Author: Melissa

  • Sunny and beautiful!

    Good Morning from a sunny knolltop! It’s a beautiful morning and going to be an even more beautiful day!

    I’ve got so much to do today, it’s not even funny. Not only do I have to write my fingers off, I ‘ve got a half bushel of peaches on my counter that need to be made into jam or canned…..Where is Sarah????

    Yesterday I made more strawberry jam and didn’t have time for any other jam. All of a sudden I’m simply overwhelmed with stuff that needs urgent attention! I hate that! But as I make my list and start crossing stuff off, I’m sure I’ll feel better. Sarah and Jake will be scraping the garage again today so they can get it painted, for some reason they enjoy painting!

    Well, I’ve got to get my weekly column finished…better get!

  • Warm weather has finally arrived

    Good Morning from a humid, sunny Knolltop!

    It was warm yesterday and it’s going to be warm again today. I guess summer has finally decided to visit.

    We had the best breakfast but probably the worst for you! I cooked some bacon and then plopped blueberry pancake batter in the bacon grease and they ended up being deep fried pancakes. Oh my heavens they were sooooooo good! But sooooooo bad for us!

    JW is at a dairy judging workout today at the Kent County fair, Luke started football practice last night and he was tired.

    It’s time for me to go walking, my brain is foggy and I’m lethargic! I need to get moving!

  • Everyone is home!

    Good Morning from a breezy, warm Knolltop!

    Heritage Day was a bust! It rained all day long. So we watched the parade in the rain and went back to the house and Gramps, Grandma and the family had Blueberry Buckle and coffee. We needed the rain, so no one really complained about it.

    Later that evening the boys went up and watched the band play, but it got boring so they came home.

    JW arrived at 10:15 pm from his mission trip and we were glad to have him home! He said he had a great time and we keep hearing bits and pieces of the trip as he remembers them. He was tired!

    Well, it’s time to get moving!

  • Getting ready for Heritage Day!

    It’s a cloudy morning on the Knolltop, but still quite nice!

    We are gearing up for Heritage Day tomorrow, when we take our tractors in and ride them in the parade and spend the rest of the day in town enjoying fellowship while we wait for the antique tractor pull to start! Yes, I will be taking my JD A in for the parade!

    Still silence in the corn patch…the tonic worked! One reader asked what fly bait and coke did to the coons, so I will answer. They eat it and then they die. It’s the best way to keep the coons from destroying my corn patch.

    Better get going…so much to do!

  • Silence in the corn patch

    Good Morning from the Knolltop! It’s clear, cool and sunny this morning.

    As I sat at my desk this morning I didn’t hear shucking or grinning or giggling, just total silence! Yes my coon trappers did their job and I think the coons are gone!

    Last night I gave my coon trappers a pair of rubber gloves, three pans of fly bait and a 2 liter of coke. I told them where to place the pans and to be careful so the bait doesn’t spill out. I was sitting at my computer and I listened through the window as they set the traps. When they came back in, they brought at least half of the bottle of pop back in with them and said, “Can we drink the rest?” I asked if they even used any of it for it’s intended use, they assured me they put plenty in the pans! I should’ve known this would happen when they asked before they went out if they could drink what we didn’t use. Silly me.

    This morning as I sat at my computer at 3:30 am posting the news on Dairy Agenda Today I heard total silence! It truly was “Golden.”

    I went to count the coons, but I didn’t want to get all wet from the dew, so I will send the coon trappers out for the count!

  • Giggling in my Corn Patch!

    Good Morning from a sunny, cool Knolltop.

    Every morning when I get up to post the news for Dairy Agenda Today at 3 am, I have my office window open and it’s fun to hear the night sounds. Sometimes I hear a cat walking through the bushes, other times I”ve looked out and under the mercury light I’ve seen a skunk scurrying around the yard, but the last two mornings I’ve heard a nightmare outside! Nightmare in the corn patch!
    While everything else is really quiet, I have heard the squeeky sound of corn being shucked. Now I know that as dedicated as my children are to making sure we have enough food for winter, I’m pretty sure they’ve been asleep in their beds and that the shucking culprits are those BLASTED COONS! As I sit there at my computer I can hear them knocking down the corn stalk, pulling off the husks and while I can’t hear it, I can imagine their giggling faces as they munch on my just ripened sweetcorn!

    Tomorrow morning I’m going to put out a coke and fly bait buffet and let them enjoy some sweet tonic! We’ll just see who’s giggling tomorrow morning!

    Monday was a treat as I was on Rural Route Radio with Trent and Kyle. That is always a bunch of fun. And Kyle was kind enough to send a picture or two of his trip to Ft Worth for a Ag Media summit. Looks like these business trips can be real grueling.

  • JW is doing well!

    Good Afternoon from a sunny Knolltop.

    This is an odd time for me to be posting, but I had to since I’ve been so bad at posting lately.

    First of all, thank you so much for praying for JW but don’t stop now! He just called from his mission trip in KY and he said he is having a great time! YEEHAW!!! It is such a relief to hear that. When he left I wondered if he was going to have a rotten time or a great time, but I also know JW and I knew he always has a good time wherever he goes!

    Just wanted to give you an update. Gotta go milk!

  • Missed YOU!

    Shame, shame, shame on me for neglecting this blog! It was a busy week for Dairy Agenda Today, so that’s my excuse.

    It’s a beautiful day here on the Knolltop! Yesterday was a monumental day around here…it was JW’s 18th birthday! And he wasn’t even here to celebrate! We shipped him off to boot camp. No, just kidding, but he is gone, he left for Kentucky on a week long mission trip. He got up when we were headed to the barn, had all of his bags packed and left for the church. I’ve never sent my kid on a mission trip and I was a little worried. But I am sure he is going to have a great time, but please, keep him in your prayers!

    We celebrated his big day the day before with cake, ice cream and presents. He received three of those musical cards. I figured it up, that’s about $15.00 worth of birthday cards! What were we thinking???? He could’ve used that money for gas in his truck! Makes you think about the silly novelties we spend our money on, doesn’t it?

    It’s quiet around here, Jake is gone. JOKE! Really, with JW gone and Jake at a friends house, Sarah and Luke are relaxing and I think enjoying some down time. I’m posting the results of the Ohio Holstein show online as it happens and so right now I’m in between classes…they are just about to announce the champion.

    Better go and get that done so I can get a nap!

    I promise to be better this week about posting…oh the guilt and shame of it all!

  • Sarah the Jam maker

    Good Morning from a cloudy kind of rainy knolltop!

    I’ve got writing to do, so I will make this quick, but yesterday Sarah and I were busy most of the day making jam. It was Sarah’s first stab at the process and she did a great job! She made a batch of strawberry and a batch of blueberry. She will enter her jams in the fair this year, so we have two more kinds to make.

    She wasn’t to excited when I told her what we were going to do, but then after she took over and I just watched she enjoyed the whole process. We made cooked jam, just like my mom used to do. And this morning I had the skimmings of the Strawberry jam on a roll and I told everyone else we coudn’t touch the jam until the snow flies!

    I was most impressed with the fact that the fruit in the jam is evenly spread throughout the jar, this has never happened to me, it always floats to the top. I guess Sarah has the secret touch!

    The little homemaker then made a blueberry crisp for dessert and finished up the homemade rolls for dinner. She was my slave in the kitchen for sure yesterday. Today she is no where to be found!

    Off to write!

  • Mooing at midnight

    It’s a cool, clear, breezy morning here on the Knolltop! What a week last week! I’m so glad to have things back to normal. It’s fun to go but it’s so much fun to come back home and settle back in.

    The kids were extremely tired when we got home Friday night, but they still had to unload the trailer and then JW and Luke went and unloaded straw for a few hours Friday night before it rained on Saturday.

    I posted a couple of pictures from last week and I will post a few more today for fun.

    It was so funny this morning, when I got up and posted the news on Dairy Agenda Today, like always, I finished, made the coffee and went back into bed to drink coffee and eat my toast before we head out to the barn. When I finished my coffee I heard a cow that was way too close to be in the pasture! So we jumped out of bed, got our clothes on and looked outside only to see Melinda in the middle of the road looking at the house mooing as if to say “WAKE UP!”

    I got my boots on, went outside and by this time she was in the front yard, facing the bedroom mooing again! I just told her to head back to the barn and I would let her in. She went down, patiently waited for me to go into the barn through the milkhouse, walk around and open the door where she was waiting for me. I let her in, she walked straight to her stall and began drinking. Ah ha! She had been out all night and hadn’t had anything to drink!

    As I went to tie her up, I heard more rumblings from where I shouldn’t have heard rumblings from. And as I toured the yard I found three more renegades waiting at three different doors waiting to get into the barn! What a hoot!

    Well, it’s time to get back to work!