Some pictures

I was going to post these on Wednesday but forgot. The top left picture is of our creek. I took that last Tuesday. Rarely is the creek that full and in the entire time we've lived here, it's only overflowed once. It was close on Tuesday but didn't quite get there (thankfully!).

The top right picture is of some of the cows and calves in the calving lane and in the big pasture.

The little red calf I pictured because isn't it just like a kid to go picking his nose when you get the camera out? LOL.

The little brown calf kept following me around wanting his picture taken too. What personalities these calves seem to have.

The last picture is of Chris's heifer. She is such a ham and just a tad bit ornery. Looks to me like she's cheesing for the camera.

Anyway, just a glimpse into our life right now.

Melinda

My day started off on such a good track.

I got up early and worked with the boys on finishing up their school work for the day. They're wrapping up their work for the year in the next month so their school time doesn't take too long in the mornings. Chris will be finishing up 9th grade with 9 credits. Wow. Jesse will be finishing up 8th grade and is looking forward to getting his cell phone as part of his new priveleges. He has to buy it, but we'll buy the first $25 of phone time for him. He's been researching for several months just what it is he wants.

While they were doing some independent work, I called the feed store to see if they got our show feed in yet. They have and so I need to go pick it up. I also called the doctor's office since my left ear has been clogged for nearly 2 weeks and my right ear has recently begun hurting. They finally called me back around 10 am and I had a 10:45 appointment. Which meant I was taken back to a little exam room at 10:45 and waited. And waited. And waited. I saw the PA for about 10 minutes tops and didn't get out of there until noon!!! I wasn't exactly amused. Thankfully I'd gotten lunch mostly fixed before I left so Mike and the boys just needed to boil the noodles for spaghetti. They had the water going by the time I'd gotten my prescriptions filled and all I had to do was dump in the noodles. I apparently hadn't been to the doctor for 3 years. Today, I had a double ear infection and she'd like to see me back in 2 to 4 weeks. I set an appointment but am not sure if I'll go back or not. We'll see how quickly my ear seems to get better.

So, after all that I didn't get to the feed store today. I'll have to try to make it there in the morning so the boys can get the trailer packed for our show on Saturday. We'll need to head out by 6 am and am not sure what time we'll get home. I did get my reading done for Bible study on Sunday night and have my lesson prepared for Sunday school so I think Sunday should go pretty smoothly. We're doing our invite a friend event for Sunday school again this week. I'm praying we have some guests at least.

Melinda

Half of my students were sick today.....

Ok, so I only have 2 students but Jesse woke up sick today. Sore throat, upset stomach and really tired. He says his throat and stomach are better but he's still tired. I pray he's back to his normal self tomorrow.

Easter was quite a full day for us. I wish we could celebrate Palm Sunday with one side of the family and Easter with theother side. I may try to suggest that for next year. We had Peter and Sven here with us Easter morning. I enjoyed having them come for a few days over their spring break. Hopefully they had a good time.

We had 5 new calves yesterday! Quite a surprise to us. I guess the biggest surprise was a cow that we kept watching so we could breed her. She was one who calved yesterday. LOL. Apparently she got bred back when her calf was only 3 weeks old. I guess I'm glad we didn't take her to market. We're nearing the end of the calving period for the cows Mike AIed and he did quite well this year as far as conception rates.

I sat down last night and worked on the last of the lesson plans for the year. The boys will finish the last week of April at the latest. They both will attend AI school that weekend and then we'll promote them to 9th and 10th grades. I can't even begin to express the feelings that come over me when I type that. Two highschool aged boys, quickly on their way to manhood. It's a lot like looking into your newborn baby's face for the first time and dreaming of all the possibilities. Only now, the possibilities are much closer to realities and it's nearly time to let them go off on thier own. Chris is investigating a 2 year degree from a college in IL and I just cannot even imagine life without him here. With his course load going like it did this year, there is a possibility that he could do one year online at home during his senior year. And yet, that's still another whole year away from us. I'm sure God is going to prepare us for that time. He hasn't yet, but we don't need to be prepared yet. Jesse hasn't made a decision as to what he would like to work toward, but the boy is only 13. It is hard to remember that when he is as tall as my Daddy now and is the tallest in our family. I see so much of what I was like at his age in him right now. The main difference is his maturity in his faith in Christ. The boy seems to view all things through eyes of faith. We've had many discussions over the last year that have all seemed to work together to develop a much deeper faith in him.

Mike and I went to the Ohio Beef Expo mid March. We had a great time just getting away and enjoying our time alone. The boys had a youth retreat that weekend and they too enjoyed their time away. I think the people who didn't enjoy our time away were our dads. Mike's dad did chores 1/2 of the time and my dad did them the other 1/2. We had 2 cows that we were waiting on to have calves for about 3 weeks prior to going to the Expo. Both of them calved while we were gone. I told Mike they were just waiting for us to be gone. Stupid cows could've let us in on that so we could've been getting full nights of rest before the trip. LOL.

Melinda

Is it spring yet?

I just realized that I haven't posted anything since September. Let's just say it's been a busy winter and I'll be glad when spring arrives.

Let's try to do a person by person update.

Mike is working as hard as ever. Between keeping wood cut for heating the house and feeding hay and silage, his mornings are filled. He usually doesn't have much down time. We did get a new toy for Christmas for the entire family and we have taken time to enjoy that together. We built a theater room in our basement complete with a projector and surround sound. We had family over for the Super Bowl and completely enjoyed the Patriots loss. Last weekend Mike spent a lot of time clipping calves we sold for a show this weekend. It's exciting to see people excited about the animals they got from us. Mike has also begun serving in the early church service by running the power point presentations. He does an awesome job and seems to enjoy doing it.

Chris is enjoying driving a lot. He turned 15 in October and quickly got his learner's permit. Mike and I rarely drive him anywhere now; he drives us. It's been a lot of fun watching him grow and mature this year. Thankfully he doesn't have much of the typical "teenager" attitude that we often hear other parents complain about. He is very into the cattle still and is trying to find a career path that will allow him to work with them once he's done with school. This spring he will be attending artificial insemenation school. Chris is showing a heifer raised this year. At our first major show of the season his heifer was the MO Reserve Mainetainer heifer. Not too bad at all.

Jesse turned 13 in October. I cannot believe that we now have 2 teenagers in the house and yet we still have a great deal of peace. Jesse enjoys the cattle and also enjoys helping in the fields. He has grown physically so much this year we can hardly believe it. Jesse is now taller than Mike and isn't showing any signs of slowing down. I'm hoping we'll make it to Easter before he's 6 foot tall. How crazy is that???? At the state fair he was about 5'6"!!! Jesse is showing a Maine heifer we bought at the Girls Gone Wild Sale in Iowa Thanksgiving weekend. She was the MO Champion Maine heifer at the first show this year and boy, was he one happy young man.

Melinda - hmmm.....well, I'm still homeschooling the boys and helping Mike out. I actually have NO 4-H responsibilities this year. Can you believe it? I'm glad I don't because I don't think I could've kept up this year. I'm also teaching our adult Sunday school class and enjoying it a great deal.

We're gearing up for another cattle show this weekend. After that we'll have a little more than a month off from showing before we hit the circuit hard in April. We should be having a bunch of calves in March, so it'll be good that we'll be home more. We also plan on hitting the school work rather hard in March so that we can play a little more when the weather is nicer.

Melinda

Whew, what ever happened to free time?

I just had a friend ask if we ever spread ourselves too thin? Hmm...I think I'll plead the 5th as my answer might incriminate me. LOL.

I left off last week on Friday afternoon. Last Friday we went to see the illusionist our church hired to put on a show. He was awesome and it turns out that 36 people marked on their card that they accepted Christ as their Savior at the event! The public schools allowed the church to send home fliers with every student. I was amazed at the turnout considering it was "Football Friday Night" in our area. The boys ended up buying a "trick" raccoon puppet at the show and it turned out to be a hit before the wedding on Saturday.

Saturday morning we got ready and headed out for the wedding by 9:45 or 10 am. We stopped in Troy at KFC for lunch and then stopped off at Rick's place. We traded Grandpa Bastian off for Sven and Peter and headed to the church. We got there and took a few family pictures. I also went in to visit Rachael and Lara in the dressing room. Lara was still a bit sore from her accident. The wedding was BEAUTIFUL!! Rachael included many special rememberances of her mom and looked so very beautiful. We stayed at the reception until the end and helped Rachael and Rick pack up everything. Rachael seemed to be exhausted by the end of the night. We went back to Rick's and helped him unpack the left over food he took. We finally arrived back home about 2:30 am! Needless to say, we all quickly dropped into bed and went right to sleep.

Sunday morning the guys all slept in while I went and taught Sunday school. We had an awesome discussion on how we can listen for God's voice and how we can help others to listen for His call on their lives. I got home, changed my shoes and we headed out to a cattle sale in our area at Fox Run Angus Farm. They averaged about $16,000 a head on something around 65 head. Oh man. If only we could sell one calf for that price, much less an average. LOL.

Chris had Youth Group on Sunday night and we ended up ordering pizza for supper. Mike decided I needed a bit of a break. What a good man he is.

Monday we worked at school and weaning another batch of calves. The boys were supposed to have 4-H Jr Leaders on Monday night but I decided we needed the night at home. Tuesday we spent the day in Columbia at Farm Safety College. The boys seem to learn something new every year. I'm thankful the Collegiate Cattlewomen's group is willing to sponsor this event. We got home about 4 pm. We had decided to take some of the wedding leftovers to Mike's work for supper so I needed to stick it in the oven as soon as we got home. We left here about 6 pm and finally got home for the night about 8:15. I was so ready to drop into bed. Wednesday we got back to school and Jesse had Youth Group that night. Today we got school done, got up 5 cows for a special cow sale and talked about Mike's plan to become a sales rep for a liquid cattle feed called Mix 30. Looks as if we should be set up to do that sometime in the next month.

Oh, I forgot to mention that David, Mike's friend, called Monday night. He and Mike went to lunch on Wednesday. David goes to court on Monday for a custody hearing for his little girl. He has temporary custody right now. Isn't it funny how God laid him on our hearts last week and we didn't have a clue as to why?

Melinda

It's the middle of September!!!

Where did the first half of this month go???

The guys are now officially done with silage for the year. They finished the last of it yesterday!! I think the boys are relieved to know there's no more to be done. While they enjoy it, they were also getting quite exhausted from working on their school work and then having to go to the field and not really having any down time.

Yesterday afternoon the homeschool group met for bowling and pizza. We only had 3 families turn out but man did we have a good time. After pizza the boys and I made a quick run to the mall to find a jacket to go with my outfit for Rachael's wedding tomorrow. I was so glad that I found one in the first store we tried. It's a washable suede fitted jacket. I love it. Hopefully we can get a family picture taken and I'm also hoping to get some pictures of the boys all dressed up too.

Speaking of the wedding....please be in prayer for all of us. It's now been 4 1/2 months since Liz passed away and this wedding is going to be a bit tough. I talked to Rick last night and he told me he's been doing a lot of crying this week. He said he just doesn't know how else to let all the emotions out. Lara had a car accident this week and spent about 3 hours in the hospital getting checked out and Nick was sick one or two days too. I'm sure all of that stress has not been good for Rachael but am praying the wedding goes off without any major glitches.

I've been working on my Sunday school lesson for this week. I guess I should tell you first the study is by John Ortberg and is called, "God is closer than you think". I find it ironic that God felt I was going to need this study this fall. It amazes me how loudly He speaks to me through this study. Between my Sunday school lesson and group of ladies off the internet, I get the feeling God has something big in store for me nearly every day.

I'm loving the fact that fall is here!!! The lows have been in the 40's this week and the highs in the 70's. Now this is my kind of weather. The calves are growing hair like crazy. We're sleeping with the windows open and heavy blankets on. I believe fall and spring are my two favorite seasons. Summer was just too stinking hot this year and our last winter was a bit too icy.

Tonight we have an evangelistic illusionist coming to town. The boys are excited to go to see the show. They had invited a friend, but unfortunately he had other plans. I should have gotten around to inviting Mike's friend David, but since Mike can't be there maybe it's best. I probably wouldn't have felt very comfortable going and meeting another man for the show. LOL. When Mike proposed to me, his sister asked if I was marrying Mike or David or both of them. The entire time Mike and I dated it was the 3 of us and any girl David found at the time. David married his ex-wife a couple of months before Mike and I got married and they had their oldest one month to the day before we got married. David's second son was born a day after Jesse. I feel like God is asking us to reach out to David again and try to get him back into the church scene so he can be fed spiritually. Mike tried in the spring and David backed out at the last minute. Guess it's time to try again.

Welcome to September!

What a whirlwind of a week we've had. Last Friday the boys finished up their first week of the 2007-08 school year and packed their bags for our annual Labor Day trip. For the last 3 or 4 years we've taken off on Labor Day weekend to look at calves for the next year. This year we decided to head to Michigan City, IN for our first stop. We looked at about 20 or so heifers there. We found some really nice high percentage Maine Anjou heifers. We'll see if we end up with one of them or not. From there we headed to Mike's Grandma Schumacher's house near Maple Park, IL. The trip to Michigan City took us 7 hours and we had looked at calves for about 3 hours so we didn't get there soon enough to go to the Labor Day parade they were having. We realized we were running too late for that so we stopped off in Sugar Grove to do a round of go cart racing. Let's just say the boys and Mike are looking for a rematch sometime soon since momma smoked 'em. LOL. Honestly, I had to have had the best running go cart. Now the boys want to open a track out by the hay barn and build some go carts. God must have big plans for these guys because they really do dream big. Saturday evening we got to visit with Uncle Stan at Grandma's for a bit and then Aunt Harriet and Uncle Bill stopped by and showed us their mini fire truck. We had a really nice visit with everyone and dropped into bed about 10pm.

Sunday morning we got up and went to the breakfast hosted by the American Legion in Maple Park. Let me tell you, if you're looking for a filling breakfast that's the place to go. We headed out from there and went to the Foundation Female Sale in Roseville, IL. Got there about 11:30 and looked through the calves. We watched about 2/3 of the sale and then headed out toward Iowa City, IA. As we pulled into the parking lot of our hotel, we noticed the sign of the pizza place next door. It was called "Bob's Your Uncle". Since we all have uncles named Bob, we just had to eat there. It was an awesome place with lots of neat atmosphere. The pizzas were named after Iowa State Basketball players. It was really a fun place. Our hotel had a pool and a hot tub so we had a nice relxing evening there.

Monday morning we left for Blairstown to visit the people we bought Jesse's heifer from last year. It took the whole morning to look through their cattle, but we had a lot of fun visiting with them and looking at their calves. After that we headed to town for lunch. After lunch we headed to Chariton and went to Hunter Bros. to look at calves then on to Chuck and Karen McCullough's place. We hadn't gotten to visit with Chuck and Karen since April so we got to spend some time catching up while we were looking at their calves.

We ended up getting home around 10 pm and quickly crashed into bed. Tuesday Jesse woke up sick so we cancelled school for the day. Chris and Mike got 2 steers washed and clipped. We also had our first 4-H meeting of the year. Chris did an awesome job running the meeting.

Today we ended up weaning calves out of the big pasture. It took us most of the day to accomplish that but we did get it done. Jesse had youth tonight and had a great time. I guess that takes care of the last week.

Melinda