Crop Report

Sweet sweet corn!   Just add butter and salt and yummmmmy!!!

Here's our crop report...and no this is not sweet corn...but look at the size of those ears and already starting to dent!  Are we blessed??? 

Looks like a good crop!

No...Morgan...it's not that kind!

Our first tomato!  I let Wayne and Morgan have it....I'm so kind!  Course if you know me...you know I don't eat those things.
Jolyn

Can't Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd

Wayne and two of our grandsons went down to Cedar Rapids and joined our son-in-law and his dad and other guys and went to Promise Keepers.  This is Marque's dad...Pete and his buffalo herd.  I don't like the way this bull is looking at the guy in shorts plus the little fence between him and him...Pete said if they charge...don't run straight away from them...run at 90 degrees.  I don't know...these still look like it would take some fancy footwork to out manuever!  Just saying.....



Don't mess with mamas and their babies...or with papas either.
Jolyn



Company!!

We were blessed with an overnight visit with our church's first youth director!  Here we met their son for the first time...Elihu!!

It's a shame when the best picture is one from the hog barn!!

And all too soon it was time to say good-bye...Chara is such an animated talker for her age!  Was so much fun having them and giving our toys a chance to be played with! 
Jolyn

Crop Report

Each week I try to post a "crop report" on Facebook of the same field of corn south of our house.  The crops have been way ahead of the normal and looking beautiful!   Friday night I took this picture without realizing at the same time that most of our soybean fields and some of our corn fields were getting hammered by hail.  We didn't get any here, but Frost and Blue Earth and Dell all got... anyway...this was my journal entry Saturday night:

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."  Romans 15:13
(my memory verse for this week)

Each spring we farmers plant seeds of corn and of soybeans with the hope they will grow and result in a bountiful harvest.  If we didn't have hope in that seed...we'd never bother to plant it.  But that hope can be dashed in one 5 minute hail storm or strong wind or sweltering heat wave or lack of rain or even too much rain.
But the hope we have in Jesus can never let us down because Jesus himself can never let us down.  We can put our complete trust in Him knowing He and His Word are truth.  
Yesterday we found out that hail damaged a part of every field of beans we have plus some of the corn fields.  We no longer have that hope for a bumper crop.  But we still have that hope in Jesus!!  He alone can give us peace and joy as we go through trials and still put our trust in Him!  He IS our hope!!
Jolyn

Morgan Time

We love it when the grandkids come for a visit!  We realize more and more to treasure these times as they are growing up so fast.  Morgan came for 12 days and wanted to earn money.  Here's she's cleaning out the cupboards...she must be wondering whatever Grandma was going to do with some of this "stuff".  She did a great job of reorganizing...course I'm still trying to find some things!



She and our grandson Taylor are about the same age...both will be Seniors this fall.  They had lots of fun together...both are coffee connoisseurs.  They and Ashlen F. journeyed to Austin to a coffee shop and also hit the coffee shop in Blue Earth.   She also got to join the area youth in tubing in the river, 4th of July in Albert Lea, getting lost and just hanging out!



With our hot...hot...weather we decided to experiment and see if we could fry an egg outside...nope...but it made two cats very happy.

Morgan got in on baling for the first time and this is a picture of some of us before the Bricelyn parade.  We handed out VBS leflets and bouncy balls!  We have a "ball" with the bouncy balls!

The youth had a lunch wagon to earn money for the mission trip to Panama next year.

One of our last stops before she headed home is at the gravesite of Morgan's great-great-great grandfather Andrius Mikkelson who served during the civil war. And then the 12 days were over and she headed home to the cities.  She was so much fun to have and like the rest...it's hard to see them leave.
Jolyn

Educational!!



The Spam Museum is not a dusty old collection of antiques...it's educational...and not just about spam!  We've enjoyed learning about the singing Hormel gals...something to check out when there!




They have really made it interesting...and all free...until you get to the gift shop!!



Interesting facts...how much do YOU know about spam?

Can't see it in the picture...but this guy has his hands on our.......



Morgan waiting for service...that never comes.



Everyone has to have their picture taken with the farmer.  Stop there next time you go through Austin...just off the Hormel plant exit.  And I apologize I don't have a picture of my favorite spam recipe...I really do like the stuff.  Wayne's favorite way is to cut it thin and fry it crisp.  Mine is to brown cubes of it and add to creamed potatoes...mmmm...think I'll have to make some for lunch!!
Jolyn

Thanksgiving

 Thanksgiving may seem like a strange title for the 4th of July.  But our country's freedom has been bought with the blood of thousands and thousands of soldiers who through the years gave their lives and futures so you and I could live with all the blessings we have.  So it is with great thanksgiving towards these heros that I celebrate this 4th of July and pray that we don't let what they fought and died for slip away.  If you like our current leaders or if you don't like them...we still have the privilege of our vote come November. 

On the homefront we haven't had pigs on the place for close to a month for the first time in over 50 years!  But that changed a week ago...here they come.

And thanks to ambitious grandsons...a clean house...at least for now!

And speaking of pigs...here's a place that's fun to visit...the Spam Museum in Austin.  Most of the pigs we raise end up at Hormel's.

We had picked up our granddaughter, Morgan in Rochester and wanted to give her a "high on the hog" treat...so we stopped.

Remember these???  I can still remember my Grandma Anderson's number...110 please. 
 My blog is giving me fits...I've loaded...uploaded...downloaded..unloaded these and a bunch more pictures...and the blog decides after about 5 pictures that it is done...even if I'm not.  So...the Spam museum is a continued story...whether I like it or not.
Jolyn.

Celebrating

Birthday boy with the best birthday cake ever...ice cream !!

And for the hunter...a new target for his bow and arrow.

Now the next couple of pictures are a little hard to see...but it was to be a flaming arrow...



to ignite this brush pile.




And this is where it finally took off.  The arrow went so fast that it kept putting the flame out..so they started it with a flaming spear!



Here's a size more to my liking!



Ok...let's see if you can make one hand make circles one way and the other hand make circles the opposite direction!  We all tried it...and failed.
Jolyn