Happy Halloween!!!

Where did October go???

We got completely done with harvest yesterday.  Just in time before the weather turned colder.  We had 50's yesterday and today it's sunny but with a high of only about 38. 

Tim has been traveling back and forth to West Bend to get tanks of anhydrous this week.  He brought them to the fields for Bill to apply them.  That took about three days.  I thought I was done ripping the corn fields and the bean field end rows Wed. night, but Bill called yesterday morning and needed me to do some more here at our house which didn't take long.  The only thing left now is getting the equipment power washed and put away before the snow flies.  The guys hate that job and always hope for a non-windy, slightly warmer day to get that done.

anhydrous rig

We're tired and getting caught up on sleep, laundry, mail, bill paying, etc.    

Harvest Time Activities

Friday was a busy day around here.  A water pump belt broke on my tractor so I ran to West Bend for a new belt and Bill put that on, and I got that 75 acre field done that night.  One of the semis had a problem that they were able to take care of too.  We have about a week of combining left Bill says and the weather looks good.

As I was ripping the field, I got to see this pretty little tree at the farm house there.  The leaves here have probably been at their peak this past week.  Many have lost their leaves already.

 


Peggy had picked up the twins (our niece & nephew) Thurs. so Matthew was riding with everybody and had lunch with us.   Bill's sister and niece, Ryanne, came Fri. night.  We were finally able to give birthday gifts to all 3 kids.

We had guys here at our machine shed putting new doors up.  I did a blog post last winter about the doors on our new shed having a delamination problem right away.  We've been on the list to get new ones for a long time since they had installed many doors with this problem.  They replaced one on Fri. and will do the other one tomorrow.  It'll be good to get this done.

Bill's brother arrived Fri. night so he has been doing my job since yesterday so yesterday I got to babysit our great nieces and took them to Community Orchard in Ft. Dodge - great fun!  I'll have several more pictures of our day in my next post.  

 www.CindyKCreations.com
 

Freezer Full of Fresh Chickens

It was chicken butchering time at Diane's house again.  Her husband's dad likes to raise chickens as a hobby.  They have a flock for laying eggs and every fall they raise some for butchering.  Back in Oct. 2012 I went over and took some pictures for a blog post that you can see HERE.  It was the same setup basically so I didn't take the same pictures again.  We did have the feather plucking table and packaging sink and table inside their shed since it was really windy and a little chilly plus chance of rain.

Diane's husband gutting and trimming

It took about 4 hours or so to do 32 chickens.   With several helping and having done it a few times before, it wasn't bad at all.

 



This time they used a Foodsaver to package them rather than the huge Ziploc bags.  This should work better with getting all the air out.





The kids helped some, mostly plucking the few feathers that were left and played on the trampoline.

This picture was taken last night.  Bill and Tim were out combining beans until about 8:30 or so.  Some of the beans in a field will be ready but not all of them so it's a frustrating Fall to not be able to get complete fields done.