The riddler and the hippie, part two

Just have to share photos of the kids in their costumes. My son's cane is a home-made creation, fashioned from a dowel and a purhcased wooden letter "P" cut to look like a question mark (My husband did the woodwork, my son did the painting.) Actually, his whole costume is home-made, right down to the dye-job on the suit! I think they both look Halloween-ready, don't you?

Happy Halloween, all!

Dawn

My son, the kid correspondent

My 13-year-old son has been a "kid correspondent" for North Dakota Farm Bureau since he was in fifth grade. As a kid correspondent, he interviews other kids about agriculture and life on the farm.

We recently visited a North Dakota dairy farm and this is my son's report!

His little sister even got in on it!! Since he's getting to be a young man, instead of a kid, he just may have to pass the "kid correspnodent" torch to his little sister!!

To see some of his other reports, go to the Virtual Farm Tour page of the NDFB website.

Coming soon: A kid correspondent report from a hog farm!!

Dawn

The hippie, the riddler and the middle-aged juggler

We are definitely in the Halloween spirit around our house. In addition to many decorations put in place by my 8-year-old, we figured last night was a good night to carve pumpkins.

We are also anxiously awaiting for the mail arrival, guaranteed by tomorrow (with fingers and toes double crossed), of my daughter's hippie costume, complete with purple Janis Joplin glasses and a "peace" necklace.

My son has decided to be The Riddler from Batman. His costume has required a little more legwork than web surfing. And we're still not quite finished.

Last Thursday, we combed several second-hand stores (actually, every single one in the city) and finally decided to purchase an off-white sport coat and pair of pants, with the idea that we'd just have to dye them, because, believe it or not, you don't find very many green suits out there.

Then I traipsed around town to find the right "green" with which to dye said sport coat and pants. Last night, the dying deed was accomplished, and the results were, while not perfect, pretty darn good. At least my son was excited.

Next, a trip to a big box store to buy some felt and a gaudy purple tie. The felt is going to be used to make many, many question marks which we will then attach to the suit jacket with fabric glue. The gaudy purple tie will also get a nice green question mark made out of felt, to complement the green of the suit. I suspect this part of the costume will be a little time-consuming.

The hitch? Having it ready for his school music program on Thursday night. But I think we can make it. And I think he will make a pretty awesome Riddler. My daughter will make a pretty darn good hippie, too.

I'm going as a middle-aged juggler. You know... the mommy kind of juggler that tries to keep a variety of balls in the air at the same time.

I may not be the best middle-aged mommy juggler, but it's my favorite costume. In fact, I wear it 365 days a year!

Dawn

This Baby Grand is priceless

I took piano lessons for years. I started in second grade. And except for a short experiment in organ lessons in the late '70s, I continued taking piano lessons throughout high school and into my first year of college.

For all those years of lessons, you'd think I'd be an outstanding piano player. No. Not really. I guess I didn't have the drive or discipline to be more than okay.

But this is a really outstanding replica of a Baby Grand that my son made for his little sister's dolls. He designed it and painted it, and my daughter put the "keys" on it.

I helped with the legs, because they just weren't sure what to do for legs. They are probably the "cheapest" looking part of the project.

I know Baby Grand pianos cost a lot of money, but in my book, none of them are worth as much this one.

Dawn

From pillow to hat

A few years ago, Riley grabbed one of those roll-type pillows that I had on the couch and trashed it. In fact, now that I think of it, I did have two and now I have none, so he must have trashed them both! Rotten critter (said, of course, with love and affection)!

Anyway, for some reason, I saved part of one end. Maybe I thought I would make something out of it. Or maybe I just thought it was a waste to throw out the whole thing. I actually don't remember.

Fast forward to this summer. I am patching a pair of pants and my daughter notices the pillow remnant. She takes it out and, of course, puts it on her head. "Hey, Mom! Look at my hat!"

It looks like one of those "pillbox" hats and is actually quite cute. Pretty soon the ideas are flying for a fur-lined "makeover" on the pillow remnant so she can have a warm winter hat.

Well, of course my little monkey is not one to forget these things. So as soon as the weather started to get chilly in the mornings, she was asking about when this fur-lined hat would be done.

So we made a trip to the fabric store to pick out "just the right" fur. I got extra fabric. A lot of extra. She said she thought it looked like way too much. I said I might need it because I'm not a very good seamstress. She says, "Well, I thought you were a better sewer than that!" The clerk takes this all in with an amused smile.

We get the goods home, I make supper, then promise I will work on the hat after supper. Three hours and several pokes with stick pins later, I have a finished product.



Riley can't resist the little monkey in the fur-lined hat!



It's not the best sewing job, but it IS a one-of-a-kind hat, just right for my one-of-a-kind kid!

Dawn

Pint-sized agvocates

Last Friday, a coworker and I went to a local school to videotape the kids singing an original song by the teacher. This teacher is an incredible "agvocate" and I was excited to not only hear the song but videotape the kids singing the song.

We walked into the school, and there were three kids standing by the office door. My first thought was that they were in trouble and waiting to see the principle. (No, it was not a flashback to my school days. I was NOT a rowdy student. In fact, I was very well-behaved, believe it or not!)

It turns out that they were waiting there to escort us to the room where we would be videotaping. They were completely precious! They introduced themselves and shook our hands and then politely walked us to the room. It was so cute.

I was just as impressed with the whole group of kids, who sang a very wonderful song that the teacher wrote about farmers, called "God Bless The Farmer."

"For every grain of sand
On every shore
There's a seed that is planted in the soil..."

This teacher is doing wonderful ag-education things with her class. Check out her blog at Ag in My Classroom.

It's encouraging to see, at a time when so many people are indifferent to agriculture, that an educator is embracing and educating children about the work of farmers and ranchers.

My hat is off to this teacher and her amazing group of students. And thanks for the escort, kids! I felt pretty special!

Dawn

Leaves

My daughter wanted to play in in some leaves. Luckily, some of our trees are getting big enough now, so if you rake enough,  you can get a pretty good pile. She also thought it would be fun to have the dog play in the leaves with her. So she hid a doggie treat in the pile.

It took him all of 15 seconds to find the treat, but her giggles will warm my heart forever!

Dawn

Under the rainbow

There's just something really cool about a fall rainbow; unexpected, yet welcome. Because it is unexpected, you just feel compelled to take a picture. So I did.

But you wouldn't really know it's fall because all the trees are evergreens and the grass is still looking pretty respectable, from a distance anyway. The information from the camera,  however, confirms that is was taken on Friday, October 7...at 5:19:52 p.m., to be exact.

I'm really loving this extended 70-degree fall weather. In fact, although I like all the seasons, fall just might be my favorite.

Dawn

Life of Riley

I have mentioned Riley, our shoe-stealing Springer Spaniel, who is just over three years old and should be beyond this stage, more than once on this blog. Most of the time, I'm complaining about his behavior. Either he has just chewed up a shoe, or made a hole in a shoe, or chewed off shoelaces. But today, I'm happy to see him run off with my shoe and carry it to his kennel. I'm even smiling a little as he growls at me when I take away my shoe.

That's because his over-exuberance on the first day of the pheasant season landed him in an over-night stay at the vet.

It was a warm day. He wasn't drinking water like he should have, because, well, because he's a dog trained to find pheasants, and that's what he's gonna do, doggone it! My husband said he was concerned about him and cut the hunt short.

Riley still wasn't very interested in drinking water when he got home. But we didn't think anything of it, until he peed and it was, as the vet said later, the color of port wine.

So after a quick test to make sure it was nothing more serious, the vet said Riley was going to be an overnight guest because we wouldn't be able to get him to drink enough water to flush his system, and we needed to protect his kidneys.

Needless to say, when we went to pick him up on Sunday, he was pretty happy to see us. And since then, he's been.....

Yep, you guessed it, "Living the Life of Riley!"

Spoiled critter! (But happy to have him back home.)

Dawn

Chicken diapers and garlic toast

Spooky! Yesterday, I called myself a late fall chicken, and today, I see a blog post about how chickens are becoming more commonplace as indoor pets, and that people can keep that troublesome poop from messing up their homes with chicken diapers.

We didn't have chickens when I was growing up. They got rid of them many years before I was born. By the time I was old enough to remember stuff, the chicken coop was basically a storage shed. Some of our relatives had chickens, and while they were pretty cute as chicks, once they got big, they had a tendency to chase you around the place.

My brother and his wife had a pet chicken on their farm a few years back. It was an outdoor, chicken however. Roosted in the dog house. If I remember correctly, they think a fox or coyote got it or something because they found the feather remnants in the shelterbelt.

My kids love holding the chicks at the Morton County Ag Day, held every year.... (about 55 seconds into the video)




Suddenly, I feel less inclined to describe myself as a chicken. It just feels kinda weird.

And about that garlic toast? If you read yesterday's post, you know I was drooling in anticipation for garlic toast at the county Farm Bureau annual meeting.

Yes. They did have it.

No. It wasn't all eaten up by someone else with a bigger penchant for garlic toast.

BUT, I was able to control myself and limit myself to three pieces. (Yes, that is control for me!)

This is what my daughter did while the business portion of the evening was going on...

Give a kid an orange program at this time of year, and of course, it's gonna have Halloween-related stuff drawn on it.

Spooky!

Dawn

As I snack on high fiber cereal

I'm getting older and the weight is not coming off as easily as it used to. It seemed like just a few years ago, I was able to drop five pounds in a couple of weeks. Now? I can't get the scale to budge in a month. Not even a little. I actually thought that perhaps the scale was broken or something.

After others weighed themselves on the scale, and reported they had lost weight, I can only assume one thing: That the scale is selectively broken.

Okay, that was a joke. But, nevertheless, a nice delusion to cling to.

The truth is, I'm no spring chicken. I'm not even a summer chicken. I'm a late fall chicken who can't lose weight, because the more I think about how I can't lose weight, the more I think about how a plate of cheesy nachos would really hit the spot. Like right now? My mind is swimming in anticipation of garlic toast that (hopefully) will be served with the meal at the county Farm Bureau annual meeting tonight.

So, in a lame attempt to curb my need to eat every piece of garlic toast I can lay my hands on this evening, I have been snacking on crunchy high fiber cereal.

Hasn't helped a bit. I'm still counting the minutes until GTT (garlic toast time).

Since my willpower to snarf garlic toast is larger than my willpower NOT to snarf it, I can only hope that the garlic toast will either not be on the menu, or someone with a bigger love for garlic toast and less willpower than me, will have already eaten it all!

Dawn

Carrot crop

Since I realized we had not one but two freezes (and isn't this funny, but last night, I caught the weather and the last thing the weatherman mentioned was the fact that we've had our killing frost now so we're living on borrowed nice weather) I decided to dig up the carrots after work last night.

My mom always told me that carrots are much sweeter after a good, hard frost, and so far, I haven't been disappointed by leaving them in the ground until a freeze.

I planted the funky red carrots, but they didn't all turn out red. Some were orange. Some were red. But they were ALL delicious. In fact, I cut up several for supper, thinking I'd have some to snack on later. Between my son and I, however, we polished them all off. So I guess if I want more tonight, I'll have to do a little more scraping.

Carrots are one of those foods that remind me of growing up on the farm. As soon as my grandma's carrots were big enough to pull, I'd be up there, pulling away and snacking a great deal. There is nothing better than a carrot just pulled from the ground, washed up a little (a little dirt never hurt anyone!) and munched right on the spot.

I look forward to harvesting my carrots so much, that I was seriously thinking of growing a few in a pot inside. But I haven't figured out how to get the effect of a hard frost yet. A couple hours in the freezer, maybe?

Or maybe, I'll just plant them next spring, nurture and tend to them, let 'em freeze naturally, and then dig them up next fall, just like this year. The anticipation always makes it worth the wait!

Dawn

I missed the memos

Yesterday, my daughter, her friend, and I decided to go out to visit our pumpkins in our garden to see how they were doing and to see just how many pumpkins we needed to purchase when we made our yearly trip to Papa's Pumpkin Patch.

Much to my chagrin, only the biggest pumpkin survived what, unbeknownst to me at the time, was frost damage. I guess I missed those darn frost memos that were issued on September 19 and October 2 (which I determined AFTER the fact by doing an a search on the National Weather Service website). In my defense, when I don't have to be worrying about how the kids should dress when they get on the bus, I am NOT entirely diligent about checking the weather, and since both of these frosts occurred on the weekend, I cut myself a little slack. Especially since there were only three pumpkins in all, and the two smaller ones were kind of weird looking and misshapen, anyway. Actually, the "survivor" pumpkin had frost damage as well, but I'm just going to tell everyone it's a one-of-a-kind "designer colored" pumpkin.

Luckily, we checked on the pumpkins right before we went to the pumpkin patch, so the "devastation" that would normally occur when something like this happens was more of a, "Well, guess we just have to get a few more pumpkins at the pumpkin patch, right Mom?"

To which I happily answered, "That's right, babe! We'll have to get some extras!"

To which I happily received a giggle and a big smile. And after the trip to the pumpkin patch? A big hug and  a, "Thanks for taking us to the pumpkin patch! It was SO much fun!"

So even though I missed the frost memos, and toasted two small pumpkins, I side-stepped a meltdown, and got a big hug and a smile.

Ain't life grand?!?!?

Dawn