Its that time of year again

Yesterday was the first day of fall. A cold front came in and the night time temperatures dropped into the 40's. The house sure was cold in the morning. I heard it was going to be a really cold and wet winter here.  The husband is preparing us for it by getting our firewood stocked up. He has been working really hard lately on cutting wood and also finishing up that outdoor wood furnace project.  Hopefully this winter we will be spending the evenings infront of the tv in our t shirts. Here is the stockpile of wood he has so far.

He's been a busy beaver!

Legacy of the Quilts

A few weeks ago I drove up to visit my grandpa who is 94. He is by himself now, my grandma passed away 6 years ago. My grandpa lives in a condo they bought before she passed away. He zooms around it in his hover-round because his knees are so bad he can hardly walk anymore.  We all laugh at the things he has dinged up with that hover-round. The fridge has a dent in it, the dishwasher pushed back into the space for it, a hole in the bathroom door, the corners of the walls chipped off.  He still has his independence, hes so happy to be able to stay in his own home, and that is priceless.

While I was there my mom and I went through my Grandma's quilts, spread them out on the bed and looked at all of them. We were so amazed and in awe of them. My grandma was very crafty. She was known for making braided rugs and crocheted afghans. These quilts were a work of art! Of all the times I remember being at my grandparents house I do not remember seeing any of these quilts on the bed or displayed anywhere. I am sure they were used at some point because of how soft they are but they have been in the closet for years.  Alot of them were very old, they were the one's she worked on with her mother and some friends.  Here is a picture of my grandma's mother. She is the second from the left. Her name was Helen. In the picture she is cleaning chickens for my grandma and grandpa's wedding.

                                       
                                         Here are the quilts she made with my grandma.

This one is a masterpiece

I love the edging on this one

The poppy quilt

Can you imagine the time it took to embroider these baskets on here

This one is my grandpas favorite. The pattern is called log cabin. Look how it was put together so that it made alternate  lighter colored and darker colored stripes in in diagonally.

This one is not as old as the previous. I recognize some of the fabrics used in some of the things I remembered from my grandparents house.

Grandma won many ribbons for her crafts

   I don't know how many hours were spent working on these quilts. I do know that they were hours well spent with family talking and laughing together. What is this generation going to leave behind for the next one? It's not just the quits that we are to pass on to our loved ones but the lessons learned from spending the time to make them. What are we doing with our spare time?

Homemade applesauce

Yesterday I decided to pick through the fallen apples under one of our apple trees. I hated to see them go to waste. They weren't that bad, a bruise here and there. I peeled them, cut them up, dropped them into a pot of salted water( to keep them from turning brown), cooked them on the stovetop in just enough water to cover them, and they turned into applesauce! It was that easy! I added some sugar and cinnamon. It's way better than store bought. I guessed that batch I whipped up while the daughter was napping was probably about $12.00  worth of applesauce if you were to buy it. I was reading that it freezes well in jars. Maybe I will freeze the next batch. Having issues posting pics where i want them with this. I give up. You get the general idea. 

Blogging from my I phone

I fought it as long as I could, I didn't want to become one of "those" people. however, here I am. Not only do I have an I phone I am now blogging from it. 

It all happened at once a few months ago. My trusty regular phone with the key pad started acting goofy. The 0 button quit working which was not handy for when you need to call 1-800-pay-my-bill. So I took it in to Verizon hoping they could fix it or give me the same phone as replacement. Of course the phone totally died the minute I walked in the Verizon store! No joke! So I had no choice but to walk out of there with something new. Did they have my old phone? No they did not! I got the free upgrade, this I phone. 

Then my laptop broke, which I miss terribly. My camera program and pictures is on it. So until I can get it fixed its just me,this new phone, and its built in camera. Look out world, I am now one of "those people". 

While Looking Down

 The early morning is when I get my "me time". Its not long before the daughter is up so I try to make the most of it. Photography is my passion. I like to take the camera out in the mornings and capture what I can. Have you ever wondered what the world looks like to a bug? Or what you might be stepping on while you are not looking down? What you might miss while you are trying to get a photo of that bird over there or that deer standing on the edge of the woods?  Well here is a look at what I found one morning while looking down.

An inchworm

This beetle ate the tip of the leaf for breakfast

spider web still wet with dew

Cricket

a moth pretending to be a leaf

A daddy long legged spider with eggs on her legs

First day of preschool

                       The daughter started preschool yesterday. She was so excited. It was not the tearful moment everyone kept telling me would happen. I was very happy for her to see her go off into the world and interact with other children her age. The husband and I took her in there together. The moment she walked in she ran up to some random little boy and started hugging him. We peeled her off of him. I think he must have thought he had cooties after that! Then her teacher showed us her cubby and we put her things in it. She had taken off in the meanwhile and started playing. We had to hunt her down to say goodbye and then we only got a half wave goodbye out of her which I think was more of a shoo!

I think someone doesn't want to share his giant legos with some strange girl!

The husband went to work after that.  I went to run some errands. It was a little strange to see the empty car seat in the rear view mirror. So I adjusted the mirror so I could see the traffic behind me instead. I went to Starbucks and got a latte and a muffin, and I didn't have to share it!!  Then I hit every store in the complex that I had been wanting to go in, and I did it in record time! After that I went in Fed Ex to make some faxes and the lady asked me where my daughter was.The daughter makes and impression everywhere we go.  I told her it was her first day of preschool. She laughed and told the other customers "we got a run a way mom in here!"  I sure felt like one! 
  I picked her up later and grilled her about her day on the way home. I asked her if she played with any little girls and if she remembered their names. She did. She said she played with "Mikaela, Abbey, and Zoey.Then she says " the teacher told  us to sit on the floor. then she told me to be quiet...........then she told me to be quiet AGAIN"!  All I could do was laugh!! These teachers are going to be exausted and maybe a little more grey haired!

Raising Bottle Calves

Our newest adventure has been raising some bottle calves. I really enjoy it and I have learned alot so far. I started with 5 calves that I bought from a guy that goes up to northern Indiana and gets a trailer load of them. There are some big dairy's in northern Indiana. The cows have to be bred to produce milk but the dairy's do not what the calf that is the result of that, so they sell them. The problem is that they don't care how young the calf is when its sold or if it even had its first drink of colostrum from its mamma. Its horrible! I cannot sugar coat this story. This is the truth about what happens to these calves born and trucked out of the dairy's. The guy tells me "if you buy 10 calves only expect 6 of them to live". Expect to lose just about half of them? Really?!  He was not kidding.  This new adventure of ours is not exactly what I expected.

 

The calves were very young when they arrived. Just a few days old if that.  The next day it was obvious they were all sick. They get what is called "scours". Their gut is very sensitive to bacteria , viruses, and changes in their environment. The scours is very bad watery diarrhea that will quickly dehydrate a new calf and he will die very fast if not given electrolytes early on. The other thing they had was "shipping fever" which is pneumonia they get from traveling. It was alot of work taking care of these sick calves. Some of them would not eat or drink the electrolytes. We had to drench them (stick a plastic tube down their throat that is attached to what looks like an IV bag and pour the milk or electrolytes in it. Despite our heroic efforts we lost 3 out of  the 5 calves. The guy replaced 2 of them for me because they were sick to begin with. Now I have 4 calves that have made it through the initial illness and are doing pretty good at the moment.

morning breakfast

this one is very loud and very big

this one has a strange bite and his bottom teeth stick out all the time

 

 

This one did very well. He didn't get sick and he can drink that half gallon bottle in under a minute!

So anyway, raising these calves has not been easy. I have learned some things along the way. Here is my advise to any of you thinking about doing this.

1. Have electrolytes on hand before you buy the calves. Get the electrolytes that is also a nutritional supplement. I would even give them a bottle of it when you get the calves until you know what you are dealing with health wise for them. get a calf drencher too! you might need it!

2. make sure you buy a milk replacer that is milk based, not plant based. buy one that has medication in it.  Good  milk replacer is a must and should cost you about $70 a 50 pound bag.

3. I would arrange to have a vet out the day the calves come in. The medication you buy at the feed store for scours and pneumonia (like we did), does nothing for them. Its totally worth it just to pay the vet bill to have some good antibiotics pumped in them to start with. Might save you more money in the long run. 

4. separate the calves into their own stalls or pens. when one gets sick it will spread like wildfire. 

5. This one is very important! when you are dealing with sick calves wear coveralls and rubber boots and  leave them at the barn.When you get back to the house wash your hands like you are scrubbing for surgery.

The parasite that causes scours is transferable to humans. Its called Cryptosporidium. If you have never been exposed to this before you will most likely get it. New employees on dairy farms get it and are out for 10 days. Its expected! We got it! My husband didn't get it because he was immune from already having it as a kid when he raised calves.  Its a 2 week illness. The symptoms are frequent watery diarrhea (sound familiar?), low grade fever, stomach cramps, nausea, headache. This was the worst illness I have ever had. Not to be gross or anything but the watery diarrhea was bad I could not keep up with the Gatorade and I dehydrated and had to go the ER and receive 2 bags of IV fluids. I lost 10 pounds in a week. Can't really complain about that.  My daughter fortunately did not get it as bad as I did. Children are pretty resilient. Now we are all well and immune to Crytosporium.  Yay. So the adventure continues and I have a few new grey hairs from the last one.