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She Cleans

Posted on January 21, 2022 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

Well, I’ve been trying to clean a little bit around the house, but decluttering is so hard when you’re basically a borderline hoarder. I wish I was joking.

But since we’ve had to be inside more, and more importantly, since I’m working from my actual home now, it’s becoming increasingly necessary that the house actually work for us, so I’m slowly going through bits and bobs. I figure if I try to pick a single project every weekend (that isn’t already jampacked) eventually the house will come together.

This weekend I tackled the upstairs linen closet. I wanted to get it cleaned out because I’ve been trying to utilize it as a first aid center as well as a bit of a long term project storage and laundry basket space. Frankly, I’ve been trying to annex it because my room is a bedroom, office, project space, part time tack room, and this year, I fit Santa’s entire dang toy shop in here. Understandably I need a little more space.

And to be entirely honest, having baby clothes and fancy antique linens in a well traversed area of the house seemed a bit like a disaster waiting to happen anyway. So theoretically, they are going to be much safer in the downstairs closet.

But at the moment they are all living on the guest room bed because I need to order space bags. At least I think I’m getting space bags, although I think technically the generic name is vacuum bag because yours truly isn’t really into spending a bunch more on a name if they generic works just as well, so were gonna test a cheaper, but still exceedingly well rated option. Fingers crossed.

The other main clutter I’m trying to figure out is my coffee mugs. You see, I have quite a little collection of mugs, some from different experiences, some that were gifts, and all that my family won’t use because most are handwash only. I totally understand that, it’s hard to not just be able to throw a dish in the dishwasher.

So, to be respectful, I’ve been trying to move my mug collection out of the kitchen space, so that my family can have easier access to the mugs they want to use daily. Unfortunately, at the moment my mugs are carefully stored away in a drawer my brother wasn’t using in his dresser, but he really kinda needs that back now. The boys very sweetly offered to build me a custom display shelf, which I absolutely love the idea of, however with wood prices being what they are, most of their carpentry projects need to be on the back burner.

Photo Courtesy of Christopher. Me for scale

I have been looking at those mug storage containers, that people seem to use for moving and long term storage, but I worry because so many of my mugs are oddly shaped. I have one shaped like a Boo from Super Mario and a giant Snorlax mug I was gifted this Christmas that is literally 51 ounces. Its giant, I adore it, but I’m not sure how to store it. Eventually I was thinking about getting a little fake plant and making it look like a pot (without needing to drill any actual water holes, also, due to where my room is in the house, it’s not really light or airy enough for real plants, those tend to stay in the communal spaces) but that’s a little ways down the road since I don’t actually have shelf space at the moment.

Speaking of cute mugs, I found an adorable little mug that says “it’s fine, I’m fine, everything’s fine” at our local department store that I’m sending to a friend (although admittedly, if they still have it next time I’m in there, I might pick up one for me, since that’s one of my go-to phrases). She is going through a rough spot life wise, and I thought she might need a bit of a care package. I picked up the mug, a nice blanket, a couple of my favorite little kitchen things since she’s moving and somewhat starting over (a spoon rest and some magnetic scissors, both have been invaluable in my kitchen), and finally a good dose of the artisan chocolates my little town is known for. Got everything wrapped up with little inside jokes, a little card, and some protective tissue paper, and it’s now on its way to the coast. I hope she likes it.

Please Ignore that I propped it up on a lightbar for photos… also no stress, she doesn’t know about the blog, so there’s no spoilers here

Joe was reaaally trying to help but got reaaaallu bored too.

But other than that, it’s been pretty low key around here. I started trying to build out a digital to do list as a paper and time saving method. I like physical planners, but for the minutiae of a daily to do it feels like such a waste of paper. It’s also the only way I get things done, so just dropping the to-do list habit wasn’t going to work (I tried). I liked using my whiteboard for a while, but its big drawback was lack of portability. So, I’m trying Notion, which is basically fancy online excel, and that way I can have a weekly to-do list and add to it from my pc or phone. So far, I’ve been more pleased with the computer over the phone, but their roadmap shows planned improvements so I’m hopeful the mobile experience gets better.

That’s all for me, I wish you lots of luck in your new-years-new-organization endeavors. Lemme know if you have many good mug storage ideas, I need advice.

Until we chat again my friends!

Cabin Fever

Posted on January 14, 2022January 10, 2022 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!
Let’s talk cold. Like -2 degrees cold. Because over the holiday weekends that’s where we ended up. I know we talk about the weather a lot here, but like, I lived in a place where it rained about 70% of the time and was always grey and overcast! You know why the bluest skies you’ve ever seen are in Seattle?! Because you get so used to the grey you can’t fathom another color! I’m sure it shocks no one that at one point my little heart considered studying meteorology, but really it is fascinating.

Believe it or not, these were warm estimates, although it has slowly started warming up a little. I am sitting under a comforter next to a space heater though, so not fast enough.

Or, in the case of -2 degrees where its normally not that cold: its terrifying. Sobering. Punched a big ole hole in my “we’re prepared” mindset.
For one main issue: it turns out my heating system stops working at about 20°. This is normally fine because while we regularly get down into the teens, it’s usually only for a few hours overnight. It’s a big problem when 11° is the high for the day. Its been ridiculously cold in the house. I’ve had two comforters on my bed and basically don’t go anywhere without some form of blanket. My little space heater has been working hard because most tech devices don’t appreciate the uncharacteristically cold temperatures either.
It also caused the heaters to my outdoor water supply to quit. Which means literally everything froze up and I had split hoses turning my property into a lovely ice rink the minute we got a little thaw going. Not ideal.
I finally snuck out to get some hay, i was kinda worried about it because we haven’t really had the flatbed out in the snow yet, and due to the temperatures and such neither county had bothered with plowing the roads. In their defense, its been scary cold and dumping lots of snow, plus this time last year they accidentally parked a plow in my neighbors field, which I’d imagine is quite the deterrent. It was very odd to walk into my room look out on a pretty white snow patch (I wasn’t completely over it last year like I am already this year) and just seeing one poor gentleman and my neighbors standing out staring at a plow sitting askew down an embankment into my neighbors field. I’d imagine that was a very scary ride.

Poor dad took a fall in the snow this year, which has not helped his love of the snow, but he’s doing okay now. Jammed his back for a while, the poor thing. He’s already fighting a bad back so I’m trying to help keep him off the slick stuff as much as possible.
The upside to cold temperatures is it’s made staying inside a little easier. I’m less tempted to spend a whole day puttering around outside, which works out since we’ve been crazy swamped at work the last few weeks. My boss made sure we all got lovely holiday weekends, which I am so grateful for, but we are in a highly time sensitive space so there’s always a million things to be done and we are now playing a little more catchup than I think we had realized. I’m simultaneously glad and a little bit regretful I didn’t take any extra PTO for the holidays, because I was able to keep most of my plates spinning, but also, I’m kinda missing the usual new year refreshed feeling.
But it’s also cool because for the first time ever in my actual career I might be able to take a few days off this summer. I always got magically called in on days off in previous roles (except for the last one, to be fair, I just wasn’t there long enough to try a vacation). My first “grown up” role I worked 365 days a year because my boss always forgot they needed something on the weekend or on the rare holiday and I didn’t meet the priority standards for using any time off. We were not in any sort of hurry either, so I never understood. Oh well, each chapter of life is a learning experience. Some lessons blow but whatever.
In any case the crazy hours at work have meant less time to properly focus on the blog, or the farm, or laundry (its getting a little dire, not gonna lie) so I’m hoping to figure out a way of better juggling it all. Especially come springtime because I have plans! I have so many farm related plans. Some may be cost and time prohibitive, most involve me not breaking myself midsummer and needing to drastically scale back everything, and all of them require a good work life balance.
Also, in a completely unrelated realm of topic: I totally selfishly want credit for recording two 45 second snippets showing off some of the snow and my plans were dashed! Dashed I tell you! By the fact that they simply will. Not. Transfer. Off my phone. Help!

(This may be a sign this blog needs a companion YouTube channel so I could upload off my phone… but that sounds really, really scary). Anyways, if I figure this out, I’ll tack them on to the next post, or maybe just put them in their own little mid-week thing? But that’s putting a lot of confidence in my abilities to make my phone talk to my computer, and they simply won’t! Hatfield’s and McCoys dressed up as windows and android.
Welp, this went entirely off the rails, didn’t it? This is what happens when I can’t be outside. I need spring!
Until we chat again my friends

Auld Lang Syne

Posted on January 7, 2022January 6, 2022 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!
Happy 2022!
We made it. 2021 was an objectively very weird year, to be honest, it almost made 2020 look mundane, and I was scarily unemployed and surviving on my savings for a portion of 2020.
2021 had some extreme highs and lows.
Obviously some of the lows included losing family members both of the two and four legged variety. And the unfortunate issue of really screwing up my elbow with a pretty crazy wipeout off the back of Ro. I’ll eventually have full range of motion again, right? Hopefully?
But the highs were crazy too!
Obviously a big one: I started this blog! I can’t believe I sat down in March to get started, that feels like so long ago. Which is entirely weird since I feel like I still have no idea what I’m doing. I have so many ideas for this little corner of the web and am slowly figuring out how I want to implement them. But to think, I’d talked about starting a farm blog for a while, and it took leaving a job and my then coworkers wanting farm updates still for me to actually start. Its turned into quite a fun journal entry for me of sorts, a way to keep accountable and really think about what’s been happening. It’s also exercised a muscle I haven’t in a long time, like many kids I loved to write, mostly fiction, but our school system did it’s best to kill that love. I didn’t realize how much I missed it.

I was not a fan of the first few hours of the new year, meteorologically speaking

Another huge high was how close Ro, Nel, and I got. Everything from pasture picnics to figuring out mounting without both arms, we kept bumping into moments of growth and trust building between the three of us, and while they weren’t always easy (looking at you, frustrated tears over mounting block woes) we came out with an easy sort of calm about hanging out, something I’ve longed after for many years. Something that can only be achieved when you get to work with and love critters that are solely yours and beyond a weekly lesson or show-lease relationship. I’m so grateful for those horses and trainers that came before but am happier than I’ve ever been with Ro and Nel. Truly, while I’ll never be Olympic levels of good at this sport, I firmly believe I was destined to be a horse mom.
Other great highs include starting at a job I really love! After job hopping a little, entirely unintentionally, I think I have finally found a place to settle. My boss and coworkers are pretty understanding, I don’t regularly get put down, harassed, or threatened with termination over silly, inconsequential things or unavoidable circumstances, and help is generally a git comment or slack message away. Plus, I work with one of my best friends (different teams, same department) and just the comfort of an always friendly face is invaluable. One day I’ll share some of the lessons I’ve learned during my short time in the software development world and the difference between a terrible job, a good job that’s a bad fit, and the right job. Also, the concept of the right role for now. Might make a good post.

Quite proud of our new years dinner too, but ignore my yorkshire pudding. It tasted yummy but didnt poof

So, the standard question this time of year: any resolutions? Not really, in that I’m a firm believer in starting whenever you can, so I generally don’t wait for the new year. But I would like to continue with some current goals. First, I’d like to shake off the work burnout I’ve carried with me from earlier roles and figure out the best way to put lack of confidence and imposter syndrome in its place. I just told you how much I love my job, but the painful truth is no matter how great a position is, if you’ve hit exhaustion and senseless anxieties, you gotta find solutions. I’ve been trying out solutions for much of the latter half of 2021. Secondly, I want to get my health generally more stable (no more constant colds) and lose some extra pounds that seemed to follow me home from college and set up permanent residence. Even if the numbers on the scale don’t move, I want to feel better and more in control of my health. And not huff and puff up my driveway. Finally, I’ve been working more on “acting on ideas”. Not in an “impulse shop” or “start 80 new hobbies” kinda way, but more in a “I really would like to rearrange this space” or “I really want to finally add that section to the blog” kinda way. I tend to get locked in the planning stage, and sometimes something as silly as hanging an art piece on my wall is procrastinated in the name of “thinking it through”. This blog almost didn’t happen for that same reason. This actually affects every part of my life, so I’ve been really keen to start practicing that new habit. Stay tuned for progress.
So what are your goals or resolutions for 2022? What were your highs and lows? Got ideas for the blog? Funny new year’s stories? I wanna hear it all!
Happy 2022 y’all! Let’s make it ours!
Until we chat again my friends!

A Quiet Week as Santa’s Elf

Posted on December 24, 2021December 21, 2021 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!
Things are actually fairly chill on the farm, which is a little weird, considering how close to Christmas we are. I’m definitely writing a little early this week, just like with Thanksgiving, mostly so I don’t forget to post. Also going to make use of the schedule feature, although I get a little nervous trusting schedule features. I’ve written enough of them to know it’s really easy to foul them up.
Gifts are all wrapped, and honestly? Can I shamelessly brag for a few? I was on top of it this year, I had all my shopping done by December 1^st and 80% of my wrapping done by the fifth. And the entirety of my wrapping was done last weekend. I’m never ever that on top of things. It was such a pleasant feeling.
It helped a ton that my little brother is usually my partner in crime, but he works in shipping and handling, so the closer to Christmas we get, the less time we have, and if I want help I have to get it before, what we refer to as peak season. Since my biggest stress is shopping during this time of year, he helped me get the lions share done before December, so we weren’t majorly behind waiting on his crazy shifts to end.
It did take us forever to put up exterior lights. Our schedules barely meshed and when they did, the weather wouldn’t cooperate at all. It was heavy winds and rains the entire weekend we had set aside to set them up. I finally snuck out and got some of them up after work one day, my dad came out to help, because poor Christopher was so sick, and the weather was just barely cooperating. After helping me reach some of the higher points, my sweet dad offered this summer to put up a permanent set of hooks so, should I have a reason to set up the outdoor lighting alone, I won’t have to wrestle the staple gun up and shoot staples over my head while holding lights. I am very excited about that prospect.
It’s honestly not that I don’t want help, I swear I can totally be a team player, but when you are trying to work around your own work schedule, everyone else schedule, and the unpredictability of care-giving, tasks that can just be picked up when you have a free moment and solved quickly, those are gold. So, having a better Christmas light solution sounds silly, but it means next year I’ll be able to cross it off my list, even if I have to get put at 4 am to do so, without bugging others. Or, like right now, when I have to go fix a dead strand of lights, it’s much easier.
It’s been so windy and gross lately, with rain and snow squalls, freezing temps followed by warm wet weather, basically everything is majorly soupy and borderline unsafe. We’ve been out breaking up ice rinks in the arena and corral for the horses, since it pours and turns into a lake, and then freezes into a slippery situation. I’ve made plans to fix the drainage in those areas, hopefully in the spring, but even if it was fixed, the sheer amount of moisture we’ve gotten this year is completely crazy and I don’t know if my simple gutter and French drain solution would suffice. Definitely makes it hard to work outside, that’s for sure. The wind is so biting, even on the warmer days where we break freezing it’s too cold to be outside. Ears get to hurting, jaw gets to hurting, fingers stop working, too cold. The weird intermittent fog doesn’t help either. It also means I haven’t been outside with my camera in a while, and I miss it!
We had quite the funny situation in my house earlier in the week. I’m not hosting Christmas this year, my cousin wanted a swing at it, so all I have to do is bring a side and a dessert, which I am so excited about. I plan on making a jazzed up green bean casserole and a batch of no bake chocolate peanut butter bars. But earlier in the week, I went to double check the ingredients for my dishes, and I found my mom and dad had gotten very excited about the canned green beans and had eaten the base for my side dish. I cracked up, made a run into town, and all is well, but it was a silly situation to find. I also know I need to keep canned green beans in the house more often, they were a total hit apparently. Also, by the time you’re reading this, unless you’ve read it the same moment it’s gone up, the casserole and bars are done and being enjoyed, hopefully, by my sweet family in Christmas eve. We plan to hide out in our jammies with cinnamon rolls on Christmas day.
I hope your holidays are merry and bright, whichever ones you celebrate, and safe and cozy and restful and wonderful. I’ll catch up with you next week.
Until we chat again my friends!

This is about all I can show until after the Secret Santa, sorry guys

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

Posted on December 10, 2021December 8, 2021 by Farmers Blogger

Aaaand in my office….whyyyyyy????

Hello friends!
Last weekend was a whole lot, but very very fun! We packed a lot into one weekend, and unfortunately, continuing the trend of 2021, I am not feeling very well after the fact. Spent a good portion of this week just trying to survive my workday so I could go back to bed. Which is less than ideal when I also had a million things that needed to get done.
The parade was incredibly fun! Even though it was absolutely frigid, the turnout was the best I have ever seen it, I think due to it simply not happening last year. They tried, bless their hearts, and we had a Christmas light car cruise, but it simply wasn’t the same as a full-on float filled parade. This year the crowd was in the mood to party and it really lifted the spirits of all involved.
We went with a similar theme from 2019, because we still had most of the setup so it was easy (which is important when half your crew just had kids, or is working long hours, or is sick) and in 2019 our float had a serious technical malfunction and we went dark halfway through the parade. We made judging, which was nice, but we were majorly bummed that our float died, it was super avoidable too, someone’s child wasn’t being supervised and climbed onto the float during judging, refused to get down, smashed up a bunch of our lights, then the movement of the float shorted out what was left. An unfortunate situation, honestly, I’m just glad the kiddo wasn’t hurt. And I guess it worked out because we ran the float again this year to much acclaim. We also threw out 100 pounds of saltwater taffy to the crowds, our float has a reputation for that, and of course, that helps win the crowd over, I’m sure.
My little cousin walked with me the whole time carrying the banner, as has become our tradition. We started when she was three and barely toddling along. She was very brave until the crowds got close and continued to be very brave from behind me after the fact. Totally get it, she has a little broken arm and wrist (fell off the monkey bars at school), so I’d imagine lots of people around as you’re walking seems especially scary. But she was a little trooper.
(I am scrounging for photos of the float but my phone overheated and died and I didn’t get any personally, as soon as someone sends me some of theirs, I’ll share them with you guys!)

In the meantime here’s a sneaky picture of some of the decorations my mom has been working super hard on. She takes it very seriously

My cousins baby shower was a lot of fun too! I held little Kamila for the better part of it, she was napping, and it allowed her mama to eat and socialize. It also gave me an excuse to sit, and people watch (I feel I should point out that at this moment in the weekend I wasn’t feeling sick at all, I wouldn’t have held Kamila or any of the kiddos, and I would have not even gone to the event, if I had been feeling ill. Also, worth pointing out that this is more of a “I need to be kind to my body” sick and less of a “serious flu” kind of thing). We had a lovely dinner and played several games. Some of them I knew, gift bingo and such, but a couple were new, like the game where you had to guess the baby item just by feel. My dad, who is pretty close to the new mama and was enjoying her baby shower and holding his grandniece very much, jokingly guessed all car parts.
In other news, it snowed this week, for quite a bit of the week. Luckily there wasn’t an insane amount of accumulation, but definitely enough to be an inconvenience. I learned recently that meteorological winter and astrological winter are two different things, for tracking purposes, meteorological winter starts December first, and with our early snow, I can see why they do that.
It’s been such a weird year in terms of heavy precipitation, I’m not sure why the snow surprised me, but it did. Caught me very much off guard because last winter we didn’t get snow until February. I mean, it would occasionally flurry, but nothing would stick at all. This year, our first snow was the day before Thanksgiving, which worried me greatly because I didn’t want people to have to drive on dangerous roads for Turkey and fellowship. Luckily that melted off pretty quickly. This week its sticking around a little longer, although it’s still getting warm during the midafternoon, so we end up with a muddy slush that freezes overnight. Not terribly ideal. It especially drives the horses nuts because its slippery either way when walking on your toenails. It’s also significantly less fun to snack out in the pasture, so I’ve been leaving little piles of alfalfa in the run in, so if they give up there’s a little snack inside. Some days they eat it, some days I add to it for dinner when we close the big pasture for the evening.

Joe loves it though, big fan of playing in the snow. But a Joe is just a big fan of life, so this should surprise no one.
Until we chat again my friends.

Feelin’ Foggy

Posted on November 19, 2021November 18, 2021 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

I’ll be honest, this week is all just building around my wanting to share some photos. I decided to try my hand at some weather based photography and the results came out pretty good for my first real attempt. Fog is a weird one, and especially hard when you weren’t prepared for it (it was a last minute decision to go out and get cold soaked) and are down in the thick of it. But I think it made for some creepy photos.

The fog made everything super creepy and cold, I got this photo of Ro having a lovely snack out in the pasture. To be honest, it took a lot of convincing to let them out, I usually don’t like letting them loose when I can’t see them from the house. I’m the definition of a helicopter horse mom.

This little plant was holding it’s own in the fog, and I snapped this photo when it had burned off just a little. The fog rolled back over us in waves for most of the day, so I didn’t have to wait long for the mood to return.

The old bridge across the canal, allows access to the wetlands and my neighbors fields, it’s on my property but one particular neighbor (who’s land is nowhere near mine) seems to think I need permission to be outside the fencing and likes to police the bridge. Oh well.

This is more canal road, although you can see the canal is officially dry for the year. They usually open in about April and close it down around late October, early November. It’s beautiful in all seasons, and magical in the fog.

I have so many photos of old barbed wire, but it’s just a weirdly fun object to shoot. It always has unique shape, changing the backdrop can completely change the vibes, and honestly, it owes me some cute photos for all the clothes it’s torn and skin it’s shredded. Not very forgiving stuff.

After I got back in, I was, quite obviously, frozen to the bone, so some split pea and ham soup was in order. Luckily, I had made some a little earlier on in the week, so it was easy to warm up, but that was a pretty interesting experience in its own right.

I tried modifying my very simple stovetop recipe to work in the slow cooker, and I’m still convinced it would have worked if I used smaller batches and a different plan, but after 24 hours of soaking the peas per internet instruction (I soak mine overnight anyway) and 8 hours in the slow cooker, I had warm ham and cold peas. So, as starving as I was, I called in a tall person and emptied the contents of the slow cooker into my giant Dutch oven, voila, soup in about two hours. I needed a tall person because otherwise I’d be holding about 5 pounds of soup and easily a couple pounds of crockery at eye level, which sounded like a good way to drop my soup.

Anyways, we finished it stovetop, which is not bad at all, but for some reason split pea and ham requires constant babysitting on the stovetop and no matter what I do, I end up with some sticking to the bottom of the pot. I don’t have this issue with other things I cook in my big ole butch oven, just the split peas soup. If anyone knows why that happens, please let me know. I also have to stir it about every two minutes, so it’s not really a “make while at work” kinda dish, which is why I was hoping for a set it and forget it option.

Oh well, more testing is needed, trial and error and all that.

Anyways, this post is getting a little long, and I’m now thinking about leftover soup, so I’m gonna sign off here. Have a great weekend my friends, I’m not sure if I will get the next post up before or after Thanksgiving so if I don’t see you, have a wonderful holiday!

Until we chat again my friends.

A Rainy Little Week

Posted on November 5, 2021November 4, 2021 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

Happy belated Halloween! We had a nice chill holiday, and I ended up taking a long weekend due to just being a little too under the weather for my own good.

We had some lovely treats on Sunday, Halloweeño and hell pepper poppers, ghost cake, and a build your own taco bar (no funny name for this one, all punned out). I spent several hours putting it all together, definitely pepper burned myself multiple times, and honestly, I think that’s a little bit why Monday simply felt insurmountable as a workday. Luckily, I have a very cool boss who understood.

In a very uncharacteristic way, it has been raining all week, just enough to keep everything at muddy levels. Trying to do anything serious changes involved getting wet, and while I can, to some extent, tip toe across most of the mud without sinking too far, my sweet mares are not as lucky. We’ve tried working a couple of times but I’m so worried about slips and falls or pulled muscles, or any other craziness that can happen when you aren’t really set up to deal with the rain.

I know there are plenty of horses that work in all sorts of weather, so it’s not to say my girls aren’t capable, but both have been retired or semi-retired due to leg injuries, and I simply don’t think the potential the injuries are worth it. I love working with my girls, this time of year is so hard because we all feel pent up, but I also don’t want to permanently end our fun with one or two careless moments. We are enjoying lots of bonding moments at least, and a fair amount of manners training, which won’t stick but is fun to work on.

Had the very fun experience this week of going to the Warhawk Museum. I was admittedly a little worried, it had been so hyped up to me that I was certain it simply would not excite. I am also almost never a fan of heading into Boise after work, because rush hour is a stress I simply don’t handle well.

But, oh my goodness, was it worth it! It’s such an unassuming little building when you walk up to it, and even in the gift shop there’s this sort of “very small” feeling to the place, but as soon as you walk into the museum proper, you realize it’s two large hangars stuffed to the rafters with beautifully organized and thought out displays ranging from memorabilia from ww1 to exhibits on the first gulf war. By far and away their biggest exhibits are on WW2, but they also have lots of great information on Korea and Vietnam.

I’m already planning to go back because after about 3 hours I had maybe seen 1/8th or so of all the exhibits. They have fascinating little tidbits of things you don’t think about, like a silk wedding dress made from an old parachute, several propeller planes (many of which fly still in their annual air show) and a fold up bicycle meant to be packed in with the men who jumped out of airplanes so they had a way to get around when they landed.

They have easily a thousand binders of preserved information around the museum, many of which they actively encourage you to touch, read through, research out of. From books detailing the liberation of some of the concentration camps, to love letters, to personal diaries of POWs and flight orders hastily scrawled on a little flip book, it really does wonders to bring the people to life. I read one such note that said “the skies were crowded today. Glad it was with our own” when referring to a flown mission, and a love letter from a young man telling his girl that after his next deployment he should get to come home, and how terribly excited he is about that.

I really wish I’d taken more photos, but I was simply so wrapped up in the awe of it I completely forgot most of the time.

The amazing thing about this museum is its amazing curator and volunteers. To my knowledge, everyone I’d interacted with had firsthand experience and stories from at least one conflict represented in the museum and were dear friends with men who were now subjects of some of the museum’s displays. Its incredibly interesting to read about people with anecdotes from their lives, it’s almost heartbreaking to hear the volunteers talk about their friend who donated memories because they knew the Warhawk would keep them safe. Watching the curator, a lovely man named Lou, tear up about the WW2 vets who had been such an important part of the museums volunteers, who were now memorialized in the museum itself, had me very near tears over souls I’d never met.

While they have a nicely set up self-guided tour, you really can’t go a very long without meeting with some of the volunteers, they are so keen to chat and so knowledgeable, it would be no more than 5-10 minutes in between long chats before someone would mosey up and say some variant of “want to see something cool?”. To which the only appropriate response is “of course, yes please”. You’d them spent the next 15-60 minutes following around a volunteer as you walk out the timeline of a conflict, see all the artifacts from a particular story, or get to climb up close and personal with the Red Baron model. One lovely gentleman was so excited to show us everything that we walked laps around the museum for an hour, hearing his life story intermixed with all the interesting history, and he’d start every new topic with “well, here’s something really interesting” as though touching the wing of a jet or hearing him casually refer to John Glenn as “old John” wasn’t fascinating enough. This gentleman, who’s nametag read Dick, lived enough crazy stories for 10 lifetimes, and was a definite reminder not to wait for life to just happen to you.

Posters all around! So excited to use it!

I ended up purchasing a membership, a mug, and a couple books, because gems like this need to be supported, and I wholeheartedly plan to go back soon. The next time I intend to bring a notebook.

Until we chat again my friends.

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Posted on October 29, 2021October 28, 2021 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

Well, it’s almost Halloween, and the trees have finally started showing their colors! You may have noticed the banner changing quite a bit on the site, that’s in large part because I simply couldn’t decide what I wanted it to look like and was having a hard time getting the colors to translate on the site. I wouldn’t be surprised, and you shouldn’t be either, if I end up changing it yet again.

My Two current contenders for new banner

We had the worst rain storms since I’ve moved here this week, although the old timers will tell you this was nothing. It started raining a little before 6 am on Friday and didn’t stop until Tuesday evening late. I know the specific start time because I told my brother he probably didn’t need a jacket, the rain wasn’t predicted until later and it was pleasantly warm out. Not more than three minutes after he drove off did it drop ten degrees and start aggressively raining. In my defense, there was a 7% chance, and the radar was clear! It was also 65° out at 5 am! How was I to know?

The other crazy thing was the wind. It started about 8 am on Sunday morning (I sent a text to my dad that my phone had a severe weather warning) and continued until about 4 am the next morning. So, the swimming pool that was once my driveway had waves.

The trade off about living in the high desert is that while we don’t get really rainy, gross, cold days often, when they happen, they are total deluges it can cause flooding and damage. Last year in June I found out the hard way I needed a new roof during one of those major storms.

But compared to when I lived in the Puget Sound area, I enjoy the rain a lot more, as its the exception, not the rule. While the scenery is gorgeous over there, I certainly don’t miss being wet from late September through early may. Turns out I’m a natural desert dweller.

I’m gearing up for a low key Halloween on the farm. We don’t get trick-or-treaters, which I wholeheartedly support, please don’t take your little ones (or big ones) to a random farm house in the middle of nowhere. I’m lovely, and most of my neighbors are lovely, but the horror stories speak for themselves. Also no one buys candy because we never get trick-or-treaters so it’s a waste of a journey unless the farmhouse residents know you’re coming.

Generally, I spend most of Halloween watching my animals (especially my tuxedo cat who normally loves the extra familial attention but, of course, on Halloween feels stifled by it) and keeping an ear out for my cousins, safety first on Halloween. Sometimes in the afternoon before the daylights fails, we will have a family Halloween bake off in town, but this year with the new arrival, one on the way, and the consistently bad weather earlier in the week, nobody felt it was a worthwhile endeavor. We will probably do a Thanksgiving bake off instead. I’m still planning on some spooky snacks. I’ll let you know how it goes.

The doggies got haircuts this week, so they’re looking all spiffy for the fall again. They always look so much better and are so much happier than when I try to groom them myself, so they go to the local pet shop. Funnily enough, since moving here, I’ve found the dog grooming community to be incredibly judgmental. I’ve had people tell me I’m abusing my dogs because they don’t get daily baths, that I need to have weekly grooming appointments, that its mean to have a poodle on a farm. Which is silliness because a lot of people use poodles for hunting dogs. My animals are always well cared for, admittedly this time of year the wet, musty dog smell is a constant battle, but I’m obsessive about their health and wellness. My only sin is that their fur gets a little too long in between visits, but that’s mostly because it’s impossible to get ahold of the only groomer in the area who is open more than once a week and I can’t always schedule them. Beyond that lack of pho places, this really is the only consistent frustration I’ve had with the place since moving here.

But honestly, really, I guess I can see why they are easily upset, the turnover for assistants is high, I’m sure the pay is less than ideal, and I’d imagine they do see their fair share of underwhelming care situations. But I promise you, my critters are fine, they are just like their mama, a little sassy, big fans of the midday nap, and constantly in a state of getting dirty playing in the mud. But currently? For the next 36 minutes (until the next potty break) they are looking quite dapper.

Anyways, I digress. Have a safe Halloween, a fun weekend, and I will talk at you soon.

Until we chat again my friends

Homecomings

Posted on October 22, 2021October 21, 2021 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!
I have a new family member! Little Hazel joined us shortly after the blog went out, she’s a beautiful, healthy little girl born to a healthy proud mama. We are all very pleased. She’s absolutely perfect. Her older sisters and father are over the moon as well, excited to get to know their new person.
The beginning of this week was a little rough, as I have been battling an on again off again cold. It’s very annoying when you feel ill, but not quite ill enough to justify calling out of work or backing out of chores. Especially when you work remotely, it can feel really hard to call out, since I can work from under a blanket and make as much warm broth as is necessary. But such is the time of year, the unsettled weather tends to cause at least a few days of gross feelings and low immunity.

Hazel isn’t old enough to make her debut online, so please enjoy Nellie scratching a good itch instead

My sweet mama has been decorating the house for fall. She loves getting the house all pretty for the different seasons and holidays. When we were kids, the house was always so magical, especially at Christmas time. There were so many Santas and Jesuses and garlands and bells it was borderline hard to move around, but just about as cozy as you could get. As adults who moved home, we’ve politely asked for a little reining in solely so that we can go to work and move about without waking the dead. My sweet mom, while making leaps and bounds towards recovery, doesn’t always have that 3rd person perspective, so usually at least once I have to gently move a nativity or pumpkin array from the threshold of my door, so I don’t inadvertently kick the baby Jesus.

Mom asked that I wait until shes done decorating to show off her work, so stay tuned for that, and enjoy a pic of Ro from my pasture picnic

The coyotes have been very close lately, I’m thinking I’m going to need to spray for them again. I buy wolf urine and occasionally spray key areas around the farm in my best attempt to mark my territory in a spooky way. It’s one of the most nauseating jobs on the farm, but it helps a little. When we first moved in the coyotes were so bold, they would shout insults from the pasture fence when you came out on the porch, so about 20 feet away, and a couple times I was late to my job at the time because I’d have to wait for the pack to mosey on. They don’t fear humans around here much, but at least for now, they seem to fear wolves still.
Which leads me to an exciting turn of events that you know probably nothing about. Our sweet Juliet returned home!
For some context, Juliet is one of our barn cats, she was part of my parents buying the farm, so we joke that she was a very expensive cat, and we got the land for free. Either way she’s a sweetheart, if not a little entitled and needy sometimes. I love her to bits when she’s not intentionally trying to trip me or knock whatever out of my hands. I love her then too, but with more colorful language.

But mid last week she stopped coming to morning roll call, and we got a little concerned, because of the aforementioned coyotes. She’s disappeared before for a few days, it’s no secret she’s got food bowls filled by some of my neighbors too, but I am also aware the nature of barn cats is that you can’t totally keep them safe. Their roaming nature insures it.
But we weren’t ready to start mourning yet, as her sister seemed sure she’d come back, and Cordelia was right, Juliet came back after about three days, and we are quite happy to have her. She’s no worse for wear so we’re working on the assumption she holed up in a neighboring barn or something until the coyotes moved on.
Although admittedly, moved on is a strong phrase.

The neighbors felled a tree a couple days ago. Jury’s still out as to whether it was intentional. They had a tree trimming service out, and apparently the tree was supposed to come out eventually, but it chose its own timing, deciding it wasn’t pleased with the new haircut, I guess. All I know is there was a whole heap of cracking and then a very loud thud when that giant tree hit the ground. It was very old and very tall, an ash I believe. I happened to be out by the arena gate when it fell. I watched the sudden flurry of activity while getting some chores done. (I checked, no injuries, I’m not completely useless in a potentially emergency situation, promise)
Overall it’s just been a pleasantly mundane week. Got a lot of little pre-holiday projects done, since I know once we are entrenched in the season emails get forgotten, updates go unscheduled, and generally things get left unfinished, so I’m trying to prevent some of that this year. Theoretically.
Real talk? Stuff will still get missed. Joys of adulting.
Until we chat again my friends!

Playin’ Possum

Posted on October 15, 2021October 13, 2021 by Farmers Blogger

Hello friends!

Wow-wee, it got cold this week! And blustery and rainy and goodness, fall is starting to feel very much like early winter. I’ve gone ahead and changed the site to fall colors, I’ll probably end up changing the banner again if we get some colors, but that cute little tree in the pasture might just about it. Which I’m grateful for, don’t get me wrong.

Its feeling really odd for fall, which seems to be the theme of the year, because it’s alternating strongly between “it’s still summer!” And “if you blink there will suddenly be snow”… but as for fall feelings? Not a ton of those. It really can’t decide if it’s like to be a long summery slope into a brisk autumn or a free fall plummet into winter. Seems like each day it changes its course.

We’ve been winterizing where we can around the farm, it’s a little difficult when one day everything desperately needs water to stay healthy in the midday warmth and the next, you’re worrying about overnight freezing. We’ve pulled the irrigation pump setup for the year and emptied the system. Seems like no matter how well we winterize the system each year, there’s one little brass fitting that fails every single season, so this year we pulled it completely off the pump and it has pride of place on a shelf in the warm basement. We shall see if that fixes the problem. It’s a pricey little piece to lose every year, and also, it’s just ridiculously annoying to fix again come springtime.

The house irrigation is a fancy mess that we have someone come help us with. It’s a computer run system with fancy automated valves, and it has never consistently run right, so we have professionals come handle the winterization for us. I don’t want to accidentally flood my basement because I thought I had the system shut down properly. In fact, he came out yesterday to winterize it since we are officially under freeze warnings for a while.

We plowed the remains of the garden under, hopefully any nutrients left will return to the soil and it will prevent the opossum from finding our farm a habitual resting place. It’s like fighting an angry tenant at this point, he regularly goes in and chases the cats away from their food unless we leave the shed lights on, will sneak into the equipment workshop and throw every tool and stored item on the ground, and will now taunt the chickens from the mesh roof of their run, since we leave the lights on in there as well, and no longer easily come in. I’ve been looking into lower cost lighting for the outbuildings, which I needed to do anyway, but it’s a priority now since darn near every light has to be left on to protect the farm animals. And honestly, our sanity, since it’s really disheartening to have to clean up thousands of nuts and screws off the floor every time that crazy rodent goes in and rips the shelving units off the walls. Did I mention he’s easily pushing 20 lbs? He’s gotten quite comfy helping himself to my produce and unfortunately, several of my chickens. The jerk. He even scared off the sprinkler guy for a while. I thought I was going to have to break in a new one. Do you know how hard it is to find a good sprinkler guy? Ugh. The best part of all of this craziness is the little guy is no longer afraid of us, so the tables have turned, and we’ve developed this odd sentimentality towards him that is absolutely not reciprocated. All in all, a very weird situation.

If you can ignore that I am incapable of selfies, I thought you might enjoy my “proof” for the tack store, so I can purchase dewormer sometime in the next couple weeks. Not pictured, Nellie nearly wiping me out seconds before we got the shot because she got too excited about selfies.

I had to “convince” her to hold still for me, she was really focused on eating some grass and I was blocking the way

I managed to make some cinnamon rolls since I have been craving them for about a week. They weren’t from scratch or anything, didn’t have time for that, but they were very tasty and lasted in my house less than 24 hours. My family is very strongly hinting at my making them again, but I’m running low on baking supplies and need to make a grocery run first. Especially because every time I use powdered sugar it goes literally everywhere and gets into everything. That particular product runs out very quickly.

As of the writing of this blog, we are still awaiting the arrival of a new family member, my cousin is having another little girl and she’s set to make her arrival any time. This will be my cousins third little girl and she is so excited to be growing her family again. Her older two are four years old and five years old and little spitfires to boot. They love coming out to the farm and playing with the animals, “helping” in the garden, investigating whatever new toys I’ve put in the toy boxes, and generally getting so dirty that I feel a little badly putting them back in their mom’s car. Not all that terribly though, because clothes wash but childhood farm memories are forever. Trust me.

As a protip, if you live on a farm, dollar store toys are your friend. Let’s face it, balls will pop, dolls will take dirt baths, crayons will get mashed into your fences and porch railings (my fridge is partially purple because apparently even goof-off can’t remove crayon from a textured white fridge. I dunno, I think it adds something to the kitchen). The dollar tree in my area gets a lot of my business because at least twice a year I go a little crazy on the toy section to refill our stock (and update it as the girls get older and new arrivals join, age-appropriate toys are a must). And I pick up new toys here and there all year long to replace or improve. Usually in the spring I walk out with a whole load of balls, jump ropes, chalk, hula hoops, and whatever yard games I can find, and in the winter, I restock on crayons, little dolls, and those plastic food and utensils sets. The girls absolutely love those. I like that it saves my pots and pans a little wear and tear from rambunctious play.

The dollar store is also great for basic stationary supplies, holiday decor, and some kitchen accessories and baking supplies. I’m a big proponent of the “buy cheap and if you break it buy expensive” rule for kitchen gadgetry, and honestly, some of the stuff I’ve picked up at the dollar store outlived my nice utensils. The holiday decor is great as long as you get there early, in my area the Halloween stuff is out and picked through usually by mid-August.

Well, I think that’s all there is for me this week, as we get into the colder season, I’m going to have to get creative about the work on the farm, and I guess I should start working on all the indoor household projects that I’ve been putting off. Time to get organized for the colder months, I think.

Until we chat again, my friends!