Christmas 2010

Christmas dinner was on the day after Christmas this year. That's the only time our kids could come. The Farmer Daughter couldn't make it cause she still wasn't feeling too good from her recent surgery. : (      But The Boy and the FDL and their kids made it. : )   Gramma made all the Christmas food for one day. Swedish meatballs, Swedish sausage, roasted potatoes and lasagna. Yummy.

Mary and Bubba about to open their gifts.

Mary is happy, Bubba not so much.

Mary is still happy, Bubba, still not so much.

Now the one for both.

Ok, now it's not so bad.

Mary showing me her loose tooth. I had the string and the brick, but she said no.

They brought presents for the dogs. Heidi enjoyed hers in the middle of the floor.

Mick hid his under Gramma's table.

Sunday night some fog rolled in and there was hoar frost everywhere. Very pretty. Pic's a little blurry cause I took it out of the car window. Monday morning we took Christmas dinner over to the FD's and I plowed out the farm with the bobcat so she didn't have to. She's starting to feel better so that's good. : )

Rocks III

Ok. Second grind is finished.

It looks like the granite rocks are going to polish up just fine.

Bubba's.

Fayfie's.

Some of Mommie's. Next is the polish step. Sometimes it has to be done twice. This means two weeks or so. You don't know until you look after the first week. Sometimes it only takes one time. We'll find out.

Does this look like anyone you know?

On the farm

Not much happening around here. The FD spent 3 days in the hospital with gall bladder surgery. We took her home on Saturday and she is doing well. Her good friend Stephanie is staying with her for few days to help out. Thanks Steph, you are a blessing.

Here's a pic of yesterdays sunrise, there was enough haze so you could look right at it. I thought it was cool.

Yesterday I took the snowblower and made a path out to the edge of the woods on the west side.

Then I made a circle and then I dumped all the leftovers from when I butchered the deer. It's sort of a varmint trap. I'm hoping some coyotes or other varmints will come in here for an easy meal and I can waylay them. We'll see. We bought a load of firewood and yesterday we had our first fire of the season. Gramma and the dogs loved it. Mick lays down next to the stove so close I expect him to burst into flames. Anyway it's supposed to snow today, 6-8 inches is the prediction for here. Don't think we need anymore, but I guess I don't get a choice. At least the plow truck works.

Rocks II

Ok. The first grind is done .

Fayfie's rocks on the top left, Mrs. Smith's on the bottom and my filler rocks on the right.

Bubba's rocks top left, Auntie Jessie's othe bottom left and my fillers on the right. I know you can't see any discernible difference in the pics, but there is. The first grind basically rounds off the sharp edges and starts the smoothing process. You can actually see quite a difference in some of the stones especially the quartz and agates. Others don't show much difference yet. The granite ones look about the same. I never did granite before so I hope they polish up, especially cause that's all that Bubba has. Stay tuned.

Snowplow

Well, I finally got the plow truck working, after three snowstorms. Now maybe we won't get anymore snow. That's ok too.

Here's the old plow truck, which I haven't gotten rid of yet.

Piling snow down by the barn. The more snow there is, the harder it is to find a place to push it.

Here's Ingrid wondering why the heck I'm taking her picture instead of feeding her. Whenever I go outside, the horses and pigs think they should be fed. The poor things lead a life of disappointment. On another note, Gramma had to stay in the city for two nights this week because of long meetings at another facility. So me and the dogs were batching it.

Here they are pouting and wondering when "Mommy's coming home". I swear I was nice and never yelled at them once. I missed her too. Glad she's home. Maybe now I'll sleep better.

My Sister

It was my sister's birthday a couple days ago. I won't tell you how old she is cause that wouldn't nice. But she's way older than me. Just kidding Sal. She sent me some pics from Thanksgiving, so I thought I'd post them.

Here's my brother-in-law Stan, my niece Erin and her beau Kenny.

Here's my niece Renee, her husband Aaron and their son Micajah. He's a cutie.

Here's Sally and the girls. Sally isn't really short. The girls are really tall. See the fridge behind Renee? They don't need to stand on a stool or their tiptoes to see what's on top. That must be handy for cleaning the kitchen. Anyway that's my sister's family. Nice. I miss her, but don't tell her that. You know I think she needs to go fishing. Fishing is good for you. Remember you heard it here first.

Rock polishing

I started polishing rocks this afternoon.

Here is the equipment.

Here are the rocks in the barrels.

Here are the barrels with the plastic beads that you use for filler if there aren't enough rocks.

Here are the rocks being polished. This is an action shot, can you tell? Rocks go in, beads go in to fill the barrels about 2/3s full, polishing compound goes in, water goes in. Seal the barrels, put them on the machine and come back and check them in a couple days and take them off in a week. The machine turns the barrels at a medium speed. Then you rinse them, do it again with the next grade of grit and again a week later with the next grade. Then if they aren't polished as much as you want, you do it again with the last compound for another week. So it takes a minimum of three weeks and maybe more. I put Auntie Jessie's rocks in with Bubba's in one barrel and Mrs. Smith's in with Fayfie's in the other. Chickie's will go in with mine after these are done. So it might be two months before everyone's are done. Sorry about that, but that's the way it is, so don't be holding your breath cause you'll turn blue.

Grampa's new ears and some winter stuff

On Tuesday we went to the VA med center in St. Cloud to get my new hearing aids.

Here's the hardware.

The things that go in my ears. Color coded so I don't put them in the wrong ear. I'm not sure how you could make that mistake, but it must happen or they wouldn't color code them. If you can't tell which ear to put them in, how can you remember which ear is what color? Seems to me an R and an L would work better.

The remote. I can change the volume with this in both ears or just one, and I can change where the focus of noise comes from, front, back, left or right. So if I'm at the table and the tv or my grankids are too loud behind me I can tune them out. Cool.

This is the thing that I answer my cell phone with. I wear this around my neck and it is connected to my phone with Bluetooth. I don't understand what that is, but that's ok cause Gramma does. When my phone rings, it rings in my h-aids and I pull this out from under my shirt, push the big square button in the middle and say hello. Hands free. Pretty cool. Gramma is happy. She doesn't have to yell so loud and the tv volume doesn't have to be so loud. She has decided that maybe I can stay now. This is good.

Here's what it looks like here right now.

The Boy and his family came up yesterday to pick up his venison and have supper with us. They brought the supper! Can't go wrong on a deal like that. The kids played in the back for awhile.

 Mary made a Snow Angel.

The sled didn't work too well so they rolled down the hill. I'll have find a bigger hill around here to take them to cause the septic mound just isn't tall enough. They had fun though. Anyway that's what's hapening here. Cold this morning, 4 below zero. BRRRRRR!

Snowing again

Snowing again. I don't know how much we're supposed to get, but these flakes are almost as big as silver dollars.

Notice the strange lights at the top of the picture. I think it's some kind of experimental craft from Russia.

Been coming down now for about 30 minutes. Hope it doesn't last to long, the starter is out in the plow truck.

A girl and her dog & rocks

So here we are on the day after Thanksgiving.

Here's a pic of Gramma and her two buddies, Mick and her I-Pad. I'm not sure which one she likes better, cause they are both next to her all the time. Ain't she cute? Deer hunting is over and now we make some jerky and now we start on the rocks. When the Bayou Family was here they collected rocks for me to polish. When they left I had them bring me what they found. JB couldn't find his, but later I found an empty bag with his name on it. Don't know where the rocks went. I'll have to send him some of mine. Here's everyone else's

Bayou Mommy.

Chickie.

Fayfie.

Bubba.

These are some I found in the FD's driveway, so I'll polish them for her.

These are my rocks. Would you believe I found all these in one day? No? Me either.

These are some I'm going to cut open because I believe that they all have agates inside that will be prettier if I open them up. As you can see I started on one, but the saw blade loosened up so I didn't finish it. Now each batch of rocks takes 3 weeks to a month to finish so don't expect to see them done right away. I'll get started on them next week. Lots of interesting rocks, so stay tuned.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Here is some pics of what it looks like here this morning.

White.

Windy.

                                                                               Cold.                                                                           It was 11 degrees when I got up this morning and dropped down to 4. Now it's up to 7. Heat wave. First snow on Thanksgiving in seven years. Global Warming. Yesterday I drove the FD to the airport and she flew to Louisiana to spend Thanksgiving with her sister and the Bayou Family. My house to her house, to the airport and home, 290 miles. Yikes. I bet she's glad to be where it's warm today. It's supposed to get to 82 degrees down there today. It's supposed to get to12 in Randall. Only 70 degrees difference. Well the Boy and his family are going to the FDL's sister's today, so Gramma and I are going it alone. She's making stuffing and chicken, cause we can't eat a turkey ourselves. She's also making a cranberry cake. I'm making myself comfortable. We gave the dogs some fresh bones to chew on, so they are happy. Anyway we're watching the parade and taking it easy. Here's hoping today is good for all of you. Gramma and I love you.