He’s in the Army Now

Collin joined the Army.  His Mom and Dad were there with him on Sunday during the swearing-in ceremony.  Nikki said it was hard to witness.  I feel her pain.  We had lunch with Collin and Nikki on Friday and I was pretty sad when we said our good byes, and a bit weepy.  He should be in Oklahoma now, in basic training.  It’s comforting to know that his Uncle JD is nearby in the OKC area. 

Collin is our oldest grandson, the 3rd child in a family of 8 children.  Lee and I are fortunate to have been able to spend lots of time with Collin while he was growing up.  He was my horse show buddy and did lots of horsey activities with me.  I know he has many fond memories of our time spent at horse shows and events.

Lee also has enjoyed a good relationship with Collin, who loved to help Lee with chores and farm work, and followed him around daily when he was here with us. 

We’re really going to miss him, but we know he’ll be coming home on leave.  He’ll have a week or two to come home after basic training and before he heads to further training in Augusta.

We send him off with our love, respect, and thanks.

The Day After Christmas

I hope everyone had a nice day with family and friends. As usual we ate too much, Connor got a belly ache (food plus excitement), and we had a good time visiting and laughing at things only our family finds funny. There were new phones aplenty and we had dueling beeps going on for a while. The girls called their boyfriends, because they missed them. We watched A Christmas Story for the gazillionth time and we all knew every word of dialogue.

Most of my grands have grown up enough that they want to give us a little gift, and the things they chose were so thoughtful and special. Nikki and Ken gave me a new bread machine because my old one recently bit the dust. Sorry about that whole lack of fresh bread thing Santa. I hope you enjoyed the roasted garlic dip and chips instead

Lee gave me a digital photo frame and I’m excited to begin using it. I have to figure it out first of course. More techno challenges for me, but I’ll get it. I always do.

One of the best gifts I got was from my brother and sister-in-law, who sent me several of my favorite things.  Could they be any more thoughtful?

Meredith couldn’t find her photo ornament on the tree and neither could I, even though I knew it was there somewhere. This morning I did find it. If it was a snake….., so I took a picture of it and phoned it to her. She’s happy to know that she really is loved.

Aubrey, Josh and Carys weren’t able to make it.  They spent the day with Josh’s family.  Aubrey sent this picture of Carys.  Have you ever seen a more beautiful smile?

The weather wasn’t the best, but all made it safely here and home again.

Charlie’s present was a big hit.  It’s a roundish green rubber thing with an opening.  It’s called Monster Mouth I think.  Stuff it with biscuits and let him at it.  It takes him quite a while to get all of the biscuit bits out of there so I highly recommend it for a doggy diversion.

Can I be Happy in Winter?

I don’t think I can be happy in Wisconsin in winter.  Winters here are long, and harsh.  I’ve lived here most of my life, but I still feel like it’s just temporary.  A move to warmer climes is just around the corner…or not.  These are  pictures of the farm in winter.  

 We recently had a blizzard, with over a foot of snow.  Then it got cold.  As I write this the temperature is  2.3F.  Lee and I have to go out in the cold and snow twice every day (minimum) to care for our livestock.  People who don’t know farming think that winter is our vacation time and we have nothing to do until spring.  In truth, winter is just plain hard.  Everything takes longer.  Things freeze and need to be thawed.  Animals need extra care to keep them warm.  Our hands crack and bleed from the cold dry air.

I’ll bet you don’t know what this is.  It’s Charlie’s emergency poop circle .  Just out the front door.  When the snow is very deep, and the dog needs to go out, this is what you do.   I took the picture last year, but it happens several times every winter.  Charlie hates winter too.  We’ll never get used to it.

‘Tis the Season

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Charlie

Every year at this time I become nostalgic.  Don’t we all?  The longer I live in this world, the more memories I gather and store.  For the most part my holiday memories are sweet.  There were a few years that were pretty awful but they were a long time ago.

I love to hear my kids and grandkids  talking about their own special memories of Christmases past.  I know that I’ve been a part of the memories and I’ve helped to create some of the holiday traditions that they  can’t do without each year. 

 

In the spirit of remembering Christmas past, I dug out a picture that my kids will remember.  It’s a photo of our Christmas tree, taken in the house the kids grew up in. This pic was taken in 1986, after the girls had moved out, but it could be any year.  It always looked the same, with the same hand made ornaments, in front of the same window, year after year.

I also found a picture of Lee’s childhood tree, taken in 1968.  This picture will bring back memories for him too.

No Christmas nostalgia post would be complete without  food memories.  Our family gatherings always involve food, and I have a special cookie recipe that really means Christmas to me.  My Mother made these cookies since I was a very little girl.  Ive made them every year of my adult life.  The recipe I’ll give you here is Kay’s version of my original recipe and it’s better

Butterballs

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup ground pecans (best flavor if you grind them fresh)

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

More powdered sugar for coating the baked cookies.

Mix all the ingredients.  Shape into balls the size of walnuts.

Bake at 325 for 15-20 minutes.

Roll in powdered sugar while hot, and again when cool.

Makes about 4 dozen.

Merry Christmas from the Zills Farm

My New Phone (or How Technology Passed Me By)

We decided that we don’t need our landline any more because we got rid of dial-up internet and got satellite.  OK, fine.  Commence the headache that is phone plan shopping.  After days of  hopping from one mobile phone carrier website to another, and back again many times, we settled on a carrier, and picked out a plan and a phone.  Our criteria was simply to get the most bang for our buck, while staying within the boundaries of our technological expertise.  Do you see where I’m going with this?

We transferred our landline number, which has been my number since 1973, to this new mobile phone.  This is obviously very convenient for us and everyone who calls us.  This will be our primary phone, although Lee does have his own mobile that he keeps with him all the time.  The phone that I chose was free with our plan, always an important consideration.  Being a wise consumer, I sought out reviews of this phone and was pleased to see that not only did it appear to be trouble-free, it is also “a good beginner phone”  “easy to use” “a great phone for kids”.  Just what I need!

Now, I’ve always been fairly technology savvy.  Heck, back in the day, I owned and used a Commodore 64.  Until recent years, I’ve been able to keep up pretty well, programming the VCR, using the features on our various electronic devices, always owned a computer and used it daily.  How did I get so far behind?  I’m sure it’s mostly because we don’t have kids in the house any more.  Secondarily (is that a word?) I seem to be losing brain power as I age.  Or maybe I’ve just lost interest?  Anyway, back to the phone…..

Using this phone has been a somewhat steep learning curve for me.  I’m becoming comfortable with it and all of its features but it’s taken lots of study and trial and error.  It’s easy enough to use the actual phone, but it has so many other features and bells and whistles.  I’m getting the hang of it now   Lee is not impressed with this pink phone.  He hasn’t  complained a lot about it, but  he has issues with it.  The keys are so tiny that he just can’t use them with his big paws.  Putting his frequently called numbers on speed dial will help him there.  He has to use a pen or pencil to push the buttons on the phone, poor guy.  This isn’t an easy transition for him.

If you call me, don’t be surprised if I lose you or hang up on you.  If you text me, I may take a while to get back to you.  Just give me a few days and I should be up to speed.

Black Walnuts

Playing under the black walnut tree

We have a huge, old black walnut tree in the yard.  We also have two or three of its children in the ditch line over yonder.  Black walnuts are lovely trees, but they can be messy.  Some years this old tree is loaded with nuts and other years there are none.  I don’t know what causes the bumper crops or the barren years.  I do know that the bumper crops are a problem.  The walnuts can carpet the ground, and let me tell you, they’re ankle breakers.  There are folks who love black walnuts, and I’ve heard they even pay for them!  I’m not a fan of the black walnut meats.  I loathe them.  My Gramma Herman loved them.  At least I think she did.  Or maybe she was just being her frugal self and didn’t want them to go to waste, so she put them in many of her baked goods.  When I was a small, cookie loving child, I was often caught unaware, taking an offered cookie, and then having to eat it (manners) and the nasty black walnuts it contained.  When I was little I was apparently a slow learner, because it seems I remember choking down dozens of black walnut laden goodies.  As I got older I got pretty good at spotting the black walnuts so I was able to decline.

This is what black walnuts look like after they fall from the tree.  To use the nuts, the dark hulls need to be removed and the nuts have to be dried and then cracked and picked.  Black walnuts will stain everything they touch.  I’m always amazed that there will be zillions of these things on the ground in the fall, but they sustain the squirrels over winter and will be gone or nearly gone by spring.  We rarely rake them up, because the squirrels are so efficient at removing them for us.

The Black Walnut Brigade

One year we had more black walnuts on the ground than I have ever seen, and I didn’t think the squirrels would even be able to cart them all away, so I cooked up a plan.  I invited the grandchildren to spend an afternoon picking them up, offering to pay them a penny a piece.  My plan was flawed.  The kids were thrilled to do the job, and excited to get paid, but the darn kids kept losing count, so they would guess and I ended up paying them very big dollars for their work.  Next time we’ll pay them by the pound

Morning Snapshots from the Farm

This dreary picture tells the whole story.  Clouds, rain, crops still standing in wet fields.  The ears of corn are molding on the stalks.  Soybeans are still not harvested.  We’re not alone, it’s the same sad tale for many farmers.   Sometimes I feel like we’re crazy to keep trying to make a living on the farm.

 

Welcome to my world.  It’s wet here.  Everything is soggy.  We haven’t seen much sun in the last few weeks.  This kitty is wanting to get his paws clean, but he’s fighting a losing battle.  He lives in mud city.

 

 

Say Hi to Star.  She’s a crazy little mare.  In this picture she’s outside playing while I clean her stall.  The wind and the cold air have made her frisky.  Click on any picture to get the full version.

 

 

 

Mikey and Sassy.  Mikey is everyone’s favorite kitty.  He’s a big lug, friendly with all, has a great little motor.  Sassy is a sweetie too, but more discriminating.  She mostly loves me and sometimes Lee.

 

Tiger (the cat) likes to hide in the horse’s hay, whether it’s on the ground or in a hay rack like it is here.  He’s possessive of his hay bed.  Poor Cody got his nose swatted every time he tried to take a bite of his hay.  Tiger eventually got tired of the game and left.  Cody was relieved. 

 

 

 

Stuff I Like

Let me just get a couple of things out of the way.  This is a post about some things I love.  Notice it’s things, not people.  All of the people I love know that they’re my favorite.

I’m not Oprah.  Consequently, my favorite things are going to be much less costly and way more practical than Oprah’s.  That’s OK.  You  might like them too.

I love birthday cake.  Real birthday cake with real buttercream icing.  Not that fluffy crap.

Pearson Nips, the coffee flavor.  My maternal grandmother turned me on to these things when I was a little girl.  She used to keep a tin of them under her bed, and every day after lunch she retired to her room to read, and  enjoy one or two coffee Nips.  Being diabetic, I don’t indulge in Nips or birthday cake often, but that makes them that much more special when I do allow myself to enjoy them. 

No, this isn’t a theme.  I think I’m finished with the food faves.

Bodycology body cream.  I completely adore the vanilla amber musk fragrance, but apparently that scent is no longer available in my area, or online.  There are several of their fragrances that I really like, so I know I’ll find a new favorite .  Right now I’m trying the Vanilla Romance, and next I’ll try the Brown Sugar Vanilla.  

 

This isn’t a “thing”, it’s a state of mind.  I love being a grandmother.  I do it lots better than I did the Mom job.

The technology that means the most to me is my computer, combined with my digital camera.  It doesn’t matter what the brands are, I just love being able to put them together and share my photos.  I can use my pictures for evidence, or to prove a point, or to share something funny or adorably cute, and do it right away.  I love that.

This book was a Christmas gift from Lee.  It’s the Smithsonian Birds of North America , Fred J. Alsop III,and what a nice book it is.  It’s huge and heavy, so definitely not a field guide, but it contains “Life histories of more than 930 species”.  The pictures are very nice and there’s good information about each bird.  A  book that any bird watcher would be happy to own.

 

I love a nice, warm bed.  Here in the frozen tundra, it gets mighty cold.  I can’t live without my heated mattress pad.  It’s much superior to a heated blanket.  Another winter bed warmer is flannel sheets.  Try them!

I love Boston Terriers.

I also love miniature horses.   And kitties.

Splenda Minis.  They’re tiny tablets that contain half as much sweetener as the packets.  Just the perfect amount for my coffee.   I don’t like having to guess and sprinkle the right amount (half the package) into my cup.  I never get it right, and then I sometimes have to throw away the unused portion.  Wasteful.  These minis are not easy to find!  I think I can order them from Splenda online.

 

Finally, anyone who knows me at all, knows that Las Vegas is my happy place.

Feel free to share your faves in the comments.  I’d like to know what you love.

 

A Little Bit of Harvest

This year hasn’t been the best as far as farming is concerned.  Weather and growing conditions have been uncooperative for farmers attempting to grow crops all around the country.  My cousin in Kentucky is having similar problems to ours here in Wisconsin.   Happy news for us, Lee was able to work on harvesting soybeans yesterday.  He worked from  late morning after the dew had dried, until 10 last night, when the evening dew began adding too much moisture to the beans.

Today is a different story.  It’s cloudy and drizzling a bit, with serious rain in the forecast for later.  That puts an end to the soybean harvest for now.  It looks like there’s a lot of rain in the forecast for the next few days  We really just need a break. 

Whenever my family comes to visit, they take lots of pictures of life on the farm, and they keep me well supplied with photos.  The pictures in this post were taken by my cousin Ron.  Thanks Ron!

Party Report

The party for JD and Kim turned out great.  Yes, the weather was incredibly cold and our southern visitors saw a dusting of snow, but we still had a lot of fun.  Lee and I both came down with colds/viral crud this week and we’re feeling poorly, so I’m just going to post a few pictures from the event and let them do the talking for me.  I hope that none of you picked up the virus bugs that we did. There are lots more pix on my Facebook page.  Now, on with the show!  Please click on the thumbnails to see the full size picture.

Lee's family

Teri, Carol, Nikki

Frozen football

Paige, Crystal, Collin, Ken