Farm Photo Friday

Now that I’m able to post pictures again, I thought I’d join in on Fresh from the FARM ~ Farmchick’s Farm Photo Friday!   Boy, this old body/brain is learning new ways around the computer~after I was very comfortable doing it the other way!  But it will get easier I’m sure.  Now also trying to figure out how to change my header pictures and pics on the side. 
Our love of horses has been a love affair since we were married.  Have had quite a few horses on the place, but there are always “very special” ones that remain in your hearts forever.

This is “Jack”.  He now belongs to our granddaughter Amanda, but Jessica grew up with Jack.  She bought him as a yearling colt when she was about 11 with her money she’d saved from 4-H winnings.  They had a special bond, and when Jessica comes home in the summer and rides him again, it’s like he remembers her.  It is so special that Jessica’s little girl Renee is able to ride him.  A wonderful horse friend to Amanda and Jessica.

This new filly is at Stephani’s farm in southern Minnesota.  Her name is “Wren”.  Stephani breeds quarter horses, and started out riding a pony when she was 5.  Her first experience on a pony wasn’t a good one, and she started riding the big horses right away.

This is Skoal.  He has been around for a long time too.  Stephani’s first horse of her own has been gone for a long time now, and Skoal is now the “old guy”! 

Here is “Jack” and “Ace”.  Leah, Jessica and Renee had a good ride when Jessica was home.  Look at that smile on Renee’s face ~ she really likes to ride the “horseys”.

Isn’t this cute!!!!!!!!!

Amanda on Jack back in 2007 at a 4-H horse show.

Here is Stephani on Leah’s first pony “Tinkerbell”.  The pony would stand there while Steph would take a running jump to get on!   It was so funny ~  we’d watch and laugh so hard, because her running jump came to a complete stop before she would jump!  I have an old movie of it somewhere.  Should get the old projector out some time to watch and get it copied.    Leah was given this pony when she was 5 years old as a Christmas present from her babysitters family.  That was the beginning of horses for the kids.

Leah’s first bigger horse, a POA named “CurleyJo”.  Here Leah is close by in case Steph needs help.

I am so happy that our girls grew up with their best friends ~ their horses.  That love affair still goes on today as adults with their own families! 

To check out the other Friday Farm Photos, click on the Fresh from the Farm link in my first paragraph.  Please leave comments on all the links you check out.  You know we all love to hear from blogging friends!

Have a great Friday and weekend. 

A walk around the farm!

The last several days we have had great weather, and last evening, Odda and I (and the camera) took a little walk.
 
We walked west through what I call the machinery parking lot!   The cows are laying in the shade just watching us.  They don’t get up to check us out-it’s too hot!
Here’s the old combine that is for sale.  We put it on Craig’s List and have had many calls on it.  A young man came today to buy it, and drove it back to his house taking all the back roads.  He had about 85 miles to go.  I don’t know how fast he could go, but it was going to take awhile.  His mom came with and then followed him home.  He refurbishes machinery, and was excited to get it home.  When Steve found out he redid tractors and machinery, he had him look at one of his tractors that he wants to get redone.
This is the tractor that he wants to have repainted and all fixed up.  I guess Farmall didn’t make many of the 504’s.  As it is now, it works great, but not so pretty!  I think that Steve would like to show it at a tractor show someday when it’s all fixed up!

                                  “Cat” and “Sophie” followed us on our walk too.  The little yellow one never was named, so just “Cat”!  They ran in and out checking for field mice!

                             The peas were cut and swathed the other day.  I opened up a couple for you.
                         Aren’t the little peas cute?  I put one in my mouth.  Hard as rocks!  They’re ready to be combined and stored.  Then mixed in when hubby grinds corn and peas together with other stuff for pig feed.
                              The windrows are so big and fluffy.  There are vines and also weeds.  The weeds need to dry before he combines.  This afternoon he did make a couple of rounds with the newer combine.  It is a 1980’s model and it works like a charm.    He’s having fun ~ it has air conditioning, it’s quiet, and even has a radio!   A boy and his new TOY!  Now he can combine, and not even get dirty!
The combine lifts up the windrow and shakes the peas out.  They go up a wide belt into the hopper (middle of the combine) while the vines and weeds are chewed up and spit out the back.    Then when Steve fills up the hopper, he drives back into the yard and swings out the shoot and the peas are checked for dryness and put into the bin.  The dryness count was 13, and that is good.  He’ll still have a fan running in the bin in case some peas aren’t as dry. 
Here’s Odda on our walk.  We didn’t use a leash, and she was just a little ahead of me.  If I called her came right back.
By the time we were headed back to the house, her tongue was hanging out!  She got pretty warm ~ her black hair just soaks up the hot sun. 
Well, this is my first time using Windows Live Writer.  Connie had to talk me through starting.  I  going to have to use this, as I can’t post pictures anymore when I write in the blogger dashboard.  I even had paid for more storage, and couldn’t get it to work.
Another nice evening, so I better get outside to enjoy a little bit of it.   More soon, have a grat Friday tomorrow, Jo

Where's Summer Going?

Can't believe how fast time goes!  Have been so busy, that I guess I also took a blogger break!  Have been busy in the yard, working on county fair auction stuff till late into the night and haven't even been into blogger for a week or so.  Shame on me, and I will try to get better at checking out blogs and writing.  Seems like I've said it before, just need to get back into the routine!
We've had a very warm, muggy summer.  The heat is doing a number on our yard.  Have a lot of brown patches now, so that also means a little less mowing, and that fall is just around the corner. 

This is the quilt that our friends little girl made for the county fair.  She is 10 years old and did it all by herself.  I showed her how to do the binding. Amazing work for a 10 year old! 

Sally got Reserve Champion on her quilt~great job!

Her sister, Samantha, made two teacup pincushions for creative arts.

The girls also showed pigs, sheep and one also showed her goat.  They had photography entries and really did a good job on all of their projects. 

Sally and Sam are the two girls in the middle with black jeans on. 

The judge asking Sam some questions during the showmanship contest.

Sally walking out with Grand Champion Jr Showmanhip trophy.

Sam in the middle showing her goat.

Another year done with our County Fair, and now these two girls will be busy soon deciding what projects to start for next year, and finding a place in their rooms to exhibit all of their trophies and ribbons!   

I'm making them a slide show, as I took quite a few pictures of them showing their animal projects, as I know how hard it is as a parent to get pictures when you're busy helping them and other kids to get their animals into the show ring at the right time, etc. 

Granddaughter Amanda didn't show this year, and she missed it.  Her friends at the fair from other towns asked if she was going to be there.  Amanda and her boyfriend went in the evening and I hope she got to see some of her friends that had asked if she was going to be there.  A great thing about

4-H is making great friends from all over.  These friendships last forever.      

We sell a lot of pigs to 4-H families, and hubby Steve goes to all the area county fairs to watch the swine shows to see how the kids do that bought pigs from us.  These families sure appreciate that he does that, and he is always available to answer questions that they have during the summer months before the fair.  A lot of the kids have done very well this year in exhibiting the animals they've bought from us.

Have a great day everyone!

Trip and suprise from daughter!

Had a great Saturday day trip with daughter Leah.

Paul Bunyan and Babe look fresh in their new coat of paint.  

We'd planned to go to a neighboring town of Bemidji, (the home of Paul Bunyan and Babe, the Blue OX) to an Art in the Park show, lunch out and bum around. Then she said she had a surprise stop for me. Of course, everyone likes surprises! We stopped at the Headwaters Quilter's Guild Quilt Show. It was wonderful. The show "theme" began with a glimpse of the beautiful quilt designed by Laurie Aaron Hird from her book, "The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt" (Letters from 1920's farm wifes and the 111 blocks they inspired). The quild featured the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt, which was raffled off. It was beautiful, and we missed taking a picture of it, darn. Apparently Leah or I were not the winners, as we haven't been called. We listened to readings of entries from readers of the Farmer's Wife magazine from 1922 that had written in answers to this: "If you had a daughter of marriageable age, would you, in the light of your own experience, want her to marry a farmer?" One of the answers was from Mrs. S.O., from Mille Lacs County, MN: ...And so, folks, I want my daughter to marry a farmer, a good man, upright, steadfast and true, with visions of the farm-life-to-be in his heart. Then hand in hand, they can work to make their dreams come true, and she will know the happiness I have known. I could not ask for more.... wouldn't you have loved it if your mother had written that for you! I would have! We listened to other letters being read as we walked through looking at all the quilts. Then we stopped and visited with the lady that was doing the readings. She was dressed up in vintage clothing, sitting in her rocker reading to everyone.
Here are a few of the many quilts we saw.

Love this table runner of sun flowers. 

I also really liked this one.

Cute wall hanging of canned goods all lined up.

This was my favorite.

This was Leah's favorite.

The note on this card said that she made this in one weekend!  Wowsa!

There were so many pretty quilts, that it inspires you to go home and start a new project.

The month of August, there is a quilt show at the museum in Park Rapids.  I'll be sure not to miss that.  Someone asked if I was going to exhibit something, but everything I've done recently has been given away!

So far the pictures loading the old way for me.  So I'll keep doing as I was.  We had a nice shower this morning, and now comes more heat and humidity!  Keep cool everyone.

What's going on with Blogger!

Finished this now on Monday evening, but I'd started on Sunday to write and here is that little story:
I have been working on two posts, wanting to insert pictures, and I can't.  It says I've used up all my space.  So now what do I do?  I've been trying to reach my friend Connie, because I'm sure she'll be able to help me.  Think I'll need to start writing off the blog site and transferring here?  I was so excited to show you pictures of  our (daughter Leah and I) trip to Bemidji yesterday to Art in the Park, and a quilt show.  So until I get it figured out how to install pictures again, etc. I'll just have to write!  
Well, now a day (now Monday eve) later, and I just tried to download a picture again, to see if it would happen again, and lo and behold - it worked.  What the...........    I was also looking for the same result as yesterday, because I now know that I'll need to pay for the service of installing pictures.  Apparently the Blogger gets full, and then you have to pay a yearly fee for storing pics in Picasa.  So, guess I'll just finish what I've started writing and see what happens.

  This picture below is Renee when they went to see Stephani in southern MN.  This old horse was off our girls old swing set.  I repainted it years ago, and had it in my flower garden for a few years, and then when Steph was getting interested in planting flowers, I asked her if she wanted it.  So that little pony is pretty old.  Leah, Steph and Jessica all rode that pony and played on that swing set.  We bought it probably in 1970!

This was my test upload picture.

One note of interest on Saturday was that I met Sandy.  Late afternoon on Saturday, hubby and I were sitting under the tree in our front yard, trying to keep cool, and just enjoying the day starting to cool off.  A car slowly drove by, and two people inside were looking our way.  Then it stopped, and backed up for a little ways, and then went forward again, twice!  Neither Steve or I could figure out who it was, but we decided to wave for them to come back.  Maybe they were looking for directions ~ or maybe they were looking at the yard where the old house used to be.  The car backed up, turned in the driveway, and they got out.  Still didn't know them.  We walked over to greet them, and she said she reads my blog, and they were looking for the new sign that we put up on our new garage, as she would recognize it from the road.    However, our garage/shop sits back from the road and the sign looks pretty small from that far away. 

This is the sign that they were looking for!   The garage sits back from the road a little ways, so it is hard to read!

I was so excited to meet a blogging reader that I gave her a hug!   We all sat under the tree and visited, and it is such a small world, as it turns out that we know quite a few people that they know!
She said she started reading Connie's blog first from Area Voices, and then her blog, and ventured out from there reading Jen's (Connie's daughter, mine and others).
Steve kind of knew the husband Bob from Crookston Winter Show days, so it was a fun visit.  Bob and Sandy - please come visit again!

This little blog is quite garbled, so good luck in reading it and following my meandering!!!

Highlights of Renee's 2011 Summer Visit

Picture slideshow generated with Smilebox

We have many more photos, just couldn't post them all. Had a great time with all of our kids and Renee!!!! Wish we all lived closer together to do this more often!

Renee's First Horseback Ride!

Tuesday and Wednesday, Jess, Renee and Floyd drove to Stephani's home in southern MN as Steph and Cullen weren't able to come home while the kids were here.    She has a small farm just south of Pipestone, and has horses and dogs.    Our girls all grew up on horses, and Jessica is the only one now that doesn't have any horses.  After this trip, I have a feeling, there will be a day as Renee gets older, that they will move to a place further into the country so they can have horses.  Stephani had a pony there for Renee to ride, but Renee liked the big horses better!  The kids got to Stephs just after lunch time, and promptly went outside to see everything and ride.  Stephani does training of horses (and people); has a great Quarter Horse stud, and has a breeding program.  She gives lessons to kids and adults and when she is home, she is always busy.  Her husband Cullen loves the horses too, and after their work day and weekends,  they are always going to horse shows, trail rides, training or busy with their horses. Come see the pictures!

Steph and Renee walking out to the barn. 

Getting to know "Skoal".  This is now Steph's oldest horse.  Anyone can ride Skoal!

Jessica and Renee on Skoal. 

 "Cheese"  ~ Steph must have told both of them to say Cheese!

Resting after their ride and planting some flowers.  Stephani and Renee planted a plant that is now Renee's plant.  I can't find a picture of that, but I remember seeing one!  Oh, I bet they're still on Jess's camera!

More pictures later.  Think I need to get to bed; it's after 1 am!

Happy Trails to You,