The Farm-Iced over

I went with Mike this morning to do chores-bottle feed the calf, feed the cows and the cats. Take a look at Good Intent.

Here's the farmhouse and yard from various positions.

Dad feeds his bottle calf. He's living in a little shed in the driveway and comes out when you honk the horn.

Got milk?

Downed lines...

The cow pen...

A frozen flag in Lancaster... those are icicles on it.

The poles were installed this fall; they're taller than the old ones and carry more lines. Before that was a fence row where the icicles fill in the space between wires.

This is why we aren't having school this weeek!

Is this what they mean by "side by side"?

It's in the house!

And plugged in.

And so is the old fridge, the chest freezer, and the ''kegerator".

Oh, and the armoire is still there too.

Sloooooowwww progress...

Arrrggghhh!

Of all times to run short of my blood pressure medicine...
Here's my kitchen.

My front yard...
And my brand new, Kenmore Elite, stainless steel refrigerator.

...which wasn't here when I got home. This can only mean that Mike is driving all over the county with my fridge in tow. Question: why didn't he use the moving blankets so it wouldn't get scratched?? Why didn't they just carry it in this morning?

Oh, and to backtrack. The armoire in the kitchen is there because it was on the truck needed to haul the fridge. It's supposed to go upstairs, but if all the groaning I heard when it was moved inside is any indication, I doubt that that will happen. The dirt pile is a project to raise the levels of dirt around the base of the house. One of these days. Then we'll pour a new sidewalk. Uh huh, one of these days.

FIRE!

Mike had his annual combine fire this week. All it takes is a little bit of oil or grease and some chaff to set it off. He tried to put it out with his usual fire extinguisher, Coke, and a jug of tea. When that didn't knock it down, he drove the burning machine up towards the road, while the flames shot up around the cab. Pretty exciting, huh?
Nah, it's routine. He was upset he had to use a real fire extinguisher to knock the blaze down. Why? It costs money to refill!!
He came away with an inch long blister on his hand, and several days of work to get it running again.

Eww

Mike walked in mid-carving and made his impact by:
a) insisting I dry and save seeds from the pumpkin to plant next year
b)microwaving chunks of pumpkin and eating them. Eww.

Forty and counting

Memorial Hall in Atchison, Kansas, was the scene of many dances in the sixties. The colleges put them on regularly. I saw Ike and Tina Turner there, as well as other popular bands at the time. On October 7, 1967, I joined some other St. Mary girls that came up to Big A on a bus. We begged the driver to drive around the corner to let us out.
We usually broke up into small groups of two or three so we wouldn't inimidate the boys too much. We thought it must be hard to walk up to a big group and ask someone to dance. I think I was standing alone about 10 p.m. when this tall, handsome guy walked over. We danced awhile and stopped and talked some. He told me that he had joined the National Guard and was leaving soon for basic training. This was the height of the Vietnam War and so he had decided to join the guard instead of getting drafted.
His brother, Jim, rushed up to him and took the Maur Hill letter jacket he was wearing. Evidently, they shared it! Mike asked if I would like to go to Maur Hill's Homecoming the next week and I said yes. My roommate was from Atchison and I had heard lots of stories about MH.
The following week Janet and I came up for the game. Her boyfriend bought us both big yellow mum corsages. No word or sign of Mike. Later he found Mike and told him his "date" was here.
He joined us and we spent the rest of the evening together-even took him home to the farm.

Two years earlier, as a freshman, I was down in the dumps about my dating prospects, and brother Frank sent me a telegram. I think it's the only telegram I ever got. Anyway, he cheered me up and told me to have faith. Someday the right one would come along. That was Oct. 7, 1965.

Got your glove? It's Corn Shuckin' Time!

Next Saturday, September 29th, join us at the farm in Good Intent for the annual Corn Shuckin' Contest. If you want to see how it was done when horses were the machines, this is the place to be. Corn is hand shucked and tossed into a horse-drawn wagon. At the end of 10 minutes, the picked corn is weighed and the amount posted publicly for all to see! Gloating and good-natured ribbing is part of the fun. Sibling rivalry has its place too!

One of the best features of the day for a non-shucker is the great selection of pies provided by the St. Pat's ladies.