Halloween or ???

Even after living here for over 3 years now, I'm still finding differences between Indiana and Iowa. For the last month we've been hearing about Beggars' Night. Huh?? That's what Halloween is more often called here!

I Googled Beggars' Night and here's what I found:

Beggars Night, or more properly Beggars' Night, is a regional term for the Halloween-related activity that is referred to in most parts of the United States as "Trick or Treat". Specifically, the term is broadly but not exclusively used in Ohio, and in many parts of Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and western New York.

In general, Beggars Night represents the "treat" portion of Trick or Treat, where children in costume make evening rounds of homes (and to a lesser extent to businesses during the day) and are given candy. This event being closely tied to, but distinct from, Halloween itself, when various forms of mischief (or "tricks") may occur.

The night has often been scheduled by municipal governments on a date prior to the actual Halloween date of October 31.

It's interesting that only 5 states call it Beggars' night. Diane says that Lacey does NOT want to do it even though she has a Hannah Montana costume. She just doesn't like or want the candy!! Uncle Bill says he will pay her to get and bring him the candy! We'll see if that helps! Camry is going to be a little green pea pod! I've always loved that costume!

This year, Beggars' Night will be on Halloween (Oct. 31st) here in our town. We usually go out to eat or something and wouldn't have trick or treaters at our house anyway.

It's a great day here for getting things done inside and out. I've taken some screens out of the windows and will get them scrubbed and put away, have pulled my dead zinnias out. Bill went pheasant hunting this morning (first day of the season). He came home with one that will probably be lunch tomorrow. Do any of you have a favorite recipe? The one I have is so so.

Trip to Ft. Dodge Day

After another day of close to 40 mph winds with almost 60 mph gusts yesterday, today was colder but a nice, sunny, non-windy day to go to Ft. Dodge with my long Walmart list. Our Walmart is about 45 min. away (no Target or anything in between!) so we all keep running lists. I keep stocked up on everything but especially at this time of year. I don't like to make that trip much in winter. I returned a couple things at Menard's, picked up a shop vac brush for Bill at Sears, checked out the holiday stuff at Hobby Lobby, got gas and went to Walmart.

On the way home, I did my traditional stop at the apple orchard. Besides apples, they have good soup and sandwiches and the usual apple dumplings, fudge, etc. and a gift shop on the main floor with gourmet foods, apple pies, etc. and upstairs in the attic a gift shop with unique items for decorating, babies, jewelry and some clothing. Today, in the attic, they were working on switching over from fall to Christmas. Always fun to make a stop there for apples and to look at everything.

Mom & Camry

Mom just visited us for about 10 days. We got to babysit Camry last Fri. She is such a good baby - only cries when she needs her diaper changed or is hungry!

It's VERY windy here today. We've had about 35 mph wind gusting to 50 mph since during the night and it's supposed to continue through tomorrow. Glad I got some outdoor furniture and things put away a couple of days ago! One of my big flower pots in front of the garage on the west side of the house blew over spilling the flowers and dirt, and the pot ended up on the east side of the house!

Have heard that Ft. Dodge has power lines down.

Bill has been doing work in the office today. I went to Pocahontas to do a couple things for Glenn at their house and to the bank. I have a P.E.O. meeting in Mallard tonight.

Anhydrous Done!

Bill got done with anhydrous last night! He looked at his tickets (from the elevator) today and found that we had 27 good weather/work days straight this fall - wow! He's getting up early tomorrow to take back the anhydrous rig (the blue thing behind the tractor) to the West Bend elevator - and the last tanks of anhydrous. Guess there's another farmer wanting to get started tomorrow and needs this rig. West Bend's location has 10-15 of them but they're all out being used. We're lucky to be done!! This is the same tractor I drove for ripping this year.










Bill & I went to Humboldt Hospital this morning for him to have an MRI. He's going to have to have shoulder surgery probably in Dec. He's been putting up with an on and off hurting shoulder for about 5 years and needs to get it fixed. The MRI was to make sure it's what the dr. thinks and no other problems. It's interesting that many of the hospitals here don't have an MRI machine. A portable one comes that's in a semi! It seemed unusual that they would schedule an MRI on a Sun. morning. Afterward we had lunch out and got a few things at Hy-Vee. It was a cloudy day but the fall colors of the trees really looked pretty. Many leaves are already down though. Still warm!

Glenn let Mom know that a tornado touched down a couple of miles from where they live in Loan Oak, TX this evening but they're ok. They do have hail damage on their vehicles. He sent this picture - yikes. CNN story link HERE.

Anhydrous

Bill is applying anhydrous in our fields around our house this morning. We were supposed to get rain starting last night - but nothing. Good for him to maybe get done today or tomorrow. I think he only has one more field after doing ours. I don't get to ride with him when he does that. The gases are dangerous and he has to be extra careful.

I didn't ride with him in the combine as much this fall because I was driving this tractor. We decided we think that now we like it this way - we're getting more accomplished! You can tell we've been married for a while now!

The pictures below were taken last night. Mom & I took a sandwich out to Bill and followed him to his mom's when he fueled the tractor. We were surprised to see that the anhydrous rig folds up. The tractor and all was still about the width of the whole road.

Sad to hear that Dallas Clark is out for the season for hand surgery. The Colts have lots of injuries this year.

Yesterday was a really nice, warm day and I was glad to get some outside furniture, the garbage can, coolers and several other things scrubbed and ready to put away for the winter.

This morning I'm wondering what to have for lunch today - I don't have a clue yet. Anyone else ever have that problem???

We Turned it Black

The ripping is done. When ripping, Bill is not real picky and just says "turn it black". Farmers like to see their fields black. That means they're almost done with Fall work!

These pictures are of ground that has been ripped.

Bill got started yesterday applying anhydrous to the ground that will have corn next year. It's fertilizer for the corn. He gets up early to get started doing that and doesn't quit until about 9:00 at night. He says it will take him about four days. They get their tanks of anhydrous from West Bend.

We're still in that nice, perfect weather streak. I got our mowing done for the year yesterday.

We are supposed to get rain this weekend. We'll all be kind of glad since everything is so dusty. Out here, it's better if we get rain once in a while to keep the dust on the gravel roads down. I'm kind of waiting until we get some rain before washing the windows and other things.

My Pilot has a 4 wheel drive light on so taking it to be "scanned" this afternoon. Driving in corn fields probably wasn't real good for it.

Mom & I may be going this afternoon to check out a new bakery and place to go for lunch in Manson. We read about it in the Sun. paper. It would be nice to have a new, nice place to go for lunch around here.