Sweet.....Potatoes

I've talked and talked...and talked and talked...and then talked some more about our drought. My garden faired better than I thought it might. But one of the things that faired the best was a plant I don't even like ;-) The rest of my family LOVES sweet potatoes, but I have never appreciated their taste.

Today was the day to finally harvest the crop.

I had cut the top off of the potato plants before our first freeze, so dad had to hunt a little bit to find each hill of potatoes. One of the first hills (or one plant) he dug up had 8.5 lbs of potatoes on it!

 

You can see that some of the potatoes were quite healthy! Somehow we did manage to over-water them during a drought and the majority of them were split, but they will still be ok to eat. It just means they don't look as pretty.

This is my hand. I was trying to use it as an indicator of how big the potatoes got...it doesn't work quite as well when you can't even see my hand! However, I guess the fact that it covers my entire hand except my fingertips is still a pretty good indicator.

This is dad's hand. I think one potato like this will probably feed a couple of people for one meal.

After the potatoes were all dug up, we placed them on a screen in the shed in my backyard. We wanted the mud on them to dry up so we can clean them off easier. We elevated the screen so mice can't crawl onto it and have a little feast.

After the potatoes dry off and we have cleaned them, we will move them into a more stable climate (probably in my basement) so they will keep longer.

Yep, the one that doesn't even like them gets to keep them in her house ;-) That's ok. I enjoy seeing the joy on the faces of my family members and also friends when I get to deliver some to them. That's part of the joy of a garden. I love seeing the sweat and labor throughout such a hot summer pay off with sharing the crop with loved ones. I'll plant sweet potatoes every year just to get that type of a reward ;-)

Fall Activities

Welcome to Fall in western Kansas. We've been through a tough drought, but God is still blessing us with unexpected surprises. For instance, the trees up above have been absolutely gorgeous! We didn't think this would happen at all and it has been so amazing getting to enjoy the fabulous Fall colors.

Along with those gorgeous colors, we have gotten some wonderful rain. I didn't get any pictures of the rain, but I did notice something I've never noticed before. It was a bit depressing, but I still thought it was interesting. Throughout this drought, I have been comforted by knowing that we still had grass covering most areas. Well, when we finally got some good, hard rain, it opened my eyes to what was actually going on. In the above picture it might be hard to tell. But it is out in our pasture and the rain actually washed the grass into "waves." This means the grass didn't actually have a root system. The grass in these areas was only on the surface and it took a good rain  to make me understand how harshly areas of our pastures had been affected.

My sister and her children were visiting this past weekend from Minnesota. My mom thought it would be a great time to celebrate with all of the younger cousins from both sides of our family. I planted small decorative pumpkins last Spring and it was so much fun to see them bringing joy to the little ones this weekend. My mom, ever the art teacher, had everything all set up and the kids had a fun-filled morning decorating their pumpkins and just enjoying each other.

While they were having fun with the pumpkins, dad and I were moving our drills (used to plant our wheat crop for next year) home. It gave me an opportunity to snap some more pictures. The intent was to get photos of the wonderful fall colors. However, God once again blew my mind. I didn't realize how AMAZING the sky was until I started taking pictures.These photos don't do justice to the trees and their colors, but the sky is definitely worth taking a look at.

Here are the finished pumpkin products. They were just getting ready to take this photo when I returned. We have an abundance of things going on here. Some of them were blinded from facing into the sun, some were picking stickers out of their clothing because they had been running through areas they probably shouldn't have been in, others were talking, some were being goofy while younger ones were mimicking them being goofy...and some just didn't know what in the word was going on. I think that pretty much sums up our family ;-)

And somehow, one of the only ones that didn't paint still ended up with paint on them ;-)

I think everyone was pretty proud of how the day turned out and I think (after she recovers from this one) my mom should do this every year ;-) Enjoy the season and all of the beauty God has created around you!

What free time?

Several weeks ago we had parent teacher conferences and I didn't have to go to school until noon. So, my dad and I naturally felt compelled to make sure we had my morning filled. The mission was simple enough...to move cattle home from a CRP field about 10 miles from our house.

Of course, since we had such a limited amount of time things went wrong immediately. The first thing that happened was a VERY dead semi. We charged it for quite a while, but it didn't work. Since we didn't have the semi, it meant it would take several trips with a pickup and gooseneck trailer to move cattle home rather than one trip in the semi.

We took the Mule along filled with oat and feed bales to tempt the cattle into the corral we were going to set up.

Once there, we set the panels up into a temporary corral to gather the cattle before loading them into the trailer.

The cattle enjoyed the bales and went to work quickly eating them. We had to move the cattle home because we were only allowed to have them graze the CRP for a certain period of time.

This is where the pictures end. We got two loads of cattle loaded up before I had to head home. My dad and uncle remained behind to finish the job.

Although it was short and rushed, the time outside was a welcome change of pace from my teaching job.