Late April Storm - view from the porch

A long, diagonal line of storms went just to the east of us last night. We sat on the screened porch and watched it for a long time - nice. Bill commented that he'd take the view from our porch compared to the one at my last house any day (no other houses or people, can see for miles, etc.). I have to agree.









They got the field around our house planted and then lined the toys up waiting to see where they'll go next.

This is on the south side of our house.

Planting Video

This video was taken a few days ago when planting corn. Today Carl was working ground around our house, and then Bill has been planting beans. He's almost done at 6:00. It doesn't take long to do a 100 acre field with the 24 row planter! Rain is on the way tonight but they've run out of dry enough ground to plant next anyway.

This morning I was at Diane & Todd's by 7:15 to stay with Lacey. Her daycare lady had an appointment today. Lacey was happy she got to sleep in. I took her to preschool after lunch.

It's been very windy again today and about 80.

The Transformer/Planter

I don't think I had figured out how to do videos by spring last year so this should be the first time you've seen the planter unfold! It folds up to a long, somewhat skinny piece of equipment to go down the road, and then it unfolds when you get to the field. Like Bill's brother says, it's like a transformer! I was amazed when I saw it the first time.

This is Glenn, a faithful reader of my blog! He's originally from Rolfe, but has lived in several other places including Fishers & Marion, Indiana and most recently Maryland I believe. He fixes up houses and had been wanting to see our new house after following the construction on the blog. So we were home and the house was in pretty good shape, so we called to see if he wanted to come over on Sun. for the "tour". He wanted me to be sure to mention that he's a Shriner! He was also a classmate of Bill's dad.

New Rafters

Remember this picture from Jan. 18th of the broken rafters (on left)? This is the shed at Peggy's and the heavy snow on the roof had cracked the rafters.

New ones have been installed this past week (on right).

We had quite a bit of rain over the weekend so no field work can be done yet. Bill worked on the planter this morning getting it cleaned up after almost getting stuck in the mud the other day and changing things over to be ready to plant beans. This afternoon he was going to pick up some seed.

Since it was raining yesterday, we headed to Ft. Dodge. Stopped for the Pizza Ranch lunch buffet in Manson on the way. Bill needed things at Rees Truck, Menard's and Shoppers Supply. I had him drop me off at the mall while he went to those places, and then we went to Walmart together. After 3 years, I still think about and appreciate being able to go places like Walmart during the week vs. the weekend when it's crowded!

Today the sun is out but it's still cool.

Cookies for Confirmation Reception

Since I like to bake, I like to sign up at church when they need baked items. Recently there was a sign up sheet for help making cross cookies for the reception on Confirmation Day. The ladies on the list ahead of me signed up to make 6 doz. but I thought 4 would be good/plenty for me.



Sat. as I was rolling, cutting and icing them (and counting them) I was wishing that Karen & Ryanne were here (they do lots of fancy cookies for a cookie walk every Christmas), or Diane & Lacey (Diane and I used to do cut out cookies when she was little), Terri or anybody to keep me company - or help!



I wasn't very happy with how mine looked - maybe should've done an icing that you pour over them so they would be smooth. But they tasted good. Others had done them all different ways - some had piped their icing on. Wish I had a picture of how many cross cookies there were in the church kitchen but they were going fast when I left!

There were 5 kids that were confirmed Sunday, and the church was packed.

Before and After

These propane tanks are an ugly necessity in the country for gas for heat. I've been wanting to get ours painted for a long time! Toward the end of Fall last year, Bill used the power washer to get a lot of the gunk off of it. I went to the parts store in town and asked what kind of paint would be best. Came home with a can of stuff to spray on to stop the rust and some white implement paint.

We have a tank nearby that's painted like a watermelon so at one point I was excited to paint ours something different like green to blend in with the trees and not be so noticeable. Then I realized that in the winter, EVERYTHING here is white all winter. Then I went in the store and the choices were white and John Deere green. So we'll have a white tank that blends in in the winter - and matches the house.

Last Fall, I sprayed the rust stuff on but the weather got too cold to paint. Finally got the first coat done on Thursday.

It looks a LOT better even after just one coat. Just don't look too close!