It’s been a very busy day here on the Knolltop and it’s still going strong. Last evening JW’s team beat Burr Oak. After Luke, Jake and I got done doing chores we called one of my girlfriends and we went out to Saucy Dogs BBQ place and had a bite to eat. When we got home, I crawled in bed and Jake and I watched a little TV. It was nice just to lay there and spend time together…Luke was on the phone to his girlfriend…hmmmm….

Anyway, this morning everyone had to get out to do chores so we could take Luke to his AAU basketball tryout in Adrian. JW went to work for Mr. Kiser and Jake had to stay home to go to his basketball practice. Sarah finally came home from her sleepover….exhausted of course.

When we got home from Luke’s tryout, I took Sarah to her practice, picked up Jake and came home for a short nap. Then I hustled in to get Sarah, got home just in time to slap something on the table for dinner and put in my barn overalls in the dryer and start a load of jeans.

Now I’m headed to the barn and tonight is our annual DHIA banquet…Jake and I will go and we get to hear Krissa Thom speak…she is a Trent Loos protegee…I hope I spelled that right! Bobby will stay home..he’s too tired from being out late at JW’s game last night. JW is gone to the FFA Big Buck Banquet and Luke and Sarah will stay home with Bobby. Normally our Saturdays are not this busy…today is an exception.

Better get to the barn…..later! By the way…it’s sunny out and a great help for my rotton attitude that I’ve had lately!

Yes, I’m a bit late posting this morning. That’s because I had to run to town early this morning and get some hydraulic fluid and some other things, then I had to run lunch money into the school for the kids, they were almost down to eating a free PB&J unless I deposited some money in their accounts. Althought how bad can PB&J be? It keeps your sides from caving in.

And then when I got home I had to help finish chores, clean up a few breakfast dishes start a load of laundry and pick up before I felt like I could get to the computer. And the first thing I did was respond to some newspaper editors about running my column. I’m trying to get my column in some papers around the midwest and they all claim they don’t have room. What I want to say is, you always have room for good material! But I don’t. I just send them some samples and pray they like them enough to start running it.

A few weeks ago Farmshine finally ran my first column and I got a few responses from readers of that paper. Now if a few people responded, how many others wanted to respond but didn’t because of the busyness of life? Well, that’s my vent for the day…I’m done now.

I’ve got to start writing!

Last night JW’s team won again. They were really playing well and JW had 3 fouls….yes, you could say he had an off night.

It’s a partly sunny morning here with a stiff breeze…no more balmy weather, we’re back to winter for a while. It sure was nice to just wear a sweatshirt with no long underwear out to the barn for chores!

The mercury light is out in the yard…boy is it strange to walk out of the house and have it so dark outside….we didn’t realize how much light that thing casts until it quit working. I wonder if we’re the same way, we don’t realize how much light we cast on others….hmmmm

Better get going…lots to do today!

I just heard a rumble of thunder and I can’t believe it. We must have moved to Georgia and I didn’t know it. This weather feels just like the south on the few occasions that I’ve been there during the winter. I like it.

Last evening was such a hoot during chores. I told the kids after Christmas break they needed to start working with their show calves. While we were milking I saw JW and Luke get rope halters and drag their June calves out for a walk.

What was so funny was that JW has Pami’s heifer, Pontoon who is the friendliest of the two calves and Luke has Holly’s heifer, Honey. Neither one of these heifers has been worked with, they only get their chin scratched when I get in their pen each day to clean it out. They love having their chin scratched.

When the pulled them out to walk down the isle, Pontoon fought it every step of the way while Honey walked along as if Luke had been working with her for months. It was so funny to see JW fighting and pulling and complaining while Luke just passed by him with this perfectly trained, or so it appeared, heifer.

JW said it wasn’t fair and I agreed and then I told him he just had to be patient….well, telling a teenage boy to be patient is like telling water not to flow down stream.

I’ve got two rooms cleaned out…today I head to the Salvation Army with my items that are no longer needed but still had a useful life.

How ’bout that New Hampshire Primary? Are you tired of the election yet? I am!

It’s a balmy 55 out this morning and it’s a good thing because Jake wanted to wear his new Packer’s hat to school.

Over the weekend, Jake had another big blessing. The farm family up the road are good friends of ours. They are crop farmers and run over a lot of ground. In the fall and spring, Jake gets to “hang” with these folks…he calls it working. Last year, the whole family received Carhart farm coats with their farm name embroidered on the back. Jake was very envious of these jackets and they knew it. They told him they would order one for him…or so Jake said they said they would order one for him. I kept thinking to myself that it was more of a hope of Jake’s and not a promise of these nice friends.

Well, me of little faith, Jake showed up in the barn Saturday night to do his chores with a brand new dark green Carhart coat that said, “Schoenberger Farms” on the back. I was elated that they thought so much of Jake to buy a farm coat for him. This coat has now sealed Jake’s assumption that he is an actual part of the Schoenberger Farms Team…whether they want him or not. They are an awesome family!

And for a game report from the MSU girls basketball game on Saturday….they lost to Penn State. It was still lots of fun though. What was amazing to me was all the people we knew there. I was going with the assumption that we wouldn’t see anyone we knew in 4-H…instead we ran into so many people we knew and even sat with the crew from Nugentdale Farms.

We had awesome seats…eight rows up from the court and we had a blast!

Well, it’s time to get going. With the kids back in school…all except Sarah who caught Bobby’s bug…life will get back into a routine now and maybe I’ll get something accomplished.

Good morning from the Knolltop. Yes, it’s warm this morning….32 out and it’s going to get warmer. By the end of the day we will be smelling like spring and wishing April were here! At least I will…I love spring.

Yesterday I was again pleased with the human race and realize even the “big” people care about little people. A couple of weeks ago when we attended the Top 10 Invitational Sale, Jake and I were visiting with Mark Adam….a “big” person. No, not just in stature, although he is a very tall man with a booming voice and a real strong presence. Mark is also a VIP….head honcho….the big guy….whatever you want to call him…..of Northstar Cooperative based in East Lansing. For those of you who don’t know, Northstar is a semen company and they also the ones who do all the milk testing here in the midwest and they obviously sell other dairy supplies and products…you get the idea.

Anyway, we were visiting with Mark and he and Jake struck up a conversation about the Packers. They discovered they had something in common…they both loved the Packers. A season ticket holder, Mark said the next time he went to a game he said he would bring a hat back for Jake….well you know Jake was thrilled with this thought and so was I because his Atlanta Braves hat was becoming unrecognizable.

Well, as a mom, I know how busy people get and I figured that would be a nice gesture, but I have to admit, I didn’t think Mark, in all of his busyness of running a company, would even think about the promise he made to a ten year old Packer commrade.

Yesterday when I came in from chores, there was Jake meeting me at the door with what else but a Packer’s hat! I couldn’t believe it! Not just any Packer’s hat…a custom fitted Packer’s hat! And in the box was a very nice note from Mark. I was absolutely amazed by his kindness and thoughtfulness. For a man to take the time to buy a hat for a little kid in North Adams after a 10 minute conversation about a football team….that just blows my mind.

So, from the bottom of my heart….Thank you Mark! You are an awesome person in my book. And Jake is trying to figure out your phone number, he wanted to call you last night to thank you….by the way, he hasn’t taken the hat off yet…except for this morning’s breakfast when his father insisted that he remove it!

Today Sarah and I have a girls day out. Through 4-H we were able to attain FREE MSU girls basketball tickets. So we will be heading north to my former home of five years and cheering on the green and white. Although Sarah has a wardrobe of MSU green and pink, I will be in green and white.

Jake and Bobby will keep the home fires burning today while Luke and JW work for Mr. Kiser…after they do their chores here!

What a morning here on the Knolltop. We started out kind of slow since the leader of the farm is feeling under the weather. When that happens, things just don’t go like they should. After chores, I was fixing biscuits and gravy for the clan plus two extra boys who spent the night and a knock came at the door…it was Mr. Kiser bringing us donuts for breakfast! I gave him a cup of coffee and we all had a feast for breakfast.

Now the older boys are gone to work for Mr. Kiser and I’ve now got to get going on the day’s work in the house.

Last night, JW’s team won their game and the varsity won too. JW fouled out of the game and was all smiles. What a kid.

Well, my work is waiting patiently! Hopefully I can get back to this computer later today.

It’s going to be a beautiful sunrise here on the Knolltop. I can see the sun starting to light up the sky and with all the snow…it’s so pretty!

First off, let me clarify something for Linda and anyone else who thought I was serious about my laundry. I didn’t have 17 loads from one kid, that was an exaggeration…although I think I might have come close…it seems like I do 17 loads a day! And yes, a front load washing machine was wonderful…when I had it. My parents had mercy on me one year and bought me one…I wore the thing out! When it was going to cost more to fix it than it was worth, I decided to get a new one. Well at the time we were paying $4.00 for a bushel of corn and selling milk for $13 a hundred…you don’t have to do the math…I will….it was bad! So instead of a new washing machine I bought a used one that was in the paper…it came with a used dryer that I still have in my back room that I haven’t had to put into use yet. The funny thing about this washer is that it is from a laundromat and so it has a coin deposit thing you have to slide in and out to start it. Don’t worry, it’s fixed so I don’t have to pay for each load…it’s “free.” So there you have it…that’s my laundry saga.

There was an incident the other day that just made me chuckle and I’ve been wanting to write about it ever since, but have forgotten! The other day when we were coming home from JW’s basketball game it had been snowing and there was a fresh layer of about 3 inches on the roads. So to say the least it was slippery and everyone was going a bit slower. On the outskirts of town there is a hill known as Buck Hill and we were approaching it when we saw this truck in the ditch. As we got closer we noticed it was a kid on JW’s team and his older brother and they were clearly stuck in the ditch. There were three other vehicles ahead of us who had stopped, but strangely enough hadn’t gotten out to help the boys. So when we got up to them, Bobby and the three boys all got out and rushed over to the truck to help. They all got on the front of the truck and pushed and in a matter of seconds the Kast brothers were back on the road.

When my boys walked back to the van they were all about three feet taller with huge bulging muscles and the confidence of David…at least that’s how they acted. It’s amazing what a surge of testosterone will do for young men!

Speaking of testosterone…if I get a chance later on today I will give you a run down of the typical day on the farm yesterday…it started out with lots of breakdowns…but ended up with great success.

Better get on my day…writing and errands to do today!

Good Morning from the snowy Knolltop!

We ended up with a total of a foot of snow and it’s still coming down right now. The boys will find out how passable the roads are since they’ve gone to basketball practice this morning. I’m sure they will be fine.

Since all we did yesterday was goof off and eat, today we will get back to work and dig out of this mess. I’m still doing laundry….over the weekend, JW decided to clean his room and that meant bringing 17 loads of dirty and some clean laundry down to my laundry room. Oh boy….and then yesterday Luke caught the cleaning bug and he cleaned and rearranged his and Jake’s room…again, 17 loads of laundry! So while I like having them take the initiative to clean their rooms and have them look so nice, I do have to pay a price for it. Yes they should do their own laundry…but I find it just as easy to do it myself. Folding laundry gives me time to think and figure out what I’m going to do next.

Well, I’d better head out to the barn for the rest of morning chores….later!