Odds and Ends...

Jonathan and Annisia like to sing. Here's another song...This one's Sing a Song of Sixpence.



One Saturday, Uncle Bret showed up on his motorcycle. You ought to have seen how quickly Jonathan moved to get a jacket and his helmet on! He was ready to ride!



My Mom and Dad came to visit in April. We did a lot of relaxing and the kids got positively spoiled by Grandma and Grandpa O reading to them! Annisia got to take a nap with Grandma O every afternoon! And they brought their wheat grinding machine and some wheat from their farm with them. So we ground wheat one afternoon. The kids thought that was cool! I did too...now I have some wheat flour from my parents farm!

Then we get yet another cheesy grin from Jonathan!

Cow Kicking and Apple Picking...

We were invited out to Joey's farm again to watch them move their cows from one pasture to a freshly harvested corn field. Again, quite a process. Here's Jonathan very excited to see all the cows. Annisia had fallen asleep on the way out to the farm.

Here they come...Heather (Joey's daughter) was in a truck behind the cows, Dean was in a truck to the right of the cows, and Joey was in a 6 wheeler to the left of the cows and Dad is in his truck on the right of the picture. This is so they would turn away from him and go to the left.

They crossed the railroad track, saw Dad, and the lead cow wagged her head and headed left, just as planned!
And all the rest followed her, right through the gate into the corn field. Voila!

The first about 7 I saw come through the gate kicked up right when they got into the field. They were either excited about new feeding grounds or the tractor parked there spooked them...

And here comes everyone after the last cow. I leaned out the door and asked Joey if he put chamomile tea in their water feeder that morning! He said, "It doesn't always go this smoothly." What a treat!

Then, on the way home, Mom took us past a neighboring farm. The young man of the farm raises bulls for rodeos. I wouldn't want to meet this guy in a dark alley, would you?!

That afternoon, we picked apples from a neighbor's tree. We got a ladder and an apple picker. I think we picked a couple bushels of apples. When we got home, Mom and I went into the basement and found this apple corer/slicer/peeler and I did up a few apples.
Jonathan really liked the spiral sliced apples, but my mom really likes the peel. "That's where all the vitamins are!" So she and Annisia were eating peel spaghetti.

Now I have lots of apples in the garage. What should I do with them all? Applesauce (any good recipes out there?), apple fritters, dried apples (hmmm, need a dryer for that...), makings to freeze for apple pie and apple crisp, pickled apples (that's Michael's request...what are they anyways?!), sliced apples for meat dishes...

My sister, Janice, also picked close to two bushels of tomatoes for me, blanched, bagged and froze them for me. So I plan to make spaghetti sauce, salsa, and stewed tomatoes with them...sometime down the road. Whew! All this is making me tired!!