Farm Friday - Planting Milo

It's planting time here in Kansas for fall crops.  Some people plant corn, some soybeans, and some, like us, plant milo.  Milo is the common name for grain sorghum.  Its used for feed for cattle and pigs, although I have heard stories down at the elevator of families eating it like popcorn many years ago.  Tyler has spent the last few days planing our acres.  I have to admit that in order to right this blog, I had to learn about how we plant our milo.  It is one of those things that I always kinda knew how it was done but not exactly how and I enjoy that I am learning new farm things too in this blog.

     The planter implement is attached to the back of our tractor.   There are eight boxes to hold the seed for the eight rows it plants at each time.  We plant 30,000 seeds/acre which is two and a half pounds/acres.  That's an amazing 12,600 seeds/pound.  There are two disks in the front that cut a slot in the ground that the seed will drop into.  Our seed is planted using no tillage which means the seed is planted directing in the previous crops stubble.  Plates spin and drop the seed at a determined rate.  Then two closing wheels follow and close up the slot so that the seed is planted around an inch deep.  We plant at a speed of about twelve acres/hour but it takes longer, as the planter boxes have to be reloaded with the seed.

   While the planter is planting the seed, it is also applying liquid fertilizer.  The liquid fertilizer is applied two inches to the one side of the seed.  We use a mixture of nitrogen and phosphorus which feed the seeds and helps them grow.  This makes our milo not organic because all fertilizers, like miracle grow are not considered organic.

    So now we have to wait around 105 days until it is time to harvest our milo.

Project 52: Our First Datenight

Tyler and I are so excited to try out Project 52: Date Nights started by Simply Modern Mom's blog.  It is a project where you try to have at least an hour long date every week.  The idea of having a consistent time we could spend together really excited me because we do not go out or plan anything very often.  Living in a small town makes it even harder because we don't have any cafes or lots of restaurants or things we could really go to easily.  All those things are over an hour away and that's hard to arrange with two girls and everything involved with them.  So having an hour date, most of them planned at home, really appeals to us and was something we decided to sign-up for and try.  Please take the time to check it out. 
        So, last Sat. was our first date and this month is Tyler's turn to plan them out.  He had planned for us to sit down and play scrabble because he knows I love games and normally he is not interested.  Plus he joked I am a bad speller and could use some help.  But since he didn't know that we only have the scrabble letters and not the board, we had to make a last minute change.  He decided instead to teach me how to play chess.
        Date time rolled around and Daphne was hot and had been sleeping all day, so she got to join us for our date. I guess we broke that rule, but Tyler did follow the make a date-like atmosphere and showered.  But since we didn't have our a/c on yet, it was so hot and at one point we were eating popsicles and he was shirtless.  Maybe it was a red-neck date-like atmosphere.   And we learned some things from our first date. Lesson 1: It is nice to take time and to learn something from each other.  I had never really played chess because I always thought it was a slow game (and boy was I right), but I appreciated Tyler wanting to teach me something and expand my horizons.  Lesson 2: Pick more of an interacting game than a thinking game.  We spent more time thinking and watching the other person thinking than spending the time interacting.  But all and all, we enjoyed the time, with each other, with no computer or tv or anything getting in the way.  I am looking forward to tomorrow, our next date, which will be early because we are having my brother, Sister-in-law, and Mom here over the weekend.

Farm Friday - Wide Open Spaces

When I met my husband Tyler I had never been to Kansas, never even to really anything close.  I would listen to the Dixie Chicks song "Wide Open Spaces" and dream about what Kansas would be like when I finally got to see it and I was definitely way off.  Farms in the area of PA where I am from are a few hundred acres and out here they are more than a few thousand acres. Out here you can see for miles and miles, without trees, or hills, or houses to impede your views.  I just did not really know how vast this area really is.  I tried to do my best to capture the vastness in pictures, but it is so hard to really understand that you can stand in one spot and look around and see miles in any direction.  The picture above is what you can see when you turn down the road to the farm.  Just drive for approximately seven miles and you will be there.

This is a picture looking back towards town.  You can see the highway on the right and in the middle you can see the grain elevator.  The grain elevator is actually seven miles away in this picture and you have no trouble seeing it.

I snapped this picture a little further down the road.  On the left hand side you can see a grain elevator on the horizon.  That elevator is about six miles west and seven miles north from where I took this picture.  The grain elevator you can see on the right (slightly behind the tree) is approx. three miles east and seven miles north.  The distance between the two elevators is over nine miles and yet from here I can see them both and fit them both in one normal size picture (just a little cropped).  Tyler even says that sometimes on a very clear day, you can even see the grain elevator that's almost twenty miles north.

It continues to amaze me how far I can see as I drive through Kansas and how you can leave one town and not get to another for over miles and miles.  The vastness of the prairie is something you almost need to see to believe. 

Firehouse Visit

Living in a small town definitly has its perks and today we got to enjoy one of them.  I have spent the past three days working on year end accounting stuff at the elevator, and the girls have been stuck inside due to bad weather.  So tonight with a little clearing of the weather, we decided we all needed some fresh air and went for a walk.  While out walking, we went past our town's firehouse and saw that they were cleaning and had all the trucks parked outside.  Of course we wanted to get closer and see the trucks, although Eve was very afraid the siren was going to go off and she hates loud noises.  The firefighter and his wife who were there were so friendly and took time to stop and tell us about the trucks and some of the equipment.  They even gave her a play fireman's hat, a waterbottle and a coloring book to take home like they do when they give tours to the kindergarteners.  Eve was really happy they thought of her and put the hat on right away, and everyone laughed when she put it on backwards.

    It was so considerate of them to take the time, even if it was only 15 minutes, to show us around and give Eve her stuff.  I find it one of the perks of a small town.  People are very inclined to share their time and talents with others.

Farm Friday - Doctoring Cattle

As parents, we are responsible for the health and well-being of our two children.  On our farm, we are responsible for the lives of over 500 animals who also rely on us for some of the same needs.  Food, water, safety, and their health are needs that we meet for our animals everyday they are under our care.  We take these responsibilities very seriously.  Today's Farm Friday is focused on how we take care of our sick animals.  We do use anti-biotics on our animals when it is necessary.  We feel it is better to treat our animals than to let them suffer from a treatable condition and the meat from the animal is still safe to eat.  We eat it too. 

So the first step is to identify the sick animal.  Some of the symptoms we look for are excessive slobbering and/or snot, limping, bloating, excessive panting, or if the cattle are lethargic.  If any of the cattle show these symptoms, they are separated from the rest of the herd and brought into the corals for closer examination.  There are some symptoms, like a lump in their jaw, that we know right away we can not treat and will require a trip to the veterinarian.  If they do not have any of these symptoms than we continue with our evaluation by taking a rectal temp (sorry no picture of that, haha).  A regular temp. is between 100 - 102.5 degrees and if it is higher than that, than an infection is present.  Some of the common ailments our cattle have are conjunctivitis (Pink Eye), Bovine Respiratory Disease, or Bovine Virus Diarrhea.  These conditions are treatable with anti-biotics that we use as directed by our veterinarian.  We only ever give the amount as prescribed by our vet to insure the animal is getting proper care.

Once we determine that medication is needed, the animals are brought through cattle panels into a squeeze shoot.  This helps to keep the animal contained so we can do the procedures on it and neither us nor the animal is harmed.  The animal gets the anti-biotics through a shot.  Some also receive a vitamin injection (like when we take vitamins) to help them receive extra nutrition to help fight off the infection.  None of our cattle ever receive steroids.  Most only need medication for a few days and are able to get healthy and regain the herd. 
Again, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask them in the comments section and we will try to get you an answer.  Have a great Friday.

We Love our Library

We are very happy to take place in my friend Christianne's "Love My Library" blog party on her blog Little Page Turners.  Her blog is a great resource for fun activities you can do with your kids that center on a book.  I have done many of them with my girls and hope that you take the time to check it out.  And we would not miss a chance to give a shout-out to our local library that we love going to at least once a week.

Here is our library!

We have two great librarians, Miss Jean and Miss Nancy.  They are always so welcoming, even to Eve's stuffed friends, and they never forget to give Eve some smarties after she checks out her books.

For a small town library there is a great selection of children's books and they are always getting new ones too.

We always make sure to come on the 2nd and 4th Thursday morning for story time.  We have been going since it started when Eve was 15 months old and have maybe only missed twice.  Eve has a great time and even takes our out of town family with her if they are visiting. 

Here are some of the kids enjoying a song at story time.

We enjoy our time at the library, and can definitely say WE LOVE OUR LIBRARY!

Tornado Season

Yesterday gave us our first scare of severe weather.  Severe weather is not uncommon for this time of year and it seems like there are some weeks where every afternoon we are glued to the weather to see where the hail and possible tornadoes are heading.  There was a tornado spotted yesterday in the north-east part of the county, less than 15 miles from our house and days earlier we had our first hail.  Before I moved to Kansas I had only seen hail once and now I see it many times a year.  I am lucky that I have never seen a tornado in Kansas (just South Carolina, but that's another story), but ones have done damage in areas right next to our farm and in town.  And if you are a fan of Storm Chasers on the Discovery channel, you have seen them chasing a storm a few miles outside our town as well as driving through our town. 

Here's a picture I found of a tornado that went through in 2008 about 40 miles from our house.  I hope I will never have a picture I actually take of a tornado coming our way, but its a very real possibility for the new few weeks. 

Farm Friday - 3i Farm Show

Yesterday, we all headed out to the 3i Farm Show.  It is the biggest free show  in the state of Kansas and it can be very overwhelming your first time there.  There are buildings full of exhibitors showcasing new farm technologies and other products.  But the big part of the show takes place outside spread over 10 acres.  There you can see all the newest tractors and combines, all the newest trucks and cars, lots of cattle guards, gates, etc, and lots of farm stuff in between.  I admit that I don't know what half the stuff is that we walk by, but at least I have learned a lot from my first one 5 years ago. 

One of the highlights for Eve is getting to go in all and sit on all the farm equipment, especially the John Deere stuff (we are green people).  Here is a picture of Eve and Tyler in the cab of a combine that Tyler wishes we could afford to own.  And above she is getting an early start on learning how to operate a lawn mower.

She even got me in the action by hoping on the back of an atv with her.

One of the vendors even had cattle on hand to help demonstrate their products.

And Daphne had gotten shots earlier in the morning and this is how she spent our whole time there.

It was a breezy fun afternoon, walking around, seeing all the new stuff and spending time together.

Dandelion Curls

One of my earliest memories was walking around the block in our first house picking dandelions with my Grammy.  We would gather them all up and pop off the flower part.  Then we would get out a bucket of water and watch the magic of curling dandelions.  You just have to take the stem and peel them into 3 or fours strips.  Then place into water and watch and wait while the curling happens.  The past weekend the weather was so beautiful that I took the time to do some curling with Eve.  It was great to see her amazement as the stems curled and she was excited to put each one it.  I hope this will become as good a memory for her as the memory of doing this with my Grammy is for me.

Some of our curls in progress.

Some of her favorites!

Trip to the Top

On Wednesday morning I decided that I needed to go to the top of the grain elevator to take some pictures for yesterday's blog.  Tyler was out farming and with the wind picking up, I wanted to have it done before lunch.  Of course my little follower wanted to come and I, without too much thought, gave in and said yes.  Throughout the years, I have taken many friends and family on a tour to the top and  it is always a good learning experience.  The owners were quick to agree to letting me take her to the top under one circumstance, that she was somehow tied to me.  After a few attempts to rig something up, they decided very thick electrical wire would do the trick.  She thought it was fun that we couldn't go anywhere without the other and so we began our trip to the top.

The way you get to the top of the elevator is in a small metal elevator.  It fits two people tops and go down about an inch when you step in.  I could start to see the nervousness on Eve's face and her hand grip mine tighter but she didn't day anything and so we went on.  She even kept quite for most of the ride up, well until the part when it is dark and you can't see anything.  She started to panic a little, but so did I on my first time up, but it soon becomes brighter and you know you are almost there.  When we got to the top it was nice and loud because they were moving some grain around and loading rail cars and that seemed to panic Eve the most.  We walked down the bin corridor a little and headed outside to see all of the town.  It is so beautiful to look out and see the houses and then since it is a small town, you can see the fields all around.  I think she had a fun time as she told everyone she saw that day about how special it was to go to the top.