Snow?? On October 19th!! And NOT just a Little!!

Yesterday's weather was about 60 and sunny. A pretty wonderful day all around and today's forecast was a 15 degree drop with snow. Truthfully, I wasn't too surprised. Kansas weather tends to fluctuate up and down often. And really, how much snow could there be today?? I figured we'd get a bit of snow that would just melt when it hit the ground. 

That's not exactly how the day has been going. The snow is sticking...and it's not stopping! It's 1:30 right now and it's still snowing. But you know what's crazy?? Our weather forecast is calling for a high of 65 tomorrow!! 

Here's the playground at Yahoo's preschool, entirely covered!! 

Though the snowy weather isn't going to stick around too long, it sure isn't going to make the farmers around here happy. 

Corn harvest is pretty much done out here and DR's elevators have the corn ground piles covered which is good but the quite a bit of milo is still out in the fields waiting to get harvested because it's still too wet. 

Well, today sure isn't going to help the moisture levels. The milo still needs a good hard freeze to draw the moisture out of the milo heads. Maybe we'll get lucky and get a freeze tonight. 

I'm sure any farmers out there would be angry at this photo but I think it's kind of pretty. 

The one good thing about the snow is the grain elevators are closing early tonight which means I might get to see my husband for more than an hour this evening! 

I don't mind the snow in October. Today's snow reminds me quite a bit of Indiana snow. The flakes are big, wet and heavy and the sky looks more like January than October. As long as the snow can hold off until after Halloween I'll be happy. I'm not looking forward to wearing snow boots while trick or treating!! 

The Milo is Looking Good.

The first time I ever saw a field of milo was when we moved out to Kansas three years ago. Seeing as though SW Kansas has been in a drought since we've lived here meant that all the milo I've ever seen has been bad, but I knew that. What I didn't know was what a good field of milo looked like until the past few weeks. 

With all the rain we received in early August the milo is "good" but not "great" as DR described it to me. Good is better than bad.

The plants are definitely taller and the heads are much bigger than I've ever seen them.  There's nothing to complain about from what I can tell. 

I take that back. I can complain. With all this good milo DR is predicting a long harvest. Last year's harvest started in August, that's what you get when you have no rain. DR and the grain elevator is just preparing for harvest right now, it's still hasn't started but he's expecting farmers to be in the fields in the next couple weeks. DR's even thinking that harvest could last till late November or December. 

great. 

Well it is that time of year again, time of the Harvest Widow! 

Good morning Sunrise....how long has it been?

Every morning Yip and Yap walk the dog before they head off to school. Today as Yap returned from his walk he rushed inside and hollered at me to get the camera. He ushered me outside to take pictures of the morning sky. 

To the west...

...and the east. 

It was funny because Yap even told me where to stand when I took the picture and insisted on checking it on my LED screen! If I thought he could do it without being late for school, I'd let him take his own camera on his morning walk. If I did that though the walk that takes 15 minutes would take an hour! 

This is one of my favorite songs by Jamey Johnson, Good Morning Sunrise. 

Alright, it's about having a hangover and being lovesick but I still think it's a great song. 

Happy Belated Halloween!!

Happy Belated Halloween! 

This year we had a Soldier sniper? or is he a spy? 

I don't think even he knew what he was.

And a Knight fighting a Dragon. 

Ha, that dragon doesn't look too intimidated does she? 

One of the very best things about living in my little town is the Halloween parade. Every Halloween afternoon all the elementary students dress up and walk the block from the school to the town businesses (right in front of my house) to trick or treat the grocery store, the bank, the pharmacy, the library..you get the idea. 

This is quite the big deal in our town! Grandmas, grandpas, siblings and all sorts of people come out to see the kids in their costumes! I didn't get any great photos of costumes this year because Yahoo, along with a bunch of other younger brothers and sisters brought up the end of the line a trick or treated too. 

I think every little town should have a Halloween parade. Some of those kids have great sense of humors! Like the boy who dressed as a football leading his friend....who was dressed as a blind referee!! LOL! 

Hope you had a great Halloween! 

Ah, soooo much candy! I've already gotten a stomach ache. 

The Great Green Tomato War!

My garden is finally dead. We hard a hard freeze Thursday or Friday last week that finally killed of all my tomato plants though it warmed right back up by the weekend. Yesterday afternoon DR took the boys out to the garden, while I was putting Yahoo down for a nap, to clean up hoses and plants and such. When I came out of Yahoo's bedroom I heard all sorts of screaming, laughing and hollering coming from the garden. I stepped outside to tell the boys to quiet down, because Yahoo wasn't asleep yet, only to find this.....

DR was having a green tomato war with the boys! 

Honestly though they weren't picky about their ammunition. They were quite happy when they found a squishy red one! 

They soon learned that a large dead tomato plant would double as a bunker. 

But Dad still had awfully good aim! 

Ha! I hadn't seen DR have such a good time in a long time! 

Toward the end of their war the boys decided they needed camoflauge! 

Ugg!! I think I'm going to have to burn those clothes. Dead tomato plants smell disgusting!! 

Painted Fall Leaf Curtains with Stencils

Fall is here!! Seriously, fall is my favorite season. 

The cool weather perfect for jeans and a sweater. Football games and piles of leaves to jump in.

Except we don't have leaves in Kansas. Why?

Well, first there just aren't that many trees in Kansas to begin with. 

Second, a lot of trees in our town are evergreen cedar. The are hardy trees but aren't the prettiest to look at. 

Third, if you are lucky enough to have a deciduous tree in your Kansas yard and you do have beautiful leaves falling down...well, put away that rake because the leaves don't stay in the yard long. The wind ALWAYS blows them away to parts far away. 

*sigh*

I REALLY miss fall leaves. Really. 

I've asked me family in Indiana to send me leaves in the mail.

I think they think I'm joking. 

I'm NOT! 

Fine, if my family doesn't love me enough to send leaves, I'll just have to make my own. 

See! Now the fall leaves are falling all day long outside my window!! 

A friend of mine had given me a huge roll of paper, the kind that schools use, and I cut it to fit my odd shaped windows. 

I Googled leaf template and printed a few pages, laminated and cut the leaf shapes that I liked. If you look at the top of that picture you can see my dauber. I took an old towel and cut off a square and wadded it up into, well the shape it is, took duct tape around the top and used it to paint over the stencils..it worked perfectly! 

I did a layer in oranges, yellows and reds then I let those colors dry. Later I came in and stenciled again with greens and browns slightly overlapping the other leaves. I am sooo happy with how it turned out! I love that big window but I hate blocking the light with curtains. Of course I can't leave it uncovered completely, people might see me walking around naked in my house (kidding!!) 

I love curtains that aren't curtains!! 

It's been a while....

Whoa. It's been a while since I've posted. It's not often that a whole week goes by without me blogging about something. But then again it's harvest time. Translation: I'm a harvest widow.

Corn harvest has been in full swing in SW Kansas for the last three weeks. We've had a little rain during harvest but not enough to slow down the combines in the fields. DR has been working from 7 am to 10 pm. Occasionally he's even had to spend the night at work. The kids and I get to kiss him goodbye in the mornings and that's about all we see him these days.

A couple times a week we'll take a crockpot dinner to the grain elevator for DR and everyone else working crazy hours. The kids love going to the elevator because they can raid the candy bucket and watch the scale girls probe the trucks.

I've had photos to go along with harvest before but I've learned it's against company policy for people like me to be taking photos of the elevator. Since I'd kind of like my husband to keep his job I'm posting sans photos:) 

Normally I'd spend my lonely evenings catching up on blogging. However I've found myself watching Netflix and watching episodes of The 70's Show. Sometimes it's hard to find something interesting to blog about. But this fall I've found I just don't have the time to blog. I'm a harvest widow which means I'm reminded once again of all the wonderful little things my husband does in our home. From working in the garden to mowing the lawn. From folding clothes to taking out the trash. It's amazing how many chores I have to remember to do when DR is in the throes of harvest.

Last week was an especially long week for us though. Normally I don't substitute teach more than a couple days a week but last week I subbed one day and subbed at our town library for three days while our librarian was dealing with a family emergency. It was great because I could bring Yahoo with me but it really messed up our schedule and routine last week. Long nights, rushed homework, tired Mom.

I don't think I could be a librarian full time though. All. Those. Books. I was drooling. Libraries are like a double edged sword though; you have all those wonderful books just begging to be read but as a librarian you can't just sit and read all day..there is actual work to do!! It was fun for few days though :)

Hopefully I'll get back into a groove soon. Harvest getting over would help that. I can't complain though. A harvest lasting a month is heaven. I remember a few years ago in Illinois where a harvest lasted for three months....it was awful!

How's your harvest coming along?

Are You Ready for Some Football!!

I can't even read this post's title without thinking about Hank Williams! 

It's football season!! And once again poor coach has to keep reminding these guys that we are playing FLAG football and not TACKLE! 

I love football and football weather, especially football weather. COOL weather. Ninety degrees is too hot to be outside running! 

Getting a drink like the big high school boys! 

"Watch out!! You're going to get sacked!!"

Of course Yip and Yap are on the same team which at the same time makes it hard and easy for me. Easy because I'm only running to one practice. Hard because they are one another's biggest competition. They don't like to face up to each other. Rather than work as team mates they'd rather criticize one another. How do you get twins to understand that on the field your brother turns into just another guy on the team? They are the tallest and the oldest and probably catch the worst. I blame their father for their stone hands. We'll see how the season goes :) 

Even if they never win a game they are having a great time with their friends. 

Even the little sisters find a way to enjoy football practice. 

I'll never understand this part of football. It's the one time of year that it's okay to let somebody touch your butt. 

The boys were a little disappointed after their first practice when they learned they had to play flag football for one more year. Those helmets and pads have a big attraction for little boys Lord knows why! They look hot and uncomfortable to me. 

Football - More commonly known as Hoosier basketball conditioning!