Illinois Weekend

Too much time had gone by since our last visit to Grandpa and Grandma Schrag's house and it's been truly wonderful to be together again. We of course had seen them several times in the past year, but it was high time to be at their house again. Andy, Lia and Otto-the-dog came, too!

Here are some of the random photos I snapped - simply capturing moments throughout the weekend. 

One thing is a constant when we're together - coffee and a counter top full of food. 

 Tim and Sue live in a woodsy neighborhood. We always enjoy the trees and nature around us when we're here.

 We walked down, around and over to a creek and found a tiny mountain to climb,

 some ice to crunch,

 and some crazy faces looking up at us from the ice.

 Mr. Otto, is a dog full of personality and curiosity. Levi spent a lot of time "playing" with Otto throughout the weekend.

 Andy and Lia made three pies on Thursday morning! They did a lovely, lovely job: key lime, pumpkin and chocolate pecan.

 Left over pie crust was transformed into mini-cinnamon rolls.

 Levi and Otto would even wear out together - chillin' on the couch after a full day of play.

 We stopped in to check on one of Tim's favorite fishing spots. In the past several weeks he'd caught enough fish there so we could enjoy a wonderful fried fish supper.

 There's a wind farm just outside of Bloomington Normal. It's always mesmerizing to see all the turbines spinning in the wind.

 A couple fires were made, and bunch of marshmallows were consumed.

One thing that I didn't photograph was the football that was watched, or the Wii and iPad that were played. I also missed a great opportunity to photograph a contentiously fun game of croquet.

Levi's Store

Levi, with his active imagination, keeps very busy at home. Last week, he set up his own retail clothing store. Complete with clothing and money.

When you come to shop at his store, he gives you money to spend. Once you've picked out the items you'd like to purchase you pay Levi. He rings up the items, puts them in a bag and gives you back your change - usually more money then you even paid for the items!

For the shopper, it's an ideal situation - get money when you walk in, spend it and then get even more money back in change!

He's a very friendly and generous shopkeeper.

AND! He lost his first tooth - with the permanent tooth coming up right behind it.

If you're in the neighborhood you should stop by to shop! ;-)

Meet Harold

Harold is the newest member of our farm family. He's a two-year old Lab mix that we got at the Humane Society in Wichita on Sunday. 

 He's FULL of energy, hence the blurry photos. :-)

 The good news is that he's already learning some new and improved behavior and we have high hopes for him to continue to learn and get used to his new place. The other animals on the farm are not sure what to think of him. The one thing we know is that the chickens and kittens should be fearful of him, although so far they seem more curious than fear filled.

Hopefully, we can get everyone to get along before too long.

Exploring with the boys

Fence building to contain cattle continues over at my uncle and aunt's farm so while the farmers worked on that, the boys and I went exploring. Their place is beautiful, with a fantastic barn, and creek and pasture for us to check out.

Chucking hedge apples into the creek was a ton of fun for a little while. Then they decided it was time to follow the creek and see what we'd find. 

 It dawned on me that these simple moments are actually incredibly precious times. We knew exactly where we were, but it was also easy to simply forget and feel like we were truly exploring a new place. There will come a time when they don't have time or desire to walk around in a pasture with their mother. I hope that time's a long way down the road, but time really does fly, and it'll be here before I know it.

 It's amazing how much fun we can have just seeing what's around the next bend or following the animal tracks - it's the simple things in life.

We even found a beach! 

 I made good on a promise to the boys (while Ben was away reffing basketball) in the afternoon and took them to the last Bethel football game. The Threshers won! The boys watched a bunch of the game, but also had fun playing football on the grass with new friends. Afterwards, cousin Braden told the boys they could run around on the field so they took full advantage of that opportunity!

 On our way out of the stadium Levi asked me what this stone was, so we got to have a little discussion about threshing stones. Noah told me he'd like to play football at Bethel when he's old enough. Time will tell - but truth be told, I would be perfectly happy if Noah went to Bethel but didn't play football.

 

Tomatoes

Tomato season in my garden ended in October when we got a freakishly early snow. Sadly, my tomato plants were finally looking their best....in October! This photo is from an early morning garden harvest earlier in the summer.

 Since it seemed like my tomato plants would never produce enough fruit for me to can much of anything, I simply put all the tomatoes in the freezer. I got a bunch of tomatoes from my aunt and my cousin and ended up with 16 gallon bags of frozen tomatoes.

 Thursday I took a vacation day from work to can tomatoes. It wasn't until that morning that I counted the bags of frozen tomatoes. I was shocked to find out how much I had to work with. I started removing skins and cooking tomatoes down when Ben walked through the kitchen and asked, why aren't you using the Victorio?  Duh! I was wasting time doing steps the Victorio would do for me. Then I started kicking myself for not having all the tomatoes defrosted . Clearly, I had not thought this through. Regardless, I put my head down and worked the tomatoes.

 The chickens loved the tomato scraps I threw out into the garden for them.

I started at 7am and finished up at 11pm. I took a few breaks in there, but it was certainly a long day. Our whole house smelled like tomato sauce, I smelled like tomatoes and wanted nothing else to do with them. 

But the next morning there was this waiting for me in the kitchen: 27 pints and 7 quarts. And as much as I enjoy canning, it was also really nice to give the canner a good scrub and put it away for the winter.

Changes

I've said it before, and it's still true, I love how things are always changing around the farm. The fields turn from brown to bright grassy green at the same time that the leaves turn from deep green to yellow to brown.

 The oldest tractor on the farm came out of retirement to help feed the cattle.

 The cattle are learning the feeding routine. They follow where the tractor goes and then still seem surprised when their food shows up.

 Watching them eat makes me soooooooooooo thirsty. Goodness.

 It's getting colder outside, the season of playing in the dirt with tractors, trucks and pots and pans is over.

 The cattle have provided not only a change in scenery, but a change in smell to the farm. Those perked up ears mean only one thing - they're about to run!

 We went on a walk on Sunday afternoon and noticed on how quickly the cattle have changed the ground inside their pen from grassy to dirt/mud.

 Sunday was a lovely day. We went out to the creek and the boys served us "coffee" and "snacks" from their "coffee shop." Axle and the cats followed us out to the creek, and of course that brings me to another change.

 The pile of leaves is still outside the house where Axle died. It's so strange to not have him here.

Basketball season has begun for Ben. That gives me a lot more time to be a single parent - for better or worse. To keep busy during these long evenings in the house, we've been playing games and putting together puzzles. Some evenings that goes really well, others not so much.
The changes just keep coming around here.

Goodbye Axle

Our dog Axle died today. He was our dog for less than two years, but he certainly became a part of our farm and family in that time.

 He was always at our side, walking all over the farm, providing protection to our cats and chickens, keeping us company, giving us a sense of security.

 But today, after being his usual cheerful-self, after eating his usual breakfast, saying good-bye to each of us as we left for the day, he curled up in his favorite pile of leaves and died. Levi and I raked that pile on Saturday, Levi put flags around it for fun, and Axle had spent most of his outside-sleeping time in that pile the last few days.

 The skid steer took Axle to his final resting place. I was so sad, but the fact that the boys and I were following a skid steer to bury Axle did make me chuckle. All along with Axle, we've found ourselves bouncing back and forth from "He's a dog....." to "Well, we don't want him to be too cold/hungry/miserable/in pain." Never able to keep him firmly in the category of "farm dog" but instead constantly allowing him to be one of us.

 One hundred steers were in attendance as we said farewell. No, we didn't sing any songs or say any prayers. It was surprising to me that Levi suddenly popped out with, "You mean we can't see Axle again?!" with tears running down his cheeks. That prompted us all to tears for a little bit, then the moment passed. It was like we just needed that one last cry.

I have to admit, I've shed more tears over this dog then I ever thought I would. He was the perfect first dog for our family. He taught us to love dogs, or at least he showed us how easy it was to love him.

Grinding Hay

Declaring something to be "exciting" is really a matter of opinion and perspective. So in our opinion and from our perspective it was very exciting when the hay grinding contraption drove onto the farmyard on Saturday morning. 

I've always found it funny when a person arrives at the farm to do this type of work. They arrive and the farmers could be anywhere! In the house, the barn, the shed, the other shed, the other barn, out back by the bales, etc. It's always been funny to me how that initial personal contact gets negotiated.

Regardless, the hay grinding man and the farmers found each other while the boys quickly got dressed to go outside and watch. That's the best way to get them out of their jammies on a Saturday morning, no doubt!

The Mighty Giant is an impressive piece of equipment. We watched from a distance while the operator swung the auger out, unfurled the long claw arm and then turned on the loud motor!

The boys' eyes were glittering like it was Christmas morning when the first poofs of chopped hay and dust came flying out of the machine.

The dust got so bad we moved away, then a bit further away, then a bit further and finally ended up on the other side so we were upwind. What a relief!

The operator of the hay grinder controlled his machine with levers and buttons in the small cab where he sat. Otherwise, it required one person driving the tractor to keep a steady source of bails for the machine to "eat". The claw arm grabbed the bale from the ground, lifts it up and then drops it in the round spinning grinder. It spins and disappears - like, pouf! Crazy.

In the end, there was a tall mountain of food for the cattle.

Hmmmm.....yummy...actually, it makes me super thirsty just thinking about eating that.

We kept a close eye on the operation, only getting distracted by frosted leaves and tree trunks.

I thought that maybe I could get them to smile so I'd have a photo for our Christmas card, but nope.

Nothing but silliness from this one.

And Noah wasn't in the mood - he gave me the "are you serious?!" look when I asked them to move closer together and smile again for another photo.

The lasts puffs of straw and dust and suddenly the project was complete! We all headed back inside and the boys gladly gulped down hot warm chocolate to warm up.
And that was the excitement on the farm for Saturday! Unless you count the football, volleyball, baseball, tennis and soccer games that the boys and I played in the afternoon.  Ben was away working his first college basketball game, so we created our own fun with a whirlwind of backyard athletics.