Rural Life Still Suits Me {Random Ramblings)

Even with a portion of the road closed leading to our house, even though FedEx, after 5 attempts, still can't figure out how to get to our house (yeah, it's a real head-scratcher -- our UPS driver figured it out ALL ON HER OWN.... FedEx even has the advantage of our given directions, twice now ... DUH) ... and yes, even though I am still working two jobs..... I STILL LOVE OUR RURAL EXISTENCE!

Obviously though, my two jobs do not suit my blog.  :-\  I can't believe I have not posted during the month of March at all.  Terrible, huh?

So what's new with Oz Girl?  

Well, I did manage to take some well-deserved time off work and go to Ohio to visit family.  Leah is growing by leaps and bounds - her little 9-month old self is sure different from last September when I visited and she was only 3 months old! It was so much fun to spend the time with her, my son and my daughter-in-law.  It would be grand if they would move to Kansas, but I know that will probably never happen.  :-(

I was very fortunate to have great driving weather to and from Ohio... sunny days.  Hallelujah!  The drive back was a bit windy and tossed the car around, but I really cannot complain - at least it wasn't snowing!

The guineas are now up to 2 eggs a day, almost every day.  We still haven't added chickens to the coop, but plan to get some chicks in the coming weeks.  Honestly, with only 2 guinea eggs daily, which are smaller than chicken eggs, I'm having a hard time using them.  

This morning I searched for a good egg souffle recipe.  I ended up adjusting a recipe I found by adding asiago cheese, a bit of cheddar and some canadian bacon.  I was pleasantly surprised when my individual souffles (4) turned out scrumptious.  Perhaps the next time I make them I will take piccies and include my recipe in a blog post.

I guess I'll be searching for more ways to use eggs, aside from just selling them at some point.  I remember seeing an email from Community Chickens several months ago which had an article on how to use up surplus eggs -- I'll have to dig into my email and find that one.

Our garden is doubling in size this year and we will triple it next year.  Hubby has already tilled a new plot in addition to last year's plot - our tax refund money bought us a rototiller this year.  Woohoo!  In our old plot, I planted lettuce and spinach last week - as soon as our cold snap passes (hi's in the 30s today), I'm going to plant a row of green onions.  Today I'm going to start some spearmint seeds on our enclosed back porch. 

I have big plans this year -- lavender plants are already on order and scheduled to arrive end of April.  I'm going to plant more roma tomato plants - those roma tomatoes provided us with some delicious tomato sauce last year.

We're going to start a small orchard by buying two apple trees this year.  Each year we will add approximately two more trees.

I've been reading more about beekeeping - ever since I moved out here in 2008, I've been interested in having our own beehives.  I'm thinking maybe next spring we will start our first hive.

The last few weeks my sleep continues to be interrupted at night - it seems my brain is always thinking up new ideas for our small plot of land here.  I did manage to come up with a new name that I like a lot -- Flyspeck Farm.  So appropriate, given our 27 acres!  I've already bought the domain name and hope to use the new name by next year.  If I ever have the opportunity to start a small CSA (community supported agriculture), this will be the name of our farm.

So much for my random ramblings which I'm sure appear to have no sense of direction.  I just wanted to drop a post here so everyone knows that Oz Girl is still alive and kicking, even if she is tired and harried....  my blog will never go away.  I may be absent much of 2011, but I aim to be back in full force by 2012.  :-)

Let me close with a photo of a storm we had last Thursday night, my first full day back in Kansas upon returning from Ohio.  After 3 years of Kansas skies, I'm amazed when I still see something new above me that I've never witnessed before!  This storm was characterized by bizarre skies, wind, lightning, and hail.  Luckily, no tornado warnings this time.

Straight out of the camera.  No manipulation, I swear!

2008 Revisited

2008 ... the summer I moved from Akron, Ohio to the Kansas Oklahoma border.  These are some of my favorite photos from my early days here on the prairie. These photos were taken with my old Fujifilm Finepix camera, before I received my Nikon in December 2008.  :-)

 blue skies with fluffy clouds... famous in Kansas!

lone winter tree by pond

Ringo our chocolate lab and the late Boogie

a cicada sheds its outer skin

barn swallows enjoy front porch livin'

even Ringo prefers the front porch

Ringo and Boogie chillin' together

sunflowers... a welcome sight in Kansas

a slimmer, trimmer Ringo

(mom has him on a diet plan now)

clouds cast shadows over a pasture

old pasture gate, wiped out by 2009 pasture fire

just the first of many beautiful sunsets

In a Word

pastoral

alone

simplicity

golden

home

"There's No Place Like Home"

I must say I definitely felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz today ... first as the jet circled over the flat but beautiful-to-me Kansas plains, and then again as I drove down our gravel lane with my car windows down, a gentle afternoon breeze blowing across the prairie grass.

It's always nice to go home and visit family, but these days, it's even better to come back home to the quiet of the countryscape around me... and the momentary pandemonium of 3 dogs who are ecstatic to see me!

 

Forecast: Sunny and 58, then Snowy and 20

Sunny and 58 ... our Wednesday weather...

Enlarge this one... the meadowlarks are plentiful out here!

... snowy and 20 degrees is our today {Friday} weather!

This is the same photo as above, except with lots of snow!

Ringo and I both kept blinking our eyes against the flying snow!

Don't let Ringo fool ya, he loves the snow!

Inquiring Minds Ask: Aren't You Bored Out There in the Country??

Never!!

This afternoon I made a Boston Cream Pie, one of my favorites, something I haven't made in a few years. I hope it lives up to my expectations! I usually just use vanilla pudding for the cream filling, but I didn't have any boxes in my pantry, so I made my own from scratch... TWICE. The first recipe didn't thicken up adequately, so I had to make it again. 4 eggs and 3 cups of milk later, I'm sure I would have saved a few cents if I had just used a box of vanilla pudding!

Yesterday, I finished my fall arrangement for our back porch deck. I bought 2 mums, a few pansies, and one ornamental kale, plus a pumpkin. Then I went across our lane to cut down some grasses and wild sunflowers for my dried arrangement behind the pots, plus I gathered a few pieces of limestone for more visual interest. And how do you like my lil cowboy roper metal art?

Sunday evening we saddled ole Murphy up with my new saddle and I got a few riding lessons from the hubby - sorry, we didn't have the camera, so no pics! Then he jumped up on Murphy and showed me some of the fancy stuff that he and Murphy used to do years ago. That was fun -- Murphy will even stand still while hubby runs and jumps up on him from behind!

He's 25 years old (Murphy, not hubby) and we've been feeding him Purina Strategy the last few months -- boy does that feed make a huge difference! He is so sleek and trim and muscled. We just switched him last week to Purina Equine Senior, and it will give him even more nutrients than the Strategy feed, so he can only look and feel better.

Stormy went to a trainer for the next month, so she can be finished to be a good header horse (team roping) for Tom. It was sad to leave her there yesterday; that girl's been on pasture all summer, so she's had a real easy life lately, and she's a bit overweight. I'm sure she's going to think she's gone to hell when the trainer starts working her - isn't that how we feel when we first start to exercise?!

This morning I put Kilz on the OSB board on the inside of Stormy's new shelter; this took a few hours, as the OSB board really soaked it up. On the outside of the shelter, hubby scraped sticky residue off the metal - he made the shelter with scrap he had on hand, so right now it's different colors. Once we get the sticky edges all cleaned up, and he finishes caulking a few corners, I'll be painting the outside a light stone color. There will be before and after pics once I get it painted!

Sooo, the answer is NO, I really don't get bored out here, very rarely. There's more to do than there is hours in the day. Even when I'm not working a full-time job, I still don't seem to have enough hours to do everything I want to do.

Prairie Nights

Do click to enlarge!

We may not have an oceanfront view, or even a delightful mountainview... but I adore our wide-open prairieland view!! It's infinitely better than sitting on my former home's front porch in the city, hearing cars roar down my little side street using it as a go-around, or the neighbors across the street yelling profanities at each other... well, you get what I'm saying, don't you?

I love our rural life!

My Newest Middle Name - Sidetracked

Sooooo, this morning I thought I would check out some of my new followers and their blogs. I clicked on my most recent new follower, "Nancy", and was disappointed to see there was no link back to a blog. But my oh my, does she have a long list of country/farm-type blogs that she follows. My guess would be that she either lives in the country or wants to -- badly. I clicked on the first blog she follows, as the name piqued my interest. Back to Basic Living - hey, that's what I've been trying to do for years now!

And so for about an hour I travelled all over this self-sustaining couple's website and blog, devouring how they got started down this road and how it's working out for them 2 years later. What an interesting read!! And it got my wheels to turning - we live on 26 acres and there's no reason why we can't be more self-sustaining than we are. Sure, time is always an issue since we both work (except I'm in-between jobs right now!) We wanted to put in a garden this past spring, but fence work took priority, and there was a TON of fence repairs needed on this property. So, NEXT year, FERSHUR, we are putting in a garden. That, I believe, is the first step to self-sustenance.

I was reminded by her dog food and dog treat post -- I used to home-make my own dog food years ago. Why am I spending all these dollars on organic dog foods for my girls, when I can make my own?? And so this gal has propelled me to get back to my homemade dog food basics. It really is so easy -- I would make a huge batch on Sunday afternoons, keep some fresh in the fridge and freeze additional batches in Glad food containers. I've always made my own dog treats, but I'm going to try to do it with more regularity now.

Someday down the road, I'd really like to have a few chickens. We have the coop already here, although it does need some repairs to one side where hubby burned it (you remember his spring pasture burn?! you can read about it and see pics here)

Bit by bit, piece by piece, I think we'll get there and be better at self-sustaining ourselves. One step at a time, right?!

Ohhh, and I'll get back to checking out my newest followers.... soon. After I stop allowing myself to be sidetracked so easily!

Why I Should NOT Walk to the Mailbox in Slippers

Go ahead, click to enlarge and take a look at his beady eyes!

Sorry, the ole camera didn't have the close-up lens on it, but I think you get the idea. Let's just say that I came so close to stepping on this big ole wolf spider that I jumped a mile high and yelled, to no one in particular since no one is awake out here in the boonies this early in the morn.

The cats were milling about while I tried to snap a few pics, and then Fluff walked right on the freaking spider, which made it curl up and shake its legs (can you say EWWWW??!) and then start running, towards ME of course. I yelled loud enough that even the spider cringed. I kid you not.

See what y'all miss by living in the city??! :-)

I Love Our Little House on the Prairie

Finally, we have finished painting the house! My only regret is that I didn't go two shades darker with the trim paint. You can barely tell that the porch columns and the trim around the windows and on the peaks is darker. Maybe next summer, a darker shade for the trim.... shhhhh, don't tell hubby! Next on the agenda... a new screen door.

BEFORE: The summer of '08, with peeling gray paint
and a purpley trim color. For some odd reason, the porch columns
were a shade of blue ???

BEFORE: You can just barely see the porch foundation (above) - the seams
were not totally concreted and it was never primed or painted.
Note ugly light. We replaced the light - see photo below.

IN PROGRESS: Foundation has been patched between the blocks.
Porch interior has been painted, and new light has been installed.

This evening's stormy sky to the west of us.

I made cupcakes to take to work tomorrow - these are homemade
all the way, batter and frosting! They turned out way too deelish, which
means it's uber hard for me to keep my grubby hands off them. Of course,
I doubled the recipe so there's plenty to leave home for hubby.