Road Trip for Trees

Karen, here is the answer to your question - we have a large pile to burn!

Next picture shows our house with no trees to the north side - very bare!!

Yesterday we borrowed the pickup and trailer in the third picture and went to Kelly Tree Farm in Clarence, Iowa - about 4 hours away. It was a nice spring day for a road trip with leaves just starting to come out on the trees as we got a little farther south.

We're going to have two rows of austree willows which are very fast growing on the north side of the new grove, one row of techny arborvitae, two rows of Norway spruce and one row of white spruce for now. Once the stumps are gone that are on the house side, we may put another row of white spruce or something else "pretty".

We also got two pink flowering crabapple trees and two red buds which we planted in the yard tonight.

In one of the pictures, you can see some pink flowering trees at the tree farm. They're peach trees! The last tree picture shows some austrees that are only about 5 years old. We're supposed to plant ours and then cut them off waist high. We have our work cut out for us the next few days!

We asked Kevin at the tree farm where a good place to have lunch would be, and he said they really like their little Mill Creek Cafe in town. It was cute and they had a choice yesterday of vegetable soup, breaded tenderloin or a poppy seed chicken casserole with sides of roasted potatoes and grape salad (yum - the kind with cream cheese & brown sugar) and a little piece of a good quick bread. Bill had the tenderloin and really liked it and their potato chips. They had 4 homemade desserts. We split a banana dessert. We were glad we found out about the cafe rather than eating at a chain restaurant that you can go to anywhere.

Today at Our House - the Grove

Bill started working on our grove situation a few days ago. Out here you really need one on the north side of your house and buildings to block wind and snow. We have just had a small, scraggly one with more trees dying each year.

Bill did lots of research and has decided what kinds of trees would be best (we hope) and how far apart to space them, etc. He has the trees ordered. More about that when we plant them.

He's working on cutting down all of the old ones. The first picture is looking east to west and the second one is from the road looking east. The last is a video of one of the pine trees coming down.

Our yard has really greened up in the past few days. We figure we'll be mowing this week. Bill had put fertilizer on it in the Fall and then we never got any rain. Our yard is still fairly new so we hope it fills in and thickens up this year. We also hope we get a nice amount of rain this summer for the new trees, the yard and, as always, the crops. Not too much or too little, no hail or bad wind - we don't want much do we!

Farming Update

NW Iowa has finally gotten some rain! We've had a little over an inch and very little sun in the past few days. The farmers would still like to have a little more rain to make up for last summer and fall's drought and almost no snow this winter.

Speaking of farmers, a few days ago when it was warm and sunny and had been dry, we actually had several out working their ground! We're not sure why - it's way too early! We could still have a blizzard before planting time. Crop insurance will not cover a loss if you plant before April 13th I think it is. We all know how expensive fuel is so it's not smart to have to work the ground twice before planting.

Bill has been getting our planter ready. He had a couple of guys out yesterday to do some settings on it which took most of the day. He's added some equipment that will automatically turn off or close the seed boxes if he goes over some rows that have already been planted which has to happen at times. The equipment is getting smarter and smarter!

Today Bill and Tim are both at different farming classes.

I worked yesterday and will be babysitting Diane's little one tomorrow. Our cookbook committee has been working on the final proofreading of recipes. We're hoping to send the cookbook to print in April. I've been asking businesses to be sponsors and have a few more calls to make.

Tonight Terri and I are going to Pizza Ranch in Pocahontas for the every other month church women's birthday celebration. This time it's for Feb./Mar. birthdays which includes me!

Dallas Trip - Part 3

Sunday in Dallas we went to Glenn's church - Bull Creek Cowboy Church. The people there have been good friends and support for Glenn & the boys, especially a guy the boys call Grandpa Larry and his wife. This church has lots of horse related activities for the members. Glenn & the boys go to the Tues. night Men's Bible Study some.
































After church we ate at a really good barbecue place near Glenn's house. The meat is all smoked and then they give you warm barbecue sauce that was good. It was a kind of sweet, not too spicy sauce. The dessert there was fried pies so we had to try them. Bill had apple of course, I split a cherry one with Glenn, Reed had chocolate, Rob had peach, Ross had vanilla and Mom had cherry. The fruit ones were warm and they had soft ice cream to put on them. Pretty good!

Glenn pointed out the No Smoking sign on the smoker!

Dallas Trip - Part 2

After planning our trip to Dallas, I happened to remember that a branch of my Stampin' Up! downline is in Rowlett, Texas and I knew that was in the area where Glenn lives. So I called Sheri, my Manager there, and asked if she might be having a downline meeting while we were there that I could attend! It turns out that she did have a meeting planned. It was fun to meet these ladies whose names I've been seeing on my downline reports.

Since there's no way they can ever attend the meetings I have for my group in Indiana, I took door prizes for all! Sheri showed us the new Simply Scored tool we now sell along with the new diagonal plate that is for making envelopes, boxes, etc., and she had a fun project for us to make. I took the catalog from my first year as a demonstrator, 1996, to show them how far Stampin; Up! has come as a company, some of the old newsletters and pictures of fun times at conventions.

Then I treated them to lunch at Gloria's on Lake Hubbard in Rockwall. It has Tex-Mex and Salvadoran food. I had the chicken dish below. I thought the fish dish looked really good. Getting together with other Stampin' Up! Demonstrators is always fun! We never run out of things to talk about!

Dallas Trip - Part 1

One of the main reasons we went to Dallas was for nephews, Reed & Ross's graduation from the Greenville Police Academy. They've both wanted to be police officers for a long time and are excited to have this training done and be closer to getting a job in their field. They have a couple of classes to finish up first.

After graduation, we went to Molina's, a Mexican restaurant. I had flautas and Bill had shrimp quesadilla.

We Are Home

We got home last night from a trip to Dallas to visit Glenn and the boys. Will get started posting about our trip later today! Working on the laundry and going to get groceries this morning. Bill has picked up our mail. It's a nice, sunny, warm day already here!

Sad Day in Indianapolis

Yesterday was a very sad day in Indianapolis. It was announced that long time Colts quarterback, Peyton Manning, was released. Watch his farewell video HERE. The Colts' next season will be interesting. The only thing good about this is that now I may have two teams to watch if Peyton plays for another team.

It's Fish Fry Season

Lots of groups do fish frys during Lent. One of the best ones is done by the Knights of Columbus at the West Bend Country Club. This year they're doing three - every other week. They serve about 800-900 a night. We like to go to them. The fish is good and we see people we know since our house was built by West Bend businesses and John Deere and Case are there.

The two people pictures are of the bar area which is also where the line is.

We're having high winds tonight. Sorry to hear of all of the destruction and loss of lives from the tornadoes in southern Indiana today.

Back in School

Uh oh, my camera lens has something on it.

Lacey invited me to come to a special time at school for friends or relatives. I picked her up at 7:30. The kids were to read a book to their guest, and then we went in to the gym for a cinnamon roll and apple or grape juice. We got done early so she read me a second book.

It's been a long time since I've been in a classroom, and sat in a tiny chair! I had her show me inside her desk with the lift up top. Hers is very neat and organized with folders and extra pencils and erasers. Almost every inch of wall space in the room was covered! One of the cute displays was paper teeth (with roots) - one for each month. Kids' names were written on the Jan. & Feb. ones. Those were the kids that had lost teeth in that month! It was fun to finally see the teacher, Mrs. Allen. Lacey had made her a Valentine's Day card at our house.

New Job

Not much happening here today. Tomorrow morning Lacey has invited me to something special before school. All the kids were to invite someone to come to school at 7:45, they will read a book to us and then we have our choice of 3 kinds of rolls and juice before the bell rings at 8:15. Should be fun!

I have recently started a new job. I got a call from a guy that I didn't know asking me if I do Quickbooks. (Bill & Glenn know him) Come to find out, he was looking for someone part time to come to his home office and help with some bookkeeping and other things that need to be done, especially in his busy season from about June through November. The company is Bruellman Bin Moving. He moves grain bins, and has moved them in 13 states so far since 1985. See his web site HERE. He said it would be no problem for me to continue to work for Bill & Tim in the spring and fall, go to Indiana when I need to or anything else. It's a very flexible job where I get to decide when and how much I work for the most part. I wasn't looking for a job, but it seems like it'll work out good for both of us!