stormy weather

The wind is blowing a bit on the wild side. The sky is a beautiful gray, and blue and there is a humidity sitting in the air that smells like rain. The clouds are thick and covering the sky, and the sun can hardly peek out from around them. The cut hay fields that surround my house are short and bowing, bending, twisting, almost dancing with the wind. The animals are happily eating yet they seem to sense the coming storm, and there is a bit of unrest about them. They seem to jump and twitch when they hear a certain noise. Thankfully it's not a full moon! The clothes on my clothes line are blowing about wildly, with the wind and will be dry in no time. I love the feel of the moist, heavy wind on my face and I turn to enjoy it. My hair flying wildly about my shoulders. I close my eyes and imagine the ocean waves that are crashing against the rocks the white caps on top of the waves as they come rushing in and out! I bet it looks just amazing, it does in my mind. The gray, blue color of the sky and the water. I can almost smell the ocean now, the smell of the salt water, and the tangy taste of it on my tongue, just the smell of the ocean in Maine. The sea gulls flying above calling out to one another seemingly uninterested in the storm that is coming. I wish I was there to see it, and smell it. Maybe capture a picture or two or 50!
The weather men are calling for a hurricane category one here in Maine depending on how hurricane Irene tracks. We could be in for a wild, wet, windy weekend here. Not compared to the havoc that it will wreck on the coastline down more southern then us. But it could still be interesting to see how it all pans out. I am always amazed at the wild weather that my Creator can open up and unleash on us. All the different kinds of storms.
 The pictures below doesn't do justice to how it looks. But this is out back of our house. You can kinda see the dancing. I like this view!

Can you see the flowers and the grass bowing, bending, and twisting in the wind? No? Well I tried to capture that for you. I even switched my camera to the blur reduction part. Anyways...

projects

I made a baby blanket for a friend of mine expecting a girl. I never did get a picture of the finished blanket but I think it came out really well. I followed a pattern that I had never used before too!!! The colors were really nice and I used that Simply Soft yarn. I can't remember the color of it but it's multi colored!

I've just started a new baby blanket for another girl, but have maybe 7 rows done on it. And I'm following a pattern that I've used before but not sure if I've shared it before. So when I get more done on it I'll show you. I just need some time to sit down and actually knit! Haven't had a whole lot of extra time lately. I'm still not sure what "extra" time really is!! hahaha!! I'm still trying to get caught up on the blogs I follow!

this is what we do

on what seems to be the hottest days of the year. Hay!!
But due to the chicken poo we put on the starved fields we now have over 700 bales of hay in the barn!!!!! We are praying that we will get a second crop! That will be for Maggie when she freshens in October. Provided we get the second cut. We were thinking that we would need 600 with all the critters we have. Due to a rather wet spring we  had to buy hay for the horses because the grass was slow to come! What a blessing to us, to have 700 bales! We had to hire the cutting of the hay because it was so thick and our sickle bar mower wouldn't do the job. While Matthew was raking the hay both times we made hay the kiddos and I went to a party at my grandmothers and then to his family reunion! (Two different times). I get a kick out of that. I went to his family reunion without him. I like his family so it was no big deal. The kiddos went swimming in the lake and I watched them. It's a very shallow lake too.

 I ended up having to stack hay on the trailer while it was coming off a homemade loader, well I'm not a very good stacker and I ended up falling off the side. Thankfully I wasn't hurt, just a nice bruise behind my knee and a tender spot down the side of my leg. I actually landed on a bale that I had just knocked over. Then when my father in law was driving down the road with it, 5-6 bales fell off. Guess I didn't get them packed tight enough! That was my first time stacking hay on a moving trailer! Matthew said I did fine. After that load I didn't have to stack any more hay. Not because I fell, or lost a few bales, but because Matthew was done baling and he could stack it. He's a great hay stacker!
One afternoon when things were winding down Matthew let Little Matt drive the tractor!

pleased as punch at a job well done!

So until the next post take care!

i'm back!!!!!!

OK. So my wonderful husband surprised me with a computer late this morning!! Thank you honey!!!
It's all up and running. And I only had to call tech support... once, oh ok twice!! Hahahahaha. Computers and I we are so compatible!! That is in there for my sister. She'll get a laugh out of that!! I hope!
Well now that I can blog, my brain won't work, I have so many things I want to share. So watch out I may just keep on rambling!
So much to do, but I think I'll blog for a while, then get busy...

Well remember how we got a rooster.Still have him, and he still wakes me up at 4-4:30 every morning. Grouchy is what that makes me. We locked some hens up with him. All but one, she was the low one on the pecking order and was never around. I thought something had gotten her because she was gone for weeks. She was never with the rooster. Then she came out from under the cow barn. She was thin and pale looking. She ate some food and then went back under the barn. We figured maybe she had a nest, but didn't know if any of the eggs had been fertilized. She didn't come out until a few days later. Still alone. She went back under the barn for a few more days. Then Emma comes in the house her large, round blue eyes wider then normal and a smile on her face and says "Mommy come see what I found! The hen came back with some babies!" We (myself, DaLaney and my mom were here at the time) went outside and saw 5 little fuzzy butts running around with a very proud mama hen. She is very protective of them and even tried to attack Maggie for going in her barn! Guess she got a little close to her babies. Other hens come around and mama gets ugly and will attack them if they get too close. They run like the dickens when she comes at them too! They are sooooo cute! I'll try to post a picture of them...

I did it!! Wwwwaaahhhhhoooo! Sorry just a little excited about that. No tech support involved!

We have stopped milking Maggie too. She is getting dried off because she is due October 12. She was still giving about 1.5 gallons a milking and we had been milking her for 13 months. Due to all the trouble we had getting her AI'd. Guess she's a good little milker. Thankfully we have not had a problem with her getting too swollen and uncomfortable. She seems happy enough to munch on hay and lounge around all day in her dry paddock! Ah the life! That worked out well because I had to have my wisdom teeth out, I kept putting it off, so no milking or heavy work for me. Bad time to have it done right in all the harvesting and canning get busy. But I'm on the mend, and as of right now I still don't think it's worth it. I'll let you know if I change my mind. I'm ready for a nice grilled stake and a green salad! Sounds good to me!!
Well that's all for now! I gotta get caught up on all the blogs I follow, and some canning done! Hope all is well with you all!!

just a note

Aaaahhhh feels good to sit and be on the blog again! I don't know if any of you noticed or not but I have been very absent from all blogs. Not by choice, but because our computer died a slow and painful death last month. Now to let you know it's not worth all that it would cost to fix it.  WWWWWAAAAHHHHHHH. I feel slightly better. We had a whale of a month last month and I'll catch ya'll up on it when I get my new computer. I'm currently at my SIL on her computer. I wanted ya'll to know to check in with SweetLand every once in a while to see if I'm up and running. I will also have to catch up on of of the blogs that I follow. Can't wait to see what all of you have been up to this summer!
But July was a good one for thunder storms, and some huge ones at that. I think I've mentioned that we get some storms on the hill. In the span of one week we lost two fence chargers, and the phone due to the thunder. Then the computer died, not due to thunder. We didn't know the cow's fencer was dead until she got out one morning. Sunday no less. So after chasing her around for about an hour I caught her  and got her in the barn. We were even on time for church, which was a good thing!! Then the horses fencer was dead and I noticed that Time Out was pushing herself into the fence and not getting shocked. Matthew was able to fix that one. The cow's fencer is complex and new and had to be sent back to the makers. The inside of it was fried. Must have been some hit from the lightening too. We even have one of those lightening diverts too. Didn't work. Clearly.
Anyways, that's all for now. Just wanted you to know that I will be back blogging soon. Hope all are well and will be catching up with you soon!!!

tour our farm

OK, so on this hot day in July I don't have tons of energy, so I thought I'd share some photos of our farm. Caution, lots of pictures are coming! We have been busy trying to keep up with everything there is to do on a farm, and there are days that are just a blurrrrrr! Then trying to get hay in, what a mess that is. Pop up thunder storms and rain showers almost everyday, make it very hard. So we are only putting a little down at a time and then pray it doesn't get rained on! We still have a long way to go too! But that is the life of a farmer, right?! Then this winter we can sit back and take it easy!! Hahahahhaha, that thought makes me laugh!
We've had lots of BBQ's with family and friends and the fire pit is wonderful to sit and roast marshmallows or make s'mores with Reese's Peanut butter cups. Those are my favorite guilty pleasure, along with German chocolates. Anyways back to the farm chores that are endless this time of year.
We didn't go anywhere for the 4th. Feels like there are days all we do is run! We had s'mores and watched the fire works from our front lawn! It was a clear night and the fireworks are always high and we do live on a hill. We can see 2-3 towns on a good 4th! Yupo that is called a house with a spectacular view!
We have acquired a rooster, much to my dislike of that. He wakes me up at 4am, every morning. I'm ready for rooster soup. He's only going to be here a short time, then one of my brother in laws wants him. Matthew wants to see if we can get some baby chicks. We'll see how the hens cooperate with Mr. Rooster. We locked  two hens up with him in our chicken tractor. They are some of our older hens, not the pullets. We traded a frozen chicken that we raised for him. Easy enough, barter!

Mr. Rooster himself. Not sure what kind he is, anyone know? He's really pretty, but not at 4 am.

So, on with the farm tour!

Some of our green beans. They are doing really well and will  be picking them soon enough.

I don't know how well you can see the tractor in the beans, but Little Matt decided to "plow" the weeds with his rake on the back of his tractor. Maybe I'll zoom in on it and show you!

Carrots.

Tomatoes. These are the ones we started from seed this spring. They are doing really well and we are so pleased! I hope you can see them.

Maggie out in the field. She's getting real big, and we have started drying her off!

Summer squash 

Just had to put our tractor in here, it's paid for! We paid it off two months early! We are so thankful for that!

Cucumber 

T.O. wanted to say hello.

Our hay field dancing in the wind!

Abby says buzz off Mom. She thought I was going to feed her.

Our pullets. They should be laying eggs in the next few weeks! These are the only ones I could get. They kept running away from me!

See the orange tractor in there with the rake? How cute is that?

good quote

"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant."

Found this on the back of Country magazine, Oct/Nov 2010 issue. I just loved it and wanted to share it.