Last year I was looking after Lorene's boys full time, so I don't have as many stories and photos. I keep up with the boys are doing this month, by snitching photos off facebook.
And watching their football games. We like to support our grandchildren, but the first football game we were able to watch was in 40 degree temperatures and 30 mph winds. You couldn't wear enough clothes or have enough blankets to be really comfortable. Christian was so miserable,
he and I watched in their van at a distance.
During that time, it was just as enjoyable to watch Barry play, alone with a football, his own game. I could tell by his actions; his tackles, passes, catches and touchdowns. I don't know if beautiful is the right word here, but anytime I see a kid playing with only his imagination, it stirs my heart.
There are a lot of interesting things you can do in this life and obviously one of them is watching ostriches race. I never heard of such a thing, and especially not in our state, but here is proof.
I wasn't the one watching any big racing birds, but my grandkids were.
Spring is here, more or less. It's been chilly, warmish, windy, snowy, cloudy and rainy.
I sure would like to see a bit more sun.
These Scilla are some of the earliest flowers that come up.
We like to buy small trees from our NRD, they are less expensive that way to plant in the windbreak/screen we are making on the south side of our property. Jim bought several red oak trees this year with the idea to plant some at the farm to eventually replace the green ash trees that eventually will be killed by the emerald ash borer.
So, we went out to the farm to plant trees.
We also planted several acorns, burr oak, I think.
The following photos don't really show what I saw and what I wanted to tell.
This first one is a picture along the dry creek on our farm where we planted most of the little trees.
We had major flooding in a large part of our state due to snow, frozen ground and lots of rain. We didn't think our property was affected, but you can see trash caught in these trees. The creek is about 6-7 ft. deep and the grass in the branches is above ground level.
Water running through here must have been 3 ft. deep judging from the trash clinging to the branches of that fallen tree.
Jim cuts wood here and then tosses the small branches in piles near the creek bed. We don't realize how powerful water in until we've seen what it can do. We've got a little dam going here.
Same place, same idea. That's a nice sized log that the water tumbled down the creek.
Jim planted a peach tree last fall, and it is blooming. We are hoping for a few peaches this year, but we've had several frosts while the blooms were on, which kept Jim rushing out to spray the tree with water before sunup.
I kept the drawings on this white board for a good 5 or more years, because it was cute. It makes more sense to use a white board as it is intended so I took a photo for posterity's sake.
Boys.
And more boys.
And chicks...
...which we need more of like a cat has two tails.
We already have about 20 hens and get anywhere from 12-16 eggs a day.
We had Zane overnight in April and I made chocolate waffles. I've been making up some recipes I've saved that I actually thought I would want to use. This recipe is a bit fiddly, having to separate eggs and whip egg whites. The finished product was beautiful, but deceiving. People expect chocolate things to be sweet. This wasn't. It is supposed to be treated like any other waffle, with syrup or whipped cream. Zane treated his with ice cream and sprinkles.
Our resident turkeys. I wonder if they will be a nuisance in the garden this summer.
