Whew. I think I'm back.

Okay - our week is over - but you know what? I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

Jessie love, love, loved girl scout day camp. It helped also that she had 6 other friends from her troop there (but then again, she enjoyed it last year and she was the only one from her troop). It was funny - it was my job to pick them up most afternoons and ferry them all home - the first night they were wound - and each night got a little quieter until Friday night no one made a peep.

VBS was great - both kids liked it and are ready to go again. Water balloon fights (that our PASTOR initiated by taking water balloons into the sanctuary and getting the kids to run outside where he pelted them). Todd went with me 1 night to VBS - and about died watching all these kids run wild through the sanctuary. But as 1 lady told him - our church wants the kids to enjoy coming and participating. hmmm. I believe we belong to a very laid back church.

Tyler is in the green tshirt - Jessie in the pink tank top.

Of course, by the time I got home from dropping all the girls off, it was 4:30 usually, and we had to leave for VBS by 5:30 - so dinner was a LOT on the fly. For myself, I forget what dinner tastes like....maybe tonight.

I did find some time to do a little retail therapy - on my way to pick up the girls, I drove right by my favorite quilt shop - so of course, I had to stop and support the local economy, right? And they were having a Anniversary sale - 30% off of all fabric!






11 yards doesn't look like much, does it (she sells a LOT of fat 1/2's and a few fat 1/4's)? This will be made into a bagsket, pincushions, knitting needle holder and who knows what else.


We also did 4-H on Wednesday night - field trip to a local dairy - before VBS. Jessie was impressed, and came home asking if she could show a dairy calf next year at the fair. We'll have to work on that one....


And Todd decided to bale straw. Actually, we have friends that combined their wheat, and didn't want the straw - so it was ours for the baling. 14 big squares and 200 small squares. He arranged with a local farmer to bale the big squares for us - at $10 a bale to bale it, I'm happy.


Now this weekend it's clean my house, harvest some herbs to dry, work with the 2 calves going to our county fair (more Todd's job than mine), and do some sewing. This will seem relaxing after this week!
Kris

Week from %()#&%)(#

I may or may not be around this week in bloggyland - this week will be insane! I'll try and check in with ya'll, but....no promises here.

I work from 8-2 every day (and we are gearing up for our District Conference the last weekend in July, and guess who's job it is to get everything ready for that? - MINE), Jessie is at girl scout camp every day that is done at 3 each afternoon, so I run to the next town from work, pick her and 3 other girls up every day and run everyone home, and then Jessie and Tyler have Vacation Bible School every night this week from 6-8:30, Jessie has therapy tuesday and thursday from 4-5 or so, and the kids have 4-h tomorrow night at 5:30.

Can I cram anything else into this week? no wait, don't answer this.

I also want to thank everyone for their comments on both my give-away post and the Quilt to Finish for the Fair post - this post is 136 (I said I was not paying attention) and I am going to finish the Pinwheel Quilt for the fair, and, time permitting, my Seeing Stars quilt as well. We shall see. Jessie wants her Log Cabin quilt to go in as well, so .....

4 more weeks until school starts and then things may calm down......no wait, both kids are in fall soccer........

And the photo above - that's half of a table runner that I made oh about a year ago, and my Mom confiscated it for her house. I have enough to do another one for me - maybe someday....

OOPS

I just thought to look - and I am way over on 100 posts.

So, for my error, a give away is in the works. Haven't a clue what I will make the lucky person, but leave a comment before July 25th (on this post or any post after this one) and I will draw a name or 2 and make the lucky person(s) something.

Enjoy,
Kris

Weekend work

We (ahem, rather TODD) turned this:

(Asphalt grindings from a recent-road-resurfacing- around-the-corner-dirt-cheap-turned-into-barn-flooring to prevent a pond in the barn when it rains).

Into this:




Which we will stack our roundbales on once it is packed down (eventually the whole barn floor will be like this - no more mud).

And we finally got calves weaned, which I will post about later. And I worked out in my garden, and we had friends and Grandparents over for dinner both nights. But that has been it for the weekend.

And of course, it was so stinking hot, we had to do this as well:




Kris

A. Very. Important. Question.

A good quilty friend called me last night. Entries in the Quilting division are down for our County Fair coming up the middle of September (8 weeks away - at least she gave me plenty of time!).

Do I have anything I can enter?

I have this:

Patchwork Block of the Month

This:

Seeing Stars Quilt A Long

(for a finished version, click here)

Or this:

30's Pinwheels

Which one do you think??? Am I insane?


(And of course, none of them are finished yet - I do have the backing, batting and binding for the pinwheels - I'm just procrastinating on actually finishing it).


Leave me a comment or vote on the sidebar. Help me decide if I should stress myself out and do this, please!!

Kris

Blah.

Now it's time for a little rambling ranting:

What a crazy week. Between these insane rain showers that dump an inch of rain in 45 minutes, and then send the temp. back up to the high 80's, and our idiotic neighbor who actually sued us for keeping our cows and baling hay - if I could say "chuck it all and move to the city, I would."

But then we wouldn't have these (which sure do taste yummy in our freezer - and we are the only ones of our friends who can truthfully say we eat steaks once or twice a week for most of the year):

So we deal with the neighbor (who isn't actually a neighbor, but he is 3 properties away from ours - I think he needs meds - heck, there are days I KNOW I need meds myself) by going to our attorney, getting every other lot owner in our allotment to sign an Affidavit saying our cows and our farming are not obnoxious and offensive, and pulling out all our tax returns to prove that we are not farming commercialy, this is not our main source of income (or even a second or third source of income), pulling our property's zoning ordinance that shows that we are zoned in an Agricultural District (and are thus exempt from stupid restrictions), and we claimed he just filed a nuisance lawsuit, and with any luck, his attorney will convince him next week to back down and life will be good as we know and love it.

Just to give you an idea of how ignorant he is - all of our cows are beef cows - he also alleges in his Complaint that we are selling the milk we get off of our DAIRY COWS privately to individuals for human consumption.

Note to self: Never, ever, ever again buy a 20 acre lot in an allotment where there are very unclear and vague restrictions governing said lots, one of which is "no swine or poultry shall be harbored on said lots, nor any other commercial operation that becomes obnoxious or offensive to residential use." I certainly did not buying 20 acres to look at weeds and spend every day on a lawn mower. Unfortunately for us, this neighbor thinks these restrictions are gospel.

Fortunately for us, our neighbors who are actually adjacent to us love our cows, love us, and love to see Todd and Tyler out there on the tractor baling hay. Our neighbors must not be able to hear the cows and calves bawling when it is weaning time:)

And you can bet your butt those stupid restrictions are being changed as we speak, as we only need 2/3 of the lot owners to agree to change them, and we have 21 out of 22 lot owners agreeing to change them (and you can guess who the one is that doesn't want them changed!!)

No sewing has been done since earlier in the week - but I'm hoping to pull my 4th finish for July out of my hat by Sunday night!! We'll see how successful I am. And I do have a package to mail off to a dear friend, hopefully I will get it in the mail tomorrow-I am the loser now!!

And you're seeing the daylillies because they have just started to bloom, and I love the colors!
Kris

Farming Down Time

Every year, we get a little bit of a break in farm activities - which is always nice.
Our corn is growing:


The calves are growing:


Hay is made:


The garden looks decent (note - I did NOT say my garden looks wonderful - I need to get out there and control the grass in some spots):



But, we are at the point where we can take a little breather.

Of course, straw will be ready to bale in the next couple of weeks, and probably our second cutting of hay will be ready at the same time.

On the game plan for this week:

*wean calves
*get a few cows ready to ship to auction (we are upgrading our herd in anticipation of the kids showing steers at our County Fair)
*garden, garden, garden
*AND try to avoid the rain!! Last night coming home from Jessie's physical therapy, we were deluged with a horrific lightning storm/rain combo. Bad enough that even I pulled off the road to wait it out. 1 inch of rain in 45 minutes. No power for most of the evening so we enjoyed a nice, QUIET evening.

That's about it 'round here.

Kris