Wrapping Up the Week...

It's been a busy week here, and it's time to wrap it up!

1.  I'll begin with my "Starts with O" photo...

Our Orange 1958 Allis Chalmers D-17.  No green tractors here!

2.  My "week's favorite" is my fern leaf peony, pushing buds and almost ready to bloom...

I hope the snow and cold weather that's coming this weekend don't hurt it! It's one of the earliest bloomers I have, and it's pretty hardy.  We'll see.

3.  "Spring"... We've had roller coaster weather the past few weeks, and this is where I've had to keep my pansies at night...all lined up on the porch...

A little frost won't hurt them, but we've had strong winds and really cold night time temps, so a little extra protection is necessary.  I'm hoping they can all go back to their usually spots next week!

4.  I'm feeling really, really old and tired!  Last spring, summer and fall, I didn't do much strenuous yard, garden or barn work, trying to wisely follow doctors' orders and fully recover from back surgery.  This spring, I'm doing more again.  While I'm still being careful, eighteen months of doing less has left me very out of shape, and few pounds heavier.  Ugh.  Hopefully I'll get used to this new activity level quickly!

5.  We've been feeding more dry hay to the cows lately, because we're almost out of balage.  Can you believe that the cows seem to have forgotten how to eat it?!  They toss their heads around trying to tear off small pieces, and the light weight cakes go flying out of their mangers and onto the floor!  Silly cows!  They'll get used to it again I'm sure.

I'm linking up today with Teresa for Friday's Hunt, and with Nancy for Random Five Friday.  Click on the links to check out more blog entries.

Friday...

To wrap up this week, I'm joining Friday's Hunt, hosted by Teresa at Eden Hills, and also joining Random Five Friday, which after a long hiatus, has been resurrected by Nancy at A Rural Journal.  It's a nice way to do a wrap up of the week.

1.  Starts with "N"...kind of.  Her name is Snickers, but often I call her Nicky for short.  She's our ten year old Yellow Lab, and mother to Murphy, who got her mug shot on here last week.  She's a rather shy, sweet dog who is beginning to show her age.  Both in her actions, and by the white hair on her face.  Even though she's aging, she can still be just as naughty when she puts her mind to it!  She digs a mean hole, and tears strawbales and hay bales apart to make a soft nest to sleep in...

2.  Week's Favorite...Three years ago, my neighbor gave me a tiny start of an old fashioned, dark purple lilac.  This morning I saw this...

...flower buds!  For the first time, and I'm quite excited to see them bloom.  I hope next week's forecasted freezing temps don't hurt them!

3. Vintage...I'm fortunate to have some vintage things to decorate with on my porch.  We have two old milk cans, one from my parents' farm, and one from Jim's parents farm (where we now live).  I enjoy being able to use them year round...

4. To finish out my Random Five...the hutch halves are thrilled to be able to get outside of their hutches and see what's going on in the world.  They are so curious and content...

5.  I found some used railroad ties on craigslist.  They turned out to be only a few miles away, and had been used by the Strasburg Rairoad.  (Thomas the Tank Engine rolled over these ties many times, I'm sure!)  We've used them to make a defining line between my shrubs and my garden.  It will help to keep the weeds from the garden from creeping up under the shrubs, and I like the lines.  I have some ideas about how I want it to look, and it's slowly coming together...

Click on the links to see more posts for both Friday's Hunt and Random Five Friday...

Random Five Friday...

It's been a while, but Nancy is back hosting Random Five Friday, so I thought I'd join up again...

1. Our snow yesterday ended up being more than they called for.  It was hard to measure, but ended up being around 8" or so.  It makes headaches, but it sure is pretty!  Jim spent most of yesterday on that tractor, opening the driveway...and opening it again...

2.  Next week we're to be in the 40's all week, so we expect lots of melting, and mud.

3.  We took Murphy to be bred last week, so hopefully we'll have a litter of sweet puppies around the beginning of May!  This would only be her second litter.  Last summer was a disappointment in that department, but we're hopeful this time around will have a happier ending...

4.  Six of Jenna's violin teacher's students participate in the Lancaster Youth Symphony Orchestra, and last Saturday was their winter concert.  They missed a handful of practices because of bad weather, but they were able to pull it together.  This is just a short clip of one of the songs.  It was just recorded on my camera, so the quality is less than stellar, but the real thing was a treat to listen to...

5.  Here's to spring in the not too distant future, and lots of playing in the grass and lazing in the sunshine...

Enjoy your weekend!

Random Five Friday...

It's been a while since I've joined up with Random Five Friday...but today's a great day to do it!  A lot has been happening to keep us busy around here.

1.  Lancaster County was hit by a nasty ice storm this week.  Wednesday morning was a mess!  It's amazing what 1/4" - 1/2" of ice will do to trees and power lines.  There are still many people without power, and it looks like it could be the end of the weekend until everyone is back in service.  We are very fortunate here, in that our lights never even blinked.  Jim was prepared to hook up the generator if we needed it, but we were glad to let it parked in the shed this time.

This is our rental property across the road.  Those old Chinese Elm trees are huge...and old...and they don't withstand stress very well.  Early in the morning, we heard "crack"..."crash"...over and over again. Thankfully no branches hit the house or any power lines.  Although it looks like a tornado hit, no major damage was done...

2.  A friend sent me this picture of our farm that she took on her phone.  The red of the Farmall M, and the orange of the manure spreader were the only traces of color!  This is what it's looked like around here for a while now...all white...

3.  I took this picture of the corner hutch the other day when I was feeding calves.  Pretty soon the snow will be melted (hopefully!!), the grass will be green, and Jenna will have two little 4-H goats in this pen again.  I might even put the chickens in here once it greens up, to give their pen a break...

4.  We got rid of this guy the other day.  He was little, but ornery, and there's no sense in keeping a bull that has an attitude...

5.  Jim and I attended the funeral for the mother of one of his closest friends recently, and I just had to share this picture.  The farmer and his wife don't always wear barn clothes!

Hopefully you're staying warm, wherever you are.  Have a great weekend!

Random Five Friday...

Once again, it's time for Random Five Friday.  Here are some things that have been going on around here...

1. It's been a drenching day, to say the least. In the last 24 hours, we've had over 7 1/2" of rain!  The roads are treacherous in places, and the creeks are overflowing their banks.  The pond at the other farm, which was almost completely dry yesterday, is full again...

2.  With this weather, the cows have been staying inside the barn all day and all night.  They will be thrilled when they can go out again, and I don't blame them!

3.  I finally took the air conditioner out of our bedroom window yesterday.  It's nice to have the windows open and throw on a couple of blankets at night.  I hope now, once this front that has stalled over top of us moves through, that we'll be having typical fall weather, instead of the hot temps that we were having.

4.  Our neighbors left a huge glass pumpkin, full of M & M's on our kitchen table on Sunday...and I'm embarrassed to say that it's already about half empty!

5.  The kids are looking forward to a couple of days off from school next week.  These will be the first days since before school started, that they will be able to sleep in.  They've either had to be up early for school on the weekdays, up for early morning cross country practice on Saturday mornings, or up to help us on Sundays.

Here's hoping for some sunshine this weekend!

Random Five Friday...

It's been almost a week since I've posted, and I feel like I'm finally catching up with laundry...redding up...cleaning...and with life in general.  There's always something to do, and here is a sampling of what's happening here. I'm joining up with Nancy, at Random Five Friday today.

1. Even though most things in the garden are dying...or almost dead...the zinnias are still blooming their heads off.  I brought this bouquet in yesterday, and played around on Picasa with the picture this morning...

Zinnias are such cheery flowers, and so easy to grow!

2.  Our nephew has been doing some painting here this week.  With an old house, there's always somewhere that paint is peeling, and he did a great job.  He painted the pillars out front...painted the white wooden siding on the front porch...and here he's finishing up on the balcony ceiling!  It's amazing what some scraping and painting will do to make things look fresh and clean!

3.  Some of the harvesting is finished, but there's still more left to do.  In this picture looking to the west from the barn, you can see three fields.  The corn field on the left is late corn...planted after the last cutting of rye grass...and will be chopped for silage and put into an ag bag.  That will hopefully happen on Monday.  The corn field on the right, and the soybean field in the middle are drying down and will be combined sometime in the coming weeks...

4.  This was one of Jim's projects this morning...forking out a box pen...by hand...

5.  I think the hydrangeas are especially pretty this time of year.  I have several bushes, and they all bloom different colors in the summer, but this time of year as they are drying, I think they are at their most beautiful!

I could probably do a "random ten" or so, but I'll save the rest for another day!

Enjoy your day!

Random Friday...

 This week has been full of bits and pieces...

James...my new favorite kitty...trying to stay cool!

1.  This week it's been hotter...and more humid than I remember in a long time.  (My memory might be short, because it was probably this hot last summer too!)  Today I checked the thermometer mid afternoon, and it read 104 degrees.

2.  I mowed for 5 1/2 hours today, and then did the weed eating.  I was so thankful for the cool shower afterwards...number two for the day...and number three soon to come!

3.  The cows are starting to be affected by the heat.  They hung in there for a while...but with a week of continual temps in the high 90's and higher...and this high humidity (53% right now)...they have dropped in milk.

4. Jenna and I had the privilege of going to the beach for two days this week with some friends... to Cape Henlopen State Park, in Delaware.  Although the temperatures were just as high there, there was a wonderful ocean breeze that felt so good!  We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves...and our time away...except for the jellyfish that kept us out out the water most of the time!

5.  Jim baled a lot of hay this week...third cutting is almost finished!  There's one more field to mow and bale, hopefully next week.  We're expecting a break in the weather this weekend, so maybe it will be more comfortable working next week.  It's been great to get so much dry hay stacked in the mow!

I'm linking up today again with Nancy, for Random Five Friday.

Random Five Friday

Here is a smattering of what has been happening here this week...

1.  I hate bats.  I really, really hate bats.  Yesterday morning when I came in from the barn, Eric had left a note taped to the window, pointing out a bat that he had trapped between the screen and the glass.  First one of the summer, inside the house.  Did I mention that I hate bats?!

But...I was nice to it, although it took everything in me.

2.  We have two adorable kitties right now, that are spoiled rotten.  This one, Lulu, has a really persistent meow, and she's taken to climbing up either my mop or the rain spout, and hanging on the screen, begging to be left inside...

Did I mention that she's spoiled rotten?!

3.  We caught three ground hogs beside the soy bean field.  Yesterday, the end of the field was replanted...the critters ate almost half an acre!!

4.  Jim's been thinking ahead...we have at least three more hay cuttings to go, and we need more room for round bales, so he started stacking a few of them.  We've been seeing quite a lot of this...

5.  A garden update...I've been picking green beans, a few cucumbers, zucchini, digging some new potatoes, pulling red beets, and a second planting of radishes is doing well.  The weeds are growing... "like weeds!"... as we've had several inches of rain in the past week, and the heat and humidity are rising.

Happy Friday!

Linking up with Random Five Friday

Fresh Strawberries...

It's been a strange week.  Like spring usually is, it's been busy.

We've had strange weather...a couple of hot, humid, typical Pennsylvania late spring weather days, and now it's cold and rainy!  The insulated coveralls have been washed...again...and put away until next winter, but they almost got pulled out again this afternoon!  We don't know how to dress...but we don't mind putting off the hot stuff for another week or so!

1.  Chilly weather aside, look what I found in my garden this morning...

This is the first time picking my new patch.  Oh my, are they tasty!

2.  I've recently been reading a book...the Animal Vegetable Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver.  Hopefully I'll finish it soon...but every time I pick it up, I fall asleep.  Not the book's fault...it's very interesting!  Maybe it's a sign that I'm getting old!

3.  I spent some time this afternoon at Goodwill...digging through the clothing bins for barn shirts for .85 each.  If they get stained the first time they're worn...and they will...it's no great loss!  While waiting in line for what felt like forever...I got to talking to the people around me.  They were buying things to resell on eBay!  I had no idea, but they said they make a lot of money doing this.

4.  Here are last year's raspberries.  I had to protect them from the dogs digging them out...

...and here they are this year. I think they're happier now... and this is after I thinned them!  They have gone wild...and are already loaded with blossoms...

5.  There are only seven days of school left!  But who's counting?

Linking up today with Random 5 Friday

Random Five Friday...

I'm having fun with the Random Five Friday posts...

Some days or weeks, especially right now, it's hard to find the time to sit down and write a complete post about one event, so putting several things together all in one post is just right!

Life's been pretty busy around here the past few weeks, as I'm sure it is for most of you.  This beautiful spring weather has made everyone here...including the cows...happy.  They're spending most of the day outside grazing, and are much more content.  We've had wonderful temps, and low humidity (yay!) and just enough rain to (hopefully) pop the corn up quickly, and to make the grass grow like crazy!

1.  I don't like thunderstorms.  Never did.  Probably never will.

Here's what the sky looked like just after milking time tonight...

It just started raining a few minutes ago, and I saw a little lightning, and just heard some thunder, but I don't think it will be too bad.

2.  We've been mowing the yard twice per week of late.  We put some "Weed and Feed" on it a couple of weeks ago, and does that stuff ever work!  If I hadn't mowed today, I think Jim might have had to use the haybine, it was that thick!

3.  Both kids are finishing up their track and field seasons this week.  They both run distance, and each got a new PR (personal record) in the 1600m this spring.  Eric ran a 4:49.9, and Jenna a 5:59.  We're proud of their accomplishments!

4.  I'm soon finished with my mulching for the spring, and it feels so good!  A few weeks ago, when I looked at the weeds that continued to grow all winter long in the mild temps and damp winter we had, I thought I would never get to this point!  This is my favorite spring perennial bed.  It's not yet in full bloom, but it's getting there...

5.  Jim started mowing first cutting of alfalfa hay already this evening!  He just called to have someone come pick him up, as it's now dark and the storm is rolling in.

I hope you enjoy your weekend!

Random Five Friday...

It's been a busy week...lots is happening at home and on the farm.  With the beautiful...gorgeous...perfect weather we've been having, there just aren't enough daylight hours in each day!

1. Peanut's kitties are growing fast, and getting so playful!  She moved them from the fodder mow, outside to the shed.  They live underneath, play in the weeds behind it, and come running bouncing when we call "here kitty, kitty, kitty".  This is the home she chose for them, and they seem quite healthy and happy!  There are four males and two females.  We've told the kids we will keep two, and the rest are going to a good home next week...

2.  Today is the day Jim will bale his rye grass.  It was mowed on Tuesday afternoon, he's finishing up raking right now, and the round baler will begin anytime!  I wonder how many bales it will make?

3.  My garden is slowly taking shape for the season.  The onions, radishes and potatoes are up...and on the far left lies the string been packet, at the end of the first row I planted a few days ago...

The strawberry blossoms are showing off!  I sure hope we don't get a freeze...this will be the first year picking off of this new patch, and I'm hoping for a bumper crop...

4.  The dogs are in their glory this time of year...they follow me everywhere, and lay at my feet no matter what I'm doing.  If I'm planting in the garden, they lay in the rows... if I'm feeding calves, they lay beside the calf hutches...if I'm mulching, they lay in the flowers.  Here's Snickers, enjoying the sunshine as I fed calves this morning...

5.  My perennials are coming to life!  I have been given small pieces of many different plants over the years, and have had fun sharing with others as well.  (That's what I like so much about perennials!)  I think of my friends when they bloom.

The early blooming Iris came from Brenda...the Fern Leaf Peony came from Edith...

The Forget Me Nots came from Betty, the Lamium came from Carolyn, and I don't remember where the Bleeding Heart came from...

This isn't blooming yet, but the Lily Of the Valley growing fast.  It can become invasive, but I'll forgive it, because I love it's story so much!  This particular plant came to me at the end of a long family trail.  It originally came from my Great Grandma Herr...to my Grandma Herr...to my Aunt Alice from Colorado... to my Mom... and then to me!

What fun!

I hope you're enjoying your Friday!

I'm joining up with Random Five Friday again this week.