Okay…this has got to be a first. We have a foot of snow and it’s Easter weekend! God has a real sense of humor doesn’t He?

I really didn’t think we would get as much snow as they had been predicting all week but we did. The wind blew all night and now we have drifts everywhere! The big boys are out playing in the snow right now…they had Brad spend the night last night, after they got home from the movies…much earlier than last week. I guess they had quite a time getting through the snow drifts on our road. They had a good time and were safe under my roof by 9 pm…..that was good.

So today, I’ve got to run to town…if they ever plow the roads…and get a few things for Easter dinner and then we’ll be home for a night of what else? Basketball! MSU takes on Pittsburgh tonight and everyone I talk to says we will lose. But hope springs eternal!

Good Morning from the cloudy cold Knolltop. They are predicting we will have 4-6 inches of snow today…how fun. So, no peas will be planted here.

So, Beth is confused and I think Mel at Pryorvu helped her out quite a bit supplying us with the scientific rendition of why we should plant our peas by Good Friday. Now I’ll offer why I say it. When we lived in Goshen, Indiana, we lived among the Amish and Mennonites. They were fantastic gardeners. I learned a lot from those ladies down there on how to garden, how to be more efficient with my time, how to be thrifty and how important it was to cultivate good friendships.

Down there, everyone had their peas and potatoes in by Good Friday, except me. The garden centers where you bought all your seeds and plants…if you didn’t start them yourselves…opened up on March 1st and closed down on June 1st. Imagine how surprised I was when I went to get my tomato plants on June 3rd and they were closed! Down there, if you snooze you lose. That is my only reason for planting by Good Friday. I hope that helps you Beth!

For anyone who cares…my Spartans beat Temple yesterday…now they take on Pitt. Don’t worry, they’ll win! This March madness is great, isn’t it?

It looks as if we will have a traditional Easter here since Luke’s basketball tournament was cancelled. So now I’ve got to get my four day coconut cake going..it will only be a three day cake now….but I’m sure it will be just as good.

Tell me what you’re having for Easter dinner? I’d love to hear of some of your traditional foods and fun on the wonderful resurrection day!

Good Morning from a finally very clear, very sunny Knolltop.

The moon was full and bright this morning as we went across the road to milk. And now it’s given way to a beautiful sunrise! While we’re supposed to have our peas in by tomorrow…Good Friday…mine aren’t even close to being put in. The ground has not been touched and the first pea hasn’t even been purchased. And they are predicting a snowstorm for tomorrow…yippee…how fun.

The All American Beef Battalion is on its way to it’s first steak feed! I’m not sure how many of you know about this effort, but I wrote a story on it recently. Bill Broadie, a cattle buyer for Superior Livestock, yes the same one that has the auctions on RFD-TV, is a Vietnam vet and came up with the idea that the U.S. beef producers should feed every member of our troops a steak. He and his board of directors are running a campaign to collect funds to be able to put on a steak feed for troops that are coming home, or being deployed and for all those all over the world fighting for freedom. His desire is to show our troops that we support them and that we are willing to feed them good American beef!

You can read more about this effort at their website, www.steaksfortroops.com.

What’s exciting is that they are going to put on their first steak feed in Olathe, Kansas in April and it’s going to be quite an event. They are still ironing out all the details, but as they become available, I will provide them here, or you can visit there website. It’s an exciting venture!

Better go get breakfast!

Good Morning from a gloomy day here on the Knolltop. It’s raining today…but that means it’s warm…so I’m not complaining!

Yesterday was both busy and rewarding. After morning chores, I had lunch with a civic group in town and spoke about agriculture. I can’t think of a better topic to talk about than agriculture..well..yes, I can…God is a pretty good topic too!

What I had to say was very well recieved…except by one gentleman in the group who wanted to spar with me. When I opened the floor for questions…he wanted to discuss farm subsidies and how farmers get rich off the government. I thought I answered his question sufficently, yes, I put a positive spin on my answer simply because he wanted to turn it negative. When the meeting was over, I was overwhelmed by the nice comments and especially by one 92 year old man who wanted to reminisce about his youth on the farm. As it turns out, he grew up on the Knolltop…it was fun to listen to his stories.

But as others kept visiting with me, the fiesty man who wanted to argue with me kept trying to interrupt and get his point across…he wanted facts and figures. He wanted dollar amounts pertaining to the farm bill. He wanted to twist what I said around and make farmers the enemy.

The funny thing was, since I had just written a column on the farm bill, the numbers were kind of fresh in my mind…I said, kind of. I knew if I wanted to get him to leave me alone I was going to have to start grabbing numbers out of the air…and by his arguement, I knew he wouldn’t know if I was clutching at fact or fiction. So just when I was about ready to nail him to the wall once and for all, a Knight in shining armor came to my rescue. That dear old 92 year old man walked up and said, “You just leave her alone, she doesn’t have time to talk about that foolishness with you.” After wiping my brow, I snickered under my breath and then asked him for another childhood story of life on the Knolltop! What a great day!

I don’t know if we are just trying to be good parents or gluteons for punishment…but last night I took Sarah to sign up for AAU volleyball. Now she will have practices two nights a week and tournaments on Saturdays from now until June….it makes my head spin…who’s got time to milk cows? They need to learn to find their own food and milk themselves….but I just don’t think it will be that easy. You just gotta love parenthood!

Time for chores…

It’s a cold, raining morning here on the Knolltop.

I just got my story done and sent it off, now I’ve got to head to the barn and think about what my talk at the luncheon today. I’m looking forward to a quiet evening tonight.

I just want to say thanks to all who have commented, especially the Robb sisters, Susan, Patty and Julie…you guys are great! This blog stuff is so much fun!

Well, better go..chores are waiting. If anyone feels inclined to pray for me today while I’m speaking, that would be great!

More later…

Good Morning from an overwhelmed, too many irons in the fire farmwife on the Knolltop.

It feels like Thursday today. I’ve got to write a story for the Agriview today and I don’t even have one of my interviews done yet. I’ve got to speak tomorrow at a luncheon and I don’t have a clue what I’m going to speak about…well I do…but I haven’t gotten it to where it needs to be the day before I speak. And the internet is slow!

Other than that…it’s a great day here! The sun is trying to peak through, the kids are all healthy, the cows are healthy and what else could a person want? Time….time…and more time.

Well, I don’t have more time…so I’ll let you know that Luke’s team won the two games they played yesterday…by a lot.

Now, I’ve got to head out to the barn…..later!

It’s another kind of clear morning here on the Knolltop, but this farmwife and mother is tired.

I think we’ve got it all backwards. We should have teenagers when we’re younger not older. Last evening the boys and their buddy decided to take in a movie. Again, I said, “That’s fine, as long as it honors Jesus.”

They took off and I didn’t think about them again until after I brought my two youngest home from an event at church. I put them to bed and then my mind started racing. I wonder what movie the boys picked. I wonder when it gets out. I wonder if they’re okay. I wonder if they’re getting hit by a drunk driver!

Okay…that was it…then I began to worry. How strange it is that my mind when from what movie they saw to them laying in a ditch dying. The mind is a very powerful thing.

So I called JW’s cell phone and got his voice mail. I told him, in a very stern voice, “CALL ME!” I didn’t tell him who it was….I don’t think I sounded like one of his little girlfriends though….so I’m sure he knew who it was.

With no response, I called and left another message and then took the phone and a blanket and camped out on the couch until I was awakened by a ring. It was JW and they had just gotten out of the movie and were on their way home. Whew!

I’m getting too old for this and I’m only on my first two teenagers. In less than 9 months I’ll have three teenagers. It would be better if I were 25 and had the stamina to stay up half the night. But then again, I don’t think it would be any better chasing after four toddlers at my age either. So, I guess God got this one right. 🙂

By the way…the movie they say they saw? “Horton Hears a Who.” I’m not sure I believe that one…I’ll get to the bottom of that today!

There is a beautiful sunrise coming up over the silos this morning on the Knolltop. It won’t be as warm, but the sun will shine today!

We actually had a quite evening last night here, no practices, no games…just popcorn and a movie. The boys wanted to rent a movie and since JW can drive and they have their own money, I said “Have at it! As long as it honors Jesus.”

I was quite proud of them, they came home with a football movie with no swearing or sex…I know, that’s a miracle in itself. The movie was called Invincible and it was very good. So all of us, but Jake, had a great time sitting in front of the fire, eating popcorn and caramel corn and watching football. Jake went to a friends house for the evening….he loves hanging with his friends….he’s all about the social aspects of life. I can’t blame him…I am too!

And it was a great day yesterday because my Spartans beat Ohio State in the Big 10 tournament. Yes, I know, I know, they should’ve beaten them last week, but they didn’t. It’s all water under the bridge. When they win the NCAA tournament in a couple of weeks, we won’t care who they lost to….just that they are champions!

It will be a busy day here on the Knolltop. Moving hay, cleaning up the yard and who knows what else. No basketball games today for Luke, all of his games this weekend are tomorrow afternoon.

Time for breakfast!

Good Sunny Morning from the springy Knolltop.

Okay, the heifer naming contest has a winner. But I have no prizes to offer…just a simple story.

Years ago while growing up, I had a great friend, Julie Robb. She and I were in 4-H together and then roomed in college together. I think I’ve written this all before, but I’m sure you’re like me….you’ve forgotten and so I will give you a refresher!

Julie grew up on a registered Holstein dairy just a few miles from me and she is the youngest of seven children. She and I spent a lot of time together at each other’s farm and just had and still do have a great friendship. But Julie’s dad, George, was a different story. In my eyes he was very intimidating. He mumbled and I had to really strain to understand him, his mumbling sounded mean and I was always afraid of him. We would sit at their big breakfast table and I would cringe everytime he spoke to me.

But for some reason I loved Julie’s life and I wanted it. I wanted to be the one on a Holstein dairy, I wanted to go to the Holstein meetings and be a part of the Michigan Junior Holstein Association. When Julie came back from the National Holstein Convention in Tennessee and told all about the fun they had, I was green with envy and wanted to be a part of it. But I had my own path, I had my own cows and my family had a different kind of dairy farm.

While George was into marketing his Holstein genetics and was deeply embedded in the black and white world, my dad was more worried about getting milk from cows, no matter what the color. Convincing him that we could take a show string to the state fair and not have them come back with mastitis and no milk was like convincing Pharoh to let the Israelites go. But with my mom’s help, we persuaded my dad to let us go and from them on, we went to every show we could….showing Ayrshires by the way.

Julie and I went to Michigan State and together we were in the Dairy Club and we did a lot together. But I was an animal science major and she was a food systems management major. When we left college, our lives took very different paths. I took a job as the editor of the Farmers’ Advance and she went to Disney World and was part of hotel management. I married a fitter, the kind of guy we both drooled over during our show days and she married an Irishman who is a chef. When I became co-owner of a registered Holstein dairy farm, she moved to Chicago and began working in computer programming. I had four kids and she had two.

Today I am now on the path that I thought she would be on and she is on a different one. I’m now an advisor to the Michigan Junior Holstein Association and my son is on the board. Last month I was elected to the Michigan Holstein Association and next month I will have my first article published in the Holstein International magazine.

What would George think if he were still with us? Would he continue to mumble in my direction making me cringe like a silly little girl? Would he wonder how an Ayrshire girl got so involved in a black and white world? Or would he just smile and give us that silly laugh saying, “See, I told you you’d go further with Holsteins instead of those Ayrshires.”

So in honor of my good friend Julie and her cow family of Rena, Rachel and Racquel, the crew at Knolltop Farm have officially named the newest heifer “Rachel.”

Thanks Julie!

Another spring like day promised here on the Knolltop! I just love this kind of weather…even if there is mud to contend with. It’s much different here than where I grew up. Here we’re on a hill and everything drains…back home is flat and wet…well it was until my dad got his fields tiled. But the driveway was always muddy. Even the milk truck dreaded our driveway in the spring.

Last night was sticking night. We got all the show heifers out and put a stick to ’em. That is Bobby’s coveted cow measuring stick that we gave him on his birthday a few years ago. He loves that stick….almost as much as he loves his cows.

Anyway…all I heard was grumbling from Luke about his heifer not being tall enough and that it’s not fair that JW’s heifer is taller and the heifer that we sold to the neighbor is the tallest one. Boy did he gripe! It was very funny. I tried to tell him that if someone buys a heifer from us, it’s a good thing if they have success. He just doesn’t want anyone else having success at his expense. Competitiveness is a good thing.

Time for chores.