Random thoughts

1. I can't remember if I shared this photo on the blog (I know I shared it on facebook), but these are the cedar trees on our county road. My Dad and his Grandma planted them over 40 years ago. Last year, the utility passed some rule that trees have to be at least 10' from the powerlines, so they topped the trees. They looked ridiculous, so Grandma asked the tree company to just remove all the branches. Now they look like match sticks. Dad and I will be spending upcoming weekends cutting these trees down and setting them aside for fence posts and cedar planks for closets or hopechests.
Note how there aren't any trees on the other side of the road... It would have made more sense to move the powerline than to kill all the trees. 

Anyway, last night the moon was really bright. I got up in the middle of the night to go pee and was convinced there were people walking down the road. Creepy.

2. I drove to Springfield tonight. Again, the moon is really bright. The moon had a strobe light effect shining through the trees, which are losing their leaves.

3. I stopped at the new Hyvee to get some breakfast for the weekend, and beer to take back to Cape. I wish there was a place in Cape that had as good a selection of beer as Hyvee. The alcohol department at Hyvee is huge!

4. When I was in college I was dating a guy who still lived in Cape. Every three-day weekend I would drive back to Cape to spend time with him.
Now, every chance I get I'm driving back to Springfield to spend time with my husband. I'm between two "homes" right now; the home where my family is and the home where my husband is.

5. I'm really enjoying my new job. In addition to reviewing commercial plans, I will soon be reviewing residential plans. I've also been asked to spear-head the development of a facilities maintenance plan for all the city owned buildings, including checking existing buildings for code deficiencies and maintenance items, and helping compile information for the capital improvement plan. It's good to feel appreciated and to receive positive comments about my performance so far.

The numbers:
Number of plans reviewed since beginning my job: 11 (some of these were re-submittals, responding to comments I had)
Time until I see the Hubs: 50 minutes!
Number of Corvairs we now own: 2 (more info to come later...)

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More Doilies

  I should probably preface this with the comment that these will eventually be starched and flat. I don't plan on giving out wrinkly/curly doilies for gifts...

This first one is out of the same book as the first doily I made.

 These new two are from a different book. A book that I don't recommend if you want to make doilies. I started three or four different doilies and the directions were all wrong. Making these two required looking at the photos.

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Music Monday: She's Country by Jason Aldean

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Fog

 Check out how thick the fog was yesterday morning. (This was taken out my bedroom window, that's why it's not very clear.)

 And did you know it's fall?

This weekend I'm headed back to see the Hubs. I won't get to see him for very long because he's going deer hunting this weekend. At least he has priorities straight, right?

Number of plans reviewed this week: 2
Number of days until I see the hubs: 5
Number of doilies made this week: 3
Number of trips to town on one tank of gas: 10 (29.5 mpg!!! I love this Mazda 3!)

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Calf sale time

 It's that time of year when calves get shipped off to the auction barn. Out of 20 calves, 10 are getting sold this week. We're keeping four heifers and one bull calf, as well as several calves that aren't quite big enough to sell yet.

 Constructing a temporary hay feeder in the barn.

 The bull calf, lovingly named Chuck by my Hubs. A year or so from now he'll be processed and tucked into deep freezers with a new name: Ground Chuck.

On a farm, things get re-used and re-purposed. These feed troughs used to be a water heater.

After all that work separating the calves yesterday, they broke out, tearing the gate off the barn. If you can imagine a bovine version of Ozzy's "Momma I'm Coming Home", that's definitely what was mooed this morning.

We have to re-separate the calves this afternoon!

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Passing Time

 The lack of my favorite TV channel (ABC) and the shows that come with it (Grey's Anatomy) means I have more time to fill with mindless activities.

In the last several days, I started and finished this doily:

 

I bought this doily book at a flea market in Springfield a couple years ago. At the time, I couldn't decide if I wanted to make bookmarks or doilies for the ladies in my family for Christmas. After crocheting one doily, I decided bookmarks were the better option. They didn't take as long to make. At that point, I was still studying for exams in my free time.

 Talk about cutting it close on thread! I kept looking at it thinking "I'm not going to have enough to finish!", but I did.

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Putting food by: Pear Jam

Nothing says "Welcome Home" like a five-gallon bucket (nearly) full of pears. There's a house at the end of our county road that is in foreclosure and my parents picked up pears a couple weeks ago.
The first thing my Dad said after the vehicles were unpacked last weekend was that there was a bucket of pears that they thought I'd like to make jam out of. Of course I did, but finding the time to do so was a little challenging.
I get off work at 5. If I leave the office exactly at that time, it's at least 5:30 by the time I make it home. Then I want to help out on the farm, but it's dark outside by 6:30. 

 Wednesday night when I got home, Grandma was sitting at the kitchen table peeling and coring pears. She said she'd been doing so for the last 3 hours. We used the food processor to "finely chop" the pears.

That night we canned 7 pints of jam.
Then we ran out of lemon juice.

 Then Thursday night, I stopped and bought extra sugar, pectin and lemons. We canned a batch of sugar free jam- which made 2 pints. It used Splenda instead of sugar.
And Two batches (7 pints) of regular jam.

I modified my labels a bit to include Grandma.

A note about the jam: The sugar-free looked more cohesive. The regular jam separated, so all the fruit was floating and the jelly part was all on the bottom.

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