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What's outside of your picture window today?
Just Want to Talk | Last Active: 6 days ago | Replies (2396)Comment receiving replies
Thanks for your reply and pictures. I grew up in Evanston north of Chicago. So I miss Lake Michigan but not all the snow. After college at Iowa State and married the farmer's son (the city girl), what a culture shock but I learned. My mother-in-law taught me everything about the garden, canning, freezing, making pickles, and jellies. I did not get done all I wanted due to the weather. But I did put up 50 Qts of tomato juice and 42 Qts of applesauce. I had 142 onion sets planted but the cattle got out and enjoyed all the green tops (very sad).
Yes, we have a generator but I have no heat for the house on it. I had to make a decision on electricity and lights to the barns or heat to the house. And since I have a flock of ewes ready to lamb every February, I needed lights, etc to the lambing barn. We have a gas fireplace for some heat. But we have been lucky only had to use the generator maybe 4 times and never overnight.
When we moved from Iowa(35 years ago) and brought the sheep with us, we thought we were moving south where it would be warmer in the winter than lambing @ -22 degrees in Iowa. Wrong, we get so much ice and trees breaking and times the ewes could not even stand up to walk. Then there is trying to keep water tanks unfrozen for drinking. We have had sheep since 1979 and a year ago we sold the whole flock (ewes, lambs, and ram). A sad day but we still have lots of mother cows and fall calves. Selling the flock was the end of my daughter's 4H and FFA project ( that mother has been keeping the flock going.)
But it is nice to look out the window and see what the weather is like then to be out trying to do my chores twice a day fighting with what Mother Nature has dealt us.
The pictures are great. I enjoy looking at them. KLH
Replies to "Thanks for your reply and pictures. I grew up in Evanston north of Chicago. So I..."
What a great story! I love the “city girl marries the farmer’s son”! And what a wonderful life you’ve had with him. I’m a city girl but spent every summer living on my grandma’s farm. It taught me to value the land and the world around me…made me more connected. It’s obviously worked the same charm on you.
You’ve also worked ‘your dang fool head off’ (haha, my grandmother)! All those years of raising sheep, the cattle and your impressive shelves of preserves! That’s a lost art, isn’t it? My mom used to feed us all winter on her jars of goodies from the basement, along with crocks of kraut, carrots, etc. Oh your poor garden with the cattle eating 142 sets of onion tops! Glad they weren’t milk cows, or were they? 😂
It had to be a very melancholy time for you when you sold your flock of sheep. That was a long time to dedicate so much time, energy, worry and love. You’re a really great mom to have kept that 4H & FFA project going for so many years. I’m guessing many, many years after your daughter or daughters were out of the house! LOL. (I know the feeling on a smaller scale with pets that couldn’t trail after her to college.)
One of my close friends for the past 40+ years had to sell his milk herd a couple of years ago because of a health issue. He was crushed, and didn’t really want to do it, but they went to a good friend of his. In retrospect he feels it was the best thing that happened and he should have done it a long time ago. Now he grows thousand of pumpkins, squash and ornamental corn besides the best sweet corn I’ve ever had and he’s having a blast. So I can imagine it’s with a sense of relief you don’t have the worry of winter lambing and keeping them warm and healthy.
You still have a healthy dose of country living with your daily chores, gardening and cows. Thank you for the dedication, I know farming isn’t an easy job but a labor of love.
Here’s a couple of pictures of my friend, Farmer Joe’s pumpkins.
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@kilh As I was driving home a few days ago from doctor appointments, I saw several newborn lambs in the one field I passed. I thought it seemed early for them, as they looked only a couple days old. But oh! so precious.
Ginger