Category Archives: Reflections

Tractor Pulls and Hot Air Balloons – Does It Get Any Better?

Reflections, Tractor Pulls

Long time readers might remember from this post that my husband and I enjoy going to watch tractor pulls in the summer. We opted not to go to the Armada fair this year because of the on and off rain that weekend. Disappointed about missing the tractor pulls, we began looking for other upcoming pulls nearby. We discovered there was a pull scheduled in Metamora, about a 45-minute drive from us, on Saturday August 24 at 5:00 P.M. We decided that if the weather was good we would go.

As we looked at the schedule for the Metamora event, which was called Metamora Country Days, we discovered that along with tractor pulls they had, a craft sale, a bounce house for the kids, food vendors, chicken poop bingo and at 6:00 P.M. on Saturday night a hot air balloon festival.

One thing that I have never mentioned on my blog is my love for hot air balloons. It’s been a lot of years since I’ve even seen a hot air balloon, but in the 1980’s and early 1990’s it was quite common to see them in our area. I think it was 1986, the year I turned 21, that I decided to treat myself to a hot air balloon ride. I talked a friend into going with me and after we each saved to $125, we scheduled the ride. Flying in a balloon was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

My husband and I watched the weather forecast all week long, hoping and praying for dry weather, and I have to say that the weather couldn’t have been more perfect – clear, dry, hot but not humid, light winds for the balloon launch and a wind direction that carried the balloons right over the heads of those watching the tractor pulls and over the track where the tractors were pulling. Those watching the tractor pull did not even need to leave their seats to enjoy both shows.

Tina and Ken and Jackson and Addie met us there and we enjoyed burgers and fries, then my husband and I went to check out the balloon launch field while Tina and ken took the kids to play in the bounce house, eventually we all met up to watch the tractor pulls.

The first balloon to launch. It rose up out of the field behind us and floated over our heads before I took this picture.

I didn’t get many tractor pictures at this event.

For me the balloons were the icing on the cake and this carousel balloon was the cherry on top of the sundae. (I also love carousels!)

In all there were 22 balloons that went up that evening. What a beautiful sight! I suspect this annual event is one we will attend again in future years.

Thanks for visiting.

Welcome To August

Black-eyed-susan, Flowers, Hibiscus, Prayer Garrden, Reflections, Wild Flowers

Garden Work

In the past month we spent many hours working our way through the prayer jungle garden. The work included weeding, deadheading, pruning, thinning and even relocating some plants. Some areas even got a top dressing of mulch to finish it off.

It looks so much better but as we finished it up we made note that it was time to start weeding again because weeds had started to pop up again in the end where we started. A never-ending battle! Our next project is to put a small wire fence around it to keep chickens from scratching the mulch out. Chickens have no boundaries!

Mom Smiled At Me

Last Saturday, August 10 was my mom’s birthday. She would have been 79 this year. She was on my mind a lot that day especially when I was working in the Prayer Garden and saw the beautiful hibiscus in bloom.

Two years ago, on August 10th, I was having a rough day. I was really missing mom, so I went to my favorite greenhouse to buy something to plant in her memory. I bought a hibiscus. I wasn’t sure what color or variety it was because it was from the previous year’s stock and wasn’t labeled. It didn’t matter. I planted it in the prayer garden. It didn’t blossom that year, but I was thrilled when it blossomed last year – a beautiful pink but a different variety from those I already had.

It had a lot of buds last Saturday but none had opened. I was just thankful for the others that had.

Sunday morning when we arrived at the farm to finish up work on the prayer garden that hibiscus was blossoming. It felt like mom was smiling at me. 🙂 I will now look forward to seeing flowers on that bush each year around mom’s birthday.

Flowers Gone Wild

Last year I decided that panting black-eyed Susan’s along the fence might be a good idea. They are very prolific, compete well with other weeds and wildlife (deer and rabbits) don’t eat them. They spread through their underground rhizomes and by self-seeding and are often included in wildflower seed mixes. They are also beautiful and large patches can have a stunning effect.

This is the patch that I planted last year. They have really filled in that corner. I planted another area along the fence this year and may continue propagating them until the whole fence is lined with them. 🙂

Thanks for visiting.

Catching Up-Homemade Summer Fun

crochet, Reflections

This post has been sitting, almost finished, in my drafts box since June. For anyone who crochets there is still a bit of summer left (in our part of the world) to make some summer fun.

June 15th was our grandson, Jackson’s 8th birthday. His mom and dad were having a birthday party for him, and I just wasn’t sure what gift to get him since I know he already has a lot toys and games. A couple days before the party I was browsing the internet and came across an article about crocheted, reusable water balloons. Reviews on them were really good: ‘easy to use, hold enough water, don’t hurt when hit with them, don’t bounce off before getting someone wet, easy clean up, lots of fun.’

Based off the picture I knew I could make these. I had a small amount of the type of yarn that I needed so sat down and made a couple. They worked up very quickly. The following day I went to buy some more Bernat Blanket Yarn.

I made a total of eight balloons, and it probably took about 5 or 6 hours total to make them. I put all eight into a 2 1/2-gallon bucket and gave it to Jackson as his gift. The bucket can be filled with water then used to dunk the balloons in to fill them with water, then used again to rinse/refill.

My son-in-law told me how much the kids are enjoyed playing with the water balloons, especially on the hot days we had this summer.

I didn’t write down my pattern, because I’m too lazy to write it all out when others have already done it, so I found a similar free pattern on this website to share with you in case anyone wants to make their own reusable water balloons.

Thanks for visiting.

Catching Up-Farm Update

Apples, Blueberries, Chickens, Chicks, Flowers, garden, Gardening, Grapes, Pond, Reflections, The Farm, Wild Flowers

To get caught up on my posts I’ll start with a look around the farm These pictures were actually from last week so I’m still a bit behind. 🙂

Chickens

Our youngest chick hatched on June 29th.

My husband named her or him (it’s still too early to tell if this is a hen or rooster) Strawberry because when he took the flock some strawberry tops that I had trimmed she grabbed one and gobbled it up. Strawberry was probably less than two weeks old at the time. He or she still sticks close to momma, not necessarily because it is still being trained or cared for by momma, but it doesn’t have anyone its own age to hang out with.

These are 2 of the chicks that hatched on May 12. They are beginning to look more like adult chickens and we are certain that one is a rooster. My husband even heard him try to crow one day.

Rex is our roo from last year. He is the daddy of all the chicks that hatched this year. He is a bit of an odd bird. He does the normal crowing sound of a rooster (Ur Ur Ur Ur URRRRR!) but also makes a loud cawing sound (Arrrr!) that I have never heard a rooster (or any chicken) make before.

What’s Blooming

Hibiscus in bloom.

Cosmos.

Wild flowers

The Pond

On some of these hot days I’ve found a dip in the pond quite refreshing and a pleasant way to get in a workout.

Garden News

Keeping the gardens alive has been a huge challenge this year. The weather has not been kind. Both June and July were very wet and all of the plants have been stressed at best. My husband has spent many hours weeding and fertilizing. Doing anything he could think of to keep things alive and growing.

I think he’s done an amazing job. I really thought we would have more crop loss than we have.

Acorn Squash

Another type of winter squash.

Sweet corn and Melons

Tomatoes (they may be small but they taste great!)

Sunflowers

Cucumbers and Eggplant

Green beans and Beets

Fruits

We had an amazing blueberry crop this year. We began picking in June and just finished picking last week. I lost track of how many we harvested as we were eating them fresh, freezing some and having friends and family pick and take what they wanted.

We have some apples that are looking good and if we can keep the birds away, we should have a decent harvest.

We also have a lot of grapes that are looking good.

We have put netting over them to try to save as many as possible for us. Homemade grape juice is one of our favorites!

Thanks for visiting.

Monthly Inspiration

Reflections

Hello and Welcome. August is well underway, and I am way behind in writing. I do hope to do some catching up over the next couple weeks, but I’ll start off with our monthly inspiration.

“Failing to plan is planning to fail.”

This quoted is often attributed to Benjamin Franklin, but according to this Quote Investigator article “Quote Investigator: QI has found no substantive evidence that Benjamin Franklin employed this adage.”

I selected this quote because over the last 4-6 weeks we have experiences several system failures: electrical outages, internet outages, poor cell phone signals, a water main break which resulted in water shut off during repairs, and flooding in our community. Thankfully they were mostly short-term issues that didn’t have much negative impact on us, except for how flooding has affected our gardens this year. More about that in a future post.

All this has made me think about how well we are prepared if any of these things or another type of emergency were to happen long term. I find it scary how dependent we are on systems that so easily can fail us, and I always like to have a backup plan. Today I decided to revisit three posts that I previously published about preparedness.

Perhaps they will inspire you to look at how prepared you are for various types of system failures or other emergency situations.

Ready or Not…
When The Power Was Out
When Technology Fails

Please feel free to share your thoughts.

Thanks for reading.