We Have Started - Sort Of

Bill and Tim have the main equipment for working ground, planting and spraying ready to go.  We're trying something they used to do this year and working last year's corn stalks twice hoping to hopefully combat weed resistance.  The past couple of years the weeds have not been dying when sprayed.  

The weather was good last Fri. to start field cultivating.  I got the job and worked three fields.  Nice day!  The dirt looked good enough to plant!  But the ground is too cold.  Needs to be 50 degrees and rising.  (after the snow Sun. it was 26)

Bill did our ground and Tim did two fields.  Then we got a little snow Sun. and cold so now we're waiting for warmer weather.

A Fun Lunch at School

Recently when at a tea at the Pomeroy Covenant Church, I sat next to the Manson Home Ec teacher (do they call it Home Ec now?  I don't think so.) and her mother.  They were saying that her home ec class plans a meal for the public, shops for it, cooks and serves the meal.  I asked how would we know when it was going to be, and they said it's in the Manson paper (which we don't get - Manson is the next town south of us) and/or they would let us know.  

They started last week, and I got to go.  They take the first 24 who make reservations two days in advance.  They did a great job.  The food was presented very nicely, it all tasted very good and they served it professionally.  They charge $8.50 per person and do this every week for six weeks.   Any leftover money they may have goes for a pizza party. 

We got to see their classroom too.  It brought back memories of my Home Ec class with the four or so little kitchens next to each other.  I sure remember my friend Cindy Moffitt and I having to demonstrate making something, and we did the melt-in-your-mouth Cream Wafers (2 flaky cookies with butter cream icing in the middle). 

The menu for last week's meal was Pickle Wrap Dip with Crackers, Chicken Berry Lettuce Salad, Broccoli Cheese Soup in a Bread Bowl, and Layered Brownie Trifle.  I have the menus for each week and sure hope I can go again before they're over.

pickle wrap dip with crackers

chicken berry lettuce salad with honey mustard dressing

broccoli cheese soup - I don't know how they did that carrot curl!

very yummy brownie trifle with strawberry & choc. star garnish

 
  

Fun Deviled Eggs

I thought I'd share this now so you'd have time to make them for your Easter dinner!  Aren't they pretty?!?!?!!!!  I saw this idea on Facebook.

One of our P.E.O. members moved Monday to Colorado so Sat. we took them lunch and this is what Diane's girls and I made for it.  Beth had gotten lots of things done in our town.  She was one of the leaders when RAGBRAI (thousands of bike riders) came through town, she had a park built, and was the manager of our Farmers' Market to name a few things.  Her husband liked to play golf with others guys in town and help Beth with her projects.  They will be missed.

All you do is hard boil your eggs like usual, cut them in half and take out the yolks to make the filling like usual.

Decide how many colors you want.  In a cup, put about 1 cup of cold water, 1 tsp. vinegar and 3 drops of food coloring for each color.  Stir. Then drop in a couple of the egg whites at a time and leave them in there until they're the color you like (it doesn't take very long).  You might use a spoon and move them around a little.  Otherwise, if they're touching each other, a white spot may be left.  

I took them out and let them drain on paper towels.  Then place them on an egg plate or container like this - something that keeps them separated.  I had put some blue ones in a container with white ones.  They were touching so my white ones ended up having some blue spots so that's why they need to be separated and not touching.  Make your filling and fill like usual.

Good luck and have fun!  Almost more fun than coloring Easter eggs and maybe prettier!

Signs of Spring

After many days of near zero or below this winter, but with almost no snow, we're finally starting to see some signs of spring.  Today we had a couple of sprinkles but now at 6:00, it's sunny, windy and 55.

We were on our way to Peggy's house a couple of weeks ago and saw her neighbors riding their horses.  This is still such a fun sight for me to see since we didn't see this in my area of Indiana.

Recently I was in a hardware store and faintly heard some chirping and came upon about 5 containers of baby chicks in various colors/breeds for sale.

I've been watching to see if the new tulips and daffodils I planted were poking through the ground but they're not.  Today I thought to look to see if the older ones next to the house with south sun were coming up and they are!  (about 2" tall)  Daffodils are my favorite flower so I hope to have LOTS of them planted around here eventually.

Some bad news though is that we have two of our two year old new grove trees that look very dead and we're worried about several others that aren't looking too good.  If you've been reading the blog for a while, you might remember we planted 175 new trees two springs ago and watered them during these past two years of drought.  Bad timing for a new grove.  We sure hope most of them take off growing good this spring and summer.

The third Decorah eaglet hatched this morning - yay!  They thought the eggs might not hatch at all this year due to the extreme cold and snow they had in northeastern Iowa after the eggs were layed.  Here's another link to watch the live web cam.  HERE
 

We Need Rain

While my home state of Indiana has gotten 3-5" of rain causing flooding today, we have gotten just some sprinkles off and on.  We keep hearing of more peoples' wells drying up in this area since we've had very little snow or rain for two years.  We're supposed to get a couple of inches of snow tonight. 

Several of you enjoyed watching the Decorah (Iowa) Eagle Cam a couple of years ago.  Here's the LINK again.  The first eaglet hatched just yesterday.  

 
 

Shed Progress

There are lots of things going on around here lately.  Bill has gotten his work bench built in the shed.  Looks pretty sturdy doesn't it?  Uncle Tim had the idea to put it out away from the wall so that they can work on both sides of it if they need to.  Good idea!  In the picture, you can see Bill under the bench.  He's putting in more electrical outlets on the bench.

He got his green vice installed that he already had.

This heavy duty one (below) he bought on EBay.  He and the seller had to find a way to ship something this big and heavy.  Leave it to UPS to drop it evidently and a piece broke off of it so Bill has ordered a new base for it.  He has not had good luck ordering things lately.  A saw he ordered came broken twice before getting one that was okay.

You can see where the piece broke off.

He got this bolt bin at an auction and had me use our label maker to label the sections.

This week he replaced all 109 sweeps on the field cultivator which has to be done every year before planting season.  They cost $7.95 each.   Sometimes one will get too worn and need to be replaced during the season.  You can see in the second picture how worn the one is next to the new black one.  He said he would keep a few of the better ones from the pile of old ones, but the rest will go in a scrap iron pile.

It's 65 degrees and very windy today.  The sun has finally come out.  Our first really warm day.

This afternoon I got a project done that I've been talking about doing for a month - got the garage freezer defrosted.  Glad to have this blog post done now too.  Now on to cleaning a few filthy windows and then tea party invitations!