It’s a clear breezy morning here on the Knolltop. The humidty has left us for a couple of days…but I’m sure it will be back before long.

I have to attend a Promotion and Education meeting this morning for our county Farm Bureau. I love to brain storm about this kind of thing…it’s the getting right down to doing the stuff isn’t always that fun. And I always want to do something about dairy farming…I don’t always consider the cash crop and other commodities for promotion…I guess as long as our urban friends learn something about agriculture, we’ve accomplished our goal.

JW is off to Green Meadow Farms to judge today, he’s already gone. He had to go without his hat…Sarah’s friend came over last night and took his hat and threw in into the cornfield….they couldn’t find it after about an hour of looking. He said he feels naked without his hat. That’s one thing these young girls need to learn, you don’t touch a man’s hat!

It’s a clear breezy morning here on the Knolltop. The humidty has left us for a couple of days…but I’m sure it will be back before long.

I have to attend a Promotion and Education meeting this morning for our county Farm Bureau. I love to brain storm about this kind of thing…it’s the getting right down to doing the stuff isn’t always that fun. And I always want to do something about dairy farming…I don’t always consider the cash crop and other commodities for promotion…I guess as long as our urban friends learn something about agriculture, we’ve accomplished our goal.

JW is off to Green Meadow Farms to judge today, he’s already gone. He had to go without his hat…Sarah’s friend came over last night and took his hat and threw in into the cornfield….they couldn’t find it after about an hour of looking. He said he feels naked without his hat. That’s one thing these young girls need to learn, you don’t touch a man’s hat!

Good Morning from the Knolltop! It rained another 1.5 inches yesterday and I heard on the radio this morning we’ve had 5 inches so far!

Last night I got such a chuckle out of my two teenage boys. On the back page of the local paper there was a kids section that explained how you can rip a phone book in half. It showed all the mechanics of how to do it explaining that you can do it without using brute strength…just simple physics.

Of course I showed it to my boys who I knew would immediately go for an old phonebook and begin a ripping rampage. And they did. Luke worked and and worked and worked at it…we read the instructions…then tried to rip…I read…he tried to rip….we just couldn’t get it done. Then we went out and saw JW trying to rip it too. He had the same luck as Luke and then he came in and flexed his muscles showing us the phonebook ripped to shreds

We were amazed…and then asked how’d you do it…a big grin came across his face and then he began to tell us…he said, “Well, first you bend it like this and then you go out of mom’s view and just start ripping the pages one by one….” Laughter erupted as the three of us just bent over and giggled and giggled!

I’m telling you…these teenagers can be scary one minute and absolutely hilarious the next….Praise Jesus for the laughter!

The coffee is done, I’ve got a story to write and then I’m going to spend the rest of the day getting the yard back in shape!

Good Morning from the Knolltop! It rained another 1.5 inches yesterday and I heard on the radio this morning we’ve had 5 inches so far!

Last night I got such a chuckle out of my two teenage boys. On the back page of the local paper there was a kids section that explained how you can rip a phone book in half. It showed all the mechanics of how to do it explaining that you can do it without using brute strength…just simple physics.

Of course I showed it to my boys who I knew would immediately go for an old phonebook and begin a ripping rampage. And they did. Luke worked and and worked and worked at it…we read the instructions…then tried to rip…I read…he tried to rip….we just couldn’t get it done. Then we went out and saw JW trying to rip it too. He had the same luck as Luke and then he came in and flexed his muscles showing us the phonebook ripped to shreds

We were amazed…and then asked how’d you do it…a big grin came across his face and then he began to tell us…he said, “Well, first you bend it like this and then you go out of mom’s view and just start ripping the pages one by one….” Laughter erupted as the three of us just bent over and giggled and giggled!

I’m telling you…these teenagers can be scary one minute and absolutely hilarious the next….Praise Jesus for the laughter!

The coffee is done, I’ve got a story to write and then I’m going to spend the rest of the day getting the yard back in shape!

And the rain just keeps coming. It was a slow day on the farming scene this morning since the rain has hit and we can’t even get to our yards to mow them! So in the front door came Mr. K. the neighboring farmer and employer of the boys when they aren’t working here…with two boxes of donuts from the local bakery!

Oh my what a welcome sight. The yogurt and bran flakes went back to the kitchen and I bellied up to the table to consume some powerful fat and sugar…and oh how good it tasted with my hot coffee!

As far as I’m concerned that’s how every day should start. You just can’t get much better than hot coffee and warm sweetrolls. Yes, I have my grandmother’s sweet tooth…she was known to go through a day on coffee with two or three, sometimes four tablespoons of sugar, a few homemade cookies and a stale donut or two. She lived into her mid ninties, so I guess I’m well on my way to a ripe old age myself!

And the rain just keeps coming. It was a slow day on the farming scene this morning since the rain has hit and we can’t even get to our yards to mow them! So in the front door came Mr. K. the neighboring farmer and employer of the boys when they aren’t working here…with two boxes of donuts from the local bakery!

Oh my what a welcome sight. The yogurt and bran flakes went back to the kitchen and I bellied up to the table to consume some powerful fat and sugar…and oh how good it tasted with my hot coffee!

As far as I’m concerned that’s how every day should start. You just can’t get much better than hot coffee and warm sweetrolls. Yes, I have my grandmother’s sweet tooth…she was known to go through a day on coffee with two or three, sometimes four tablespoons of sugar, a few homemade cookies and a stale donut or two. She lived into her mid ninties, so I guess I’m well on my way to a ripe old age myself!

I was listening to Rural Route Radio this week, yes, I know it’s a bad habit that I’ve picked up…I go to the computer….I think, I’ll just see what their topic is for the day…and then I’m caught in the Rural Route Web and I can’t escape….my children then start to holler…”Why do you have to have the computer so loud….who’s on there…..that Trent Loos guy again?” I reply, “Yes, and I have to have it that loud so I can listen while I clean the house and fold the laundry!” So beware…if you begin to listen it will become a habit and then you’ll have Trent and Kyle discussing the pressing ag issues of the day in your house while you clean or fold or dust or vacuum or whatever else you do in the privacy of your own home….:)

Anyway…boy was that a diatribe or what?

On Monday, Trent, Kyle and Hank were again, discussing the difficulties of young people breaking into farming. Of course it stirred up a lot of thoughts on the subject.

While I’d like to think that young men and women who say they want to farm are willing to put in the sweat and debt to get there, I am now wondering if they will do just about anything to farm, like they claim. Or are they donning rose colored glasses thinking of farming as a romantic lifestlyle. This lasts until they see how much debt they have to go into, how much sweat they have to produce for a pittance. AND if they have to relocate, are their spouses willing to follow them?

From inside the factory, farming looks grand as they watch the local crop farmer meet his buddies at the coffee shop every other morning or drive around in brand new pick up trucks, or head to the local tractor show with his newly restored John Deere B. Or when they see how much equipment they own without seeing the payment book. Or when they look at the century old farmhouse all decorated up with a spouse inside cooking a hearty meal with a smile on her face. No, they don’t see what’s behind the pastoral scene: the sleepless nights, the broken fingers, the dead animals, the broken tractors, the overdue notes and the aged face that is 20 years older than it should be.

As I look at what I just wrote, I wonder to myself why every morning and every night I head out to a hot barn full of hot cows to sweat like construction worker for not enough money to pay my bills at the end of the month. Why do I do it? I think it’s simply what’s in you…just like Hank Vogler says, that wonderful mutant gene that we have and can’t amputate. It’s in your blood that no blood transfusion can take care of. Part of it is that you just have it or you don’t….the other part is the support you receive from you parents and peers and then consequently from your spouse.

The sky is the limit for a man with a good mom, OR wife behind him…supporting him, respecting him and loving him.

I was listening to Rural Route Radio this week, yes, I know it’s a bad habit that I’ve picked up…I go to the computer….I think, I’ll just see what their topic is for the day…and then I’m caught in the Rural Route Web and I can’t escape….my children then start to holler…”Why do you have to have the computer so loud….who’s on there…..that Trent Loos guy again?” I reply, “Yes, and I have to have it that loud so I can listen while I clean the house and fold the laundry!” So beware…if you begin to listen it will become a habit and then you’ll have Trent and Kyle discussing the pressing ag issues of the day in your house while you clean or fold or dust or vacuum or whatever else you do in the privacy of your own home….:)

Anyway…boy was that a diatribe or what?

On Monday, Trent, Kyle and Hank were again, discussing the difficulties of young people breaking into farming. Of course it stirred up a lot of thoughts on the subject.

While I’d like to think that young men and women who say they want to farm are willing to put in the sweat and debt to get there, I am now wondering if they will do just about anything to farm, like they claim. Or are they donning rose colored glasses thinking of farming as a romantic lifestlyle. This lasts until they see how much debt they have to go into, how much sweat they have to produce for a pittance. AND if they have to relocate, are their spouses willing to follow them?

From inside the factory, farming looks grand as they watch the local crop farmer meet his buddies at the coffee shop every other morning or drive around in brand new pick up trucks, or head to the local tractor show with his newly restored John Deere B. Or when they see how much equipment they own without seeing the payment book. Or when they look at the century old farmhouse all decorated up with a spouse inside cooking a hearty meal with a smile on her face. No, they don’t see what’s behind the pastoral scene: the sleepless nights, the broken fingers, the dead animals, the broken tractors, the overdue notes and the aged face that is 20 years older than it should be.

As I look at what I just wrote, I wonder to myself why every morning and every night I head out to a hot barn full of hot cows to sweat like construction worker for not enough money to pay my bills at the end of the month. Why do I do it? I think it’s simply what’s in you…just like Hank Vogler says, that wonderful mutant gene that we have and can’t amputate. It’s in your blood that no blood transfusion can take care of. Part of it is that you just have it or you don’t….the other part is the support you receive from you parents and peers and then consequently from your spouse.

The sky is the limit for a man with a good mom, OR wife behind him…supporting him, respecting him and loving him.

I just got off the phone with a neighbor and he said we had three inches of rain since Sunday. Of course we have no rain gauge. Not because we haven’t had one in the past, we have….several. You see my dad used to have an insurance business and he used to have lots of things he gave away as advertising…Pens (that were really fine pointed and I didn’t care for), plastic mugs, calendars (those were a big hit, they covered an entire wall and the numbers were huge so you could be at your neighbors and still see what day it was…just a joke dad!), calculators and of course rain gauges for the farmer in all of us. I think he still has 1756 of them left in his machine shed, don’t even get me started on his collection of army surplus items…boy dad is gettin‘ it this morning! He’s a good sport….I’m sure he’ll leave us a comment or two after this!

Anyway, he has given us several rain gauges and for some reason the kids(boys) find them fascinating and feel the need to look touch and break every one of them. We just can’t find a post high enough to put it on and still be able to read it! So we have to rely on the neighborhood farmers for our readings.

Last evening after chores, Jake and his friend Thomas from Knolltop Morgans, up the road, just couldn’t resist this big mud puddle. While I tried to get my camera quick enough to shoot some action shots, I wasn’t able to do so. Let’s just say they were soaked from head to toe and had to strip down before they entered any house!

After the fun was all done and Thomas got in my van to go home, he said in a meek voice, “I hope my mom understands.” I assured him I would stand in the gap for him and that she would understand the raising of boys and how that brings so many adventures that us girls really don’t understand, but we learn to tolerate.

I just got off the phone with a neighbor and he said we had three inches of rain since Sunday. Of course we have no rain gauge. Not because we haven’t had one in the past, we have….several. You see my dad used to have an insurance business and he used to have lots of things he gave away as advertising…Pens (that were really fine pointed and I didn’t care for), plastic mugs, calendars (those were a big hit, they covered an entire wall and the numbers were huge so you could be at your neighbors and still see what day it was…just a joke dad!), calculators and of course rain gauges for the farmer in all of us. I think he still has 1756 of them left in his machine shed, don’t even get me started on his collection of army surplus items…boy dad is gettin‘ it this morning! He’s a good sport….I’m sure he’ll leave us a comment or two after this!

Anyway, he has given us several rain gauges and for some reason the kids(boys) find them fascinating and feel the need to look touch and break every one of them. We just can’t find a post high enough to put it on and still be able to read it! So we have to rely on the neighborhood farmers for our readings.

Last evening after chores, Jake and his friend Thomas from Knolltop Morgans, up the road, just couldn’t resist this big mud puddle. While I tried to get my camera quick enough to shoot some action shots, I wasn’t able to do so. Let’s just say they were soaked from head to toe and had to strip down before they entered any house!

After the fun was all done and Thomas got in my van to go home, he said in a meek voice, “I hope my mom understands.” I assured him I would stand in the gap for him and that she would understand the raising of boys and how that brings so many adventures that us girls really don’t understand, but we learn to tolerate.