting her yearly check up and will try to cut in line.

It usually doesn't work too well.

No one gets  hurt just the lady in front gets to lay down for a nap...

I'd join her if I could!

Now the next two sets are are ones that the title were really made for...

Yes this stupid girl some how managed to get herself caught like this...

We will get an occasional calf that will stick it's head through the fence but generally we don't get a dumb cow to do it...

and epically not one that's dumb enough to stick half her legs through it as well...

Luckily we were able to get her out and back up...

even if she is now headed the wrong way...

Oh well that's easily fixed!

And then there was this stupid guy...

Not Jeff, he's far from stupid...

I'm talking about that stupid calf.

I kinda feel sorry for her cause you know everyone is gonna be calling her fat cause she couldn't make it through and got stuck.

Options of how to get her out...

I think the first thing that came to mind was there's a tree so lets get the chainsaw...

ummm...

I think as soon as that idea came out it was realized how bad an idea that would be.

Crazy calf + loud chainsaw with a 16 in sharp blade = a lot of blood, a dead calf , and a seriously injured farmer....

hmmm...not a good idea

So...

Lets hook a chain to the tree and...

Ratchet it back away from the calf.

Much better idea.

*No cattle or farmers were injured in the taking of these pictures!

*Also that tree was removed before we worked any more cattle in that pen!

Well that's all I got one stupid cows for now, but I am off to work another group, so I am sure we will get a few today!

Lots of Love,

JP

Let's Talk Tatters - A Gardening Lesson

OK, to be honest, I was suppose to do this post about a month ago, but life happens and well I haven't really been at my computer all that much. We have been in the corn field and I have been outside trying to get things done. So when I am home and inside it usually means I am trying to catch up on all the house work that needs done and when I get some time where I don't have anything special to do I just want to sit down, relax and eat or sleep!!

Anyways, back to what I'm gonna talk to ya'll about today, potatoes...

or as we call them around here tatters.

Potatoes are probably one of the easiest things to grow in the garden in my opinion. I always helped my mom plant them in here garden growing up and I plant them in mine every year. 

Now it's said that you are suppose to plant potatoes on St. Patties Day, and if you look at your calender you will notice that was over a month ago, but don't worry cause there is still plenty of time to plant them. My Grandpa always says to plant them on Good Friday, because the moon is in the right phase for it and Good Friday is tomorrow so you still have time.

The first year I planted potatoes after Caleb and I got married I didn't get them planted till some time in May and they would have produced great if I hadn't gotten Brown Spot...but we will talk about that more later. Last year it was some time in April before I got my tatters in the ground and the they did amazing so really as long as you plant them sometime here in the spring they should do fine.

Ok now lets talk about what type of potatoes to plant....

Whatever you like.

There are all different types out there it really just has to do with what you want.

I am not a russet fan. They are ok when it comes to baked potatoes and fries but outside of that I just don't like their flavor and consistency, so I don't plant them. I do however love Red Potatoes so that is what my garden is full of.

These are the variety I planted last year and I loved them!! I also planted some yellow potatoes, but luckily not very many, cause their flavor was not near as good.

I ended up planting planting 12 or 15 lbs, I can't remember if I had 4 or 5 bags. This was enough for about 1 2/3 a row. and my rows are about 50 ft long or so.

I bought these at Wal-Mart, but seed potatoes can also be found at Farm and Home stores, as well as ACE, or a local green house, or any place that sells a lot of vegetable seeds. You can also buy them from online retailers.

Or, if you are like me you will sometimes get potatoes in your pantry that look like these guys you can use them, if you still have them in there come spring time. This makes less that you will need to buy. That's right I plant these nasty looking things and they will make yummy delicious potatoes.

To be honest, I am pretty sure that these guys are some of the ones that I dug up last year and we weren't able to get to them before they ended up getting all wrinkled and shriveled. So I just left them where they were and luckily they didn't rot. Instead they started to sprout and were more than ready to go in the ground!

Ok Lets get to planting. First I will till through the area I am going to plant my tatters and whatever else I am gonna plant on that day.

Then I will take hoe and dig a trench the length of the row.

Now lets plant some tatters. First you need to go through and slice your potatoes up. You want to make sure there is at least one eye or little sprout one each section you slice. I usually only cut the potato in half once unless there is a ton of sprouts all over the place, then I might cut it up a little more.

Now, I was watching a show about gardening that was talking about planting potatoes and it said not to cut them because you increase your chance of the potato rotting....

blah blah blah...

I have been helping my momma slice potatoes for planting since forever and we have never had a problem with the potato rotting and shoot my mom grows more potatoes than about anything. (She's married to a farmer and well that and meat is all my dad wants to eat!)

I do remember that my mom would usually slice the potatoes into their pars and then let them set for about 5 minutes or so, that way they could scab over a little and prevent them from rotting. So really you should cut your tatters before you dig your trench so they have some time to scab over. I always for get this until I am slicing the tatter so they usually don't get much time and this hasn't affected them at all. 

When you place them in the trench you will want to place the cut side down, cause this is the side where the root will come from.

Now when it came to planting these wrinkly things I just sat the whole potato in there cause they were all really small and i had a lot of them. 

If you notice, I don't have "auto-steer" on my hoe so my rows aren't very strait. Oh well strait rows don't make the food taste any better!

Once you have all your tatters stuck down in your trench just take you hoe and cover them up with all the dirt you removed to make the trench.

 

After I have gotten them covered I will take the back side of my hoe and pack the soil down tight on top of my tatter, so they have a firm bed to come up in and so I can tell where my row is.

Now you just have to watch them grow.

Now I mentioned that I had a problem with a fungus called Brown Spot...

I originally thought it was blight, but after doing some research, I found out other wise.

Here a couple of pics I found on the web of both brown spot and blight

Brown Spot



Blight

I have not had blight, so I don't know how easy it is to control but as for the Brown Spot that I have gotten it was very simple. I got a bottle of Bonide Fung-onil Multi-purpose Fungicide, and just mixed it according to what the label said and then sprayed according to the recommendations and it took care of it. This stuff also is suppose to work on blight as well. There are other fungicides out there this is just the brand I got.

I told you that I lost so tatters to this, well that was because I wasn't paying attention to them and I didn't get them sprayed until it was too late.

The problem will appear when you have wet or humid growing conditions. So I will have to keep a look out for it here over the next few weeks because it's suppose to be wet.

If you happen to get a bug problem just dust them with a little Sevin powder and that usually does the trick.

As you can see I am not a "All Natural" or "All Organic" person. I use products that have been around for a log time and I just them according to what the label says so I have no fear of them. Now I don't just throw different chemicals on my vegetables just for the fun of it I do it only when it is need. How do you know when it is need?? Get out there in the garden and look at your plants, they will tell you.

Here's what my tatters looked like after being in the ground for about three weeks. Two weeks after I planted the first row I planted a second row that was just starting to pop out of the ground when I took these pics.  It will usually take about a week before you will start seeing some break through the ground.

Alright that's what I know about tatters if you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments or shoot me an e-mail

jphillipsblog@hotmail.com

Hope you all have a wonderful Easter celebrating the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Later Tatters,

Janet



A Change of Plans - It Happens All the Time on the Farm

So this morning I was working on a blog talking about how I had the morning at home and how I was getting all caught up on my house work...

Then I got the call...

"Can you come to the field and..."

This meant I was gone and wouldnt be returning home till who knows when.

So now I'm sitting at the field waiting for Calvin to empty the anhydrous tank he is pulling and I thought I would write a quick post from my phone.

If this works like it should there will be some pics on here too.

One of them is a picture of a mud hole I created. If you are friends with me on facebook or follow me on twitter you might have seen this pic already.

I was doing a little field work and Caleb failed to mention the places I should not drive. This meant that I almost got stuck three times in one field...not fun!!

I have also found some delicious morrel mushrooms...only two so far, but I hope there is more to come!!

And the only other pic I have on here is of this "cute" little guy I came across while looking for mushrooms. He was out for a nice little stroll in the sun. After he caught wind of me and took off he scared up another little snake as well as a little lizard. I usually run across all sorts of different critters when looking for mushrooms. So far I have seen 4 snakes, 2 deer, more squirrels and rabbits than I could count and almost steeped on one quail...

(Oh and a cooler with 8 16oz Bud Lites in it with a box that had 5 more 12 oz cans - 3 Bud Lites and 2 Natty Lites....some one's party must have gotten cut short...lol)

Well that's about it for the time being. I'm gonna see about getting the guys their supper for tonight. Maybe tomorrow I will be able to finish the post I started this morning. It has better pics than this one.

Lots of Love from the corn field,

Janet