Sun Rises on the Stafford County Fair!

Sunrise - July 15, 2014

The day is dawning on the 2014 edition of the Stafford County Fair. The 4-H foods judging starts at 9 AM, so I'll be out the door soon to make sure I have everything ready to go.

I took this photo yesterday morning around 6 AM, and I printed it around 6 PM to enter in a calendar contest in open class. Once a fair exhibitor, always a fair exhibitor, I guess.

Good luck to all the 4-Hers! And, as the season of county fairs revs up across Kansas, thanks to the county agents, fair board volunteers, 4-H leaders and the parents who help "make the best better" as they build community leaders through the 4-H program.

It's worth the investment.

Wild at Heart: Sunflower Version

Sometimes, you just have to STOP and appreciate the little things in life.

Like sunflowers.

A couple weeks ago, Kansas wildflowers was the subject for Snapshot Kansas, a Facebook photography group I'm in. Each week, there's a new photo challenge to try.

In the hustle and bustle of harvest, I didn't get many posted to the Facebook page, though the one above was a favorite that got lots of "likes."

Whether the sunflowers are in full bloom ...

or the beauty is just beginning to unfold ...

I appreciate the splashes of "sunshine" along the ditches as I head toward home.

I just need to open my eyes - like the sunflowers have!

Yesterday, I gave equal time to the non-sunflower wildflowers. Click here to see those favorites from my files.

Wild at Heart: Snapshot Kansas

It's easy to overlook the beauty in everyday life. If I just glance down the Zenith Road as I turn the corner toward home, it's a pretty-enough rural landscape. The road seems to stretch into the infinity as dirt road meets blue sky.

But, look a little closer, and the blue of the sky seems to have spilled over onto tiny erect day flowers, like an artist's palette has made dollops of blue in the ditches that line our country road.

Look even closer and each yellow center forms its own sun.

A couple of weeks ago, the Snapshot Kansas photography challenge was Kansas wildflowers. I was so busy with  wheat harvest that I didn't post many of my wildflower favorites.

But, I didn't have to dig very hard to come up with some of my favorite shots. In fact, I had so many that I'll feature a sunflower-themed post later. 

I may not be a gardener.

Thankfully, God is.

 

And I'm glad to recognize His handiwork.

 

I may not always know the name of the flower ...

or the weed, as the case may be.

Just like we humans, the wildflowers are designed to bloom where they are planted ...

or where they are scattered.

There's probably a lesson for us in that, too.

Front-Row Seats

We didn't want to get kicked out of Century II, so I didn't turn my camera flash on. Since it was intermission, it probably would have been all right. But, we weren't exactly incognito there on the front row.

Yes, the front row!

So, we may be in the dark, but here's our proof of a little culture for the farm folk! (I look better in photos in the dark anyway!) For my birthday, Randy got me tickets to Music Theatre of Wichita's production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat."

I promise I was good and kept my camera in my purse for the production. I pulled the production photos from The Wichita Eagle's website this morning.

Photo from The Wichita Eagle by Christopher Clark

The voices were amazing, especially Darcie Roberts as The Narrator (left) and Ian Patrick Gibb as Joseph (middle).

Photo from The Wichita Eagle by Christopher Clark

It's not a musical from which I knew all the songs before I went, but I still might have been singing "Go, Go, Go, Joseph" as we left the building.

Someone who hadn't left the building? Elvis. Pharoah (played by Ryan Vasquez) was the Egyptian version of Elvis in his '50s-style rendition of "It's Good To Be King." It was just one of many instances for a little comic relief.

My date thought he was going to have to stay home to bale hay. But with our 2.5" of rain, he was able to go. I found it rather ironic that the plot (based on the story in Genesis) has farmers, drought and crop abundance as central themes.

See? It was a musical for a couple of farm folk!

Interruption or Opportunity?

Sometimes, a ringing phone is an interruption to the evening. But sometimes, it's an opportunity.

Randy was on the tractor Monday night and called me.

"The sky is really unusual," he told me.

I looked out the window and didn't see a thing. We are pretty sheltered at the house with trees on all sides. But, he's never steered me wrong, so I drove down the road.

He was right. Though I couldn't capture it with my camera, the fireflies were competing with lightening flashes in the sky to the northwest. We didn't get the storm - just the light show.

Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory
    in the heavens.

Psalm 8: 1

A postscript:  We missed the bulk of the storm Monday night, but we got 2.20" of rain last night, and it's still raining. We have a bunch of hay swathed and curing. Randy tried to bale last night, but it was too wet.  And maybe we won't get to those mud holes in the wheat fields this year. Best laid plans ...

On the other hand, I'm sure the corn will drink up this latest round of rain. There's always a silver lining - and sometimes it's in the western sky.

Good-Natured Ribbing

The 4th of July was more wheat harvest than fireworks in our part of the world. But even though we didn't gather at a lake for a cookout, I still wanted to share a little taste of the holiday with the harvest crew.

So, I made BBQ Ribs for the first time. This was an easy recipe from one of my favorite food bloggers, Kristen at Iowa Girl Eats. (Jill's father-in-law Alan shared her blog address with me and Jill. I've been Kristen's own Pied Piper in Kansas, though she doesn't know it. I've hooked at least one of my foodie friends on IGE, too!)

I'll be honest:  I'm not a huge ribs fan. Randy and Brent really like them, but Jill and I would pass on them and choose a less-fatty protein. But, after I saw the recipe, I also saw that my local grocery store had ribs on sale for the 4th. I decided it was meant to be!

The original recipe used baby back ribs, but spare ribs were on sale at Paul's Grocery. So I just added cooking time and increased the amount of spice rub. I was a little worried they wouldn't be tender as I calculated cooking time, but they were fall-off-the-bone good by the time I dished them up.  I served the ribs with other picnic-reminiscent side dishes, Sweet and Sour Beans and our favorite Macaroni Salad, along with green grapes for color.

They will definitely make a repeat performance when ribs go on sale again.

Oven-Baked BBQ Ribs

Adapted from Iowa Girl Eats

2 to 2.5 lbs. baby back ribs
1/4 - 1/3 cup of your favorite BBQ sauce

Spice rub:
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. smoked paprika
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

Mix spices together in a small bowl, then rub into both sides of the ribs. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 250 degrees, then line a baking sheet with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Place ribs on top, then cover tightly with more foil. Bake for 3 1/2 hours. Remove foil; drain any excess liquid from the pan, and brush BBQ sauce on top. Bake for 30 more minutes until top is slightly caramelized. If using a larger rack of ribs, add 30 minutes baking time per pound past 2.5 pounds.

NOTES:

• I used 5.32-pounds of pork spare ribs because that's what was on sale. I doubled the spice rub recipe. Because I wanted to serve the ribs at noon, I baked the ribs for 5 hours at 300 degrees, then put the BBQ sauce on top and baked for an additional 30 minutes. 
• We like Curly's BBQ sauce, but use your favorite. 

 Today, I'm linked to Wake Up Wednesdays. Click on the link for more tried and true recipes.

Ya Got Trouble

This photo encapsulates the problems of Wheat Harvest 2014: mechanical issues, mud and weeds. But it's a pretty sky, right?

There's a song in the musical, The Music Man, called "Ya Got Trouble."

Ya got trouble,
Right here in River City!
With a capital "T"
And that rhymes with "P"

In the musical, the "P" stands for "pool." A shyster band instrument salesman is attempting to line his pockets when he tells mothers that the boys of River City are frittering away their time in the billards hall instead of striking up a band. That's not what any self-respecting mother wants to hear, so, of course, they line up to purchase instruments from the con man.

(My brother was The Music Man in Pratt High School's version of the musical years ago. I was only a little bit jealous that he got to star in one of the world's favorite musicals, when I don't even remember the name of my junior-class play. I do remember my famous line, "Oh woe is me! Oh lack-a-day!" Yeah, that's kind of how I feel about The Music Man vs. the I-can't-remember-the-play-for-the-life-of-me play.)

ANYWAY, as I stood at the corner south of our house on Saturday, the sound track of my mind played that song, even if I couldn't remember all the words until I pulled it up on YouTube.

The truck was nearly blocking the east-west road, with its tail-end perched in the weedy ditch.  It was dead, no matter how much ether Randy sprayed into it while I turned the key and pumped the gas and prayed that it wouldn't blow up.

I volunteered to stay with the truck while he went to grab some tools. Randy looked at me and said, "I think they'll see it."

 "T" definitely has stood for "trouble" during Wheat Harvest 2014. But I substituted "problems" for the "pool" for my letter "P" in my personal soundtrack version of the song by Meredith Wilson. 

No matter what Randy tried, he couldn't get the truck started. And while there's not a lot of traffic on our road, we did need to get it out of the way. We tried using the pickup at first, but the ground was too soft for it to get traction. The combine successfully pulled the truck back into the field. It's still sitting in the field with a load of wheat on it. Thankfully, it's wheat from ground we own, not some we share with a landlord. 

The truck problems were just the latest in a hit parade of headaches for Harvest 2014.

Yesterday, as Randy was trying to finish up in a field that had been too muddy on Saturday, the combine's air conditioner went out. He toughed it out, but ended up sweltering in a closed cab on the 100-degree afternoon. He got half of it cut, but the rest was still too muddy.

Water and weeds have been two challenges for this year's crop. Ironically, we didn't get enough rain during the growing season. However, once harvest started, we kept getting rains that kept us out of the field for more than a week.

Because the wheat was so sparse, the rain also gave a boost to weeds. We weren't the only ones who ended up leaving some wheat behind in weeds, especially by the edges of the fields. (We did spray a few fields for weeds. However, that's an additional expense for a less-than-bumper crop. And you have to wait a week after spraying to harvest.)

Last year, we had the best harvest we'd ever had, despite planting into dust and several late freezes. For harvest 2013, our overall yield average was 52.7 bushels per acre. Our highest yielding field was 76 bushels per acre, and our lowest was 32 bushels per acre on ground that is primarily used for hunting by the landlord.

For Wheat Harvest 2014, our best wheat made 35 bushels per acre, and that was on summer-fallowed ground. The lowest yield was 8.5 bushels per acre, again on that less productive ground.

We started harvest on June 17. For all intents and purposes, we got done on July 7, nearly three weeks after we pulled the combine into the first field. That may be the longest marathon for wheat harvest in our 33 years of farming together.

A farmer is an eternal optimist, though that may be hard to remember when the truck is blocking the road or the combine is blowing only hot air into the cab. When it's time to plant wheat in September, Randy will pull into each field, hoping and praying for the best. And we'll see what Wheat Harvest 2015 will bring.

And the guys are on to swathing and baling hay. With farming, there's always the next thing.