Corn Harvest Videos

Today I got a text from 2nd DDIL. She is a 1st grade teacher and in the text she was telling that she is currently teaching her class about where food comes from. And so, since it's a beautiful day here and the last day of corn harvest, I volunteered to take some video of corn harvest for her class.

If you don't mind being talked to like a 1st grader, here are the videos I made.

I used my camera to video and had never done it before and so I didn't realize that I couldn't turn it and so consequently poor DH came out sideways.  All I can say is tip your head to the left!

I love watching the hopper fill.  And because of the size of each corn kernal, it fills up so quickly.  A farmer's dream come true!

 

 

Long time readers have seen this as a still shot but now it's in motion!

 

 

And the last video...

 

 



 

 

And so there you have it.  Corn harvest for 1st graders! 

 

I have a longer video of the combine actually going in the field but it was enough of a struggle to get Blogger to let me put these on here.  If anyone is interested I'll get the longer one on here one day soon.

It's a little bitty bunny

A week ago Friday evening we were invited to a birthday party for a 1 year old boy.

The party was the next evening. 

Well, as most of you know, we live in a tiny town with minimal shopping.  Certainly no gifts for a 1 year old.  And I wasn't really in the mood to drive 60 miles for a gift.  And so the next best thing...

Get out the yarn and find a crochet hook!

And a little bunny was born. 

He was fairly quick to do.  I started him at about 10 a.m. at our Saturday morning Knit & Purl at the local library. 

I started really disliking him at around 3 p.m. though.  Those ears and arms were quite annoying.

But...

look at that cute tail!  It's what kept me going and I finished him at about 4:30 p.m.  In plenty of time to get him into a gift bag for the little guy...

I think he turned out kinda sweet.  But the toys that had flashing colored lights and played music were the hit of the night for the birthday boy.  

That was as expected.

Details here on Ravlery. 

Winter Wonderland

Look what we woke up to this morning!

 

 

And for good measure the power was off for awhile during the night.

 

 

Let the fun begin!

Prayer

I'm a believer in the power of prayer.  I've seen what it can accomplish.  It is truly amazing and inspiring.

But as much as I believe, sometimes I don't remember.  Or I think I don't have the time.  I needed something to get me focused and on track.

Now I'm not a Catholic or Anglican (two churches that have structured prayer beads) but the idea of beads for prayer is an attraction for me.  So with the help of the internet I did a little searching to see if there were prayer beads in my church (Lutheran) too.  And I found just that.

Not structured but free style prayer beads that you can create yourself and assign their own prayer or meaning to each bead as fits your wants and needs.

Just what I needed.

And this is what I made.  

I got out our hymnal and found prayers that have meaning for me and then I went shopping for beads.  What I bought was mainly for feel, not appearance, because I hope to memorize all the prayers and be able to do this by feel alone.

 

Each bead has a prayer or person associated with it.

 

 

 

And so, if I have told you that I'll pray for you, you are one of these purple beads.

 

 

 

   

 

The Sweetest Sound (in canning season)

A trip to the Farmer's Market yielded several bunches of beets.

And my plan to can Beet Pickles was set into motion.

Boil the whole beets and then put them in cold water and the skins will slip off easily.

Then slice them and boil again in the pickling syrup.

Put into jars and tighten down the lids.

And wait for the sweetest sound in canning...

Ping.

Ping.

Ping, ping, ping!

Stress Relief

It was a long day today and tomorrow is going to be stressful.

Thanks to Karen I had just what I needed....

a skein of beautiful yarn to wind.

Thank you, Karen. It was just what I needed.

It'll be our new home.

I've decided to share what is going on in our lives. It started in July. Right after the 4th.

We are building a house!

I think I have taken over 200 pictures already and so this is just a teeny tiny peek at them but here goes.

It might have been July but the weather seemed more like spring. But a little misty rain didn't detour the big equipment doing the job of digging the basement.

And we have a hole in the ground! Even that was exciting.

I'm not showing each and every step because this could take all day but this is the footings.

The basement floor is going to be heated and these are the hoses needed for that. Cool looking, hunh?

And they pour the cement right over the top of the hoses. I sure hope none of them ever break!

And we saw this cool contraption several times over the course of getting all the cement poured. It is called a pumper truck. The cement truck backs up to it, unloads into it and then the cement is pumped to exactly where it is needed.

Here is a shot of the foundation being poured. The guy in the yellow green shirt is controlling the pumper truck with a contol box that hangs from his waist. It was extremely fun watching the process.

The pumper truck was here many times and each one was a hoot.

And here he is again. This was the last time...for now. I'm thinking he'll be back again when the patio and sidewalk gets done next summer.

And here are the steps into the basement. Come on down and take a look around.

The bedrooms and mechanical rooms are over here.

And this is big open space could be anything from a family room to wherever our imagination leads us.

We hadn't planned on doing anything with the basement. Just using it for storage. But....after seeing how it turned out, I'm thinking something will be done with it eventually.

So this is the 1st installment on our house building project. I'll be posting again, on occasion.