2-28-14 Random

by Tori

This train bring back lots of fun memories. We used to set up the farm all around the train and then ship cattle & equipment around to the other side. A favorite scenario is, “The truck is caught on the tracks. Oh no! Here comes the train! The man frantically rocks the truck. With only seconds to spare it rolls off.” It’s actually rather amazing it still works – we used to run it pretty fast – sometimes it would flip off of the track around curves & land on the ground.

Tab Sister & Ken are the tamest & thus get brought in the most.

We had some evening visitors one night this week. They brought us some homemade corn dogs.

Today we made a batch of pizza casserole.

2-26-14 Butchering

by Kate

Back in December, we were invited to the Pekin Ice Rink by the Sauder kids. Finally the night came when we were going to go skate at the rink. We skated from 9pm to 11pm so it got pretty late. The first hour there was a hockey game on one end of the rink, while everyone else was just skating on the other end. There were some kids with sticks and pucks but there was never an organized game. After an hour, they took off the dividing bumpers so we could have a relay race. Our team came in last (someone has to be last). Once the race was over, the whole rink was open for free skate. It was a lot of fun being able to go so fast because there was such a big area to skate in. Our rink is so small that it is hard to get up the speed that I did at the rink. Thanks Sauders. It was a lot of fun!

Saturday we butchered one of our Holstein steers. Saturday morning early, Dad and Mom had to go to church to get ready for Dad’s Sunday school lesson. When they got home, the boys already had the steer in a pinch gate system so they could shoot him. The killing went great. After that they hooked him up to U. Jerry’s tele-handler and took it down to the South Grove to gut and skin. The skinning and gutting took about an hour. After we drove home, everyone went into the house for breakfast. While we were cutting, Ben cut up a piece of meat that was wiggling because of the nerves. It was a little weird. All the meat was in the freezer by 11:20. We still had clean up to do but that didn’t take long. Saturday evening we went to see Grandma at Restmor and then we went to Culvers for supper. When we got home, the boys had friends out to play hockey.

Sunday night we went to Grandpa and Grandma Kaiser’s for the evening. Mark, Lance, all of U. Mike’s and A. Joyce were also there. It is always fun to go to G’pa and G’ma’s house for a while.

Overall it was a good weekend.

[editor’s note: I forgot my camera Friday night so have no px of the skating fun. But I’ll echo Kate: Thanks Sauders! It was a LOT of fun!]

A few px of Saturday - - -

From Jewel’s level.

Rascal loves butchering day!

After all of the butchering mess was cleaned up, we had to cut a bunch of celery.

                                                                                                THE END.

2-22-14 A Few Px

Wednesday - - -

Thursday - - -

Friday - - -

 

2-19-14 Snow Rollers

Back to Saturday morning. Just gorgeous.

Saturday has kind of turned into our roll-making day.

Not a bad job, made even better when serenaded by Jacob.

Sunglasses comparison.

How to use thread to cut rolls.

In case you wondered.

Nighttime plowing.

Hard to tell here, but Sunday early morning was beautiful with the full moon shining.

Sunday walk. That’s the fence covered by a snowdrift, in case you can’t tell.

A few random snow scenes.

Monday - - -

Yesterday (Tuesday) morning we saw this snowball outside our bedroom window. It had layers of snow, like a bale of hay, and was bigger than a basketball. It completely intrigued us because there was no footprints near it: obviously no one had rolled this snowball.

The wind had rolled it a good 40 or 50 feet; the trail is visible below.

Looking west toward the trail. All those other snowballs are wind-rolled too, and you can see their little trails behind them; but only the one went that far and got that big. It was pretty amazing. I’m pretty sure God rolled it right there just for us to enjoy.

**These are called Snow Rollers, hence the updated post title. Fascinating!**

More Tuesday px -

Ahhh yes. That indeed is dry pavement you see on the driveway. A sure sign of melting snow. A good thing.

Notice another good thing – no mittens. Yeah. It was that nice!

Somehow Tab Sister always manages to sneak her way into the house at some point every day.

That’s it. Enjoy your day!