Thursday August 25, 2011

It's 10:40 p.m. and Jim (with my help) is finally done bagging his tomato produce. This year at the State Fair I broke down and bought one of the vitamix blenders they demonstrate in the Ag building each year. I've watched them demonstrate them for years but didn't want to spend the money. I don't know why I finally decided to give in but the night I purchased it a gentlemen that I taught with for a couple of years was standing there and told me they did the same things several years ago and were pleased with their decision. Jim likes the new machine because as he took the tomatoes from the garden he could just put them in the blender whole and the skins just get pulverized. He didn't have to peel a single tomato. So far we have 6 quart of both tomato juice and sauce.

More zoo pictures

Found some more pictures from our trip to the zoo. The only people not pictured are Mary Ellen (who's taking the photos and Mike who was watching Caleb on the playground equipment and Beth.

August 21, Catch Up

Wow! It doesn't take long for me to get behind in my blogging. Since the last post the pictures are as follows. About two weeks ago workers started moving dirt for a pond at the farm. Maybe eventually I will be able to kayak at the pond! Does this mean I need a lot of snow this winter to help fill it? Grandson Payton had his 7th birthday on August 10. He'll be in 1st grade at Greenwood Elementary in Des Moines. He keeps us all on our toes with his knowledge of various topics, currently capitals of countries around the world. His birthday cake was a map of the world. This past weekend Jim and I took all 5 of our kids and grandkids to the Omaha Zoo. The weather was very nice. I wanted a group picture but it was hard to keep and get everyone together at one time (15 of us!) Caleb had his first merry-go-round ride and my favorite animal is a tie between the penguins and the giraffes. The monkeys provided much inappropriate entertaiment from picking their noses and eating it to proudly displaying their private parts. UGH the things we will remember. The one event I don't have pictures of is Jim and my trips to the state fair. Ran into relatives in the bus waiting line which was nice. Some of them we don't get to see very often. Jim and I bought a new termperpedic mattress at the fair which will hopefully get delivered this coming week. The salemen (who was very nice and from Texas) gave us 6 tickets to the Ronnie Dunn concert (formerly Brooks and Dunn). David, Alicia and I went with a couple of David's co-workers. It rained but our seats were awesome and we were dry. I assunmed since the tickets were free they would be horrible seats but couldn't have asked for anything nicer. The concert was delayed 90 minutes after the opening act because of lightning so it was a late night but we had a good time. Back to work and another school year tomorrow. I'm not ready and since we were in Omaha this weekend, I now have to go into work and that means struggling to find a parking place close to my building since SE Polk lets fair traffic park there. Tomorrow I won't have to fight that anymore.

August 7, 2011

For the past several years sweet corn has been planted in the field behind our church. This year Jim decided we needed to freeze some. It tastes really good, but it is a lot of work. Jim picked and husked 9 dozen ears. I tried to clean off the extra silks. That was a real sticky and boring job. Hopefully this winter I will appreciate it more than I am today.