Happy Thanksgiving...

This morning in the barn, I had a song running through my head.  

It was written in 1890 by Amos Herr, a Lancaster County farmer and Mennonite pastor, who lived not far from where we live now.  He woke on a Sunday morning to find snow drifts too deep to get to Church with his family...even on horseback. He decided to focus on thankfulness, and wrote this song...

photo credit to my sister Peg

Here are the lyrics...

(imagine it sung acapella...beautiful four part harmony...that's the way I hear it!)

I Owe The Lord A Morning Song...by Amos Herr

I owe the Lord a morning song
Of gratitude and praise,
For the kind mercy He has shown
In length'ning out my days.

He kept me safe another night;
I see another day;
Now may His Spirit, as the light,
Direct me in His way.

Keep me from danger and from sin:
Help me Thy will to do,
So that my heart be pure within;
And I Thy goodness know.

Keep me till Thou wilt call me hence,
Where never night can be;
And save me, Lord, for Jesus' sake.
He shed His blood for me.

Amen

Here's a link to the song on youtube, if you'd like to hear it... 

The weather here today is not snowy...for which I am thankful! 

In fact, it's beautiful!  Sunny, still, temps in the mid 30's...the kids are both here...and we're planning to see lots of family today, and in the next few days that we don't often see.  We have much to be thankful for!

Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving!

Houdini...

I came home from some errands this morning to see a calf in the meadow.

Hmmm...there shouldn't have been a calf in the meadow, especially one with a yellow ear tag.  It looked suspiciously like a calf that was born on Sunday afternoon, that we had moved to the calf hutches yesterday morning!

Here's her hutch door.  Closed and latched shut...

Here's what was in the hutch...

...and here's where I found her!

That's not her mother hovering over her, but a concerned citizen...

Now she's safely back in her cozy hutch, filled with fresh clean straw, and sunshine to warm her little body...

If she's gone on such an adventure already in her short two-day-old life, I wonder what other kind of trouble she might get into over the course of her life?

It seems that we have a Houdini in our midst!

Fall Barn Cleaning...

What do you do when you have a free morning on a beautiful fall day?

And oh yes... you have a helper?

You wash the outside of the pipeline...

Although the milk never touches the outside of the pipeline, it helps with overall cleanliness in the barn.  Day after day of bedding up with sawdust, spreading fodder in the gutters, and cows swishing their tails (or coughing when they poop!), all the surfaces in the barn get dusty and dirty.  Daniel was helping this morning, and he got that fun job.  It's especially nice that he's tall, and can reach those places that I have to stretch for!

Look how nice it looks when it's finished!  The stainless steel shines...

I got the job of cleaning the barn windows.  Again...day after day of dust accumulates on the windows.  When we can start writing on them, we know it's past time to clean them!    Here's an embarrassing "before" picture...



First I hosed them down, inside and out...

Then I used a long handled brush with some soapy water to scrub them...

...and after a final rinse, the view is much better!  It makes the whole barn seem so much brighter when these two jobs are finished!

While cleaning is not something I enjoy, it's satisfying to see the difference when the job is finished!  Thanks to Daniel, both jobs were completed in one morning!

Growing Garlic...A New Project...

You're never too old to try something new, right?

Our family likes garlic...and some of the best I've found has been local, homegrown from our local "Amish Walmart".  The bulbs are huge, and the cloves aren't all dried up like some of the garlic you buy at the grocery store.  And the taste?  Mmmmm...

So...this year I decided to grow my own.  I have a couple of old pallets at the edge of the garden where I grow lettuce, red beets, and other things that are a nuisance to weed.  I plant between the slats, and have found that it works well.

I bought just one large bulb of garlic at a local seed supply store, and followed the simple directions that came with it...carefully break apart the bulb and separate it into cloves...plant them about 2" deep, point side up...cover with 6" of mulch, and wait...

That was about six weeks ago, and look what I have!  Green...when everything else is either dying or going dormant for the winter.  Maybe it's nothing huge to get excited about, but I can hardly wait until next summer when I can harvest my very own garlic!

A Little Sweetness...

Here's a little bit of sweetness to brighten your morning...

This little three week old calls for me every morning in the barn while we're milking.  As soon as she's had her breakfast, she curls up, contented to just be part of the action.  Of course whenever she sees someone, though, she has to be curious and suck on their fingers, or flannel shirt, just in case there's more food to be had.

Enjoy!

Fall Grazing...

The cows have been getting a little antsy.

The nights have been too cold for them to go out...and the last couple of days were either rainy or muddy, so they stayed inside.

The grass in the waterway has also been growing.

Solution?

This morning Jim put in fence posts along the waterway and across the corner of one of the hay fields, and a rye grass field...

Here he's dragging the wire that is attached to the tractor up across the fields to the furthermost fence posts, under those far away trees...

My camera just snapped this picture for fun.  Three lonely round bales, along with about a half dozen corn stalks that were left by the chopper.  It was kind of him to not hit the bags as he went by!  :)

The cows were watching from the meadow, and they knew something was up...

I got closer, and I knew exactly who I'd see on the other side of the wire. #314 didn't take her eyes off of us the entire time we were working on the fence.  She just knew there was something greener on the other side...

I love watching the cows get so excited when they're left out into a new area to graze!  They kick up their heels and run like little kids!

( Please excuse the shaky video.  I wasn't doing a very good job of standing still!  It was also pretty windy, and there's a lot of noise in the back ground )

Standing guard at the top of the water way, just in case anyone gets unruly...

Meanwhile, Murphy and Snickers stole an ear of corn out of the truck and entertained themselves.  What is it about ears of corn that dogs find so appealing?

Grazing cows...

We just brought the cows back into the barn, and their bellies are full of grass.  They'll be contented tonight!

Fall 2015...

My camera and I took a walk this afternoon...

My camera can't do the leaves justice...they're so much brighter than they look here.  I think the bright yellows (which I have no pictures of) and the bright red/oranges are my favorites.  And oh, don't forget the dark reds.

Last weekend my sister and I traveled to a cross country meet about one hour north of here, and the drive was spectacular!  I'm so glad to live where we see the change of seasons.  Every year, without fail, we see God's beauty!

Yesterday's rain, along with the wind that has continued today, has brought a lot of the leaves to the ground...

Jim no longer picks corn, so an Amish neighbor asked if he could use our corn crib for a few loads of his corn.  He'll sell it later out of the crib.  It's nice to see it in use again...

The barley that Jim seeded is growing nicely...

And last but not least, my shadow, Murphy, followed me everywhere this afternoon.  When I went to visit a neighbor, she patiently waited for me along the edge of the soybean field...

What a loyal friend!