Be Still My Heart

I'm in love.
The search is over...I've finally found it.
The barn of my dreams, OK....barn(s).

This is it, they don't have barns like this where I live, so I guess I have to move.
To Michigan.
Where it seems there is a plethora of beee-uuuu-tiful barns.
The Husband and I took a short trip to see my fabulous cousins - honestly...they're fabulous. R.W. and M.E...their initials stand for Really Wonderful and Marvelous Entertainer!
We had five days and four nights of perfect sights, wonderful company, lots of laughs...serious R & R all the way around.
I know I know...we were there in September so the weather was perfect for this sissy girl. I know the summers are hot and muggy and the winters are bitter cold...so cold my favorite gal at the post office who used to live there says your nose hairs freeze...ow!
But I love barns...serious barn love is a problem.
I think I could handle the weather...
if I lived in a really cool old barn.

What's That Weed?

Weeding like a maniac...here at the farm and over at the cabin. I've been weeding here at the farm for 30 years...I know every weed, when it sprouts, when it sets seed, how deep the roots go, if it's clumper or a runner...and if I have to get nasty and use an herbicide.
But the cabin...oh goodness gracious the cabin.
The weeds there are evil, mostly stickers.
Last year a new weed sprouted at the cabin, and it didn't have stickers! It was even pretty, and it thrives in the heat with very little water...it's even my favorite color of green.
I've asked several people if they know what it is and if it's noxious, but nobody has a clue.
So...I'm calling on a professional. My neighbor at the cabin, he's a weed patrol extraordinaire.
Dave?
Can I keep it or do I have to clobber it?

It's moo-thirty a.m....do you know where your cows are?

I mean...2:30 a.m.
The husband's cel phone rang this morning at 2:30, it was Antonio the night milker - there was a cow having a calf and he needed hubby to come over and "pull a calf"...guess you could call him the mid-wife for cows.
Hubby heads out to the other farm, I snuggle in hoping to go back to sleep. I start to drift off...
I hear a moo, the moo is coming from the wrong direction. After living here for thirty years a girl gets to know which direction a moo should come from, if it's a stress-moo, a horny-moo, a pain-moo...you get the picture. This was a stress-moo...and it was coming from the northwest - moos here should come from the south.
That's it, if a moo is coming from the wrong direction this could spell serious trouble.
I got out of bed, went to the upstairs window to listen, "moooo, moooooo".
Downstairs I go, outside...in my jammies and sandals. Walked into the backyard and out to the veggie garden, no moo. Walked back to the house to get a flashlight, moo, dang it...moo bouncing off buildings. Walked out to the silage bunker, hear stress moo. Brain wakes up a little more, perhaps it would be"hoove" (pun intended) me to get my car so I can drive behind the barn and use my headlights to scan the field...grab the cel phone and dog too! Drive out...and there she is - what the cow-crap??? She's brown - at least I think it's a she...the bovine is in the field and with the lousy light and long grass I can't see so good and I for sure can't see her "privates"! I know I can't chase her alone, in the dark, with a bad ankle to boot. If I did chase her...where would I chase her to? I don't know anybody in the neighborhood who has reddish brown cows - where on earth did this beast come from.
Think to call hubby, who I think is still at the other farm, get hubbys voice mail - I'm thinking he's busy with maternity duty and can't answer. Sooo...I go back to the house, thinking I'll wait for hubby to come back...then I hear the beep - his cel phone voice mail alert...he doesn't even have the stinking phone with him.
What's a girl to do?
Go back to bed, not my cow, can't chase it alone, where would I chase it to?
It's stinking dark, my ankle hurts, I walk verrry carefully - I dO NOt RUn!
Go back to bed is the only clear answer, I wouldn't even know who to call because I don't know anyone who has cows that look like that...in the dark I was guessing she was a beef cow. She's in the field, there's lots of grass...settle down missy and we'll deal with you in the morning and don't you daaaare get lost in the corn field...cuz we'll neverrr find you in there.
Hubby comes home an hour later...he had been home earlier but when he didn't see my vehicle he went down the road where he saw a lot of other trucks. When he was at the other farm there were two cows on the road, he also had no idea where they came from...so he locked them up and came home, he figured when he didn't see my rig I went to help with the rodeo-round-up...little did he know I was in my rig behind our own barns scanning the field for strange bovines.
We jumped in his truck, ( I changed from jammies to jeans fyi ), there were more cows, more guys in trucks, and some ATV's...while we were telling them about the beast at our place two more moosies came running out from some body's back yard. They were WiLD! CRaZy! BEaStS! The other farmers told us where the strays came from, and it was wayyy up the road, and they were scattered over a couple of miles - these gals crossed busy roads and nobody got hurt...a-freaking-mazing.
When we got home we checked the pool for cows, just in case - cuz it's happened before. No cows taking a midnight dip...whewww.
This morning when the sun came up there were three brownish/red cows hanging over the fence trying to make friends with our black and white girls.
Somebody came while we weren't home and loaded them up in a cattle trailer and took them back to wherever it is they belong, I hope they ship them someplace far away, becaue these girls obviously have a serious case of wanderlust.
Somebody owes me somethin', I hear the cattle hauler that was housing them at his place was out fishing or crabbing or something ....I think that a nice fish or a dungeness crab or two would be a lovely trade for a lost night of sleep.
Doncha think?
Just sayin'

The Happy Cook

Oh my...I'm a happy little cook.
The kitchen isn't finished, but it's in hold-mode so that we can take some time to enjoy the last bit of summer. Remodeling isn't for sissys, especially if you're trying to do a lot of the labor yourself - but I wouldn't change a thing.
Last week I put the kitchen to the test and cooked like a maniac for our annual Garden Party...oh.my.stars!
I loooove my new kitchen.
I have counter space, and lots of it! Well, I guess not compared to the McMansions that I've seen, but when you consider that my washer and dryer took up a lot of space in the old kitchen it was always a little challenging to do serious cooking.
But now? Ooooo la la!
This girl has room to spread out! The photo is of the bar which has become command central in the kitchen, I can really spread out. I can cook three recipes all at once, I can get out all of the ingredients and line them up like little soldiers in my cooking army! I know I sound over-the-top giddy but cooking in the old kitchen was like cooking with one arm tied behind your back.
Now that I've rambled on and on about counter space...can I tell you how much fun it is to cook really seriously with a dishwasher? A dishwasher! Now that's somethin' I tell ya...washing dishes never really made me cranky, but it ate up a lot of time...especially during a cook-a-rama. I'm calculating that I can cook twice as much stuff in half the time with my little friend from kitchen-aid.
I gotta watch it, I don't want to have to buy bigger jeans because of all of the good food I'm planning to make.

Celebrate!

The cabinets are coming, the cabinets are coming!

Ok...they've been in the garage for months...but tomorrow they're getting installed, I wish it was me (and hubby) doing the installation but he's drawing the line - he won't budge - he won't install cabinets with me.

Sunday we celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary, two months ago we took a wonderful sailing trip, a gift we gave to each other...we think thirty is a really big deal, we love sailing so that was how we opted to mark this memorable occasion.
The photo is of us after a great week on the boat...bliss baby.
We both want to take another sailing trip, the dream is to go to the South Pacific.
What do sailing and cabinets have in common? In my cajoling conversation with hubby about cabinet installation...he said "you really think we'd still be married if we tried to install those cabinets on our own?"
He has a point, cabinet installation is tricky,
and I want another anniversary so we can go sailing again.

I give.

My New Reflecting Pond

I love reflecting ponds.
When I travel I love to go to beautiful gardens... water features always catch my fancy.
My new reflecting pond was installed last night courtesy of my upstream neighbor.
He mowed his ditch...all 40 acres of it...and then he let the long canary grass fall into the ditch....and then it rained last night...and it rained some more.
All that canary grass worked its way downstream - until it ran into my culvert -
where it stopped.
And it plugged.
And the water had nowhere to go.
Except my back yard,
and my front yard
and my field,
and my veggie garden,
and my party barn...
where I was storing my dining room chairs,
and my rugs,
and some furniture.

I would like to take this opportunity to present my upstream neighbor with...
drum roll please....

THE DARWIN AWARD.
OK...so nobody died...and to officially qualify for a Darwin he would have had to trip and fall into the ditch and croak.
Can I just give him the "ISNY"?
That's Inconsiderate Stupid Neighbor of the Year Award...
works for me.

I have to go now...I'll check back in a month or so after I finish cleaning up the mess.

Here Chicky Chicky

I want chickens.
Everywhere I look I see really groovy chicken coops, cute chicks following mama hens. Hubby is totally against the idea, he says I'm too busy...and he's right.
The kitchen remodel is still hanging in the balance.
There is a garden to be weeded and planted.
The cabin is a work in progress.
There is a half-finished waterfall in the back yard.

Monday was the frosting on the cake, we were standing in line to board our plane on the way home from vacation...and there were chickens on the runway.
I think they're trying to tell me they want to come live at my house.