Farm boy

As I mentioned yesterday, Matt's brother, his wife and their 3-year-old son came to visit last weekend. They live way way down in Texas, and this was the first time we got to meet our cutie pie little nephew. I don't know who was more excited to play with him - Rafe, or Matt.

He seems to be a natural born farm boy. He loved helping us out for the weekend with every single farm task.

There was watering...




and feeding...




a ride on the tractor,


a ride on the horse,


and many games of "chore boot ball", a Sugar Creek Farm tradition.


It was so fun to spend the weekend as an extended family - we're missing them so much now that they've returned home!


3 years ago:

Dancing queens

2 years ago:

Let me rephrase that

1 year ago:

Don't try this at home kids

So where were we?

Sorry for the lapse in posting, but we were enjoying our holiday weekend with Matt's brother and his family visiting from Texas. Pictures of that coming soon - too many fun ones to choose from!

Then last night we loaded up broiler chickens to deliver to the processor. I ended up with 144 - a 6% death loss, which I was quite happy with. And none were condemned at the processor! How much do I love it when the processor tells me "those are some really nice birds"? If anyone knows quality chickens when she sees it, I guess it would be her ;) I went back late this morning to pick them up, and then took them to the locker here in town that does our pork & beef. They're freezing them for us (hooray!) It takes them 3 hours to freeze them, versus 2 or 3 days for me to do it at home. Tomorrow we'll go back and get them.

I wanted to share the photo above. Monday we visited the Catholic cemetery where Matt's foster parents are buried. The sun was playing some funky tricks on me, but it made for a pretty cool photo of the monument in the cemetery.


3 years ago:

Sunday morning

Chicken not-so-little

Reason #3 to have chickens

Linkity link

2 years ago:

Onion sets

Winston's posse

1 year ago:

A horse story

Rejected farm slogan #14

(Let's be clear that this one was Matt's idea, not mine!)




4 years ago:

Rain, rain, go away

2 years ago:

The garden, May 22nd

1 year ago:

The bachelor

Since you asked...

Olivia & Star, after workout tonight

Kris @ Quilted Simple asked yesterday if Olivia is going to show Star for 4-H. As a matter of fact, she is!

This is Olivia's first year in 4-H. The 4-H horse club holds twice-weekly workouts for the horses and riders to teach them the basics of riding and games and what will be expected of them at the county fair. Next month they even do a 2-day overnight camp at the fairgrounds for the kids and their horses. Olivia's having fun with it so far!



Olivia is the only one of us that Star will let cuddle with her like that - she'll walk away from the rest of us if we try any of that affectionate stuff with her.

Can you believe Star turns 21 years old this month? She's in great shape for her age, and still likes to run if you let her. She's been the perfect first horse for Olivia. And hopefully in another year or two, when Olivia's ready for a newer model, she'll be the perfect horse for me!


3 years ago:

Makeover

Nanny at work

Star the Supernanny was hanging with poor little land-locked Zorro the other morning. What a good horse!

Thanks for the kind comments about my attitude towards allergies this spring. But I have to confess, I'm feeling less than stoic today. Today I may have gladly traded just a couple of hours of this glorious spring weather for a couple of hours of dead winter when I don't feel like chopping my own head off.


1 year ago:

Ava, and her herd of one

The maple tree in our back yard is full of those little helicopter-like seeds. And my allergies are in full swing as well. But that's okay. I'll take spring with allergies over winter with a clear head any day.


3 years ago:

Jemima

Systems

2 years ago:

I've been following

1 year ago:

Marketing meeting

Zorro's a chicken

When the cows and their calves get turned out into the pasture, it takes the new calves a couple of days to figure out how to cross the creek. Their mothers are so grass-crazy that they don't care whether their babies come over or not. Then towards sundown they come back and feed their poor neglected children.

I don't know if you noticed in yesterday's post, but if you look again you'll see Zorro laying near the creek (with a duck to keep him company) while everyone else is over on the other side. He's the only one that won't cross yet, and it's been about a week since Matt turned them out.



I feel sort of sorry for him - I hope he figures it out soon!


2 years ago:

His and Hers

1 year ago:

Naptime

Happy Spring

I know, technically spring has been here a while. But it's finally become a happy spring, with sunshine and warm air and blue skies.

Happy cows (and one happy horse) out on grass again...


...and 145 or so happy broiler chickens on grass as well.



2 years ago:

The Princess Pack

1 year ago:

D. t'the E.

Chicks, batch 2

The second batch of 150 broiler chicks arrived last Thursday. One of the (many) fun things about having new chicks is that it brings young visitors around to see them! This past weekend the girls from the Cute Little Farmhouse were here, but I was having too much fun catching chicks for Molly & Elsa to remember to take a picture.

And that anonymous baby and her brother were here as well. I did get pictures of that. A cute little chick checking out the cute little chicks :)






3 years ago:

I really must stop

Punks & bluebells

Yesterday afternoon we gathered "the cousins" for a little bluebell photo op. Bluebell pictures are a mostly annual tradition over at my parents' farm (there have been a few years in the last 12 when the spring weather didn't cooperate.)



The boyz...


and the girls.



3 years ago:

Use the force

From the "Why We Do This" category

Lookin' for love

2 years ago:

Louisa

Quack

Back to the chicken pictures

After a long winter the chickens spend a lot of time just soaking up the spring sun.


3 years ago:

Goings on

2 years ago:

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming

1 year ago:

The best part of waking up

Yeehaw!

I was going to post a chicken picture today.

And then Madeline went and broke the Osage 7th grade girls record for the mile.

Scratch the chicken picture.


1 year ago:

Newest resident

Spring self-portrait

* Rubber chore boots replace snow boots

* Chairs returned to the front porch

* Green grass

* Still need a stocking cap

I am rooster

Hear me crow!



Soooo good looking.



Lookit me and my bad self.




3 years ago:

Our Farming Heritage - Part I

1 year ago:

Train kept-a rollin'

And the winner is..

Oh my gosh (or "O.M.G." as my eldest daughter would say), you guys are good! So many answers that I just couldn't choose. I couldn't! So I handed the laptop over to Matt and made him pick.

There were a whole lot of names that made me hungry. For chocolate. And coffee. And pie. And ice cream. I thought Aileen's continuation of the Shakespeare theme was brilliant. Kristi's observation that he has George Clooney eyes - how right she is! After this contest's entry and the last one, I think Patti is jonesing for some beef ;)

So I made Matt choose, and after he hemmed and hawed (what does that even mean?) he finally went with ... (drumroll please)...Bullwinkle! Thanks for the name, Carrie! A calf named after a moose - perfect!

Carrie, please email me your pick of the photos and your mailing address to themillers92 (at) osage (dot) net.

Stay tuned, another contest coming up...soon :)


3 years ago:

Up close and personal

It's another "Name That Calf" contest!

You already met Number Six's baby a couple of weeks ago - a cute solid brownish-black bull calf. Now you get to help name him!

Once again, winner will get pick of a 5x7 photo from this collection:

Sugar Creek Farm::Images

(or you can choose the picture of "your" calf shown here!)

Comments will close tomorrow (Monday) at 9 p.m. central.

Can't wait to hear what you come up with!

(Twinville - I need your mailing address to send Zorro's picture your way. But I understand you've been a little preoccupied this week with the fire, so no hurry! Email themillers92 (at) osage (dot) net whenever you get around to it. Hope everyone is safe!)

(Judy - I also need your mailing address, and which picture you'd like for your win naming Shakespeare. Thanks!)


3 years ago:

Moved

State track

Today I drove a car full of girls down to the Iowa middle school girls state track meet in Ankeny, just one in a caravan of cars from Osage. Spring track meets in Iowa (or tennis, or golf, or trap shoot meets for that matter) are an interesting game for the spectator as well as athlete, because you just never know what kind of weather you're going to be sitting in. Today was cold (started in the mid-30's, "warmed" up into the 40's in the afternoon) and windy (20 to 30 mph). So along came the sleeping bags, hats, mittens and winter coats. But at least it wasn't raining, a rare thing this spring, and the sun was out. Except nobody was thinking sunscreen or lip balm this time of year and after 10 hours in a set of west-facing bleachers we all looked rather pink.

So though there were (many) portions of it that were long and rather boring (like 6 heats of the 1500), it was still fun to watch the girls compete at this level and I was glad I went. Despite only getting in 2.5 meets around the rain so far this spring they did all right. There was some tough competition!

Madeline ran first leg of the shuttle hurdle relay, 400 (last) leg of the sprint medley, and anchored the 4 x 400.

Here she is coming over the first hurdle (in the middle in the green & the black under armour). She just ran this race in a meet for the first time last Thursday, so I was a little nervous about it. But their team placed 4th overall in this event in the small schools division, so I guess I worried for nothing (as usual, I guess.)



She likes to run the 7 flight hurdles. And yet it seems to me like she's got a distance runner's build. But what do I know?







Just last week she started running the mile, and got 2nd in last Thursday's track meet - only 10 seconds off the 7th grade girls school record. So she's excited to work at improving her time this week and gunning for that record :)


3 years ago:

Neighborly advice

This little piggy

2 years ago:

Bottle babies

Graduate

1 year ago:

Chicken decorating

Quilt squares

Convo

Madeline & Rafe were helping Matt fix fence in the pasture last weekend where I caught them having a little convo on the tractor.


3 years ago:

Cold

2 years ago:

A new month

1 year ago:

Springtime