Farm Visitors

Wednesday brought my friend and

fellow instructor Dominique

and her family to the farm.

They live about half way between

our place and the school I teach at

in South Florida.

They were heading up to the Orlando

area to meet with some other folks

and stopped by to pick up the

keys for my school and to see

the place.

I put the little saddle on Andy and

walked the girls around the property

for about an hour.

Luckily the sky clouded over a little

just as they arrived, so they didn't

totally MELT.

That's a big roll of hay under the blue tarp on the trailer.
Kyle picked up a bunch of them and that's all we have left.

The girls were really cute and had a good time.

I let them feed the chickens some scratch

and collect a couple of the eggs.

And then they headed on up north.

It was a nice morning.

The girls said they wanted to come back

on their way home.

HA!

I'm only good for one visit.

(grin)

So much happening!

Goodness!

It's been a LONG time since I wrote!

Jim turned 30!

Kyle turned 27!

I'm still 36!

On the 31st Jim turned 30 and I made

his favorite birthday cake.

(But didn't take a picture...)

He LOVES Sondra's chocolate cherry cake.

I made TWO of them.

(Well 3...)

One 9x13 to take to the office for him to

share with all the car salesmen etc he works with.

An 8x8 to take home to share with Sabrina

and their friends.

And another 8x8 for us to keep.

They were yummy!

That weekend I ended up in Tampa,

substituting for another instructor

who had to make a quick trip to Italy

for his other job.

Poor guy.

LOL

Then on Thursday, we took a road trip up to the Gainesville area

to look at some land for Linda to buy.

It is BEAUTIFUL land!

158 acres of good, flat, green pasture land.

The 40 acres in the front are more wooded

and actually have a couple of little hills...

There is electricity there already.

And 6 wells.

It's all fenced.

There are currently cows on it,

but she isn't going to buy the cows.

They have horns.

We don't DO horns.

LOL.

Kyle's favorite thing are the hundreds of

wild blackberry bushes!

He was in berry heaven!

Ate a bunch!

(Look carefully, there are a million little black

berries in the top part of the picture...)

She is going to put in an offer on it today.

(Or yesterday... time flies...)

That was Thursday.

Of course we checked out the local area.

It is just outside of a little town called Bronson.

With a GREAT little diner called Julie's Diner.

(When our kids were small, the guilty party

was always "Julie". Who ate the last cookie?

JULIE!

Who left all the toys in the living room?

JULIE!

hahahahaha)

It is also about 20 minutes away from the big city

of Gainesville. A college town with a big 

agricultural department.

And a GREAT farm store!

Rod reminded me that Father's Day

was coming soon...

It's about a 3 hour drive from here.

The plan is that Linda will buy a trailer/mobile home

and Kyle will move up there and live on the 

property, changing some things,

building up a new herd for a cow/calf business

where they buy late bred heifers, keep the females

and take the males to auction.

(Always keeping a couple to raise up for beef

for the families...)

Maybe in 10 years or so, she might move up

there herself - but that isn't certain.

She has 5 children and some of them might

want to end up there.

But she really likes where she lives now.

(Like me!)

It does get pretty cold up there.

It freezes several times during the winter,

although they don't get snow.

Whenever there is a cold night,

Gainesville is always the coldest.

Anyhow.

That was Thursday.

Friday, Kyle and I drove up to New Smyrna

about a hour and a half up the coast,

to our little feed mill.

We only picked up half a load of feed

this time because last time all the feed

fermented. We didn't want to buy as much

as usual if they have changed their formula.

I talked to the guys and they said they always

change the formula in the winter because the

temps and humidity are lower so they don't

need to put as much preservative in the feed.

And then Mother Nature threw a curve ball

and summer arrived a month earlier than usual!

Caught them off guard. 

They were still on the winter formula.

But they are back to the summer stuff now

and everything should be fine.

Which means another trip up in a couple

of weeks to get a full load.

That was Friday.

Saturday was Kyle's birthday!

I made him his favorite birthday cake.

He doesn't like cake.

So for years and years I have drawn a chalk cake

on the patio for him.

LOL

We took everybody out to Olive Garden for 

a combined birthday celebration that night.

It was good to spend some time together,

visiting and catching up on everybody's lives.

Unfortunately the family at the next table

had a couple of REALLY loud and poorly

behaved children. For an hour and a half.

Good heavens!

But we managed to have a great time anyway.

LOL

Sunday found me giving a talk in church.

Centered around communication.

Something I'm obviously going to need

to keep working on!

Hahahahahahahaha

(How many blog posts do I have that start

out... I'm still alive... just busy!)

Then yesterday, Monday,

a momentous thing happened!

I got a text from Jim.

It said.

"Your boy just sold your other boy

his first CAR!"

The truck boy is now a CAR owner!

(He still has his truck, just bought this little beauty as well...)

It's a 2003 VW Golf.

Gets GREAT gas mileage, in really good shape,

and will be terrific for buzzing back and forth 

from the ranch. 

(Jim's GTI is the dark grey one parked next to it,

you can't really see it, but we are now a 

4 VW and 2 Ford truck family...)

Not much variety in our lot.

Looking forward to the week ahead,

Rod has an order of signs that need to go out

this week to the property owners in St Johns, AZ.

(We still have that land...)

I am heading to Orlando on Thursday to attend

a 4-day school where I will be teaching two more

instructors how to use the new eRoster system

and observing them as they teach.

(I should be teaching my West Palm Beach class

this weekend, but the boss got a sub for me

and then I'll finish up the class next weekend...)

My sub is bringing her kids up on Wednesday

to pick up the keys and see the farm and the animals.

They had to run to Orlando so this is just a quick

stop along the way.

Life is not slowing down.

Which is a good thing.

Keeps us busy.

Yesterday I washed all the floors in the house,

bought horse feed,

baked more German Pancake for Rod's breakfast,

did all the laundry,

mowed the back pasture,

as well as doing some grocery shopping

and running to the UPS place to ship back

the keys to the Tampa school.

My days are full.

And now I'd better get busy sending

emails to all the students for this weekend's 

class and welcome them, introduce Dominique

and give them directions to the place.

And I just noticed the horses are still

in their stalls. Better go let them out.

And the day begins.........

(well, continues...)

Freedom Reigns

Happy Memorial Day!

While everyone is celebrating 

our Troops and the Freedoms

they fought for...

We are creating a catch pen and

chute for the cows.

(But with a thought for those who

sacrificed for us as we work...)

This is the new cow chute.

It is currently open on the front

end - into the sand pasture behind

the barn. But will eventually lead

to the trailer heading to, well,

"freezer camp".

Leading to the chute will be this

fancy "catch pen".

The gate in the middle swings closed a bit

at a time and eventually it pushes

them right into the chute.

Slick as a whistle!

Kyle has become the master of the

chainsaw - who needs to carry the

wood up to the house to the table saw?

The guys started it over the weekend

while I was out of town.

Thankfully Sub Tropical Storm Alberto

decided to swing out into the Gulf a little

more. We have overcast skies (so it's less

hot than it could be - and there is a nice

breeze to keep it more comfortable).

Rod did his research (as usual)

and checked out a bunch of pre-made

systems. They ran about $1900.

HA!

These guys are masters of building their

own AND making it better AND

saving us a bunch of money.

The animals are keeping an eye on

all the construction activity.

But mostly they are grateful to be

in the "green yard". They have been

locked out for a couple of weeks

while we rotate pastures.

And Beau is never far away...

Meanwhile, I'm on lemonade duty.

And now I'm supposed to be in the

house making lunch.

Better get to it!

Happy Memorial Day!!!!

And Thank You to all those who

have served and are serving.

Last Day & MORE Cow Fun & Games

This is my last day working at the Town.

It's been fun.

And fills that little void

that misses vacuuming.

You know.

You go into a room with carpet

and leave with nice little

vacuum marks showing 

you were there!

It was a mess.

And now it's all neat and tidy

and orderly.

And the Town Clerk

is SO much happier.

So much so that today I went back

into the fire safe and redid all the

books back there as well.

LOL

Meanwhile,

we had some little visitors to our

farm yesterday.

I ran over to the local feed store

in the morning before work so I 

could get some feed for the horses.

Since we can't feed the fermented stuff

to them. (The cows can eat anything...)

When I got back to the house,

there was an entire family of

Sand Hill Cranes in my driveway.

I'm pretty sure that's Dad

with the kiddos.

Mom was on the other side

out of the picture.

I opened the gate and drove through

and when I got out to go close

the gate, they followed me on in!

They wandered around for a bit,

and then when Kyle opened the gate

again, they walked back out.

Silly birds!

And then...

Last night Rod didn't have to work,

the 3 of us were out back,

having just fed our animals,

I went into the house to check

on the Country Style Pork Ribs

I had in the pressure cooker,

and the guys walked to the back

to check on the new grass.

(Kyle spread 100# of seed on Thursday

and its rained every day since.

It's coming up nicely!)

Glanced over next door and noticed

the cows were out.

And while they watched,

they all lazily hopped over the

"new" fence Brock put in yesterday.

Into the neighbor's back yard.

So they wandered over to see if

they could round them up and put

them back into their pasture.

Naturally, it turned into a "thing".

The cows ran up his fence line and

into his front yard.

The neighbor came out VERY angry

and had words with Kyle.

While I grabbed a bucket of feed

and went out the front to try

to get them to follow me back home.

They were doing so well!

And then another neighbor showed up

WITHOUT a bucket of feed

and freaked them out and off they

ran - back into the back of the property

again, where they split into smaller groups

and forced us to chase them back and forth

for... about an hour.

I was POOPED!

(And it was quite warm as well...)

By the time we got them close to

the hole in the fence so we could

run them back in, the hogs showed

up and decided they wanted to come

OUT the hole in the fence and have

some of my grain.

Rod really had his hands full keeping

the hogs from getting OUT

while trying to get the cows IN.

But we succeeded.

If only that were the end of the story.

We went through the hole only to find

all the cows were now happily in the

middle of the farm garden,

munching the tops off the vegetables.

Good grief.

(Meanwhile, when we called Brock,

he said he was just sitting down to his

birthday dinner...)

(Whatever.)

Kyle and I dashed back to our house

and he loaded up a giant round roll

of hay onto his tractor, hoping they

would follow the hay into the secure

front pasture.

Put the hay in the pasture, but the cows

decided the vegetables were better.

So Kyle got on our 4-wheeler and

herded them - yelling and zooming around

(*and tearing up the grass a bit... oops!)

and FINALLY got all of them in the pasture

(and Rod again did a masterful job of

keeping the goats and donkey from getting

OUT while the cows were getting IN.)

Meanwhile it was FULL DARK.

We still had to go back to our place

and get one of our extra corral panels

and wire it up to the fence in the front

of the property. There has been a large 

hole in that fence for... a year?

Meanwhile.

It was 9:30.

I went to Chick Fil-A and got

us all a chicken sandwich.

Put the ribs back in the fridge

(they are all cooked, but need

some BBQ sauce cooked onto

them in the air fryer, and some

vegetables, and some salad,

and I was DONE.)

Such is the life on a farm.

Never a dull moment!

It's fun.

And we love it.

Mostly.

Good Gravy

Good Ness!!!!

(As Kyle would say...)

This past weekend I was teaching in West Palm.

I had 2 other instructors "visiting",

learning how to use the new eRoster system.

Thank goodness!

When I got ready to begin class,

I switched my iPad over from

"register the students" mode to

"power point - teach the class" mode.

That generally means I tap an icon

and my iPad automatically connects

to my Apple TV and projects up on

my giant white board at the front of the room.

Only this time it didn't.

And I, being the NON-techy member of

the family, had NO idea what to do!

But luckily Carlos is a Tech Expert!

I handed it to him and he messed with it

for fifteen minutes until he got it to

at least connect - but looks like it will

never happen automatically again.

Sigh.

But at least it works.

It was a rocky start to class,

but we got through it.

The rest of the day went well,

until lunch time.

My Subway app was broken.

Which meant we had to go and 

actually ORDER.

Sheesh.

First world problems.

Sunday started out well.

We decided not to mess with the Subway

app and just drove over and went inside.

Where they were SLAMMED.

But I work in a food desert,

so it's Subway or nothing.

(Well, McDonalds... but whatever...)

By the time we got out of there,

and dealt with all the other crazy

people driving in South Florida in 

the RAIN,

we walked into the classroom

ON THE DOT of 1:50.

Which is when class begins.

I walked in the room and said

"Hi!  Class is officially underway!"

And then fortunately I had two instructors

who could go around the room and

collect QR codes and signatures from

each of the students.

(A process you have to go through

at the beginning of each session.)

When class ended (it went well...

we had 24 students - a large class,

but lots of fun!)

we still had to do all the other iPad

nonsense to report the student's hours.

Because it looked like the entire class

was late, we had to put an explanation

note on EACH one. (Thank goodness

for copy / paste!)

But when we tried to finalize it,

we got an error code, 

it said the roster was locked,

and we would have to fix it later.

Whatever.

By then it was nearly 7:30 and we had

been at it for 12 hours.

We were TIRED!

One of the instructors lives 50 miles

north, right on my way home,

so rather than make her husband

pack up their 3 little girls and drive

down to pick her up, I just took her home.

But first I ran to the bathroom.

Where I dropped my phone in the toilet.

(don't ask)

So NOW I have no working phone.

FUN!

I DID manage to get it to connect

to my car so I could use my map

feature (or I'd still be driving around

Port St. Lucie trying to find the highway.)

and listen to music.

But it couldn't hear me,

so I couldn't phone / text anyone.

I NEEDED some Piano Guys.

Whew!

Which means I was up and out of the

house by 8:30 this morning,

heading to Sprint.

They sold me a new phone (upgrade)

since mine was never going to get

any better.

We got it all hooked up,

all my information transferred over,

and I headed out of there about 11:00.

I was headed to Town Hall,

but first I tried to connect it to my

car so I could listen to my book on tape

on the drive.

It refused to connect.

So instead of Town Hall,

I headed to the dealership to have Jim

fix it for me.

We messed with it for 30 minutes

(and had a nice visit)

and gave up.

Back to Sprint.

Where after much trial and error,

and You Tube-ing (is that a word?)

and then Googling,

it turns out the LG V30 does NOT

connect with Android Auto.

Well.

That would have been nice to know

2+ hours ago.

The salesman was really helpful,

we ended up bringing his manager out

to the car - he drives an Audi (basically

the same car as a VW)

and he has a Samsung.

His phone connected right up.

So back into the store to swap the LG

for a Samsung.  That was an adventure.

An hour later, I got to FINALLY eat

something. My reward for dealing with

phone issues is the Steak 'N Shake next

door. They have a really yummy little

jalapeno burger that I love, but I never

get it because I'm never in that part of town.

While eating, I decided to text Jim and

update him. But it wouldn't send.

I looked around for why 

and it turns out the phone wasn't 

activated yet.

WHAT?

Back next door to Sprint.

Ken messed with.

Finally it said it was done.

Back out to my car.

Where I discovered it STILL

wouldn't let me make a phone call.

Back into the store.

More messing around.

We texted each other.

We phoned each other.

We confirmed it worked.

I left.

I phoned Jim.

We talked.

I called my boss to talk about the

new eRoster and some issues.

Meanwhile I drove to Town Hall.

I got there at 2:00.

I worked until 4:00.

I came home.

Rod texted he was trying to call

but my phone went direct to voice mail.

I had Kyle stand next to me and phone me.

It went direct to voice mail.

I still had my salesman's number in my phone.

I called him at home.

I told him I was returning the phone.

He texted me.

I think I fixed it.

He called me.

It RANG!

Rod called me.

It RANG!

Kyle called me.

It RANG!

I'm going to bed.

lol

(Oh yeah, the adventure continues,
turns out the corn in our feed got wet
at the mill and now all our feed
smells like... whiskey?
I really AM going to bed.
And Kyle and I are driving to the
feed mill tomorrow to swap it out.)

Feast or Famine

Seems like suddenly life has hit the FAST lane.

On Tuesday, when Kyle had a migraine,

I took him to the store with me,

and then we stopped by the Town Hall

so I could drop off my latest typing

project and the invoice.

While there, Debby (Town Clerk)

told me Dorothy, secty

is going to be out starting Wednesday

and running through the following

Wednesday. Would I be interested

in covering for her???

Sounded like fun.

They had a "small project"

I could do while I was there...

Dorothy only works part time

and Deb said she know I have a lot

of stuff going on, I could pick my

own hours. Mostly they just needed

somebody to answer the phones

so they didn't have to keep

interrupting what they were doing.

I said Sure!

Wed. morning bright and early,

ok, 10:30 (hahaha) I showed up

at Town Hall.  (Hey! I have stuff 

to DO in the mornings...)

Deb showed me how to use the

phones and left me to it.

They have two bookshelves there in

the front office (first thing citizens see

when they visit) that looks like a mish mash

of three ring binders.

Deb is a little OCD and really likes

things to be uniform, neat, tidy and 

easy for everyone to use.

We ordered a bunch more white binders,

I made up a master so all the spines look

the same, and made a front cover sheet

for all of them.

(Terrible picture... the town logo is 

under that glare...)

It looks a TON better now!

I worked on that all day Wed,

but ran out of books after only two shelves.

Deb gave me some typing

to do for her. (She said she would pay

both hourly to have me in the office

AND my regular "per page" rate for any

typing she had me do...)

The new books came in after lunch,

so it was back to the books.

This morning I took all the books off the

shelves and rearranged them giving us

an extra shelf to store more items.

And then I did some more typing.

I'm going back again next week for

a couple of days.

Nobody is quite sure when Dorothy is

coming back, maybe Wednesday?

Maybe Thursday?

We'll see.

I finished the first shelf.

I have another box of books and

a full bookshelf left to work on.

And there is ALWAYS more typing.

Meanwhile,

I'm having FUN.

And it's temporary.

(I'm typing this from my hotel bed,

while watching the finale of
Master Chef Junior.)

I'm training another instructor this

weekend on the new eRoster system...

Hopefully it all goes smoothly.

Normally they have an instructor do a

class with a mentor (what I did in Miami)

and then run a class on their own,

and THEN move on to training another

instructor. But we skipped the middle step.

I was sure I could do it.

Hope I was right!

(Looking at my bracelet with the 

engraved words "What If You Could?")

So You Want to Raise Cows???

Get a couple of cows, they said.

It will be fun, they said.

And then you come home from the store

and see THIS!

Really???

I just had to laugh.

Poor Kyle, though.

He started the morning with an ocular migraine.

He has been doing lots of reading lately

and I think his eyes were just tired.

Once he put his book down, 

it switched to a regular headache

and then, since he hadn't eaten anything,

it progressed to a regular migraine.

Fun.

When we got home from getting him

some milk (and some other stuff...)

I found the cow.

Surprisingly, dealing with the whole thing

actually got rid of his headache!

(Or maybe it was the handful of various pills...)

First we tried luring them over to the

willow trees and pulling down branches

for them to eat. They LOVE willow!

But the little black cow is super skittish

and every time Kyle would reach for her

she would freak out and run away.

So then we brought them into the barn.

Closed all the stall doors except

for Andy's stall and they tromped

right on in like they had been living there.

(They've never been in the barn before...)

Kyle got the brown cow to let him pet her,

(we call him Dr. Doolittle)

and she would even let him lean on her to

reach over and pet the black cow,

but every time he grabbed a hold of the tire,

she would freak out.

A 12 x 12 stall with two untamed cows

probably isn't the safest place to be.

And we weren't getting anywhere.

Next he got his tractor and brought up

the old chute he got from work.

It's homemade from rebar and not 

particularly well built, has a head catch,

but that doesn't help because we need to get

the tire OVER her head...

He put it in the alley of the barn - crosswise -

and put the forks of the tractor on top and

added a little weight to keep her from

just knocking the whole thing over and

breaking a leg (or neck or what have you...)

Unfortunately there is a piece of steel at the bottom

of Andy's stall door, so the door to the chute

couldn't open - we ended up scootching it to the right,

up against the stall on the other side of the alley,

and then you open Andy's door one direction

and the chute door opens the other, 

making an escape-proof "alley" into the chute.

We also closed the barn gate for extra safety.

We opened the stall door and let the brown cow out.

She was happy to be out on the grass, 

but kept coming over to check on her friend.

Then we loaded the black cow and her

necklace into the chute.

It just BARELY fit.

She wasn't super happy about it.

She can really BELLOW!

There is a ladder built into the front section,

made a good place for Kyle to hang out.

He straddled the chute and tried to lift

the tire off her head.

It was pretty sketchy.

She kept raising her head and thrashing

it about, pinning his foot, or his arm,

or trying to unseat him...

Finally succeeded in getting ONE horn out,

but then either the other horn or her nose

was in the way and we couldn't figure it out.

We were contemplating calling Linda's

large animal vet (she sent me her number)

and having her come over and tranquilize

her so we could cut it off...

but then we got the idea to put a rope through

it to stabilize the tire.

That helped a little,

but not enough.

I was standing at the front of the chute,

holding the rope tight.

Then we added a 2nd rope,

which I was also holding tight,

so no more pictures...

lol.

That was better, but still not enough.

So Kyle got down next to her and added

a THIRD rope so the tire really couldn't

move and then we started popping

her on the nose to try to get her

to back out.

She hollered.

Kyle tapped.

I reached in with my toe and

popped her on the nose.

And Kyle nearly lost his hand.

Kyle tapped some more.

She hollered some more.

And then, after two and a half hours...

SUCCESS!!!!!

She had to back out of the chute

and wasn't happy about that...

but she finally figured it out and we

let them graze on the lawn for a bit

(until they got too close to my peach tree...)

They are happily back in their pasture.

And all the tires are locked up in a trailer.

On to the NEXT adventure!