Old School Acres

New neighbors

One of our renters moved his cows into our corn field across the road from our house.  They eat the little bit of corn dropped during harvest, but mostly eat the corn stalks.  I holler good morning to them and they look at me like I'm crazy.

Little blue birds

Do your little girls like to wear clip-on earrings?  Ellie has quite the collection.  Grandma Mary keeps her supplied, but the other day at the thrift shop I decided to stop and look.  It was worth my time! I know a certain someone who might be able to convert these to brooches. 

Not long ago I was asked about Marshall and how he's doing.  Here's the little guy.  He's been in the pasture since early September and I don't see him as much.  Still as cute as ever.

Lucy was telling them off.  Roo-roo-roo.  I bet she wouldn't be so tough on the other side of the fence.

And something pretty fun for me!  CoolMomPicks.com did a little review of my elephant shoes October 4.  Then Celebrity Babies saw it and linked over.  I'll be making baby shoes for a while ;-)

Corn and lots of it

I followed this tractor pulling 2 wagons loaded with corn yesterday.

It's typical for October in the midwest.  The price of corn was quite high last year and this year farmers hoped to cash in on that by planting way more corn than soybeans.  Farmers were using every last bit of ground they had to plant corn.  What were pastures last year were corn fields this year.  People say it's because of ethanol production.

Ever seen field corn up close?  I took these yesterday.  These corn stalks are about 8-feet tall.  Each stalk has 1 large ear of corn. 

Field corn is not the same thing as sweet corn.  Animals eat field corn.  People eat sweet corn.  I'm not sure you could cook field corn long enough to be able to eat it. 

I look forward to the corn being harvested from around our house.  We are living in a "corn bowl" with corn on 3 sides.  All we see is corn.

The world wouldn't be the same without corn.  For some fun facts, visit Iowa Corn

Under fire

Ahhhh, farm life.  No neighbors.  Lots of space.  Quiet.  Right?  Unless you live in a tin-roofed house under a walnut tree.

Every time a walnut falls from the tree and hits the roof it sounds like a shotgun going off.  Boom!  Boom!  Boom! 

Look at all that ammo.

Who doesn't love fall?

It's okay if you don't, but I don't understand.  How can you not love cool air but warm sunshine?  Clear blue  skies?  The rustling of the drying corn leaves?  Sleeping with the windows open while snuggled under a warm blanket? 

Misc.

Imagine farm life with a lovely picturesque view out the living room window of horses peacefully grazing on the lawn.   THE LAWN?!?!?!?  Marge, Molly, Marshall, Mariah, and Casserole had themselves a lovely little snack of fresh green lawn this morning.  They were good and went back in the barn lot easy enough, but not exactly how I wanted to start my day.  Deeeeeeep breath.

You should have seen the disaster I created for myself yesterday.  I have an order for a large Marshall softie and oh, the horror of that.  A disgrace really...to Marshall and my crafting ability.

So then my friendly mail carrier (a substitute...the regular guy isn't so friendly) arrived with a box of goodies, including this:

Where have I been?  Why didn't you tell me about this?  It's been around since 2005, but I didn't know until last week.  I found an excellent deal on it here but I was buying other books as well.  This is the place to buy if you are ordering several books, because they are all shipped from the same place.  I ordered 6 books and shipping was $6.

Really, though, who cares about that?  Here are some of my favorite projects from "Embroidered Treasures for Children" by Claire Garland (ISBN-10: 1584794305 and ISBN-13: 9781584794301)

Busy town

Thank you for all your happy notes about Lucy, thoughtfulness for Tucker, and condolensces regarding Daisy. 

Random thoughts from the last 2 weeks:

- Katie started 4th grade yesterday and Ellie preschool.  Both came home happy but tired girls.  Lucy was thrilled to see them.

-The farmer who rents our farm ground had it crop dusted last week.  Pretty cool to watch.  Very stinky though!  The girls were in the house while I ran out to get a picture.

-Ellie started horseback-riding lessons 2 weeks ago.  So cute to see the little munchkin up there.  She's riding Holiday, a 27-year-old lesson pony.  She cries when it's time to quit (Ellie, not the horse *wink*)

-I've lost my horse to another girl.   

--I've not been much in the mood for crafting, but am ready to go when everything settles down.  I'm thinking roller skates embroidered on baby girl shoes will be pretty cute.

Not fair

Daisy was struck by lightning Sunday and died.  This sucks.

ETA:  Daisy was not Marshall's mom.  Daisy was 3 years old.  She and her little brother Rudy came to live with us last summer.  Brett and I are just sick about this.  I feel like throwing up.  We are going to try to get a replacement for her and not even tell the girls what happened.  It's too much for them.  It's nearly too much for us.

Say hello to Lucy

She's a 6-week old Beagle.  Tucker loves her; hence the wet head in the first picture.  The girls are smitten.  The cats are hiding.

A girl's best friend

It was confirmed Monday that our wonderful dog, Tucker, has cancer.  He's 10 years old and not in pain, so we are not going to treat it.  The vet says he's lived a good life and to let him continue to live as he has.  He's such a good dog.

It may seem strange, but we are possibly getting a puppy today.  Tucker has been with us since he was 5 weeks old and I was pregnant with Katie.  They have always been such good buddies.  She's devastated.  What makes it worse is that we had him shaved (he rolled in something dead and we could NOT get the smell out of his fur) and now we can see the lump on his belly.  The vet says that getting a puppy now would be good for Katie because he/she will already be a part of the family when it's Tucker's time.  I know vets aren't psychologists, but it makes sense to us.  *big sigh...tears...big sigh* 

We will work hard so that Tucker doesn't feel too jealous.  It's a little like getting an older sibling used to a new baby.  Right?  Lots of playing with Tucker and lots of petting, which Ellie calls "pets." 

"Tucker likes pets doesn't he, Mom?" 

"Yes, Tucker likes pets."