It was a great day!!!

I know I said I'd post in the morning, but I slept in instead and then came chores; then getting the fence up so that the calves can go out in the trees and eat grass; loading up the 3 cows and calves that were still here and taking them up to pasture; and moving the cows up there to another cell and checking that fence......so I'm only now getting to posting pictures!

Yesterday was a GREAT day--thanks to many friends who joined us in the work and celebrating. Thank you to everyone who came!!! We hope you enjoyed your time as well. :)

I'll post some pictures now and write a bit about each one. We had a friend taking pictures for us throughout the day, but won't be getting those pictures for a few days yet. These are the ones that I took though----when I wasn't visiting or working...

Here is the card and gift table that was right inside the door:


Right next to it was another table with the big balloons and the special cake on it:


Here are a few of our guests, as they were coming in:
Andrew had been talking to Mrs. Dagley in this picture, and someone must have just said something funny. :)

My dad is visiting here with Mr. Geiger.

Here Andrew is showing Mrs. Kinzler how some of his Lego machines work.

And here are the pretty ladies at the punch table--Morgan, Amanda, and Molly.

This picture is of some of the Geiger family... (I wish you could have been there too, Miranda!)

And here Mother is trying to get a smile from a sleepy baby. :)

Our program started a little after 2:30. I think Mother is telling about that in depth, so I'll just direct you there (her blog's on my sidebar) if you'd like to read about it. My brothers, Andrew and Jacob played a song together on their instruments during part of the program:

And now it's time to prepare supper, but I'll post more pictures later...

What a wonderful day!

It's very late now, but I just had to post something before falling into bed. My dad's cousin, Jerome just left, so we are just heading for bed now...

Andrew's graduation was a wonderful celebration and we are so grateful to all of our friends who came and helped make the day memorable!!!

I'll post pictures in the morning.

Excited!

Well, tomorrow is the big day! We had an enjoyable time decorating the Braddock Community Center this afternoon and I thought I'd post a few pictures quick...

This is what it looked like when we got there:

And this is what it looked like when we left:

Of course, there were a few in-between pictures:

(Gerbers are SO handy...)

I finished decorating the "Special" cake this afternoon. It's perhaps rather unusual, but I thought it was perfect for a young man who has loved building things with Legos for as long as I can remember!

As for the weather--God knows best! We've been praying for lovely weather, and it rained and snowed this morning and afternoon... But, who know--maybe some people will come now who wouldn't have if it had been a bright, sunshiny day? As I said before, God knows best!

Very busy day...

We were all quite ready (and glad) to call it a day when we got in the house for the night! Here's a very quick overview on what we did today:

Dad got the tractor fixed and plowed the rest of the field to the South of our place; Mom got all the last-minute things we needed in Bismarck and got home in time for supper; the boys mowed everything again and mowed some lawn we hadn't mowed earlier, so everything looks nice like a park; I decorated the 2 big cakes for the graduation and have the second 1 crumb-coated and ready for decorating tomorrow; we got the house all cleaned (even the pantry!); the boys took the garbage out to the hole; we got most of the Winter clothes put up in the attic; Dad and Andrew disked and planted from 6:30 'till dark; and the guys even moved our old car away from in front of the house where it's been parked ever since last Fall sometime when the battery went dead and the tire went flat!

Here is a picture of one of the big cakes:

Jacob reassembled our bird feeder, which we had stained and varnished and put a new string on so that it would be as good as new... He then filled it with millet and hung it in one of the apple trees.

Some of our hunting friends from Florida stopped in to say "Hi" this afternoon and it turned out that they didn't realize Andrew's graduation was this Sunday--they thought it was going to be when they were gone! So, it looks like 2 of them will be able to join us--hooray!

And now, I'd best get some sleep... Tomorrow will be a fun day, as we get to do some decorating at the Hall in Braddock and we will be practicing, practicing, practicing for--well, various different things. :)

A picture-full post~

Now it's safe to share my surprise with all of you...

Here it is:

Yes, that's our wash-line. The poles were pretty ugly before, so I thought I'd try to liven them up a bit! Mother especially liked my surprise. :) Below is a picture of one of the flowers up close...

And now for the barnyard update: We have 5 new babies on the place tonight--4 of them are yellow with orange bills and 2 legs and the other 1 is black, with a soft nose and 4 legs... Here are the 4 babies:

This goose may hatch out a couple more goslings by morning. We were so happy to find 4 fluffy cheepers under her tonight, although she wasn't too happy about us snooping!

The black baby with 4 legs was found up in the pasture today by my parents and Andrew when they went to move the cows to their next cell. Apparently, this little guys' mother didn't have enough milk for him, as he could hardly walk. They brought him home so we can give him some TLC and keep a better eye on him. As he is Jacob's calf, Jacob got to name him, and seeing as Jacob likes westerns, he decided to name him John Wayne--John for short. We're hoping "John" will be with us for a long time!

I took some pictures today of the things I did with the dress I posted pictures of a few days ago... First though, I'll just say that Andrew's favorite color is yellow, and he's always liked yellow and black together, so we decided to try to dress accordingly for his special day on Sunday. Consequently, I made a puff (is that what it's called?) for Andrew's (black) suit pocket from the dress material. I had the other 2 "Puffs" in the picture to look at for inspiration...

I sewed ties (the same kind I sewed for the guys at my graduation) for Dad and Jacob:

And I shortened the skirt part of the dress a good deal to make a skirt for myself...

Mother bought a yellow jumper for herself in Bismarck yesterday, so I think we're all set now--clothes wise anyway. :)

I thought I'd share one last picture, just to show you a good place to store your boots and coat when you bounce on a trampoline:

See them up there?

We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow, so I'd best get to bed.

Please join us in praying for lovely weather on Sunday. Thanks--a lot!

A surprise~

Mother left for Bismarck right after chores this morning (after she got cleaned up, that is), as she had a long list of things to do. Dad and Andrew had to go up too, but they wanted to work in the fields for a few hours first, so they left here about 2:00 with the pickup. Andrew had a chiropractic appointment, (his neck had been bothering him and Dr. C. actually said his neck was too straight! Maybe that comes from being too level headed? ) My dad had a financial appointment and also looked at a big-square baler that he's interested in. We've been thinking and praying about getting one for quite some time now, and it seems that this one would fit into our operation quite nicely, so we'll see what tomorrow brings...

With the other being gone, that left Jacob & I home to keep the baked beans going and the gardening progressing. We did several odd jobs around the place too (we tried to fix the deck up a bit; watered the grass; pruned out the dead part of the prickly rose bush; varnished the bird-feeder and our wooden sign that says, "The Bornemanns, Robert & Dawn" on it; etc...) and I worked for a couple hours on a surprise. It wouldn't really be a surprise I couldn't write here, except that the others got home too late to see it and I don't want to write or post pictures about it here in case certain members of my family should read about it before heading outside in the morning to see it... I'll post pictures later, consequently. :)

One of our neighbors (he lives 5 miles away, but we still call him our neighbor!) stopped in to let us know he and his wife won't be able to come to the graduation because of other commitments. We were glad he let us know so we don't have to plan food for them, although we already have a lot of our food purchased. It still is nice to know who will be attending though.

This evening, our neighbor, Stacey called and asked if they could come over quick as Ella had something she wanted to show me. I said, "Yes," of course and then tried to figure out what the something could be? It ended up being that Ella rode her bike without training wheels for the first time today! Stacey brought Ella's bike along so that she could show me her new skill and I must say she did very well for her first day. :) I still very much remember the first time I was showing off my new bike-riding capabilities to my Delzer grandparents.... We lived in a very small town at the time and we owned half of the little elevator down the street. Mother encouraged me to ride down the road and show Grandpa and Grandma how well I could do, and I was happy to oblige. I straddled my rainbow bike, my dad gave me a push, and I was off. I peddled down the gravel road with my grandparents following behind at a distance in their car. I'm not sure quite how it happened, but I decided to drive my bike up the cement ramp of the elevator and somehow I ended up going off the edge of the ramp--which I remember as being about a 6 foot drop-off, although maybe it wasn't that high? I was scratched up a bit and crying when Dad came and helped me out of the weeds, but what was hurt worst was my pride! So, I think Ella did very well tonight. :)

Well, I have a friend I want to write yet tonight (yes, Miranda, that would be you!), so I'm going to post this now and get to it.

Sleep well~

The story of stuff...

As we've been preparing for Sunday, I've been amazed at how much "Stuff" we have everywhere to deal with, stuff to wash, dust, fix, burn, recycle, etc... As we go through our stuff every day, we try to recycle most of what can be recycled, but really, we learned, that is not good enough. We watched this video several months ago and I thought I'd share "The story of stuff" with you today. I hope it helps you as you in some way as you decide what to do with your "Stuff" every day and especially when you look at buying more "Stuff" in the future...

It's Spring and time to plant seeds...

Our favorite Spring place-mats at the table inform us of this fact every time we take the time to read them. And indeed, it is time to get the seeds in the ground! We're pretty sure it's finally done blizzarding in North Dakota. :)


Andrew and Mom took turns discing in one of our fields today and Dad came behind with the planter, planting thousands of sunflower seeds in just a short amount of time. He just got in now for his supper and for a good nights rest.


We got most of our tomato plants out in the garden today and all of the peppers and some onions we had to transplant. Now we just have the spot North of the spuds to plant and then comes weeding galore! Some of our Lima beans are popping their heads out of the earth today and our popcorn was up yesterday, so that's exciting.


I'd like to thank those of you who've been praying for my dad and brothers to get over this nasty cold. Everyone sounds much better today and has more energy... :) PTL! Still, to help our health along, we all juice/fruit fasted today.


I thought I'd post some pictures from yesterday of when the new bulls came. I didn't have the energy last night to load the pictures onto the computer, or I would have posted them then...

Here my dad and Andrew are visiting with Mr. Vetsch a little bit before unloading the bulls.


Andrew's directing traffic... (and if you look real close, you can see the new grass we planted poking up through the straw!)

Meet the newest members of the barnyard, who will stay in this small pen until they're used to their new surroundings. It was so funny--yesterday they were all standing in a row looking towards us, when a goat bawled. All 3 heads turned in the direction of the sound, then when nothing else happened, they looked back at us again. Then a rooster crowed... Head number 1, then 2, then 3 turned once more toward the unfamiliar sound. :) They are much more at ease today though and they thoroughly enjoy the oats we feed them.

There are only 5 more days 'till the graduation! Yikes... Actually, plans have been coming along well and we've been hearing from friends that will be able to attend, so I'm really looking forward to Sunday! I made a double batch of home-made ice cream today for Sunday evening around the campfire, so I hope some people will be able to join us then too...or else the 5 of us will have a lot of ice cream to eat! :)

Thought for the day~

Now I (should) lay me down to sleep...

...But first I thought I'd give a quick update on the happenings of the day...

My dad and Andrew worked on the disc most of the day--except for when Mr. Vetsch came with the 3 bulls Dad had spoken for a while back. They unloaded the little fellas (they're just a year old, so I can still call them that) in a small pen close to the house, so we've been able to listen to all the bellering going on between the new guys and the old bulls. It's amazing all of the different sounds that can come out of the same animal!

Mother, Jacob and I worked in the garden a good while--Mom and Jacob transplanted the cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and pepper plants to the SE of the potato patch and I finished planting the West side of the garden. We still have a block of space to the North of the potato patch, but we're nearing the end. Hooray! I went in the house to prepare supper and then called everyone in when it was ready. We had a hard time dragging Mother away from the potatoes that need weeding though--as she just loves to garden!

Andrew and I finished working on the slide show and we all watched it together tonight. It was lots of fun to reminisce about "The good old days" when we were young. :)

Oh, one more thing I was going to mention before posting this... My bulls stayed away from the electric fence all day! The only problem is, now they've broken down a wire in a different part of their pasture and 2 of the bulls were in the next pasture this morning with 3 cows that we were trying to keep them away from. Animals sure keep life from getting dull!