Family Christmas

Yet another big dinner at the Milligan Farm.  I love having the dinners at my place, I'd rather do all the cooking than be forced to leave my home.  We did a white elephant gift exchange this year.  It was very different, but sure saved a lot of money.  I am not sure we did it correct, but it was sure fun.

My sister was not here with her little kids, that was a bummer.  Little people are so much fun.  I will have to go see her and the family after the Holidays. And my brother stayed home, but sent his family.  My siblings are worse than me when it comes to dragging them away from home.  The hardest part for us to get together is that we are all home bodies.

Dairy theme Christmas

I like to keep to my dairy theme a bit for Christmas gifts.  This year great find was "Milk Stout Beer".  This is a stout beer made with milk sugar, by the left hand brewing company in Colorado.  What a find, they even have a picture of a dairy cow on the box.

The label reads like this:

"Milk Sugar in your stout is like cream in your coffee.  Dark and delicious, America's great milk stout will change your perception about what a stout can be.  Preconceived notions are the blinders on the road to enlightenment.

Udderly delightful.

Sometimes you're not in the mood for what everyone else is drinking."

So each of our haulers got some beer, a couple kinds of cheese (like a smoked Gouda), and a couple types of pretzels.  The paper lady and the mail carrier got porcelain coffee mugs with fancy cheese stuck in them.

Each employee will get some cash, a Milligan Dairy Farm hat with LED clip on head lights, and of course a fancy cheese.

Doughnuts

What sounds better than some fresh homemade doughnuts on a cold winters day?  I love my new kitchen, it makes me want to bake again.  Notice how much lower than the counter my Hoosier is?  That makes it the perfect place for a 5'3" woman to knead her dough.  I never liked standing on my toes to knead bread way up on the counter top, and taking to the table in another room seemed absurd.  I am so grateful to have my Hoosier back in the kitchen where it belongs.

Raising a hard worker

We all have that family member that is good for nothing, some are closer and some are distant cousins.  So when my husband and I discussed having kids, he worried we might raise a non-worker.  So far as I can tell, I am keeping my promise to raise him a man that will work.

Glenn is 11 and has a better work ethic than most teens and lots of adults.  Will he keep it up?  Only time will tell, but if I have had anything to do with it thus far, it is a good sign he will continue. 

What do you think it takes to raise a worker?

So far I have stuck to what I thought it would take. 
1)  I make sure I tell everyone what a great worker he is, mostly Glenn himself.
2)  I lead by example, and so does his father.
3)  I give him fun jobs, like moving our big truck around in the driveway.
4)  I make it very clear that his father and myself have absolutely no respect for lazy people.
5)  I remind him that God declared that men will work for what they get, so it is His will.
6)  I kiss his cheek and tell him how proud we are of him.
7)  I remind him that every gift he gets from me is due to his own hard work, as well as his fathers hard work.

Not exactly how I planned it......

I have been looking forward to this day at home.  I spent two days going up north to be with my dear sister in law while she saw her oncologist. Her and I have been friends for decades (before my brother ever took a shining to her), and she is fighting a great battle with stage four colon cancer.  I go to the big appointments with her.  So far the only one I missed is the only one she left totally devastate.  I won't leave her to go alone again. 

The past two days I had to run my father in law to his appointments.  Some how they seem to get scheduled in lumps and take up entire days.  At least he is always a joy to be around, that sure does help the day.

So, as I was saying, I've been longing for this day at home.  It started last evening, Sadie, our 13 year old with autism got sick.  Well she has a funny tummy and can sometimes do that and never miss a beat, so no big deal.  She even said she was better now.  Every hour through the night she repeated that, tossing her cookies and declaring to be better now.  It cost me two clean beds, her jammies, and two bedroom carpets!  So I am home today, washing bedding and shampooing carpets.

I will say this about my dear little miss Sadie, she can take being sick better than anyone I know.  She doesn't get fussy.  She can get sick, jump around to a favorite song, lay down and take a quick snooze and do it all again.  She even came to the dinner table and asked for food on her plate.  She looked at it awhile and went back to the living room.  Maybe she doesn't know she's sick, what ever is going on inside her mind, it works for me.

Back Home

  We are back home from Chicago earlier than I figured we would be.  There is no place to park in that city, plus a snow storm was pending.  Chicago was fun while it lasted.  We spent our second day at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.  It took the entire day to see it, tons of walking (that about did in Duane), but so many cool things to see.  They have the actual U-505 submarine that our troops captured from the Germans in 1944.  I was surprised at the amount of history we got to experience there.  Both kids loved the old steam engine train. I was a bit disappointed in their farm display.  It just promoted a lot of soy products and confinement operations.

Back home we got the Christmas tree up!  It is so much fun going to the local tree farm with the kids to pick out their tree.  Glenn wants to walk the entire farm to find the perfect tree, while Sadie says get the first one you find so we can get home to decorate it.

Then to top off all the great times, my sister showed up with her 3 youngsters, Ted 7, Tabitha 7, and Marjorie 6.  Tonight I have them for a sleep over.  It is 7:20 pm and I have them all showered and ready for a movie!  I am such a smart Aunt.  Trust me, they earned the move.  They spent the afternoon helping Glenn clean horse stalls before I would let them come in for a snack and movies.

Chicago

We headed to Chicago today to meet up with Teagen.  For those who don't know- Teagen lived with us for years as a teenager.  Now she is like a big sister to Sadie and Glenn.  In fact, Glenn doesn't even recall life before Teagen.

We met up in Macy's.  It's just so huge!  Glenn noticed they are the worlds largest store.

We were all starving so we enjoyed a great meal in the Walnut Room.

Then the kids and I (Duane was too scared) went to the 103rd floor of the Sears Tower.  It was not really scary.  The elevator is just a regular inside elevator, not on the outside of the building.

Glenn is on top of Chicago!

Snow!!!

Today we got our first snow!  I was so excited that I picked up all my painters stuff, packed it away and sent him a message that he was being temporarily evicted from my kitchen.  I'm sorry, I had to bake and make my kitchen smell good.  Besides, I needed to make nice warm comfort food for my husband who is out working in the cold.  So I made chicken and noodles (yum, and warm), and made some delightful cinnamon rolls for later.  Now he can have the kitchen back. 

In the morning the kids and I are off to Chicago.  We are planning to spend some time at the Science and Technology Museum.  I am also planning to go to a week day mass at the beautiful St. John Cantius Church.  We are hoping not to get stuck in a lake effect snow while we are there.

It's been a long time!

I am finally able to sit down and add a bit to my blog.  I have done so much this month.  The kitchen is most of the way done.  The floors still need to be finnished, there is some painting to be done yet, and I still have a couple pieces of furniture to purchase.  It was just crazy of me to even start this project before Thanksgiving, but we got it together enough to have 25 people over for dinner.  I really have to thank both my handymen.  They worked hard, long hours to help me out.


It was all fine until the cieling was ready to be prepped and painted.  That meant haulling all my stuff out of the kitchen and dining rooms.  I have far to many things.  Then Mike made sure my ceiling was perfect.  That means he put drywall mud up, then sanded it off, put more mud up, then sanded again.  I think he repeated the process about 4 or 5 times, much to my dismay!  I kept telling him I would be fine with a rolly-polly ceiling, just to paint, he didn't listen.  I must admit, I am so glad he ignored my pleading, it looks super.  Even with the plastic up over the doors, dust went to every inch of the house!  Amanda did her best to keep up with the shop vac.

Once we reached a point of cleaning again, I was much easier to live with.  My ceiling is one to be proud of.  Some of my favorite comments so far are that "my kitchen makes my house look older", and that "my kitchen looks so big now".

This is my perfect baking area.  All my baking needs are tucked away in my Hoosier, my mixer is between my flour and my sink, mixing bowls are in plain view, the cookbook has a stand that holds my page, and the Hoosier has a pull out work top that is a perfect level for kneading dough.

Beyond the sink is extra working space and my stove.  Our everyday eating dishes and glasses are again in plain view.  Pots and pans are the same, right where you can find them without stooping over and digging in some dark cupboard.  To the left of the stove you can see my knives on their hand magnetic holder.  Below that you will soon see a butcher block.  The kids are enjoying a cup of hot coco out of my working space, yet still in the room with me.  Notice the shiny, copper colored ceiling?  My family thought I would hate it, but I love it.  I will admit that my designer girl friend did hers first or I might have been too timid to try it.

Across from my great baking area is the refrigerator and a cabinet.  The cabinet is home to the things I don't need to access much like cookbooks, water pitchers, and to-go coffee mugs.

Kitchen saga continued

Because I started this renovation without checking my handyman's schedule, he is not really available til the end of this week.  Bummer.  So to make the best of things, we are doing some experimenting.    I moved the frig back to the other side of the kitchen and put my Hoosier by the door (that was actually my original plan).  Well, you wash your hands a lot while baking.

Then I moved the frig away from the hall to the bathroom.  It gave me such a squeezed, bottleneck feeling. And instead of a work table, I picked up a china cabinet that isn't as deep as the frig, but still gives me storage.  Cathlene found this little buy for me.

 I have a 72 inch table pretending to be my island, much to my surprise it is perfect in here.  Also it will have the stools on the frig side, keeping the traffic flow out of my main cooking area.

These are the times I am so glad to have a friend that lives similar to me.  She can brain storm with me, plus she is great at detail.  I just blurt out what I need or want, and she is able to help make it work and look good.

Now I just need to get her husband over here to work his magic.  He is a great detail man himself.  I am having fun experimenting with my kitchen, but I really want pretty walls again!

The kitchen for a baker

I have been using a kitchen filled with cupboards and counter tops for the past few years.  I notice I don't bake as much or make fun stuff like cheeses.  I finally decided it is because of the kitchen design.  It is very hard to knead bread on a counter top when you are just over 5 feet tall, you need to be at least six feet tall for that set up. 

So, I started ripping out cupboards last week and bought a new stove, with a full size oven.  My wall oven was small and uneven.  My cakes all came out thick on one side, thin on the other.

Then I decided to rip out even more.  The top cupboards will be replaced by shelves, I like to see my stuff.

I was going to put my Hoosier cupboard in the kitchen for baking, then I decided to move the frig to that spot and give myself an entire baking zone.  Now that I see about what I will have I am on the lookout for the right island.

Now that I have a feel for how it will be, I have my favorite handyman on his way to make it look good!  His wife is also quite the decorator and she will be drug into it to help me decide on some final touches. 

Heath care reform news

We spent the afternoon meeting with political representatives.  We learned some things about health care reform that directly effect us.

Every employer must offer health care...only if they have 50 or more employees.  That surely excludes every farmer I know.

Medicare patients no longer have a co-pay for routine visits.  If they go for a cold, that is not routine, they will have a co-pay for that.

There is something in the bill that says all working people must pay for health insurance.  That is only people that show a net income above the poverty level.  Quite frankly, most anyone who is self employed can re-invest into their business until they are below the poverty level.

If your insurance company raised your premium by like 20% and says it's due to the health care reform, you might remind them that their expense in it will not take effect until 2014.  You might also ask them what their excuse has been every year in the past.  I know my insurance goes up 10 to 15% every year.  There should only be a 2% increase due to the new bill at this time.

Blue Cross has shouldered the entire expense for "high risk" patients.  Other insurance companies can refuse people with a "pre-existing" condition or will charge 3 times the normal rate for the first 3 years.  I already knew that because I have a son who had heart surgery 9 years ago and I pay 2 times as much as anyone else for health care to blue cross even though he has had a clean bill of heath sense.
What I did learn is that now all other companies have to take us without charging us their 3 year "high risk" fee.  I will get some quotes next week and see how that's going.

Pasture

For those who are more interested in my farm than my kitchen, I went to a farm meeting Tuesday.  While I was there we talked about my ideas to have my cows on pasture and planting conventional corn.  Terms you will need to know are:
GMO or Stacked corn - corn that has been modified by a scientist to kill bugs that try to eat it.
Corn - all the rest.
Conformist - a person who changes with the times, no matter if it is a good thing or not.


 I have been told in the past that if I plant Corn I will need to plan on losing money.  Also, I should tell people that they will be drinking nasty tasting milk due to the bugs and weeds that my cows are eating.  Was milk gross when my grandparents were farming?

A conformist told me that any farmer that has ever gone to pasture use has gone broke.  Maybe pasturing had nothing to do with those financial woes.  How crazy is it that two of the guys at the meeting have cows out on pasture and have money. 

Tuesday I was told that some of the farmers there are really planting Corn like our grandparents planted.  It also turns out that all that stacked corn is meant for farmers that actually have bug problems.  We rotate our crops so we don't even need their silly stacked stuff.   So why would a supposed trained salesman try to sell it to me?  Could it be that stacked corn is twice as expensive as just corn and he gets a commission?

I will not be a conformist!

Do I go farther?

I am so happy to see this hood vent come down!

Glenn is happy to run the saw for grandpa.  He wants this old kitchen to transform as much as I do.

Then we took the entire peninsula out.  I can't believe how much better the kitchen looks with all that gone.

So now that I have all this stuff gone, I think I'm going to keep going.  I like a kitchen that is open and has antiques against the walls.  I'm just not a fan of all these built in cupboards.  They look good in kitchens, they just aren't my personality.

Out with the old

    My workers are proud to have the stove gone, and so am I.    That empty hole behind Sadie was were that dreadful oven as.

     Then we had to tear down the cabinet that it went in.  I want a real stove.

Now we have a big open space waiting for some flooring and a new stove.

I am dumping this kitchen!

I have been working in an outdated, sub-standard kitchen for years.  All it took was my microwave breaking down to push me over the edge.  This lovely hood vent will no longer catch my hair in it, block my view, or be the sharp corner that I smack my head into!  Even though it was nice in 76'.

Notice it hangs low enough that when people walk in that door, I can't see their face unless they stand under 4 feet tall!  Look at the band on the left.  It is my hair catching on that stupid strap that pulled it away from the hood.  Painful, and I don't want hair in my food!

Okay, so I can't figure out how to turn this picture, but here is my too small wall oven.  It is too small for many of my pans.  Some of my best pans have been sitting in the pantry feeling useless!

And the fact that the knobs have aged so much that they disintegrated under normal use.  It is time to move on.

So today the wall oven found itself sitting in my garage!  Feeling useless!

Fun with Aunt Cherie

Aunt Cherie was up before the sun baking for her big "decorating with the kids" day.  We always put the nanny, Miss Pearl to work with them.

The kids frosted pumpkin cupcakes and stuck in paper decorating toppers.

They frosted and sprinkled mini Brownie cupcakes.

Oops!

They made chocolate fingers on a stick or pretzel.

Now we have a feast of treats to eat!  Thank you Aunt Cherie!

All this high tech stuff!

On one hand, I really use and am glad to have all this modern technology.  I use texting to send quick notes to people, but I try to use proper grammar and spelling. ( Although if you read my blog much you will notice I misspell words all the time.   Most of the time it is just a typo)  I use the computer a ton for my farm record keeping, on-line banking, email, and obviously blogging.  I don't know that a fax machine is high tech by today's standards, but I think I send a fax at least once a week.  It saves me tons of gas money and stamps.

On the other hand, I am not really great at it and that makes it scarey sometimes.  The last two weeks have been "techno crazy" for me.  First I upgraded away from this darn Windows Vista to Windows 7.  That took about 4 days because it is such a huge down load.  Then I had to move all my files from the old program to the new program.  Again it was very time consuming.  Not to mention how scared I was when I first realized all my stuff was not on my new Windows 7 program.  A few moments of panic before I decided it had to be here someplace.

 Then with a couple calls for technical help and wha la.  I was on the phone with the guy long enough to know all about his family.  His mother is American, his father is from China, she speaks fluent Chinese.  They have 2 children, my tech and his teen sister.  They own 4 hectors in California and grow sheep, make candles, and grow Dragon Fruit.

After all that, my hard drive was full!  So I ran to town and bought a 1TB external hard drive.  Today I moved everything I could over to my new drive.  Another long tedious task.  And as I type this, I am deleting all my pictures off my C drive. That alone will clear up 400 GB of my hard drive. I am fairly confident I will have them on this new external hard drive, but I will say it does make me nervous.

So after using my spell check, I find out that "texting" must not really be a word yet.

Spiral ham for dinner today.  One of the most important things in our families life is good food.  Today we had ham served on our Porchugeese platter (a gift from a dear friend)   along with some mashed potatoes and gravy, garden green beans, with Lauren's favorite "apple Johny" for desert.  Apple Johney is actually apple cobler without seasoning, then you pour warm milk and nutmeg over top of the individual servings.  That is how Great grandma made it, so that is how it should be done!

Then it is off to the field to rake some alfalpha hay.  We are going to have this wrapped into what they call silage bales.It

And this is how it looks as it is wrapping and moving along.

As a side note, I thought I would add this picture.  This would be my favorite sister in law (the only one I have) driving the Manitou for us.  I think she looks just a bit too pleased to have this photo opp.  We will take the picture and add it here as long as she is willing to work like a dog!  Actually, she is pretty good help.

Seed Update.

I did more research.  Oddly enough I discovered that conventional corn will NOT cost me twice as much as altered corn.  I also learned that the yield should be exactly the same, NOT 1/4 the yield.  If that is the case, I guess it also means I will NOT lose money for 25 years.

About 8 years ago rBST (a milk producing hormone) was introduced to the dairy industry.  I can remember salesmen coming to the farm and explaining to my father in law that without it we would not be competitive.  They told him he was the only farmer in the county that was not using their hormone.  Looking back I realize that those were all lies as well.  I know of at least 2 dairy farmers in our own neighborhood who never used rBST.  Now it is illegal to use it at all in Michigan. 

Seed Threats

It's time to buy seed for next spring.  The seed companies all give you price breaks if you pay for next years seed now.  That's fair enough for me, I have the most money right now because I just sold my crops. I want to plant regular old corn and that can be a big deal.  I was told by one company (who is owned by a chemical company) that regular corn cost $50 a bag more than their spray ready stuff.  Wow!  Another company, who is NOT owned by a chemical company can sell regular seed for $50 less than a spray ready corn.  Could it be that I am supposed to buy the spray ready so that I have to buy the spray?  And will it really take me 25 years of losing money on non spray corn before I see a profit?  We never used this spray ready corn until last year and we seem to have made money before. 

The sad truth is,  I think someone is using scare tactics to make me think I need to buy their corn.  I don't like being threatened into buying anything.  But, I will do more research before I decide.  Maybe I will lose so much money planting natural corn that I will have to invest in Monsanto just to survive.  I was told today that scientist know more than "mother nature",( isn't that a politically correct term for "God"?)

Canoe Trip

My step dad is a great man.  He spends tons of time just being a guy with Glenn.  Today the two of them took his canoe down our local river.  It did start to rain, but that didn't seem to phase these two outdoor guys.   As you can see, they did some fishing in the rain.  They were hoping to enjoy the fall color and maybe see some wild life.  Glenn claims they saw a muskrat, and his photo proves they saw some color.

Mary

Today Glenn found his cat, Mary with a hole in her hips.  Someone shot our cat all the way through her hips.  I am not the biggest fan of cats, but I detest abuse.  I just cannot believe that anyone had a reason other than pure evil, to shoot his cat.  Mary is a quiet, fixed female cat that stays close to home.  What crime could she have possibly been commiting?  Everytime I go outside and call her, Mary is within ear shot.  I don't have her confined, but how far away could she have been?

So the good news is that I took her to the vet and she is being treated.  Not a cheap adventure, I'm sure.  She will get sedation while they clean the infected wounds, then they will give her pain meds and antibiontics.  I am just appauled that some mom out there raised the rotten person that shot an innocent cat!

I Planted

I have worked like a borrowed mule on this farm for 18 years.  It finally earned me the right to run the planter.  It may not seem like that big a deal to some, but it is on this farm.  First of all, my husband and father in law don't let anyone else plant their fields.  In fact, my husband has not done much planting, mostly Papa, my father in law, does all the planting.  Plus, as I was planting, I was trying to think of the women I know that get to help their husbands plant.  I came up with one, our late neighbor, Janet Noon.  And how ironic that her husband stopped by today.  I shared my thoughts with him about his late wife, and told him how excited I was to plant.  He said his wife was a great helper.  I hope my husband will feel the same.

So I set out to spend about 4 hours planting a 20 acre field for our milk cows.  I am happy to say the girls will have lots of grass to eat in the spring.  Anyways, I didn't quite get done before dinner because I ran out of seed.  That turned into quite the ordeal.  We had to gather seed from a gravity wagon into the loader bucket, then dump that into the gravity wagon with the auger.  From there we could haul it out to my field and load it in the planter.  Then it was time to eat, so we took a break for dinner.

After dinner I got right to work on my pasture, but before I was done, my father in law had an idea.  He figured I might as well finish the seed in the heifer lot.  That meant loading more seed again and planting another 20 acres.  So my four hour project ran ten hours of my day.  Okay, minus the hour it took us to eat and clear the table.

Gladwin, MI

Today the kids and I are in Gladwin, MI.  We are here with my dad visiting his brother,my uncle Melvin Dale Secord.  My grandfather 7 generations back, was the first white settler in the Gladwin area.  Our family name is plastered all over this area because of that.  In fact, next year he will be celebrated for settling here 150 years before.  We stopped in the bar  and had a delicious Secord Burger.  It is a juicy burger with cheese, pickles,and hash browns on it.

There is an entire township bearing our name because it is where our grand farther first settled.

What fun it is to trace down your family history and find such great stuff to learn about.  Now we are looking forward to coming back to Gladwin for their history days.

Fence and Water

I am so greatful for this wonderful fall weather.  We are working on several things at once.  Duane is trying to get the beans done, but at the same time he is installing a new GPS system on a tractor before he plants wheat.  The GPS will help him steer in the fields and help me with my record keeping.  Research shows that a man planting with his naked eye misses about 8 acres of every 100.  When you consider we are planting close to 800 acres, you can see that that would add up fast. 

It will also be used when we are spreading manure in the fields.  Every farmer with animals tends to have more manure close to the barn and that can do more damage than good.  As they say, more isn't always better.  We are going to do grid soil sampling this year.  That's when they sample soil in a square pattern all over each field.  With our GPS we will be able to spread manure just where it is needed and not over saturate places that don't need it.

In the mean time, the kids and I are trying to get more fence up for the calves.  We have dreams of several small paddocks rather than pens.  We want our cows and calves to have more room to roam and grass to eat.  That also requires more water being piped out to them.

Harvesting beans

If you look real close you can see that both our kids and the chihuahua are in that combine gathering beans with their dad.  They do have their own seat, for those concerned about their safety.  We dubbed my husband, Duane "Safety Sam" years ago.  He used to make me wear steal toe boots and safety glasses to push mow.  So, I guarantee his kids are not leaning on the glass or the door in that combine.
We got half the beans done and now we have moved onto the corn.  We will put some high moisture corn in the big blue silo, the Harvestore. 

Pony Fun

Today my kids hooked up their miniature horse, Summer so they can take their friend Abby for a cart ride.  I love the fact that they can do all this without any help.  Summer is such a good sport about it all, we love and appreciate her a ton.

They are in the new hay field across the road from our house.  You can't see her in this picture, but our loyal Australian Shepherd, Molly is jogging along beside the cart.  No other dog can get close to that pony and cart with her on guard.  No strangers either, for that matter.  Also on the ride is Glenn's new pal, Tucker the Chihuahua.  What great memories for these kids.  I love all our animal friends.  We are so blessed to spend our lives surrounded by all these cows, horses, and dogs.   Okay, the cats are fun too.

More Family History

My maiden name is Secord.  I am showing my son,Glenn his history, and proving that he was born to farm.  He has a long line of farmers on both sides of his family tree.  First we visit the family street sign.

You are looking at 90% of the road's length.  Not a long road, about 1 mile long, but in our name just the same.  My grandparents moved to the top of that far hill and purchased four 40 acre sections.   Their house sets smack dab in the middle of those four sections.

This was the home of William and Orpha Secord and their children; Norvin, Weltha, Lorna, Frieda, RE, William (Lee), Melvin Dale, Orha (Joyce), Donald, Eldon (my dad), and Elda Lou. 

Reniassance Festival

 I love to study history, Sadie loves to dress up.  This festival was the perfect place for us.  Glenn just loves to be about and learning, oh and some shopping.  I didn't get many pictures because I forgot to charge the camera battery before we went.  I thought we could have Glenn take over with his camera, but his card was full!  We just had a great day anyways.  Sadie was voted as honorary winner in the costume contest.  She made a beautiful princess.  Her cousin, Jessica made a lovely visiting noble.

We even got the kids to ride in the barrel.  Glenn said it made him a little dizzy.  Once this fellow got it swinging good, he grabbed on and made it spin.  The history goes along with the era art we've been studying at home.

In My Home Town

Here we are pulling into my home town, Wolverine.  I decide to take my kids to my home town and introduce them to some of their family heritage.  My dad's family moved into this town in the 1800s and my dad is still here.

It all starts with some fun with the cousins.  These are my sisters kids and Glenn building a fort in grandpa's back yard.

Karl, my brother stopped by to cut some wood for my dad.  Love that modern truck he uses for his everyday ride.  It's a 1950 Dodge, for those who wondered.

1775

April 18, 1775- the day Paul Revere made his historic ride to warn of the British.  Paul has found a place on our wall, actually our closet doors. 

Sadie is always helping to feed the family!  She is actually doing great at cooking.  It is amazing to me how well she is doing at life skills.  Wouldn't the colonist have had a cherry pie?

Here is our cherry pie.  The cherries were picked on the farm last year.  We love having cherries and other berries around to harvest.  You have to love the cow cut-outs we used.