The home place

Here is a picture of the home farm, where Grandma and Grandpa live. The house was built in the 1840s. Behind it (not shown) is the original log cabin. Most of the trees are locusts.

In the foreground are our some of our beef cows and calves. They are "black baldies," crossbred. They inherit their black color from their Angus side and white markings from their Hereford side.

Way in the back, by the fence, is our old boss cow. She is half Holstein, so she's long, tall and almost too bony when she's raising a calf, because of her high milk production. She also lets other calves bum extra milk off of her without a fuss. One of DH's hay customers said that cow was so ugly that we should sell her and buy some good ones. However, she's had the biggest, growthiest calves every year. Can't judge by appearances.

Obviously -- juding from the leaves and size of the calves -- this picture is several months old.

I blush to admit I just figured out how to upload pictures

Road trip! Road trip!

We road-tripped to my parents to deliver the freezer beef they ordered from us. The kids were wired and tired, excited to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house, tired from a long day at school and irritable as they are jammed into the back seat like peas on a pod.

(Our Buick LeSabre that seemed as roomy as a luxury yacht is now quite packed as the kids just keep growing bigger and taller.)

To reduce the mayhem, we started playing a counting game. First they planned to count horses and cows and "bury" them as we passed cemeteries. Then they decided to count cars and trucks and scrap them as we passed junk yards. They got into a disagreement about junkyards or cemeteries.

We settled on counting "strange lawn things" which we defined as any lawn ornament that made you go "Huh?" when you saw it. For instance, a vintage bull-dozer in a front yard, or an iron bedstead in the middle of a flower garden. Or a lard kettle. Or wagon wheels. Milk cans. All sorts of things.

The bull-dozer was our top prize.

Next was a cross section of a huge log, painted to look like a giant watermelon slice.

Next had to be a lawn "glow ball" (I think the garden catalog calls it a 'gazing globe') that looked homemade. As a matter of fact, it looked like a bowling ball coated with plaster embedded with glass pieces. Sort of a stained glass, mosaic effect.

I'm sure we'll notice more as the weather improves and people start working in their yards.