Stories from the Farm - Riding Katie

Three little friends on their first mule ride

In the country the pace of summer usually picks up in July, right after Independence Day celebrations. The county fair is two weeks away and there are projects and entries to ready for the Home Show and 4H exhibits. There's pre-registration. Then there's getting these items to the Fair. And then there's the week of the fair, By then the weather usually turns blistering hot and the vegetable garden starts producing. There are summer family reunions to attend, the usual home chores to complete, the yard to mow, and the garden and flowers to water (but not this year). People start to meet themselves coming and going. 

Ben and I really enjoyed the week of the fair this summer. Ben participated in three tractor parades and one night I brought my ninety-year-old mother, so we were there almost everyday for one reason or another. We usually ate dinner at the pork and cattlemen's tent and visited with friends and neighbors we hadn't seen in a while. Ben also loves the stand that sells roast'n ears (corn on the cob). The Extension Homemakers run a Country Kitchen that is air-conditioned. They serve breakfast and family style meals in the evenings - we usually eat there at least once with our friend Lowell Oesterling. And then there's the carnival. We get ice cream cones and lemon and orange shake-ups from the carnival vendors - and ever since I discovered funnel cakes at the State Fair a few years ago,  I am always sorely tempted to buy one. YUM!

Ben pulling the surrey in Monday's Antique Tractor Parade

Ben defied the unusally rainy weather and drove his Ford and Allis-Chalmers tractors in for the Antique Tractor Exhibit the Friday before the fair, the Allis in the morning and the Ford after lunch. He pulled a little surrey with a fringe on top behind the Ford for the grand-kids to ride behind the tractor in the parades. I drove behind him on that second trip to town. Our half of the sky was sunny most of the way but all the while a vast black sky loomed before us. I could tell by the water tower that it had swallowed the fairgrounds. The rain cut loose a few blocks before we reached Teal Road. Ben pulled over and made a dash for the car but still got absolutely soaked. Good thing I thought to bring along a change of clothes, just in case! 

Dairy Tent

The grand-kids worked in the dairy booth and showed dairy calves this year as well as participating in the rabbit and chicken exhibit. The rabbits and poultry are usually housed in the same building at the fairgrounds - one of my favorite exhibits, but this year sadly 4H participants couldn't bring their chickens, ducks, and geese in because of the avian flu. Instead the cages had photos in them - and I think the actual  judging took place at people's homes and farms. We missed seeing all the beautiful and sometimes exotic poultry.

Double-page Scrapbooking Layout for the Fair

For my part, I usually bring entries for the Home Show's photography and scrapbooking exhibits. Every year I say it's going to be my last time, but every year I seem to end up with a few photos earmarked for the fair.

But today's farm story, while it occurred during fair week, actually took place at our farm - as a sort of respite from all the commotion and activities of a rather muddy fair. (Coming home to our old farmhouse in the country always seems so peaceful after being at the fair.) Tuesday of fair week, some former neighbors called and asked if they could bring their new neighbors out to see Kate and Annie, Ben's draft mules.

Stories from the Farm - A Very Rainy Summer!

In 2005 Ben and I packed up and moved to our present location just one (country-size) block down the road and a 100 years back in time. This was because we purchased the old yellow 1900's farmhouse with the two tall pine trees at the next intersection - after having lived in a modest 1950's ranch-style home since the early '80's. My husband being a country boy, both properties had some acreage - the one where we live now having 2.77 acres; so in 2009, just a few years after heart-valve replacement surgery, Ben bought a team of draft mules, Kate and Annie. That same summer we added chickens. And of course, the dog and cats go without saying, as most people who live in the country know (country folk don't have to buy their pets - their pets just show up on the door step). So we feel like we live on a little hobby farm, but I never thought to tell some of those country-living stories until I came across an interesting and attractive blog Fresh Eggs Daily.  Lisa, the author of the blog, talks about raising chickens and ducks and using herbs in the nesting areas. She also sends out a weekly email entitled "The Week in Farm Photos."

So I thought, "Hey, there's an idea! Why not add yet another topic to this already over-crowded blog of mine and tell some of our own hobby-farm stories? LOL!

My readers in the Midwest will know how strange this summer has been. Almost like clockwork, everything seemed to go haywire after I turned 65 this spring. I strained my knee doing yard work and experienced complications going off some maintenance meds (luckily at age 65 I also became eligible for Medicare and can now afford medical services!) and the weirdness just went on from there. We have received anywhere from 18 to 28 inches of rain in May, June, and July, according to various sources. =:o This alone did a pretty effective job in keeping me off my leg and out of the yard not to mention keeping the farmers out of the fields to do their spraying and what-have-you. The rivers and creeks have overflowed their banks and remain unusually high for this time of year. And the vegetable gardens have been particularly hard hit by all the rain and lack of sunshine. Personally, I think this all started back in the winter of 2014. The infamous polar vortex of 2014 never quite went away, and as happened last year, summer and winter fought it out til the bitter end to see which would prevail - resulting in two cooler summers (I wore my flannels to bed in July both years) - as well as a very wet one this year with a bumper crop of mosquitoes and flies!

July started off, of course, with the 4th, which seemed unusally quiet this year. Practically right on its heels - or so it seemed, anyway - came the county fair with the Home Show and the Antique Tractor Show and the grand kids showing in 4-H. After that came the Alward-Davis Reunion. Now that's all past and we can focus on the rest of the summer - which seems strangely empty without fruits and vegetables to pick and cook and put up. Some of my flowers have been pretty happy with all the rain, especially the lilies. It's been a great year for transplanting and for planting new flowers - clear up til August! Everything I've stuck in the ground this summer has been generously watered-in by Mother Nature. However, I have never seen such a poor yield from the vegetable garden as we've had this year - and many of our neighbors tell the same story. Fruit and vegetables are sparse and small - our cabbages were about the size of small grapefruits. Our squash, zucchini, and cucumber vines all bear beautiful blossoms, but nary a fruit. Our tomatoes are small and not too abundant - but they do taste great! Even the apples are small - little bite-sized treats for Kate and Annie. We're thankful for the rare neighbors whose gardens somehow managed to prosper in spite of the rain and who took pity on our scraggly little garden and brought us green beans, cucumbers, and corn!

The crops are looking really good in the surrounding fields, however (except for the low spots). As a friend pointed out on Facebook recently, the corn truly is "as high as an elephant's eye!" I worried that the farmers would never be able to get into the fields and get the hay baled - and in that case how would we feed Kate and Annie this winter? But today Ben brought home six large bales and our supplier (a neighboring farmer) anticipates another cutting in September or October. The last few days of the fair and since have been absolutely gorgeous so maybe summer and sunshine have finally won out. Almost. I do like these temperate sunny days in the seventies and low eighties and the cooler nights - many of  which we haven't had to even run a fan, let alone the air conditioner!

Anyway, this post is my way of introducing the topic - so stay tuned for the occasional Story from the Farm!

JuneBug

How to Bring Out the Story in your Casual Photos with Photoshop Filters

I've been wanting to attempt an article for the scrap-booker or casual photographer (folks like me, in other words) to share how I get the most story-telling "bang" out of my casual photos. If, on your quest toward becoming the expert photographer who always takes the perfect picture, you're like me and can't afford really high-end camera equipment with larger sensors, or if you just don't quite have the on-the-spot photography skills to meet the demands of every memorable moment you encounter, you may end up with a lot of bad, so-so average, and merely "okay" photos. (I'm not saying, by the way, that becoming a better photographer is a bad ambition). In fact sometimes even your really good photos may not quite reflect the image you stored in your mind's eye when you pressed that camera button; and if you're like me, you're always seeking ways to make your photos look even better. But good, bad, or ugly, the photos you've already taken are your reminders of the memorable events or scenes of beauty from your life. They're too good to throw away, yet somehow they remain pale, distant cousins of the actual experience - and you desperately want to breathe life back into them. So what I want to discuss in this article are ways I've found in Photoshop CS5 to change my so-so images into the image I hoped I would get when I pressed the button on the camera. These techniques may also apply to Photoshop Elements and Light Room.

Photoshop Ads and Posters

My previous posts have sported a series of assignments in Photoshop effects from the Photoshop Cookbook for my computer graphics class this fall. I had lots of fun with those. The next assignment in that class was to design a poster ad on a product or service. I chose to feature our mules Kate and Annie, who have appeared on these blog pages before. Benny hitches Kate and Annie up almost every day during the spring, summer, and fall and takes them for a ride up and down our county roads. Sometimes instead of hitching them to the wagon, he and Bonnie saddle up and ride them. So now that the neighbors have seen them do their thing, Benny gets invited frequently to give hayrides for local outdoor events. Hence, this series of posters (click on each image to get a larger view, if desired):

Stories from the Farm - The Adventures of Kate and Annie among the English

Or an impromptu tour of our neighborhood through the eyes of Kate and Annie ...

Monday evening around 7 pm, Benny was finishing up a fence expansion for the mules, and I, accompanied by my cat, had just plunked down on the white adirondack chair on our infrequently sunny back porch of late. With a glass of blackberry wine in one hand and my laptop in the other, I was ready to relax after a rugged day of landscaping, cleaning the carpets, and preparing for a flight to Dulles the next morning for my brother's surgery. I had barely taken the first sip from the glass when our neighbors Mike and Jacci pulled into our driveway. They climbed out of their Suburban to inspect the latest additions to our family, Kate and Annie - a team of Belgian mules who used to work for the Amish.

Meet Kate and Annie

In my previous post, I said that I had unexpectedly entered job search mode again - after a successful two and a half years in my field and then taking a new job. But in every life along with a little rain, the sun must also shine. :)

It's spring! And while I lost my job, it's been wonderful to have time to catch up with friends and family and work on spring-cleaning the house and landscaping the yard - which have been so seriously neglected since the job hunt, job transition, and a couple of family illnesses involving prolonged travel and hospital stays over the holiday season.

I haven't had this much uninterrupted time at our new home since - well, ever! (we moved here 4 years ago.) So I'm giving her the old white glove, while I have the opportunity! Of course I'm job-hunting too.

Benny was so excited when I got my new job this winter that he finally decided to pursue a life-long dream. Ever since we've been married, he's talked about owning a team of draft horses or mules. He acquired an antique wagon several years ago that he's refurbished and we've used to advertise his antique refinishing on this corner. So this late winter/early spring he set about building stalls in the pole barn and putting up fence - and the opportunity came along to buy a team of Belgian draft mules from our neighbors complete with harnesses for a really good price.

Kate and Annie are 18 years old and still in wonderful shape. They pulled Benny's wagon to Stockwell yesterday. They worked together for the Amish their first six years of life and have been owned by 3 families (including us) since them. Actually they were separated when the Amish sold them to the next family. The second family reunited them and then our neighbors have owned them for about 6 to 8 years.

Even though I lost my new job, I told Benny I sincerely hoped he would go ahead and buy them. His brother died of a brain tumor at age 65 - the same year Benny had his open heart surgery. And last year his sister died of cancer at age 74. I told him he'd better be doing some of his dreams while he still has the health to enjoy them. I have hope we'll be able to financially maintain - even if I have to work in part time retail or part time factory again. Like Kate and Annie, I'm hoping I still have enough of my wits, skills, health, and vigor, that some employer in my field will still find value in me. Whether they do or not, we are still blessed.

So without further ado, meet Kate and Annie!




JuneBug