Lessons from a 3 Year Old

Lessons from a 3 Year Old

Life can be scary. Sometimes, just like Kinley, I want to stand on the sidelines, my arms crossed across my body, to protect myself from the unknown. I want to guard myself against the things I don't understand and changes that come despite my inner need for consistency and routine. I like my comfortable little world with its handy to-do list.

Other people seem to glibly run through their own version of a three-ring circus (or four-ring, as the case may be).

It may look like fun, but who knows what scary encounters may be lurking in the mist of the unknown?

It's tempting to reach in and test the water first. (And, sometimes, that's the smartest course of action, too.)

But jumping in with both feet usually has its own rewards.

Sometimes, you're all ready to go. You've planned. You've prepared. You have your helmet in place, just in case.

There are reliable people along your path, just waiting to point the way.

You have good friends with whom to travel.

But you still have to steer to stay on course. (That can sometimes be a problem if you're not looking in the right direction.)

And the unexpected can happen. A pedal falls off your well-oiled plans, and the tools aren't immediately there to fix the problem. 

Thankfully, there are people there to help pick up the load and help out. (Thanks, Grandpa!)

Let's face it: Life can be loud and confusing - like rapid, booming, can't-catch-your-breath between fireworks. On July 3rd, as a quiet suburb sounded more like a shooting range, Kinley covered her own ears, nestled in protective laps and had Mommy or Grandma cover her ears for even more insulation from the cacophony of sound.

But after a prelude of sparklers on July 4th, she joined the rest of us, oohing and ahhing, as the sky lit up with streaking color ... and considerable noise!

"Oh, it's so beautiful," became the evening's go-to phrase.

 

It was a dramatic change of view. Sometimes, you have to embrace your fears with both hands. Sometimes, it just takes a change of attitude. 

Her 10-month-old sister is teaching me things, too. Sometimes, you just have to let go. If you fall, you get back up and try again.

Blurry photo, but it shows she's trying to walk!

Often, there are helping hands just out of view that help us from plunging off into the abyss.

And, it's good there are people around to help give us a push from time to time, too.

Weekend Snapshots

Discovery is always a good thing. So is family. So we combined the two this weekend. After harvest, we decided we'd take Friday and Saturday off before plunging into the next "harvest" on the farm - the second cutting of alfalfa. (Rain in the forecast has delayed that task for the past two days, though we haven't gotten any moisture yet. If we put hay down, it will rain.)

Anyway, our first stop was the Flint Hills Discovery Center in Manhattan. Just for the record, it was not "THE 'scovery Center" in Topeka. (Kinley always tells me I am pronouncing it wrong, and that's my best approximation of her version.) It's hard to compete with the REAL 'scovery Center, which is a learning experience disguised as play.

But we still enjoyed this museum dedicated to the Flint Hills, especially the film, "Tallgrass Prairie: Tides of Time," complete with "smoke," wind and fire.  

Our little cowgirls saddled up.

They also "branded" a steer - in a manner of speaking.

Kinley liked following the train and watching it emerge from the tunnels.

 

Grandpa and Kinley pretended to be prairie dogs.

Jill, Eric, Kinley and Brooke posed for an All-American family portrait on the eve of July 4.

Uncle Brent is as good at avoiding the camera as I am, so I didn't end up with a photo of him. We ate at the new Tallgrass Tap House in downtown Manhattan.

The guys went golfing, and the girls checked out the Manhattan City Park water feature. Well, we watched Kinley check it out!

True to form, she preferred the swings at the nearby playground more than any other feature. I pushed Kinley, and Jill pushed Brooke on the swings.

Photo by Jill

 It appears Brooke likes swinging just as much as her big sister.

 They also had a "photo op" for Grandma on a playground animal.

 

Kinley checked out the "big guy" at the park. Johnny Kaw, a 30-foot-tall pioneer wheat farmer statue, is Manhattan's answer to Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill. Johnny is the brainchild of K-State professor George Filinger whose "tall tale" proclaims that Johnny created the Kansas landscape, geography and pioneer trails. He dug the Kaw River Valley, planted wheat and invented sunflowers. Johnny even controlled the weather, lopping the funnels off tornadoes and wringing out the clouds to end droughts.

Conveniently, Uncle Brent lives near a playground, so we did some more swinging there. After a visit to Varsity Donuts and Powercat Grill, we headed for Topeka for the 4th, where I experienced my first-ever neighborhood parade, complete with fire truck. It was 4th of July Americana at its best. 

Coming soon: More on our 4th of July holiday weekend!

That's All, Folks!: Wheat Stats 2015

It may not be in the Farmers Almanac, but the guys at the coffee shop will proclaim it:  Wheat has nine lives.

That was certainly the case for our 2015 wheat crop. When all was said and done, our 2015 wheat crop averaged 50 bushels per acre. Our high was 70 bushels per acre, and our low was 36 bushels per acre.

We began planting the 2015 crop on Monday, September 22, 2014, and sowed 1,355 acres. We had a dry fall and little snow this winter, leaving the wheat looking for moisture this spring as it "woke" from its winter "sleep." As I wrote in April, it was "height-challenged" because of dry conditions, and, at that time, we didn't think the late spring rain would make a difference. But it did. More rains in May helped fill the wheat heads.

This year, we started harvest on June 20, and, after some machinery hiccups, had a good run. We got rain and didn't cut at all on June 26. When the end was in sight, our combine went down. Thankfully, our neighbor, Gary, was able to harvest the last 40 acres for us with his machine, and the last loads of wheat went over the Kanza Co-op scales on July 1.

We also had a custom cutter harvest 355 acres north of Stafford, and we didn't have the numbers from him until yesterday. Then, Randy was finally able to figure the statistics of Wheat Harvest 2015.

So how does our 50 bushels per acre average this year stack up? Last year, Harvest 2014, was not a good year, and we averaged 24.5 bushels per acre. Our best year ever was 2013, when we averaged 52 bushels per acre, despite planting into dust and several late freezes.

As the sun sets on our 2015 crop, we're thankful for God's blessing of a bountiful harvest. And, in late September, the journey will begin again with planting the 2016 crop. Such is the circle of life on a Kansas farm.

Simple Stories of American Living

I thought it was time for a rerun of this blog post from 2011. A wrap-up of our 2015 wheat harvest, which we finished on Wednesday afternoon (YAY!) is coming next week. Happy 4th to all!

One of the treasures I found at my Grandma and Grandpa Neelly's house was a little book called We Love America: Simple Stories of American Living.

This isn't a book I remember my Grandma reading to us, but I loved the illustrations so I brought it home anyway.
On the inside cover, it says:

Janis Neelly from Your Sunday School Teacher

It's Grandma Neelly's handwriting, so it was really to my mom from her mom masquerading as her Sunday School teacher. (We moms are always wearing multiple hats, aren't we?)

This book has joined my other patriotic decorations from Flag Day to the 4th of July (and probably beyond, since there's not another holiday coming up right away).

Instead of it just sitting there and looking pretty, I picked it up the other day. And it truly does reflect simpler times, a time when it was cool to be patriotic.
The book "visits" different children and tells about their homes - everything from the "big city" to an "Indian pueblo."

It tells about life on the farm (you can click on the photos and they'll come up bigger so you can read the text):
And life on a ranch:

Things on the farm and the ranch are a little different these days. Hayrack rides are something we do at fall celebrations, not to bring the hay in. Around here, the cattle are rounded up with 4-wheelers, not horses.

Leisure time is spent differently also:
Kids today are much more likely to listen to their ipods instead of a radio or "watch" their music on MTV or CMT or youtube. Having a taffy pull or making candy from scratch is something a few of us may do at Christmas time, but it's not on most people's radar for "family fun."

And while the illustrations and the words make me nostalgic and cause me to reflect on days gone by, I love the ability to type the book's copyright "MCMXLI" into a search engine on the internet and discover it was 1941. (Yes, I could have searched the inner recesses of my mind for the Roman numeral knowledge I had in elementary school, but this was easier - and faster.)

As we celebrate the 4th of July today, it wouldn't hurt to take this sentiment to heart:

Happy 4th of July everyone!

Fireworks Pudding Cookies

The recipe for Fireworks Cookies called for red, white and blue M&Ms. I couldn't find such patriotic candies. But then I got to thinking: They are called "fireworks" cookies. And fireworks aren't limited to red, white and blue. I am declaring my independence from seasonal M&Ms because they just don't bring them to my small town grocery store or to the Mercantile.

And, by the way, it works just fine with regular old M&Ms. It's even better with the mini version because you spread out the chocolatey fun.

I did happen to have red, white and blue sprinkles in my cabinet, so I made the nod to the 4th, even though they were really going into harvest suppers and welcoming our new pastor and family to our community.

The different ingredient is instant pudding mix. I hadn't made cookies with pudding mix before, but there seems to be a plethora of varieties if my friend, Google, is to be believed.

Happy 4th! Happy Fireworks!

Fireworks Pudding Cookies

Adapted from Crazy for Crust blog

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 boxes (3.4 oz. size) INSTANT vanilla pudding mix (left dry)
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup red and blue sprinkles
1 bag patriotic M & Ms (or other M&Ms if not available)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream shortening, butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla, mixing well. Add flour, pudding mix, baking soda and salt, mixing until combined. Stir in sprinkles and M&Ms.

Prepare cookie sheets by spraying with cooking spray or using parchment paper. Using a cookie scoop, arrange 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until edges start to turn brown. Cool 5 minutes on cookie sheet before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely. Store in airtight container. These freeze well.

If you want to celebrate your patriotism with some all-American baking, you can try any of these tried and true recipes from Kim's County Line. They work equally well in the harvest field or at a more typical 4th of July celebration.

No Roll Sugar Cookies

 Star-Spangled Cookies

Macaroons

Clipper Bars

All-American Brownies for a Crowd
(Caveat: I didn't wait until the brownies were completely cool to frost and cut. It didn't affect the taste; just the look!

Red, White and Blueberry Crisp

Hooray for the red, white and blue!

Can  you believe we turn the calendar to July today? I can't. The countdown to the 4th of July has people thinking fireworks and potlucks. And while nothing is more American than apple pie (so they say), this Red, White and Blueberry Crisp will put people in a patriotic mood, too.

The red comes from fresh raspberries and strawberries. The blue comes from succulent blueberries. And the white comes from coconut, a little twist on the traditional crisp topping. South Dakota blogger Brenda put together this salute to summer fruits on her blog, "A farmgirl's dabbles."

I just got my small-town grocery store flyer for the week, and the sale on these fresh berries continues here, as well as at the bigger stores. I love this time of year, when I don't have to feel guilty about adding fresh berries to my grocery cart and bill.

I made this crisp for a harvest dessert yesterday, and it got good reviews from the guys. I like the convenience of a making a crisp instead of a pie, though Randy did get his blueberry pie for Father's Day.

After I made an unexpected parts run to Hutchinson yesterday evening, we are back up and running in the wheat harvest field. If everything holds together - machinery AND people - we should be done sometime today. That's reason to celebrate, too! Fingers crossed everyone!

Red, White and Blue Crisp

Adapted from A Farmgirl's Dabbles blog

Filling
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
1 1/2 cups fresh raspberries
1 1/2 cups fresh chopped strawberries (about 1/2-inch pieces)
1 tsp. lemon juice
1/4 cup sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
1 1/2 tbsp. cornstarch
1 1/2 tbsp. Minute Tapioca

Topping
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup old-fashioned oats
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1 cup coconut

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

For filling:  Put berries in large bowl. Sprinkle with lemon juice and fold gently. In a smaller bowl, combine sugar, lemon zest, cornstarch and tapioca, mixing well. Sprinkle half of the dry mix over the berries and fold gentl. Sprinkle remaining dry mix over berries and fold again. Set aside.

For topping: In a medium bowl, stir together flour, oats, brown sugar, salt and baking powder. Using a pastry blender, cut in butter until the mixture is combined and about the size of large peas. Add coconut, using the pastry cutter to cut it in.

To assemble:  Stir the berry mixture again. Pour it into a 12- by 8- by 2-inch pan and spread evenly. Top with the topping mixture, evenly distributing it over the berries. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until berries are bubbling and the coconut crisp is nicely browned. Remove to wire rack to cool.

The crisp is best when eaten after it has cooled 30-60 minutes so the berry filling is still warm, but the topping is still crisp. Serve with vanilla ice cream, if desired. Serves 8 to 10.

Notes:

•  Brenda from a farmgirl's dabbles put her crisp in a 9-inch square pan. I decided to spread mine out a little in a 12- by 8-inch pan. I thought that gave a good mix of berries to crisp.
• To have the berries peeking out of the crisp, nestle a few extra berries in the coconut topping before baking. (Unless you're trying to get a photo, it's not necessary!) 
• Leftovers are tasty, but just like all fresh fruit crisps, the topping isn't as crisp once it has set and absorbed the moisture from the fresh berries.