It's been lovely weather...

...for hanging clothes out on the line! I also spent a while in the garden, clearing off the stubble and putting it in a big pile to burn on a less windy day. (I had to put a couple old tires on top of the pile to make sure they stayed put.)

The guys were busy in the shop all day (except Dad did go over and load another load of hay to be sold). Jacob has his pickup fixed now (with some help from Andrew and maybe Dad?)! It is really nice and Jacob likes the fact that it is loud......a guy thing. :) Andrew fixed the problem on his Stratus, so I get to test-drive it again tomorrow. He said they put my car in the shop today!!!!! I don't think I said that Andrew bought a white truck last Friday, so Dad will be using that to pull his cleaner with while Andrew uses Dad's semi to pull his larger rig. :) It's so nice that we can all work together like this to make things work!

Speaking of tomorrow though... I'm excited as I'll be starting a new part-time job, babysitting at least 1 day a week for a family who live about 12 miles NW of us. They have 2 young girls and I can hardly wait to spend time with them! The baby is just 11 weeks old. :) (Thanks so much, Kristi and Stacey for the referral!)

In a couple days, Dad and Andrew will start in on the grain-cleaning season, which means we won't be seeing much of them for the next 3 or so weeks! They'll come home late at night, dusty, hoarse and exhausted, but with nice checks in their billfolds. Jacob will be in charge of taking care of the cattle while they're gone. If you would pray for safety and for all to go well during this very busy season, that would be wonderful!

Meanwhile, Mom and I will be planning our garden while enjoying the feel of a cool breeze coming in the open windows and the sound of geese honking their cheery greetings to the countryside.

"Thank you, Lord, for Spring!" :)

It opened!

...and it smells so sweet! To be honest, I didn't keep very good track of which dwarf fruit tree was which when I transplanted them out of the greenhouse last Fall, so it will be a surprise fruit. :) Time will tell....

This afternoon/evening, I waxed my Colby cheese.

That's the funniest kind of painting I've ever done!

I sure wonder how the cheese will TASTE! Time will tell.....

As the Endorsing Convention was canceled due to a blizzard on its way, our company did not come and we spent the day working on taxes and paperwork.

I may have found the car I'd like to buy (on BisMan).... Andrew called the owner and spoke for the car, so it will either be mine (if I like it when I "Meet" it) or he will fix it up and resell it. Time will tell...

Our life is so exciting!

"Thank you Lord for interesting bends in our road each day!"

Is it Spring already?

This has been like no other ND winter that I remember! Today the thermometer registered the temp. in the 50s (F) and there was mud on the driveway. It was so lovely, in fact, that I decided to clean out the greenhouse a bit so as to be ready for spring when it truly does come! The warm days are so wonderful for the 10 or so baby calves that have been born as of late too...........

Mother and Jacob spent quite a bit of time on Jacob's school lessons. Andrew was in Bismarck for most of the day, as he took his black Charger police-car up to get the wheels balanced and to get some fancy lettering done on the sides where the word, "Sheriff" used to be. :) (I'm sure he'll be sharing pictures soon.)

Dad spent a good part of the morning in Napoleon, getting supplies and doing some banking business.

Yes, once again I'll say, "It was a good day!"

Day #8...

Today, I am especially thankful for:

POTATOES!

We've waited this long to dig our potatoes/carrots from the field, as the guys have been so busy and we knew this would be a big project that we'd need their help with. Andrew was home today, however, as was myself and Mother AND Jacob, so we spent most of our day working on bringing the potatoes in.

This Spring, we planted, what was it?, 300 lbs of potatoes so as to have extras this Fall to sell. They produced pretty well and we didn't even get the first row completely dug today (and there are 4 rows to do.)

Andrew went along the row with the small plow and dug up the potatoes. The plants were hard to see, however, and if he didn't get it just in the right location, the dirt would pile back on top of the potatoes, which meant we had to dig for them...

Mom and the boys:

We were very thankful for the lovely day (although it did get pretty cold when the sun set)!

My brothers and I:

Occasionally, we'd find a large turnip that came from the cover-crop planted just beside the potatoes. Jacob thought they made excellent throw-toys (and they really did go far!). We hauled a few in for the goats as well. :)
We took a 5-minute carrot eating break and laid down for a little while to stretch out our tired muscles. Can you see my brothers and I? We're camouflaged pretty well!

It was a great, 'though tiresome day!

CORN!

The guys worked on bringing in our Organic, non-GMO corn from the fields today. God has been blessing us with warm weather lately. It was just lovely outside!!!

Mom and I spent the afternoon cleaning off the garden some more. We also worked on apples quite a bit and currently have apple butter simmering in the oven. :) We carried more pumpkins and squash downstairs and Mom oiled them (which helps them to keep a lot longer...)

Happy Fall to y'all!

Friends, pictures, and pictures of friends. :)

To start this post out, I'll post a picture of one of my recent sewing projects... One of my coworkers gave me a brand new skirt she'd bought but then decided she didn't have anything to wear with it and thought I might like it. I did like it, very much, except that it was a little too short for my comfort, so I dug in my sewing pile to see what I could do to improve the situation. I found a skirt that I'd bought a while back at a second hand store that had had a slit in it. When I sewed the slit closed, I could no longer walk comfortably in the skirt, so there it sat. Now, however, I had just what I needed to make my new skirt wearable. I combined the 2 skirts and here is the end result: (I also made the bows out of extra fabric from the shorter skirt, the one bow that's laying on the brown shirt is a hair-bow I made and sewed onto a hair clip.)
Here's a picture of my little citrus trees: I lugged them inside tonight, as it felt pretty cold out when Jacob and I did chores this evening!

The other day, when Jacob and I were hauling in garden produce, we discovered 2 watermelons I did not realize had even grown! The large melon grew right beside one of the greenhouse posts, which is why it has a nice big crease in the side of it.

This afternoon, our friends, the Geigers came (actually, just a few of them came) to get some more Organic corn and oats for their chickens. They are trading us several chickens for the grain, so we are all happy!

I was thrilled when I heard that my dear friend, Miranda would be able to come along this time!!!!! She helped me in the kitchen for a while when the others were working on the grain outside. It's been SO long since we've seen each other (half a year, I believe), so it was such a treat to have a couple hours to visit with Miranda and her family!

Jacob and Josiah---and some remaining fruit pizza. :)

I had fun this evening playing in my new music book, "Jane Austen's World" which arrived in the mail today! The melodies are so beautiful.......

Well, Dad and Andrew will be pulling in the yard any minute now, so I'd best go make sure supper is ready. Mother got home about an hour ago, so we will soon be all together again, Lord willing, of course.

Until tomorrow,

~Cora

Rosy red apples....

This morning, Mother, the boys and I drove over to a "Neighbor's" place (about 10 miles from here) to pick apples. Their apples are very large and beautiful and they taste almost like pears--nice and sweet. :) As long as we had everything along in Andrew's pickup, (boxes, ladder, and the apple-picker Andrew built this morning) when we drove home, we kept on going past our place and headed up to our neighbor's place (half a mile up the road) to pick some of the apples from their tree. Those neighbors are hunters from out of state, so they were not there, but they had told us earlier that they'd like us to use the apples from their tree so they don't go to waste like they did last year. We are very grateful to oblige!

SO, we feel very blessed right now, and our kitchen smelled of apples all afternoon as a batch of apple sauce/juice simmered in our steam juicer on the stove. :)

Jacob and I spent some time hauling more pumpkins and squash in from the garden and down the steep steps into our basement for future use. We also found 2 large watermelons hidden in the greenhouse! Then, I dug out 6 largish pots from the shed and Jacob helped me puts rocks in the bottom of them before I transplanted my dwarf fruit trees inside. We loaded the pots into the little red wagon and hauled them to the house where they'll be safe all Winter, Lord willing---and providing I can figure out how to take care of them indoors....

My dad is going to be very busy hauling grain for the next 2 months, mainly hauling for one farmer---a long time customer/client. Today, Andrew started working for this same farmer, driving the grain cart back and forth from the combine to the semi, then back to the combine again, then to the semi to dump, then back to the combine to load............... I asked him tonight if he was bored yet? He said that, "No," he wasn't, but by the time he's done with this job (which could last 3+weeks) he's pretty sure he'll be ready to do something else!

We are nearly done with our own field harvest. The corn is left, but is too wet to combine currently. Every once in a while, a truck comes from down South for a load of hay, so that is a real blessing this year. We actually have 2 different people buying hay from us now, and we never even advertised that we had hay for sale! The Lord just opened the doors, and we feel blessed.

Yes, blessed is a good way to describe how I'm feeling tonight. :)

I hope you also are feeling blessed this Autumn evening!

PS. I was not feeling quite so chipper this afternoon, however, when I tried loading the 60+ pictures I'd taken today and somehow lost all but 3 of them.... :(

Raspberries for the future, Lord willing...

Mother, Jacob and I spent some time out in the bright sunshine, picking green tomatoes off of the vines. We've been waiting for them to ripen out of doors, but decided to let them turn red inside now, as it is getting quite late in the season and we don't want the tomatoes to freeze at night....


While I was down at the Keisters' house, Sarah asked if I'd like to dig up some of their raspberry plants to take home. As we've talked about getting raspberries before, but never did, I knew this was the time to do it! I finally got them transplanted into the garden today. There is a total of 36 plants. Hopefully most of them will "Take" and produce and reproduce like Sarah's have! Sarah also gave me several lily bulbs which I am very excited about! I planted them today also.

I have often admired this picture while at the Keisters' home and was so pleased when Sarah said I could have it---as something to remember them by. :) I'm thinking it might have to join my other "Future home" items up in the attic for the time being though, as all our walls are full and this is quite a large wall hanging....

Mother had clients here again this afternoon. Dad hauled grain all day, except for when he combined flax this evening. Andrew spent most of the day in the combine, except for when a tire went flat and he and Jacob had to change it. Jacob helped in the garden for a while and also helped Andrew with odds and ends, and swathed down the cover crop that was planted this Spring.... It was a good day!

Friends and gardens...

This first picture is of the Teeter-Totter, after I painted the metal part a bright silvery color....

The strawberry plants I transplanted into the "Pyramid" earlier this year are doing quite well! We even got a couple beautiful berries from them this Summer.

This is my jungle:

It is on the inside of my round garden. The path is disappearing from view more each day!

There is a bit of Love-in-a-mist in my round garden:

...and some volunteer Indian corn from last year...

My zucchinis are finally coming along... Pretty soon we can EAT them!

These sunny little flowers popped up in my new flower bed and, as they were part of a mix, I do not know what variety they are? The flower is mainly a pail yellow color and then is fringed in white. Could it be a Daisy?

This is how our Buttercup squash is doing...

Our squash/melon jungle:

As the cord (to pull start it) on our tiller is broken, we haven't used it lately, obviously! I'm not sure where those flowers came from as we didn't plant any there?

Inside our greenhouse area (which I think I mentioned before is no longer a greenhouse, as the big wind storms we've had have ripped the plastic to pieces...)

The Tomatillos (husk tomatoes) are growing and growing and growing, and are generally taking over everything else! Now I need to figure out what to do with them... I've never used Tomatillos before, so am wondering if any of you have, and if so, what is your favorite thing to use them in?

Some of them are very large!

Do you know what that little funny shaped thing is?

It is a fig. :) The leaves of a fig plant remind me of giant maple leaves. See?

We've picked one ripe tomato so far. The rest look like this:

....And, my dear friends, do you know what this giant leaf is from?

Yes, from one of my banana trees!

My Hops vine has done quite well and enjoys the fact that there's no plastic on the roof restricting its growth any more!

Amongst all this greenery,

...I found this muskmelon:

And, amongst this finery, I found,

...this "Moon and Stars" watermelon.

Our garden has been a bit disappointing this year, but we are grateful for the things that are growing and praise the Lord for His very abundant rain showers this year! We've hardly had to do any watering...

In front of our house, I'd planted some Petunias and Pansies in these pots. However, they fizzled out in the top 2 pots for some reason, so I transplanted some Morning Glories in there and they seem to like their new home just fine and are now starting to bloom!

This picture was taken yesterday when the boys took the semi over to Ferns' land to bring a load of hay and the tractor home. My brothers are such a big help on the farm now, it's hard to remember what it was like when they were small and couldn't help out very much. I know Mother spent a lot more time in the fields then... Today, we had company! :) Sarah K. and her children came for a visit (and for some farm products) and it was so lovely out when they arrived that we all headed for the swings...

Ila, looking lovely in the dress her mama sewed for her...

Mother, swinging with sweet little Arianwyn...

When we first met the K. family, Ila was Arianwyns' size. We've been friends ever since and will miss them all so much when they move to SC in October!

Jacob was kind enough to take this picture of all us girls together. :)

I whipped up a batch of pancakes and cream quick, with peach/blueberry sauce to go on top...

Then, as Mom and I are drinking our meals these days, I held the baby while Sarah and Mom helped the other children with their food. When my dad called (he was hauling grain for a farmer), I tried my hand at multi-tasking. :) It turned out that, while we were showing hospitality in our home, someone else was doing the same for my dad and served him a delicious meal at their table. :)

Sarah had her hands (and lap) full after the boys were done eating. I guess a big meal like that makes little boys sleepy! Someone else was sleepy too. Do you see her?

For part of the time while Sarah was here, our boys were fixing up a pen to move our billy goats into. They drug the calf shelter in the pen too, so the goats will have shelter.

After Sarah and all left, we cleaned the house and cooked up some meatloaf; mashed potatoes; and banana cake for the guys' supper. Dad, Andrew and I also hopped on our rider mowers and got all the lawn mowed in about an hour and a half.

It was a good day!