More friends blogging...

Within the last week or so, two friends of our family have started up their own blogs! I thought I'd share the links here so that you can "Meet" them too. :)

Visit our neighbor, Tamera's blog at: http://tamerasvanes.blogspot.com/

and visit our friend, Kimberly's blog at: http://kimberly-quietmysoul.blogspot.com/.

It is so neat to be able to go to your blogs, ladies and see what's happening in your lives now!!! Keep up the good work...

Was today a re-run of yesterday?

...Parts of it seemed that way! For instance, the guys worked on hay; some weeds got pulled in the garden; Mom and I worked on laundry; the calves needed to be fed their water this afternoon; our lunch was eaten without Dad again as he was out baling; and the cows broke out and the same neighbor told us about it! This time, though, it was morning and bright daylight, so we were able to see the fence better to really fix it. Thankfully, the Ram worked just fine for me this time, so that was an improvement. (When Andrew checked on the cows tonight, they were still in the fence, so hopefully they've got their foolishness out of their system for the year!)

Another difference of today and yesterday was that my dad mowed all of the ditches around the place here this afternoon, so things look much nicer now. It's amazing how giving the grass a haircut can improve it's appearance so much! I guess it works that way with people too. :)

"Life"

~by Clell G. Gannon

To hear the first sweet meadowlark of spring,
To hear the thrasher singing from the wood,
To hear the willet calling on the wing,
--That is good.

To feel the beat of clean and wholesome rains,
To see the wind, reverberating, swell
The fields of wheat and sweep across the plains,
--That is well.

To climb a butte when night begins to thirst
For draughts of light; to leave a world of strife
And at the butte's far top see sunrise burst,
--That is life!

"Ring, Ring, Your cows are out!"

That's right, they were... I got a phone call from a neighbor at 10:00 tonight, stating that our cows were in his field. "Oh no!" I rushed out to the shop where the guys were switching tires around on tractors and told them the news. Everyone dropped everything (gently) and got ready to go. Jacob & I went in Andrew's Ram; Dad and Andrew took their dirt-bikes; and Mom was still in Bismarck, so missed out on the fun. As it was nearly dark out when we headed up the road, I didn't appreciate it when the headlights went off and the motor stopped in the Ram! Thankfully the guys were behind me on their bikes and were able to get me going again, only to have more trouble down the road. I finally worked out this system--I could leave the lights on dim while cruising down the road, and then turn them off when I needed to make the corner! We made it safely up to the pasture (about 4 miles NW of our place) and, after the cows were in and the fence was fixed, Andrew had a moment to look under the hood of the Ram. Thankfully he had his flashlight along! He found that the grounding wire on the battery (I think that's what he said it was?) wasn't connecting very well, so he fixed it and we had a delightful journey home, where we found Mother waiting for us.

The earlier part of our day was spent in the hay field for most of my family, and in the garden for me. One of my/our afternoon chores every hot day is to feed a bottle of water to all 10 of the calves. A few of them are fighting the usual scours bug that they get after the stress of moving to a new place, so that takes extra work to deal with.

Oh, I took some pictures of our garden today. It's finally looking like something more than a giant weed-patch, so I thought I'd share the pictures here:

The potatoes are really doing well...
The zucchini are too...
The corn is already knee-high on me--if I pull the leaf up! This is open-pollinated popcorn...

And now it's time to get some rest, as I think we have a long day ahead of us once more, come sunrise.

The celebration in Braddock, North Dakota...

There is a little town about 8 miles West of us called Braddock. It is now 125 years old and there was a big celebration there over the weekend. We were too busy to attend on Friday, but we all spent some time there yesterday.

First thing we saw was the good-sized-for-a-little-town parade. We're getting to know more people in this area all the time, so recognized a few smiling faces...

There were quite a few tractors and old cars driven through the parade...

My dad liked this car, as it reminded him of his car that he had as a young man--except his was bright yellow with a couple of black stripes down the front and back of it!

There were several horses to see too. Small ones;

....big ones;

...and some in the middle.

There were a lot of floats too, but I thought these were the most interesting ones...

After the parade was over, we found Braddock's park and ate our picnic lunch there before heading to main street to find the tent where there was special music going on. We listened to the Beseler Sisters for a little while, but we didn't care for their style of singing and decided to walk around and see the sites.
The next performance was by a yodeling cowgirl, but we had got to visiting with a couple guys Dad knows before we made it into the tent, so we didn't hear her whole performance.

The main interest for our family was the Strolling Strings group from Bismarck. One of our friends, Mikayla Geiger (in the middle of the picture below) plays piano for the group, so we were able to get a quick "Hi" in before she had to go on stage. It started to rain just as the music began to play, so lots of people crowded under the tent and enjoyed the songs. They had some really neat selections and it was really neat to see them playing while moving amongst the crowd!

We decided to go home then and rest a bit and listen to a Dr. Davis tape--"When Silence is Sin".

At dusk, we headed back to Braddock for the fireworks display. The weather was nice; the mosquitoes were somewhat tolerable; and the fireworks were great!

That was our happy day~

Braddock's celebration...

We had a pleasant day, but as I'd like to post several pictures and it's late now, I think I'll wait 'til tomorrow to tell you of the events of this day... :)

Friends visit; first bales; and flower beds...

Aren't these flowers cheerful? I'll tell you about them later...

Here's a quick catch-up post of the events of the last 2 days...

The guys got the new motor put in the tractor and drove it out of the shop this afternoon. Hooray! This picture is from yesterday--when the tractor was still split in two...

You may already have read on my mom's blog that we had company last night... Two of the Stover young people stopped in on their way to help some other friends prepare for an event. Jonathan and Sarah came late yesterday afternoon, planning to only visit for a little while and join us for supper, then head for their other friends' place, but we twisted their arms and they decided to spend the night too. :)

Here the guys are visiting over by the shop...

Sarah was a big help during chores--milking cows and goats and feeding calves...

And here's another calf-feeding picture...

Andrew let Jonathan try out his new wheels...

Sarah had fun snapping pictures as fast--or faster than we did!
I think Andrew must have taken this picture this morning, while we ladies were doing the breakfast dishes...

Jonathan & Sarah, it was really great having you here (we missed you though, Hannah!) and I hope you enjoyed your stay with us as well as we enjoyed having you. Please stop in again anytime you're in our area!

After the Stovers left this morning, and after our chores were through, we all headed out to the alfalfa field to see how our "New" baler would work.

The guys had a few troubles until they got it all adjusted right, but then things worked well. In this picture, you can see the very first bale being made...

Millie of course had to join us out there too, but after watching what we were up to for a while, she decided to move on and look for something to eat or play with...

This afternoon, Mom and I worked in the garden quite a while again and then decided to take a break from that and to plant our flower bed with the flowers we got from 2 different families who grew them from seed. I tilled the area up and then arranged the flowers and spaced them and Mother worked on planting them. I helped her when I finished with my job...

It's hard to see in the picture here, but we planted Petunias, Black Eyed Susans, Moss Roses, and a little pink flower which I'd never seen before and which I'm not remembering the name of currently.

Right before supper, Andrew got out the lawn mower he had been working on a while back (someone gave it to us, as there was a hole in the side of the motor--which he patched somehow) and he put the "Blade assembly" (or whatever that's called?) back on and took it for a spin... It worked really well and he was able to cut the grass faster with this mower than we could with either of our other rider mowers! Great work, brother!

It rained tonight, so we won't be doing too much haying; gardening; or mowing anytime real soon. It came just in time for a good day's rest!

What chefs do in the rest of their spare time...