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