In Training

Yesterday I thought I was going to get some things done around the house in the afternoon after going to Pocahontas in the morning, but Bill called and asked if I could help with beans since we were not going to be close to the elevator and it would take Tim quite a while to haul to town. Pam & Carl were out of town.

So Tim trained me to drive the cart and catch beans. He dumped them into the semi for me. It can be a little too easy to dump a whole bunch of $$$$/beans on the ground if you don't know what you're doing! I've noticed that farmers talk about it when they see a pile on the ground in somebody's field too! I'm starting to not be as nervous now that I've had a little more practice.

It was sunny and got up to about 80 with no wind so by dark it was getting very hard to see with all of the dust hanging in the air. The guys said they hadn't seen it that bad for several years.

When we moved the equip. from Peggy's to the field, Bill was in the combine, then me pulling a trailer with the bean head on it, then Tim in the quadtrac. There was quite a bit of traffic to contend with which is never good. The video below is of Bill getting the bean head on the combine once we got to the field.

I was planning for lunch at noon today but Bill called and said they were going to keep the combine running which means that Tim goes home for lunch at noon, then Bill at 1:00 while Tim runs it. Now Bill has called to say he'll be even later due to just getting a fire call. A fire today with this wind is not good. Hope it's not a field fire with things being so dry. (what did we do without microwaves??)

The sunrise this morning was pretty. That's the view to the back of our house. We've been seeing lots more sunrises lately than we usually do! My camera doesn't take sunrises or sunsets very well on any setting.

We are very sad today. We found out that a farmer we know was killed in a combine accident near here last night. He had just recently retired from the post office and could just farm. He and I had talked about me learning and helping Bill with farming. He told me some of the things he had told his wife like to just take it slow and not get "rammy". He said I would do fine. He was a really nice guy.

Also I see on the news today that a mail carrier was killed when she was hit by a tractor coming out of a field. This is a dangerous time of year with all the big equipment being used. Did you know that farming is one of the most dangerous professions?

Back to Work for Me

This is the best "picture" I've seen so far. The full grain cart is unloading into the semi so the combine is unloading into the cart which will end up in the semi too.

Today Bill and Tim combined corn behind our house until noon, had lunch and then went to beans behind Peggy's house. The corn and beans are still too wet even though we've been having really nice weather. Tomorrow is to be near 80 which may help.

Yesterday morning I got busy early making a cherry pie to go along with Salisbury steak, green beans, cheese potatoes and baked potato bread (got that at the Farmers' Market) for lunch for Carl, Pam, Bill and me. I'm learning how to make these "threshing crew meals" from Aunt Bette Jo. She is really organized, everything is ready to be set on the table when you get there, and she really has a spread of food.

Carl & Pam help us a lot during the Fall. Carl mostly drives a semi and Pam mostly drives the tractor with grain cart. But they both do other jobs if needed. Don't know what we'd do without them.

After lunch, I started my first day back to work ripping in a 95 acre field that they were combining. Had a short refresher course from Bill and got busy. Today I actually moved from that field to our house - my first time to go that far on the roads. All went well - I didn't meet anybody!

The combine scared a deer out of the corn but I was on the other side of the field so it kind of stayed in the middle and ate while it was deciding where it should go. It was fun for me to be in a field where everybody else was for part of the day. They got done and moved/left me for about the last three hours I was out.

I went back and finished that field this morning and then ripped between two terraces behind our house this afternoon.

You can see green there by the deer. We had about 3 drowned out spots in this field due to all the rain in the spring. One of the spots was 7 acres. Weeds end up growing in these spots. Bill disked it last night.

The bales are not ours. I always like seeing fields with bales for some reason.

Disappearing Hostas

Glenn said I should take a picture of the new grain cart with the SUV next to it to really show the size of the grain cart. The tire is a little taller than the Buick!

Everyone is having a hard time finding beans or corn ready to combine. Tim & Bill keep looking at all the fields and testing the moisture of the corn and beans but nothing is dry enough. Seems like it would be with all the heat we had this summer. So 80 acres of seed beans are done, some no till corn around our house is done and they've done some corn a little farther behind our house. The elevator isn't taking corn tomorrow so the plan as of tonight is to do some of Tim's corn by his house and put it in a bin and dry it some there.

Here you can see the hosta that was totally eaten. The next one was exactly like it and has been about half eaten. They are the ones called Little Tiny Blue Mouse Ears. The last one has had a few leaves chewed off. I've seen a couple of rabbits around (and a skunk) so don't know if it's the rabbits or the deer.

I went to West Bend this morning to the Farmers' Market and they were having their Fall sales at the stores on Main St. - 20% off most things. Bill loves the apple pie that the main vendor makes so I got one today and also gave her a Stampin' Up! catalog with some samples of things she can use with her scrapbooking.

Got some work done in the yard this afternoon.

It Has Started!

Bill walked in for lunch today and said "it has started". They got started combining an 80 acre field of seed beans right before lunch. Not finding anything else that's ready yet.

In the picture is the new grain cart. Sure looks big! Pam has some nice equipment to use this year! She's been driving a John Deere 8300 tractor with a smaller cart for several years. Tim & Bill say she'll be up high enough now in this quadtrac to see into the semis which will help when she dumps from the cart into the semi. The cart holds a little over 1000 bushel and unloads at 500 bushel a minute. (wow)

It's only 62 today with some wind and it's not sunny. Tomorrow is supposed to be cooler and then sunny and back to the 70's so there should be lots more action later this week. We're back to seeing more traffic on our road (pickups - spring and fall) and there are some guys hauling grain from last fall into the elevator.

I babysat on Sat. and Mon. Will post pictures another day. I have a cookbook meeting this afternoon and then will go ride with Bill. Recipes for the 2013 150th Anniversary Cookbook are starting to come in better now with the deadline of Nov. 1st getting closer. We're hoping for 900 recipes from our little town of 500 people!

PS - something has been eating my hostas at night this week and I'm not happy! They have looked so nice all summer. Wish I knew what they really like to eat and I'd leave it out for them to have instead!!

Fun Day on the Water

Two weeks ago we were lucky enough to be asked to go boating with some friends and it was a perfect day for it! We went north of here about an hour and a half to Lake Okoboji. The 2nd picture is the back of The Wharf restaurant where we had lunch. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get a table outside. Bill and I have eaten there once before and sat outside and could watch the boats going under the bridge from one side of the lake to the other.

The picture with the Ferris wheel is Arnold's Park. It's an amusement park with rides and shops.

The 4th picture is The Barefoot Bar. It's fun to go there - like being in the tropics in the middle of Iowa since they have tiki huts and real palm trees from Florida that they have out in the summer and store them inside for the winter!

Before heading home, we stopped at Goodies. Some had coffee, some had Blue Bunny ice cream and some sampled the homemade truffles. Goodies has been in business 25 years. I've been to events in the area where the favor was a truffle from Goodies.

Be sure to click on the arrow and watch the video below. I love to ride around in a boat on a sunny day going fast like this! It was a great day that was over too soon!

Clay County Fair in Spencer

Most people in our area like the Clay County Fair better than the Iowa State Fair. I don't understand how 4-H works here though when the State Fair is before this county fair?? We picked a perfect weather day to go yesterday: low 70's with a little breeze, sunny and blue sky. Many times at fair time it's either too hot or cold and drizzly.

I was walking around and saw a bunch of people at the monkey show so I stopped to see what was going on and caught the very end of the show. You could get your picture taken with one of the monkeys so I watched a few people/kids get theirs taken and decided "why not"? How often can you get a good blog picture like that! As we were waiting for them to bring the one out for the pictures, a guy near me said he wondered if it would be the one that had "acted up" during the show. (yikes) We figured they were trying to calm him down in the back! Not sure if he's smiling or baring his teeth!
The parking is very organized with guys on horseback directing you to your spot. They have golf cars that will take you all the way in including stopping to buy your tickets. We walked this time but it's handy on the really hot or cold days or for older people, etc. The guy on the horse said I could take his picture as long as it didn't end up in the post office.

The new fried food this year was butter - a whole stick! People were actually buying it!























Bill and I always split up. I look in the buildings and watch people and he heads for the farm equipment. We meet for lunch. This year we didn't have our usual tenderloins. Bill had a pulled pork sandwich and cheese curds, and I had a corn dog, corn nuggets and a lemon shakeup. They don't have elephant ears here. I always ride the tractor pulled wagon around the whole place to see if I've missed anything important. Then we finish the day by riding the sky ride round trip together.

It was Seniors Day and as we were leaving, we watched a 71 year old guy climb to the top of the climbing wall. His friends were proud of him.

We're supposed to have frost tonight. Bill says that means we'll be combining by about Sat. and the fun will begin!

Port of Dubuque

Once Mom had recovered from her knee surgery enough for me to leave her on her own, Bill flew from Ft. Dodge airport (45 min. from our house) to Indianapolis, stayed a few days and then we drove home together. It's a 600 mile, 10 hour drive so this time we decided to not get up at the crack of dawn to leave and drive all day to make it home. We got the sheets in the washer and cleaned up the upstairs bathroom so Mom would be ready for any unexpected guests, and left around 10:30 to just drive about halfway.

Our first stop was in New Liberty, Iowa to see one of my long time Stampin' Up! friends, Nancy. She lost her husband to cancer a few years ago, had recently remarried and I had not met her new husband. You should check out her blog, This Old House in New Liberty . She and her husband have redone most of their old house and it looks great. I didn't take my own pictures for my blog since she has such good ones on hers. She's also very crafty. We walked across the street in their tiny town and ate together and then we headed through the country north to Dubuque to stay for the night.

When Bill asked me to marry him, we decided to get married in Dubuque since it would be a four hour trip for his family and friends and six for mine - kind of half way. When we rode the paddle wheel boat (last picture) on another trip to Dubuque, Bill had noticed the Miss Dubuque at the dock. So when we talked about getting married in Dubuque, we thought it would be fun for everyone to be married while cruising on The Mississippi! We checked into it and that's what we did. It was a perfect day on June 30th, 2007 for a wedding cruise!

Our picture is still on the Miss Dubuque's web site under weddings HERE. However, the minister was not theirs - he's Richard Clark, my minister and friend from my Carmel church, Central Christian. Richard and his wife were nice enough to travel to Iowa for our wedding.

Flowers Everywhere

I always mention how many flowers there are in the Carmel area and that's something I miss here.

Carmel has these huge pots of flowers hanging on Range Line Road and Main Street - I don't know how many there are but it's a bunch. Mom says every time she goes into town, the truck is out watering them.

The picture with the wicker rockers is Mom's front porch. She always has pretty hanging pots. I managed to keep them alive and looking good while I was there.

Most subdivisions there have beautiful flowers at their entrances. They get watered and fertilized regularly.

I was lucky that it worked out right to eat at The Beef House both coming AND going this time! The pictures with the pots of flowers were taken there and the giraffe. I still don't know why a giraffe is outside a place called The Beef House!

Sharing Plants

When I was in Indiana, the first weekend I had a stamp class for my customers there. I was talking to one of them and mentioned that we were now done with the bigger house projects including landscaping and that I'm just adding a few plants here and there. I've dropped stamp orders off at her house many times and always loved seeing her beautiful landscaping. She told me to give her a call before leaving for home and come over and get starts of anything I wanted. I told her I have not been having good luck getting Shasta daisies going and she said she had lots of them.

So on our last day there I went over with grocery bags and boxes to put some starts in for the trip home and look what I found on her doorstep - I couldn't believe it! She already had everything dug and not only in pots that she had watered and put Miracle Grow on for me but she had labels on them made with some of our Stampin' Up! punches! The gift bag contains seeds and was rolled with one of our wheels and tied with a perfect bow! She said she had to do it nice for her Stampin' Up! lady! Wow . . . how nice! Now I just hope I can keep her Shasta daisies growing!


We've been having perfect weather since the weekend and looks like it will be for several more days. Sure loving it.

** A note re: the blog - I have turned moderation back on for comments which only means that I will see the comment by e mail first before it's posted. So you just won't see it appear right away. Love seeing comments! Lets me know somebody is reading it and that it's worth continuing!

Back to Iowa

Bill and I left Indiana Wed., stopped to see one of my friends and meet her husband and then stayed in Dubuque, Iowa for the night. Got home Thurs. late afternoon. I have several more pictures from Indiana and our stop in Dubuque (where we got married) to post soon!

I'm lucky that Bill cleans up the house before I get back whenever I've been gone! He runs the dishwasher, does his laundry and "recycles" the newspapers (which means he burns them or puts them in the dumpster). He just doesn't do floors, sinks or toilets. So I've been unpacking all of my stamping stuff I took to Indiana and clothes, doing laundry, going through mail, etc.

The day we got back I went to our Farmers' Market (the refrig. was bare!) and caught up with some people. This morning I went to the West Bend Farmers' Market and talked with one of the vendors that I knew. I gave her my Stampin' Up! business card as she wants to have a party since she scrapbooks. We have the new Holiday Mini catalog out as of Sept. 1st! I'll have a link to it on the right here soon. Otherwise, you can also see it through my SU! web site (link above).

I found Bill inside a grain bin on my way home. It's the last one to be cleaned out. Yesterday he did some paperwork after we got back from Algona. Our front seat in the Buick is squeaking again. Had some papers to sign at the accountant's office - both in Algona.

We got 9/10" of rain the night we got back. It is needed although it's too late for the crops. This morning has been rainy but the sun's trying to come out. 79 degrees. I have chicken & dumplings in the crock pot for lunch and it's smelling good. Will also cook some fresh green beans. I made Bill a cake yesterday. He said his mom had something sweet for him with the meals she made for him while I was gone. Thanks Peggy!