We got our new anniversary apple trees planted! One is Yellow Delicious and the other is Red Delicious. Our orchard consists of two pear trees and two apple trees now! Thank you mom and dad for our trees!
Redbeard did all of the planting for me. Thanks to him for doing the heavy lifting! I am so excited to see our orchard grow! Our orchard will double in the next month again. We have two Honeycrisp apple trees and two peach trees on their way! I can't wait to start harvesting fruit in a few years!
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| Planting apple tree one |
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| Apple tree # 2 is in the ground! |
Our pear trees are getting ready to grow a lot this spring and summer, or least I hope so! We are so excited to have a little orchard!
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| One of our pear trees from last year. |
What other fruit trees should we add to our orchard?
We are starting to come out of the winter season filled with feeding cattle and planning for the next year of crops. Now is when the long days of fertilizing, planting, harvesting, spraying weeds, and making sure everything else gets done in between. Redbeard has started fertilizing our irrigated fields that will have corn or soybean planted in the next couple months.
The long days have been easier for Redbeard this year. He takes our (not so) little Custer with him. The boys have so much fun in the field!
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| Tired puppy! |
So I will sit back and enjoy the last moments of the Winter schedule and look forward to great opportunities for farm photography!
There is one thing I hate about Christmas coming...SNOW. I absolutely hate winter and the temperature and snow that comes with it. On the upside Christmas and deer season happens when it gets cold, so I tolerate the weather until the snow falls. My dad shares my dislike for snow. In our minds, snow means digging out of the house, driveway, and gravel road and chopping ice for cattle. Not fun! Snow also means bad roads, especially if the snow starts to melt, only to refreeze over night.
Now to show what the snow has messed up in 24 hours. Sunday we were supposed to have a potluck at church to celebrate new members. That means us. Our transfer to First Lutheran is finally complete. It was hard to say goodbye to St. Paul's, but that is part of growing up. I knew the recent snow would interfere with our plans. Redbeard has cattle to give food and water to and with snow and frigid temperatures that means chopping a lot of ice. Plus, the roads were less than ideal.
While he was off tending to cattle, I made a dish for the potluck. I decided macaroni and cheese would be a good addition to the potluck since I didn't have any eggs left to make a dessert. In a short thirty minutes, I let the noodles stick to the pan and boil its slimy noodle juice onto the stove. Yuck! I was trying to do too many things at once. Next time I will focus only on the noodles. I blame it on the yucky snow! It has me going crazy!
Redbeard finally got home right before 11 and church starts at 10:30. We hopped in the truck and made the trip to town. We entered right as they started playing the closing song, but at least we made it for the potluck. Better late than never, right?
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| Here is what the roads looked like on our way to church |
We had a great time at the potluck. I think it was the best potluck I have ever attended! Between cheesy potatoes, macaroni and cheese, beef and pepperoni Pizza Hut pizza, and Hawaiian rolls, I was stuffed! I didn't even eat supper last night!
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| The road on the way back from church...much better, but still not great. |
After church and the potluck, Redbeard and I went out to give a few bunches of cattle some more water. They sure drink a lot, even though it is cold out! Custer came along for the ride and loved every minute of it!
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| Sniffing around |
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| The puppy sits weird sometimes |
Our cattle live on the fields harvested this fall during the winter. This includes corn and grain sorghum fields. The nice part of having the cattle in the fields is they are gaining weight while cleaning up after us! They also leave behind some fertilizer. The "girls" pick up the corn or sorghum reside that was lost out of the combine during harvest and eat it. There is little waste then! They get a bale of alfalfa or other yummy forage to supplement the corn or sorghum. I think they deserve a little treat when they are doing so much work!
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| Some of the cattle eating corn |
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| Redbeard is the official ice chopper |
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| Redbeard ice chopping in action. Don't be fooled, he isn't the only ice chopper. I put the camera down sometimes to chop some ice, also. |
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| The girls eating some alfalfa |
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| "What are you looking at?" |
I blame my long, cold, yucky day on the snow and my long-time hatred for it. It causes problems in our days, but it is nice to go chop ice and feed with Redbeard and Custer even though it is cold.
We have a Thanksgiving tradition at my parent's house. In the afternoon, around 2pm, all the men and I go out to shoot shotguns at clay pigeons. I usually leave the event frustrated because I cannot shoot a shotgun right and I miss almost all the targets. This year I decided I would practice shooting my bow instead. I shot a few arrows when all of the sudden I realized I couldn't see one of my arrows in the bale. Upon further investigation, I found this...
No wonder I couldn't find my other arrow! It was so close to another that it looked like the same arrow. I was pretty proud of my shot. This is the closest I have put two arrows together since I started shooting in October. It isn't a Robin Hood (shooting an arrow into the end of an already shot arrow), but it is the best I have done so far.
My uncle (an awesome bowhunter) helped me out with my shooting form on Thanksgiving, so hopefully great shooting and a deer is in my future! I come from a bowhunting family so there is a lot of pressure to score my first deer!
Redbeard has been dreaming of owning his own dog for almost a year now. He settled for our sweet little kittens for this long (which surprised me a lot), so I decided it was time to add a little puppy to the family.
He researched for months to find the right dog breed for us. RB knew that it would have to be a calm, loving dog for me and a good hunter for him. We settled on a German Wirehaired Pointer. We went to visit the closest breeder last Sunday and fell in love with one of the puppies. His given name was Cyrus. He was cute, cuddly, and calm. We both thought he was the one. We decided to think about it to make sure he would be the one and Saturday afternoon we picked him up!
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| Custer's first picture |
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| Earlier today on their first solo outing |
You will notice I said his name was Cyrus but this blog post is called Custer. That is because I am forgetful. I couldn't remember his name and kept calling him Custer instead. We both liked Custer better, so that is what his name became.
So far Custer has been a very good boy. He doesn't make a mess in the bathroom over night and he waits to go to the bathroom until we come get him. Today he rode along with RB and I when we were fixing fence. Custer rode along quietly and even took a nap.
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| Custer napping |
He even knows how to retrieve his toy already!
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| Custer bringing back his toy less than 24 hours after we picked him up |
We are excited to have our new puppy, Custer!
"I'll tell you when you get here." Ladies of the farm, this is a trap. This is what farmer husbands say when they need help and know that their wife will turn them down if they know what the task is. This happened today.
I got a call and Redbeard was on the other end of the call. He said he needed my help and I should bring my purple Muck boots. I asked him what I was going to do and he responded with "I will tell you when you get here." I am a crazy, gotta know everything that is going on kind of woman so that didn't fly. He preceded to tell me that I would be crossing a river (his words, not mine) to put an insulator on a t-post. I thought, "I don't want to do this, but it will be nice to help Jake." What he didn't tell me was that I would have to climb down a cliff. I am a baby when it comes climbing around steep terrain, as you will see in pictures.
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| I don't know about this, Jake |
At this point I was close to tears. I don't know why I am so afraid of going down steep terrain, but I am.
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| This isn't so bad |
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I will just slide down, I guess.
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Wading in the water in my boots! Why did I wear Redbeard's big jacket?
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| Caught the pliers AND walked to the t-post without falling! |
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| Fixing the t-post insulator, getting handy with the pliers |
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| Making my way to the other post |
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| Job completed! |
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| I even pounded a few posts in before leaving! |
Well, I fell for the trap today. I am glad I went to help Redbeard. I started to conquer my fear of steep, rocky terrain. Maybe next time I won't look like a weirdo sliding down the hill. In the words of Redbeard, "I wish we had this on tape." It would have been entertaining, but then again I think the pictures are embarrassing enough.
As I write this post we are hiding in a row of bales. (Shhhh...don't tell the deer!) We are hoping to get our first good shot together. Redbeard has had a few opportunities to shoot at a deer, but I haven't yet. Of course I need to be a lot closer to the deer than Redbeard.
As you can tell Redbeard was being a little bit grumpy at the time of this picture. For now we stand between the bales and wait. This is a good break for us from my barn quilt block priming and RB's electric fence installation.
After the hunt analysis: Now that we are back inside and reflecting on our hunt, I will tell the stories of the November 14, 2013 bow hunt. It was an exciting experience for me! I had a shot at two does twice. I drew back to shoot one of them the first time and at the same time a truck drove by and they ran away. I was lucky enough to hide behind the bales again and the same deer came right back to the area and I had another shot at her. Unfortunately I shot too low and only gathered a few hairs on the arrow. Better luck next time I guess!
The sunsets around here have been amazing lately! It was definitely worth getting out of the house when it is cold out to capture these pictures. What do you think?
This week has been crazy between cleaning house and getting ready for this weekend's barn quilt block class. Here are a few snapshots of what barn quilt block class preparation looks like.
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| Little paint cups ready for participants to choose the colors they want. |
I have poured the paint colors; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, black, white, and light brown. There should be plenty of colors to choose from for the attendees.
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| My quilt block priming station. I have fancy boxes to help me paint! |
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| Barn quilt block, primed and ready to paint |
If you are in the Phillips county area there is still time to sign up for a class! You can check out our Facebook page,
Snapshots of a Kansas Farm, for more information.
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