Annoying Guineas

Part of the fun of having a farm is having space to raise different types of animals. My husband LOVES guineas for some reason. He thinks they are one of the coolest birds ever. So, he fixed up a pen and bought a few. Even less actually survived the summer. They got out of the pen before they were really big enough and some bigger animals made a tasty snack out of them.

They are about the ugliest bird I have ever seen and my grandpa used to have some when we were kids. They would scare the living daylights out of me sometimes when I would ride my bike past where they were hiding. Take a listen to their noise and see if that wouldn't startle ya just a bit!

Giving the Bird

Ok, this is corny I know. But I am a teacher that hates to hear kids cuss and flipping people off drives me nuts. I think it is pointless and mindless and just shows that you could be using your brain a bit more than doing those things.

Anyway, even though I hate the actual action of "giving the bird," I have to admit that I have had fun being corny with my high schoolers about "giving them the bird" during this assignment ;-) Yes, that's teacher humor for you. Don't worry, I am no longer offended if you join my students and roll your eyes at my weak attempt at humor.

So here is my progress on the bird drawing I will be giving to an art show. The show benefits youngsters in Honduras and I think the proceeds are going towards buying them instruments.

 

I had to have a fellow teacher help me figure out how to do the background. I have to agree with her that green was the way to go.

 

After getting most of the background finished, I felt like the contrast of the colors against the background just didn't "pop" quite the way I wanted it to.

 

After I put black around the edges and faded it out, I really liked how it worked.

 

Here is the finished product after I finally remembered to add the little leaf 

on the bottom of the branch.

 

I have probably said it before, but I enjoy looking at the photos of the process of creating the artwork way more than I like looking at the photo of just the finished product. I think it gives you a lot of insight into how the mind of the artist works.

Spreading my wings...sort of

It is a little funny that I spend five days a week, eight hours a day, teaching art or art-related subjects to students at school. Yet, I can hardly ever find the time or energy to sit down and do artwork for myself.

I currently have high school students doing portraits of birds using oil pastels. I realized that I am teaching them how to do something that I've never really even worked a lot with myself. So, I decided to make my own piece of art. I'll keep you in the loop, but thought maybe it would be fun to share my progress with you.

 

This is the first step of getting things down on paper. I told my students this is probably the most important step. It involves a lot of looking at shapes and proportions.

 

Once they have the initial drawing done, then it is traced onto the thicker bristol paper. I did this so I could trace the lines very lightly since they will show through the oil pastels.

 

Since the pencil lines show, the trick is to disguise them with color changes at those locations. I'm going to see how it works out for me, but I'm lovIng the project so far. This is a media that is fairly new to me, but so far I love working with it!

I get excited when I get to work with color. Especially when it is trying to recreate or represent the beautiful colors that God paints everyday objects in our world. Having to sit and analyze how the colors blend and work together just fascinates me and allows me to be amazed by God's creation even more!

Practical Farm Kids

You might teach in a farming community if this is the snow boot of choice to wear to school.

Lost in Life

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted. As the title explains, I have been simply lost in life.

Having a nearly four month old little farm girl keeps me busy. I love her beyond what words can explain. I have had plenty of moments where I have felt like posting, but life just got in the way. I will never apologize for spending more time with Baby Farmgirl though.

As most of you probably know, our school was also busy dealing with a tragedy in November. When you sign on to be a teacher, you know that you are signing up for helping kids deal with all sorts of emotional moments throughout their time in your classroom. Whether it is the loss of a grandparent, divorce of parents or simply the loss of a pet...you learn to say what needs to be said and give the student love and support. In other words, being a teacher has served to somewhat prepare me for being a parent.

One moment I NEVER felt I would deal with, however, was the death of a student in such a tragic situation. I won't go into too many details because there is already enough that has played out in the media, but we lost senior Luke Schemm while he was playing a fantastic football game.

I can't say that I knew him the best. He hadn't taken my class since he was in junior high. But in such a small school you talk to all kids on almost a daily basis just because you see them in the hallways every day.

The day that we arrived at the faculty meeting after hearing the heartbreaking news will forever stick in my mind. It was silent. If you have ever been to a faculty meeting at our school, it is usually full of laughter and teasing. But this day it was just silence. Silence shattered every few seconds by sobs or sniffles of the teachers that were dealing with grief in their own way, while trying to wrap their head around how they would help their own students deal with this very personal grief.

There is so much to take from that day. A lot of sorrow, but I will also remember how we weren't bound by legislation or rules about how to handle the situation. We dealt with it as it came. Whether that meant bowing our heads together and praying as a staff or if it meant praying with or hugging students as the moment required. I have often been so scared to "overstep" boundaries in terms of my faith while teaching. But on this day it was what we needed.

As the first bell rang for the day to begin, students filtered into the auditorium to be addressed by the superintendent. He talked to them as sobbing and sniffling once again filled the room. But as the grief overtook us, he called our attention to the fact that clergy and counselors from all over the area had come to help us through it. As we turned around to where he was pointing, I nearly started crying from what I saw. There was a line of people surrounding all of us in the seats. All of these people had come to help us. Whether they knew us or not, they had taken that time to devote to us. While I fought back the tears, one thought and scripture ran through my mind...

"A great cloud of witnesses.."

That is what God knew we needed. We didn't necessarily need them to talk to, but we needed to know that they were there if we needed them.  HE was there if we needed HIM...which we so desperately did. 

I guess I am talking about this now partly so you might understand a little bit more about the situation. More about what it means to be a teacher when you might be so quick to criticize them about low test scores or mistreating your child. More about what it means to be a believer and what it has helped us to get through in the past month.

I'm so thankful to have my Savior with me everyday. And I'm so very thankful that Luke had him also. There is no way to explain how much that knowledge has helped during this time. Heck, Luke is getting to see Him face-to-face. Something I strive for everyday. If I can sum up this entry, it would be by saying this.

"Don't let this day be wasted. Tell others you love them. Pray to your Lord and Savior. Don't be afraid of what this world will say. It just isn't worth it."

Dad's "Sweet" Tooth

A tradition that has lasted at least four generations on our farm now is planting sweet potatoes. I think I've mentioned before that I don't even like to eat the things. But planting and harvesting them each year is something I have very fond memories of. As kids my grandpa would assign my sister and I jobs to help him with planting. We would either poke a hole in the ground with the stick so he had a hole to place the plant in, or we lugged a small cup of water to water the plant after he had placed it in the ground.

This summer, I was pregnant with my sweet Baby Farmgirl while I helped my dad plant them. However, I didn't get to help with the harvest because she was a little hungry. But she is the fourth generation in our family to help ;-)

But my dad is always quite proud and glad to share the bounty of his sweet potato crop. So here are some pictures of his crop this year.

We usually wait until after the first hard freeze to harvest the potatoes. But some pesky rats forced dad's hand this year. It is hard to know how big this potato would have been, but dad lost a big part of his crop to the rats. Dad doesn't remember ever having this problem before.

We should have some pretty healthy rats around our place. They sure did a number some of the potatoes.

I noticed something else different on the potatoes this year. I'm not sure if you can see it in the picture above, but the potatoes looked like they had veins running down the side of them. Weird.

 

This is my hand holding the largest potato. I think Dad said it weighed 2 1/4 pounds. 

That would be a meal in itself!

 

Some of them had some splits in them and you could also see the rat teeth marks on this one.

Dad also said the most potatoes he got off of one root was over 8 pounds. 

Seeing how big these guys are almost makes me want to eat a sweet potato...almost.

Weaning Preparation

It is the time of year that is typically very loud around our household. This is about the time every year when we wean the calves from their mothers. This usually requires sorting the calves from the cows and then putting the calves in a corral while their moms are in the pasture right next to it. And both those corrals and pasture are within two hundred feet or so of our house.It is loud because the cows and calves are always looking for each other and it involves a lot of mooing and bawling.

This year my husband wanted to try a slightly different approach after hearing that it had worked fairly well for a neighbor of ours.

These are what I call nose flaps. I'm not sure if that is the correct term, but it fairly accurately describes them.

They look sort of ridiculous, but they have a very smart function. After these are placed in their noses, they can remain with their mothers to reduce the stress of weaning. However, the placement of the flap actually prevents them from being able to drink from their mothers yet still be able to drink water and eat grass.

Weaning is always a stressful event no matter if it is humans or animals. Yet, it is a necessary event to take place. That's why ranchers are always looking for the least stressful manner in which to do it. Along with the nose flaps, we also give them a couple of shots meant to boost their immune system during this time. If you are like me, you know that the most stressful times in your life are when your body and immune system take the biggest hits. It is necessary to keep the calves in the best health possible to allow them to get through the process of weaning and also to keep them gaining weight and growing like they need to.

Now, in theory, the nose flaps seem ingenious. However we did figure out some drawbacks. For starters, they aren't the easiest things to put in.

Some of the calves also lost the nose flap almost immediately after being released from the chute. We just kicked them out into the smaller corral and kept them all there together until we were finished. This created a confined space with the calves bumping and rubbing up against each other and created many opportunities for the flaps to be knocked out. Those that lost the nose flap had to then be run back through the chute again. Lesson learned for next time.

Sitting on the sidelines while working cattle is never easy for me. So Baby Farmgirl and I headed outside for a bit to check out the action. As soon as I got her outside she seemed right at home with all the commotion of the gates and mooing cattle. It is hard to decide when it is ok for her to be outside (there is usually a lot of dirt in the air along with it usually being pretty warm days when we work with cattle), but we also want to give her as much exposure to our way of life as we can. It's never too early to start learn what our family loves to do.