Low Flying Planes

It still seems funny to me when I hear a plane here! We had them flying over in Indiana all the time. Here, when one goes over you notice it. We've been hearing them more lately and I caught some pictures of one the other day. It's the crop dusters at work! But I just read in Bill's Iowa Farmer Today magazine that now they're called "aerial applicators"! Bill says that here they always called them spray planes!

Click on this first picture to see the plane right down low on top of the corn!

Bill says that some farmers spray something on that's supposed to help with the yield. Also some may try putting something on to help with disease after the hail damage. Both are a gamble because it costs quite a bit to have it done.

The article in the magazine also said that there are not many younger guys going into the business of aerial applicators. I think my dad would've liked doing it! He liked to buzz people in his plane!

More Concrete

These 3 videos are pretty much what's been going on around here the past 2 days. They came this morning to cut the concrete and pick up their tools. It's looking really good! It was just a bad batch of concrete last time but the concrete co. wouldn't admit it.

Yesterday I was working on stamped gifts to mail out to 11 of my downline with Stampin' Up! who are going to the Convention in Salt Lake City next week. I'll be missing it for the first time this year since a friend in Indiana is getting married that weekend.

Niece, Diane, & Todd's reception is this Sat. so I'm making a few hundred cookies for them! Got started on those last night. Baking more today. Beautiful day here!

Bill's Been Busy

I had seen a porch swing I liked last Fall when I was in Indiana. I went back and bought it when there last month and Bill got it hung yesterday!






He moved the old propane tank that had been hooked up to the stove in the front porch of the old house. He's not sure where he's going to use it now.




The driveway cracked right away so Mark's guys were here today getting this area and the sidewalk ready for concrete.



Bill put all of the driveway concrete in the cistern. In the process he lost one of the backhoe teeth which he's looking for here. Did not find it. Now this area is ready to be filled with the rest of the dirt so we can eventually have a nice front yard!

I worked on some Stampin' Up! business, laundry and mowed at Enid's today. Bill & Tim farm for her. She is now only at her country house a few weekends out of the year so they watch her house for her.

Hail Continued

This is a pile of raked leaves. Leaves were covering the yards solid and people had to rake them like you do in the Fall!

A girl we know had a big tree fall on her car while she was in it (at home). She couldn't get out - had to call her mom with her cell phone. She was very lucky and is ok.

We got about 2" of rain with the hail at our house and 60-70 mph wind. The corn stalks are starting to turn yellowish. No one knows what is going to happen with it. They haven't seen this before.

Guys were here yesterday with a jackhammer to bust out our driveway and sidewalk. It had cracked right away after it was put in so it's being replaced. This thing worked great! (see video) They are coming back to do the forms for the new driveway Mon. We're not sure when the concrete will be poured. Bill used the skid loader to put the concrete pieces in the cistern. It's about filled up as much as he wants it now.

Brickyard 400

Since we're NASCAR fans and I'm from an Indianapolis suburb, we're enjoying watching the Brickyard 400 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway today!

This is a picture of Bill's mom & dad and my parents touring the Speedway in early June 2007. Bill & Peggy wanted to come see where I came from before we got married at the end of that month! We had fun showing them around including introducing them to White Castle! I don't think my father-in-law to be was impressed with the sliders but had a good laugh about it all!

Back in 2004, I was able to buy one of my SU! downline's Brickyard seats to give Bill for his birthday. They were up high, first row barely under the roof (just as it got hot, the roof starting shading us), across from the pits and at the finish line! It was also the year Jeff Gordon won his 4th Brickyard. Couldn't have had better seats to see all of the action - and had perfect weather!

Hail Damage

Too many pictures of damage to post all at once. This is one of the corners in town that was really pretty with lots of flowers - marigolds on the edge, daylillies and sedum. I think most flowers in town are gone/stripped and also gardens.

This is the corn that's ours on 3 sides of our house. The hail took the leaves off but the stalks were left standing - so far. They're not sure if the stalks will stay standing. Bill says that even the oldest farmers here have never seen this type of damage. The hail damaged about a 2 mile wide area from Plover to southwest of Gilmore City for those that know the area.


This is what's left of soybeans that are north of town (not ours). We had hail insurance but it doesn't cover as much as the crop would have made. We have an amount that covers expenses so that means no profit. Bill says we have about 375 acres damaged. We're actually fortunate that more of ours was not hit bad.

Hail!

We had a hail storm tonight around 6:15. Strong wind with it. There's a pretty big path of damaged crops including our corn here at our house. It looks like most of what Bill & Tim farm might have been spared besides here and another field. Will know more tomorrow.




Lots of leaves plastered on our house.








We got over an inch of rain - the old cistern is full.









Beautiful beans before the storm are now almost stripped of their leaves.






What's still left of the hail drift next to our garage door - 4 hours later!








Rainbow - 2 nights in a row.

Thick Cistern

Last evening after Tim left and I had already posted here, Bill got back in the bulldozer! He really wanted to get those last 2 walls knocked off some more. He did it!

This was the top of the cistern that they worked and worked on today.





Here's the reason it was so hard to crack - it was reinforced with all kinds of scrap metal pieces, wagon wheels and even a steel rail from the railroad! Wow! The video (below) shows some of the back and forth bashing Tim & Bill did and picking big chunks up and dropping them to get them to break. They finally got it into small enough pieces and dropped into the cistern! Whew! And just in time - just after they were done, we had a few min. of heavy rain. As it was pouring, the sun came out producing this almost double rainbow seen from our screened porch and kitchen! We seem to have a lot of rainbows here - reminds me of Hawaii. But with cornfields instead of beaches!

This is the fire dept.'s regular night for a meeting/training, and tonight they're burning the remains of a house in town.

Thick Walled Cistern

This is the hole Bill & Tim were able to knock in the cistern yesterday. Today they were able to pull the top off of it.
They tried everything on it today: a bulldozer . . .







4 wheel drive tractor . . .

This is what it looks like now.





Pondering what to do next! Different bulldozer, jackhammer or Bill's brother, Jim's idea - explosives! The guy on the left is Mitch. He works on Bills truck a lot :), fixes my flat tires, etc.

I helped with a project at the grocery for a few hours today and sent out e mails, etc. re: my upcoming Stampin' Up! classes both here and in Indiana. I'll also be having a meeting for the demonstrators in my downline in Indiana early Aug.

RAGBRAI Started Today in Great Weather

Today was the start of RAGBRAI - a bicycle ride all the way across Iowa. In July 2007, less than a month after I "arrived"/moved here, RAGBRAI came through our little town!! It had never come through Rolfe before and who knows how long it'll be until it does again. It was fun to be in town and watch the thousands of bicyclists come through. Also fun talking to some of them. They were from all over the US and other countries. I told Bill tonight that it would've been a lot more fun if I had known more people like I do now because all the different groups had tents set up with food and beverages to feed all of these people and make a buck at the same time. Actually, I probably would've been working at one of them if I'd been here longer rather than getting to just watch! The last picture of the bus - many of the groups that ride together have a decorated bus that follows them on the route and carries their camping gear, party supplies, etc. Some of them go all out on the paint jobs. Here is some more info. about RAGBRAI from their web site.

RAGBRAI®, The Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa®, is an annual seven-day bicycle ride across the state. Heading into its 37th year, RAGBRAI is the longest, largest and oldest touring bicycle ride in the world.

In the beginning, no one imagined that RAGBRAI® would become the Iowa tradition it is now.

This rolling celebration of Iowa attracts participants from all 50 states and many foreign countries. It has covered thousands of miles through the years, and hundreds of thousands of riders have hopped in the saddle to pedal part of those miles.

RAGBRAI is a bicycle ride, not a race. It started in 1973 as a six-day ride across the state of Iowa by two Des Moines Register columnists who invited a few friends along. It is held the last full week in July.

The RAGBRAI route averages 472 miles and is not necessarily flat. It begins somewhere along Iowa’s western border on the Missouri River and ends along the eastern border on the Mississippi River. We change the route each year.

Corn is Tasseling

Here you can see that we're getting some grass - when you look across the new back yard there's a nice start of green. You can also see the yellow of the corn tassels in the distance! Last night as the sun was going down it was really pretty. Today is very nice weather again - sunny/cloudy in the 70's with a breeze.

Bill has been working with the backhoe this afternoon tearing out the rest of the concrete (see video below - click on the arrow to start it and turn up your volume), front & back steps and basement walls. He and Tim are trying to figure out how to get the cistern broken up. They've finally got a hole in the side of it but it's sure thick.

We had some really good charcoal grilled hamburgers for lunch. Thought I was going to use the gas grill quick but it was out of propane! No refill now till Mon.

I've been doing laundry, unpacked another box, watched Bill and other misc. stuff this afternoon and realized at 4:30 that I need to make a couple of pans of bars or batches of cookies for church tomorrow! It's our turn (with another couple) to serve refreshments! Luckily one batch of cookies is in the freezer.

More Destruction Pictures

Cool (and quiet!) night last night - we slept in - nice! Just another picture of the old basement. Someone else is using the backhoe now so no more progress the past few days.

It's been a cool, cloudy & breezy day. Feels like Fall but in July, we'll take it!





Karen, we think with these smoke detectors you have to push the button to deactivate on the one that first detected the smoke so luckily it wasn't the one in the peak of the vaulted great room ceiling! I kept saying to the electrician and builder "how in the world are we going to get up there to change the battery when we're 80"??? It's terrible!! And unfortunately, we can't just leave the battery out of that one - they're all hard wired(?) too.




This was the bathroom in the basement that Bill used and where I sat during tornado warnings. Looks like that spot might've been fairly safe! It has survived so far. The previous owners had some "interesting art?" on the walls.

Interesting Night

Bill had pulled all the wooden shelves that were in the basement into the one corner with the backhoe. Yesterday the wind was right to set that on fire. Last night when we went to bed we thought both fires seemed out. Wrong. It was cool enough last evening to have windows open, and at 12:15 am our smoke detectors went off and of course we knew nothing about how to shut them off yet! So I found the booklet while Bill was up on a chair! Then a skunk and something else had a little fight outside our bedroom window, and there was lots of noise going on with a train at that time too. Sometimes they stop at the crossing near our house and do various things with it. Tonight should be quieter?

Today was the Farmers Market. The melon & peaches guy saw me and said "Indiana melons!" I said REALLY??? He said "no just having fun with ya". He remembered I had told him last year about the Vincennes, Indiana area well known best cantelope and that my aunt & uncle used to grow them. He gave out samples of his melons today. The watermelon was pretty good so I bought one (cantelope not ripe enough yet) along with the usual Beth's whole wheat bread, a couple of tomatoes and 1/2 doz. ears of sweet corn. We had an ear of corn tonight but won't be eating the rest of them. :(

I mowed at the Zeman place (where the machine shed is). The grass was long so seemed to take forever. Bill serviced one of the semis and found some things that need to be fixed on it.

Roundabouts

While in Indiana, I got practice again driving on all of the roundabouts - there are over 50 in the Carmel area! Most all of them are very pretty with flowers like the 2nd picture - lots of yellow daylilies. This one has a beautiful fountain in the middle. I've said to people that in our town, most people just don't plant annual flowers & perennials like they do in Indiana. I haven't figured out why yet except for the expense. Too bad since summer is so short.

Here in the Carmel/Indianapolis area, we spend lots of time (LOTS) sitting at stoplights so for most of us, these roundabouts are great - they keep you moving!
My Pilot got pretty bad gas mileage in Carmel with all the city driving. It's does quite a bit better in Iowa!

This entry was supposed to post on the 23rd while I was driving home - can't figure out why it didn't.

Visitors Today

Bill worked on cleaning up the planter today - says he's glad he doesn't have one any bigger than he has! Tim was grinding stumps. Our burn pile is still smoldering.

I cleaned this morning. After lunch, I had a visitor and her son. She wanted to see the colors we have on our walls before she decides to paint at her house after being used to all off white walls. She brought us some yummy choc. chip cookies she made!

Then my local recruit, Bobbi Jo, stopped by to return some things she had borrowed. (be sure to check my web site for this week's Stampin' Up! special!) Then Diane & Lacey came for the evening. Diane and I worked on a stamping project while Lacey played on the screened porch. She seems to really like it out there! Bill had a grocery board meeting tonight.

Greater Rolfe Days was going on all weekend. The firemen's omelet breakfast was Sun. (fundraiser) Every fireman had to bring 4 doz. muffins. We weren't sure if they'd all come through on that but we had plenty!




We were kinda busy so I forgot to take a picture until the very end. There was one grill that they could do 4 omelets at once and then we had 4 more burners with skillets (shown here). They had their choice of green peppers, mushrooms, onion, ham, sausage & cheese. Everyone was given a 5 oz. cup and could put their filling items in it. Worked out good. We served 240 and everyone seemed to like the omelets much better than the usual pancakes!

These videos are too short but they show the chimney being pushed into the basement and the big tree that was in front of and too close to the new house coming down! Bill has already gotten it all into the burn hole today (the wind was right). He and Tim rented a stump grinder today to do our stump, about 20 of his mom's (he took out a row of dying pine trees in her grove a few months ago) and Tim had some to do.

I had lunch in West Bend with some friends, then took back the omelet cookers (to a nearby town), laundry & some raking of tree debris.

Still Burning

This is looking down into the basement after Bill got the floor lifted up and drug off. Do you see Bill's bachelor plywood table down there? We used it for the first 5 months we were married until my furniture got here! The first video is lifting a big chunk of the floor up and dragging it off. The 2nd one is of that big piece burning. This is all going really well so far. Bill is good!

This morning we were in one of the fire trucks together in the parade. Then went to the salads/Maid Rites/Ham Sandwiches lunch and homemade ice cream & pie social.

Busy Weekend

I have an awesome 3 minute video I took today of the last partial wall being pushed down but it's taking FOREVER to download and maybe it's just not going to finish. So I decided to write everything else and if it ever gets done, I'll post it. I hope it does. Anyway, Bill did get the last wall of the house knocked down!

This weekend is Greater Rolfe Days and activities have begun. I went to a second practice this afternoon - 2 friends and I are going to do motions to the Lord's Prayer song at the church service in the park Sun. morning. I'm not good at memorizing things! This evening Bill went to work at the kids' water fights that the firemen do in the street in front of the fire station with a fire hose and there was a Maid Rite supper (for those of you in Indiana - Maid Rites are basically sloppy joes but without the barbecue taste - I don't care for them).

Tomorrow morning is a kids' parade, then grand parade. Guess I'm riding in a fire truck with Bill. Then the VFW ladies are doing a salad lunch that's always very good. Tomorrow night is the rodeo. Sun. morning is church service at one of the parks and the firemen's omelet breakfast. They usually have a company come and make pancakes for this and the firemen basically only have to pour drinks, but they decided to make omelets this year which firemen and wives will be cooking plus sausages, muffins and fruit. Quite a bit more to do so we'll see how that goes! There are a few more things going on but I've mentioned the main ones.

(the video is still uploading . . . )

Old House On the Ground

The owner of the backhoe called late yesterday and said he needs it today around noon to help someone fix a problem. So after we ate last evening, Bill decided to go back out and knock as much down as he could. It all came down pretty nicely! He hoped to then work on burning it slowly all day today. Unfortunately it's raining today. This first picture is a view from the road.



Today I'm going to help Diane with her reception invitations and we're going to Ft. Dodge. I need to get some backhoe parts for Bill and some paper goods for the firemen's omelet breakfast Sun. This picture is of all that's left standing and is the view from the new house!

House Is Coming Down!

Bill dug the burn hole deeper this morning.

The stove I baked dozens of yeast rolls on for the Farmers' Market booth 2 summers ago!









Hot fire! He's knocking down a section and then burning it trying not to get the fire too big. Don't want to catch the nearby tree on fire or the rest of the house.

This is what's left tonight - about half. Ben needs his backhoe back around noon tomorrow so we'll see what gets done in the morning!

I'm going to attempt to add a short video. Unfortunately I didn't get the chunks of roof coming down. Hope to get a better one tomorrow! (click on the arrow to start it)