Farm Photo Op

Sometimes, if done well, the simplest things can look really good.

like a pair of shoes...

...or a rocker

a latch...

even a stump...

...or a tractor stack...

or a tractor seat...

Laura does such a good job making it look good, and making it look easy.

I'd like to do with words, what she does with pictures...

take the simple stories, and give them their due.

Lessons from a Donkey

I have had my donkey Jubel for almost three years now. In that time, he has taught me just about

" Everything I need to know" so I thought I would share what I have learned thus far as

a mini donkey owner...I posted this once before right after I started this blog, but

good lessons bear repeating.

1. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence...but sticking your neck where it doesn't belong can get you stuck...by barbed wire or something worse.
2. Watch your step...all that glitters is not gold..sometimes it is a pile of poop.
3. Gray is the new black.
4. Sometimes it's better to be seen and not herd.

     5. Open your mouth wide and hee-haw every chance you get.

     6. Grin and the whole world grins with you.

     7. When someone sneaks up on you from behind, kick first and ask questions later.
     8. On hot days lie on your back under a shade tree.
     9. When in doubt, run.
   10. Everyone should have a pedicure every two months.
   11. When someone you love comes home...run to meet them with wild abandon.

   12. There is never a bad time to eat cookies...or pie.

                                                                              
                                                    ( photo laura gordon photography)

Worry

I

I love this Travellers Insurance commercial.  It's the one where the dog is so worried about keeping his beloved bone safe he cannot relax, rest or enjoy the bone.  Ray LaMontagne sings his fabulous hit "Trouble" from days gone by in the background.

I am the dog.

I come from a long line of worriers.  They tell me my great-grandmother was a worrier...my grandmother was a worrier, my mother is a worrier and of course, I am a worrier.  I am an equal opportunity worrier.  If I can't come up with something to worry about, I'll invent something.  If I can't invent a good worry, I'll worry about someone else's worries...like a sponge.

Farming is a dangerous occupation they say.   You can't open a farm magazine without being warned to make sure equipment is turned off before trying to fix a malfunction;  the farmer is contantly lying on a creeper under a huge tractor with a wrench; farmhands driving giant combines on tiny roads barely big enough for cars to pass let alone farm equipment....worry.

So it's not like I need something else to worry about.  Now, need it or not, I have it. 

Yesterday, one of the farmhands related that he was driving a tractor down a dirt road minding his own business when out of the corner of his eye he caught a glance of something moving....on the door...inside the cab....inches from his arm....a black snake. 

 A FOUR FOOT LONG BLACK SNAKE.

Did I mention it was INSIDE THE TRACTOR?

Brakes slammed, tractor stopped, other door flung open, farmhand on the ground, snake still slithering.....

Thankfully, the farmer was driving behind him and between them, they wrangled the snake out of the cab and into a ditch where I hope he remains today....

I did not need another worry.  I may call Travellers and see what they have to offer.







Shoo Crow

While out riding with the farmer the other day, I spotted three scarecrows....

this one seems to have an arm issue....

...this one is packing heat...he has a rifle...

and this one seems to be wearing scrubs....

Whenever I hear crows, for some reason I always think Fall can't be too far away...

Bring on the cooler weather....

Have a great weekend everybody...

I'm thinking giveaway next week.............

So You Wannabe a Farmer Part 3.....A Guest Blog

(see photo credit on photo)

My Brother stopped by and is guest blogger on Farm and Fru Fru today....read, then have a great weekend.

I mentioned in a comment a few weeks back, that my sister and I grew up only about 10 miles from were we both live now. (We are about 5 miles apart). Back in the day, we lived in a typical 60’s neighborhood in the burbs, and I never had a lot of experience on a farm. Our grandfather had a farm that we would visit in Lynchburg, but it wasn’t a working farm.

When I was around 14 or 15, I decided that it would be fun to experience farming, so one Easter Break, I got a chance to spend several days working with the farmer. They were dating at the time, and I guess it was the farmer’s way of showing the little brat brother what real work was.



It was a particularly chilly spring break, and most of the days were windy and cold. I learned to drive a big tractor, and spread a lot of manure. This is important, there is a LOT of manure on a farm. Get used to it. I learned when the wind blows it in your face, it is best to keep your mouth shut. If you decide to become a farmer you will also just have to get used to the smell, it is everywhere. I remember complaining a bit about that, and the farmer’s father said … “son, just smells like money to me”



Another eye-opening experience for me as a young wanna be farmer was the whole birthing experience. I was young, and though I knew a little about the birds and the bees,  nobody really prepared me for the whole cow birthing thing. One of the farmer’s brothers had his hand in the cow…up to his shoulder mind you, tying a rope on the feet so we could all pull it out. This was long before Billy Crystal did it in City Slickers. Gave a whole new meaning to the phrase…”she’s having a cow.”



After that week, I had a whole new respect for farmers, beef, and milk, and I think it was years before I thought about sex again.



I now live with my wife on, you guessed it, a farm. It’s her grandparent’s farm and it’s smaller than the farmer’s, but we have a few cows, chickens, dogs and such. The chores are the same, there is manure, and cow birthing, and all the other stuff that goes along with farming just maybe not quite as much. Fate is indeed fickled.



One more thing to remember if you want to be a farmer, (or act like one) is that you never, ever throw anything away. I, as the farmer-in-law/brother, will guest blog about that sometime later in a future blog. In the mean time, remember, if it looks like manure and smells like manure and you feel called to walk the other way, maybe farming just isn’t in your future….

Tidy-Up Time

The silage bag is empty and the plastic bundled for recycling...

The painter is gone but has left some remnants that need to be taken to the dump....

See the snow here with these bucket tops?  The snow is gone but the tops remain....

Ahhhhhh the beauty of the farm in springtime...

Where is Mr. Clean when you need him?

Happy Weekend...I know what I need to do...

Farm Chick

Last week Farm and Fru Fru had a visitor.  Laura of Laura Gordon Photography asked if she could bring her friend out to the farm for a photog session.  I am amazed at how a cute girl and a photographer who knows what she's doing can make an old tire look good....amazed!  Thought you might like to see some of the results.  Let me just say, they caused quite a stir when they took some shots at the pond right on the road....trucks were stopping, tractors running off the road, cars slowing down...it was hilarious.  Some of these were taken at our house and the rest over at the farm...

Hope you enjoyed this quick little farm tour.....Come back anytime Laura....it's always fun to see all your creative juices flowing!

Farm Friday

No bear, no squirrel, just a peaceful herd waiting to be milked......happy friday...

  










                                                                            (photo by manda)

The 5 Gallon Bucket...an indelicate tale

WARNING:  If you read my blog for crafty goodness, cute mini donkey tales and photos and/or inspiration, this is not your post.  This is a FARM post of a most indelicate nature...you have been warned...proceed with caution.

There are few things more indispensable to the farmer than a 5 gallon bucket.  The bucket is to the farmer what a scalpel is to the surgeon, what a pen is to a writer, or maybe better, what a paperclip is to McGyver.  Not a day goes by, not one, that the farmer does not use a bucket for at least 10 different things...a waterer for calves, a tool box for fencing supplies, a feed trough for a donkey, a seat for sitting at just the right height for truck repairs, a nail holder...it is truly a miracle of invention.  It would not be an overstatement to say that I do not believe the farmer could perform his job without the bucket.  "My" farmer is very possessive of his buckets too.  Occasionally I "borrow" one for my own personal use, which can sometimes throw the farmer into a snit if it is not returned to the proper bucket corral, in pristine condition.

Yesterday, we headed north "up the country" to the little place we bought and are building the barn/living space, to work on the window and door trim.  We have had several people up there working including a painter.  "Up the country" is back off the path" a good distance....we are miles from anywhere.  With all the work that is being done in this extremely small living space, we walked into a mess...paint cans everywhere, electrical wire strewn all over the floor, boxes, nails, drywall, ladders, and misc. supplies thrown around like a goat had exploded inside the tiny space.  The first words out of the farmer's mouth however were "Where is my bucket, that painter has stolen my bucket..."

How his "bucket radar" told him this immediately upon arrival into this chaos I cannot say, but everything came to a screeching halt as the bucket search was launched.  "I had all my fencing supplies in that bucket, and that "so and so" has taken my bucket and dumped everything right here in the floor....bleh bleh bleh...."
Knowing the upset a lost bucket can cause, I too began the search.  It was then I spotted something white at the edge of the woods and realized it was ..a bucket.  The farmer dashed outside and fairly skipped down the hill to retrieve his treasure.  The trip back up the hill however was a different story.

I could tell, even at a distance,  that all was not well;  the scowl on his face was too pronounced.  "That 'so and so' has....(.and here I will take literary license and use my own words) 'answered the call of nature' in my bucket.........."
I wanted to laugh.  I wanted to just let fly with a big BAHAHAHAHAHAHA...but I knew better.  Instead I said "well you know, we have no functioning facilities here yet and there is nothing but space for miles and miles.  What was he to do?"  This, the farmer did not find helpful or supportive.

Now, I know you will think I am lying when I say it was then, at this precise moment, that the painter's van pulled into the driveway and parked 1/4 mile up the dirt road by the fence he had been painting.  The farmer bolted to his truck like he had been shot out of a cannon, offensive bucket in hand and drove off in a cloud of dust, me screaming behind him "don't fire the painter, I HATE to paint".  (It IS after all, all about me).  It was a good half hour before the truck and farmer pulled up outside the barn and he climbed out, minus the bucket.

"So?"  I said.  "He is going to scald my bucket and bring it back tomorrow..." the farmer announced, and I could see the relief on his face.  I, of course, was relieved that the painter was still gainfully employed, and chose not to give my opinion about the bucket to the farmer at that time. ...... Just like I would never tell McGyver how to use his paperclip......

I hope this post has not offended anyone.  I did warn you....this is FARM and fru fru...and it ain't always pretty...

If You Give a Moose a Muffin......

Yesterday, I had one of those days where  everything I did seemed to get me nowhere.   Kinda like the book by Laura Numeroff  my kids loved when they were little, If You Give a Moose a Muffin...

I start back upstairs after breakfast to make beds.   I pick up a few clothes strewn around farmhand 1's room, and decide a couple shirts don't look that dirty and stuff them into an already too full drawer.  While I am stuffing, I realize they are not going to fit into the drawer and find several shirts that FH1 hasn't worn in maybe 5 years...so I pull them out to donate.

The phone rings and I take the too small shirts with me and answer it.  Figuring I might as well do something while I talk, I head for the attic to put the shirts in the donate box.  When I get to the top of the attic steps, I see that the top of my fabric stash box has popped off...could it be that I have too much fabric stuffed inside...?  surely not...so I toss the shirts aside and pull the fabric out of the box to refold. 

Well what do you know...There is that aqua print I spent a good hour looking for a month ago, accidently folded inside a heavy quilted print piece I got on sale...I hug it to my chest thrilled to find it after all and start downstairs to see if it does indeed match the check piece I bought (also on sale) some months before.  In my excitement to research this happy development, I trip over a cat who is methodically trying to cover a small pile of cat poop ...on my bedroom rug...an outside cat, who has somehow come in out of the snow and mud  unbeknownst to me, and is an outside cat for this very reason.   This is a barn cat...perhaps the dirt on the floor  has confused the cat...perhaps she THINKS she IS in the barn...I don't care...she belongs outside, not in my bedroom taking care of business on my rug.

Flinging the once lost fabric onto the sofa, I at once scream at the cat and scoop her up barely missing the poop pile as I head for the door.  After tossing the bewildered kitty into the snow, I grab a pair of rubber gloves, a bucket of water and several types of disinfectant, and return to the bedroom to begin scrubbing the rug.  Mid-clean, the phone, which is still in the attic, rings and I run to catch it....up the steep stairs I go and  on the way back down I kick over a stack of egg cartons.  Ending the conversation, I head back up the attic steps with cartons in hand to add to the egg crate stack at the top of the stairs. But the towering stack has tumbled into a box of old tax returns... which need sorting......................

ALL day this goes on....All. Day.  At the end of this very long day, I fall into a un-made bed..... in a room that smells slightly like cat poop......as the phone rings....which is in the attic....  I give up.

(photo Daily Mail, UK)












                                                                                                                                                                   

Outside My Door

I should have put on my tall rubber boots and ventured out into the 21 degree snowy weather this morning to get a good close-up of the cows.  Instead, I stuck one bedroom-slippered foot out the door along with the camera, snapped a quick picture, shivered a bit and rushed back in to sit by the fire and contemplate soup vs. chilli...I have decided to make both.  The snowy-backed cows do look pretty though I don't understand their reluctance to stay in the barn where it is warmer...silly cows.   I however will stay inside, eat soup, then chilli and craft the day away watching the snowy-backs from my window.

Red or Green?

You know your photographer is good when she can take a tractor that looks like this a make it look pretty darn good! Another of Laura Gordon's beautiful photos... I have found that farmers are rather like men who go with EITHER Ford or Chevrolet...never both. Most farmers are red or green....We are a red family...and like most of the equipment here, once it comes here...it stays here.

The farmer is not one to quit on a piece of equipment just because it has a little age on it...or a few knocks...or dings...or rattles...or misses...or rust... He hates to start off with anything new. It's easier and more economical to just maintain what you have and take care of it than to go to the expense and trouble of buying something new. Then you have to learn all about it and get used to how it operates, learn all new buttons to push and how to turn it on and off...the newer models are so difficult to deal with.

In truth, this always makes me feel good when I think about it...maybe it is the same with wives or husbands ...who have a little age on them....and dings...a little rust...it's easier just to keep the one you have than to trade for a newer model...

Three on Friday

Today I saw three cold cows.