flooding

The Missouri River is flooding. We are told it is going to get very bad. We ran into town yesterday to get a couple of things ..... I told Phil I had a lot to do so we could not dawdle. We decided we needed to look at the River and see for ourselves what is happening. Three hours later, we had driven over to Pacific Junction, into Plattsmouth, and back through Bellevue. In PJ, it was a steady line of tucks bringing dirt in to build a burm around the water treatment plant, building up the RR tracks (that is a major line) and around the few businesses that are there. It made me cry to see the people packing their household into trucks are preparing to leave. From there we drove the back road down to the river. We wanted to see an area that last year was hit so hard. We were again stopped by huge trucks with dirt trying to protect the railroads. When we got to the road we wanted to check out it said road closed, so we drove on to get to the other entrance. When we go there, the road was gone. It was nothing but water. Last year these brand new houses were surrounded by water, and could not even use their driveway so I am pretty sure the houses are or will soon be under water this year. Then we got to the river. We were both amazed .... The recreation area our neighbors are part of was entirely under water. The fields that we normally see are now part of the river. I have never seen the MO River this huge. Phil said as we were driving over this narrow bridge that he did not want to come over this bridge again until the flooding is over.
After the bridge you drive up a steep hill then back down into Plattsmouth. Through the trees I caught a glimpse of the river area..... Where there used to be a wildlife preserve, and a recreation area was nothing but water... When we got down the hill into town the road was blocked so we were not able to get any closer, but it looked like it was totally under water to the rail road tracks.
From there we drove north into Bellevue. We crossed over the Platt river ... totally out of its banks and into the farm land. There is a bar and grill on Hwa 75 with a sign that says boat parking soon. It's good to see some humor in all of this.
Going into Bellevue was heart wrenching. The baseball field we spent so much time at last year was under water. The campground that flooded last year was much worse this year. The waters are close to the road, I don't think people will be able to use that bridge much longer. I was worried about the Iowa side, but I think the NE side is going to flood first. The water is very close to the road at the toll booth. It won't take much more to close it.
Back into Iowa we drove along a back road closer to the river than we are .... People are packing up preparing to leave. Houses are businesses are sandbagged ready for the water. My heart was so heavy watching them pack and preparing to leave their homes. I don't know what they are feeling, but I am sure their hearts are broken, and they must feel tattered....
I am so thankful to live where we do. I think I will be able to get to work even under the worst of conditions but if not I have a great place to be safe. Phil and I talked yesterday about what if's ......and how would I. I think I can get to work, going some back roads.
Thankfully we are high and dry. There is no way we can be flooded by this situation, (not saying that we could never be flooded)

Memorial day weekend

Well, here it is Memorial day weekend already. It is hard to believe it is almost June. The weather is still frightful. We are getting so much rain, and the high today was only 55.
The chicks are getting so big. They are not big enough to butcher yet, but getting closer. Phil said when he went to feed them today they flew onto his shoulder to get food from him. We certainly need to clip some wings!
Well, I started this two days ago, and just now getting back to it. Friday night we went to a movie in Glenwood. It is always nice to have a “date night”. Yesterday was spent working in the garden. Today I woke to rain, so was not able to work outside. I cleaned my office!!! That may not sound like a big deal but it was! In our house when we don’t know what to do with something it ends up in the office or my bedroom. After a while it is overwhelming! Next I need to tackle my bedroom! I am in the mood to de-clutter, so I have a load to take to Goodwill.
One of the cool things I uncovered today (I had simply forgotten about it) was a year book from 1924. I asked for some advice and found a new owner for it. I didn’t want it …. But didn’t know what to do with it. Now, it will be used for the annual alumni banquet in Weeping Water.
This afternoon I was able to go outside and work in the garden. I have all the starter plants replanted (after they were frozen or flooded out)…. I still need to plant some seeds, but it is looking really good. I have new/different plants to try this year. I am excited to see what happens with my ground cherries. From what I read, they are sweet and wonderful. I am also trying different grains. Hopefully we can use some of the grains to feed the chickens.
Delana invited us to go to a baseball game with them on Tuesday. Olivia won a free ticket because she read so much during the school year. I am excited to go because I have not been to the new ballpark yet. I don’t know if the girls will be “into” the game, but Dora the Explorer will be there on Tuesday, so I know they will like that. Grandpa is excited to take his mitt and hopefully catch a ball.
Well, here it is the next day ….. gosh it takes me a while to get things done. This is the last day of my 3 day weekend. I need to get some seeds in the ground. The kids are coming over in a bit, so I will have some help. I wish I could stay home every day. I think I would get so much done (or maybe not). I keep thinking ahead …. In only 10+ years I will be able to stay at home all day long. I wish I had been born rich so I could do that now. LOL I really love my weekend life. If I could figure out how to pay the mortgage and not go to work. I would be a happy camper!!!

Spring time!

I am not sure where to begin. Life has been so busy lately. The weather has been so crazy. Last week we had a freeze, and earlier this week it was almost 100 degrees. I decided to take Friday off to work in the garden. It rained buckets on Wednesday and Thursday. Friday and Today (Saturday) have been cold and nasty! I am worried that I am not going to get the garden in and still have time to grow and harvest.
Phil has been working so hard the last few weeks to get water down to the chicken coop. It is a pain to carry water down to the chickens every day. It wasn’t bad when we had only 30 chickens. Now that we have all these babies it is a lot of work. He always “over does” everything, so I now have water to the chickens AND to both garden areas. I am so excited. This is going to be so nice this summer. He is a wonderful husband!
The chicks have taken so much time since March. We had them in the house for a couple of weeks. After that to the barn. They were so little at first and the brooder seemed so big for them. Phil made the brooder out of a shelf that was in Delanas old house. She was going to leave it, so he pulled it out and brought it home. It is a 2 story model with a ramp between so the chicks can go between the two levels. About 6 weeks later the chicks had outgrown the brooder. Last Sunday we moved them to the chicken coop. Phil (gosh that man does a lot around here) made an area for only the babies. They are separated by a fence, so when the time comes they will all know each other. Anyway, last Sunday we moved them. We put them in a cage, 20 at a time and moved them. The first load Phil held the cage and I caught and put them in. After it was done we looked at my arms and realized I was bleeding. Those chicks had scratched me with their toe nails everywhere. I put a long sleeve shirt on for the rest of the journey. When I went to work the next day my boss said it looked like I got into a fight with a bear! They are much happier in the larger space.
This afternoon was warmer and I ventured out to the garden to plant. It is still to cold, but I planted tomatoes, corn, pumpkins, melons, and beans. I still have so much to plant, and I wonder how I will get it done. It always gets done but I wonder how?

Chicken talk

It’s been quite a while since I have blogged. It’s not that I have been to busy, I think I just had nothing to write about. Our life out here is pretty quiet. I go to work and then come home. Phil doesn’t get out very often at all. I am happy with this kind of life. Phil complains about the chickens and how much work they are, but I think he likes them too. They are all getting so big, they need to go outside to the run but the weather is not cooperating. It is still pretty cold. I can’t wait to get them outside and let them get some fresh air. I’m sure they are looking forward to that as well.
It is funny to watch them mature. Most of the meat chickens (if not all) are roosters. They are chest bumping each other and starting to tussle around. When we come to feed them they rush the door trying to get the first piece of food. One jumped out last weekend and we chased it for a while. Phil told me that 8 of them jumped out this morning … and he had no one to help him. Apparently he managed to catch them all and get them settled in again.
The ducks got a new home a couple of days ago. The rooster we were keeping to butcher found a new home. Phil’s buddy wanted him, so the cage in the barn was now free for new animals. These poor ducks are so much bigger than the chicks, but apparently the chicks pick on them and pull their feathers out. Phil is hoping the ducks will be pets rather than livestock. I personally hope that at least one of them is a female. Duck eggs are great! If two were female and one a male that would be perfect. I’d love to have some little ducks following her around.
I have been doing very well selling eggs. Last Monday I had 8 dozen eggs and no customers in sight. I posted them on a local food web site and I took some to work. The last two weeks have been crazy. Phil and I have not had any eggs at home because so many people want them. I sure hope that keeps up. I took some of the honey from last year to work with me as well. I was sold out in 2 days! Now I have people anxiously awaiting my garden. I hope I am able to grow enough to have what we need plus sell to these people. I have been trying to find a way to make Pooh acres pay for itself. Maybe I am on the way.

March madness

Spring is here ... or almost.  Tomorrow is the Official first day of spring.  Every day I see more signs that winter is (almost) over.  The trees are starting to come to life.  I see grass coming back.  The bees are out buzzing and collecting necter. 
I took today off from work.  It is so nice to have a 3 day weekend and get some things done.  I started laundry then realized that the neighbors were burning down the hillside.... that would not be a problem except now my laundry (hung outside) smells like smoke.   Oh well ....
I did a full inspection of the bee hives today.  The spring inspection is always quite long ... trying to find the queen ( I can never find her!!) and making  sure there are eggs and larve.  I swaped positions of the boxes so they can build up (the way they like to do).  They look really good.  I am so happy to see them healthy.  This is the first year I was able to winter them over.  I am excited to see how they grow this summer.
The chickens are doing well. I am so excited that they are once again paying for themselves. The price of chicken food has raised so much we had to raise the price of our eggs, so far it doesn't seem to matter to our customers! I am thankful for my loyal customers. I think if I had more eggs I could sell them all. People love farm fresh eggs. We are trying to incorporate the "sick chicks" and the babies into the flock. I have never seen a cock fight until today. I am wondering if it would have been worse if they were not brothers and raised together??? It was amazing to see they actually drew blood! I think we are going to have to cull one of the roosters. I don't think they can live together anymore. I really try to be objective and never get attached but I still do. The chickens are still pets. I still cry when I have to butcher them.
I am getting ready for planting season.  The beans I harvested last fall for seed were still sitting in my shed ....  so I needed to harvest them.  They are now ready to be planted. 
Last summer I bought a bunch of seeds at an auction and I wanted to make sure they are good seeds.  These seeds were stored in jars  in the worst possible conditions.  They still seem to have survived. The chickens are enjoying the sprouts!

Another day on Pooh Acres

What a year this has been already. We are certainly newby chicken farmers .. but I didn’t think we would be such BAD chicken farmers. We have tried to follow all the rules, as far as we understood them.


Since bringing chickens to our home last summer we have learned a lot. I thought I knew so much (being raised by farmers and around farm animals) but the longer we have animals the less I realize I know. I had no idea that chickens can catch a cold that will turn into pnemonia. We lost quite a few chickens….. I didn’t count and I don’t want to know. We not only lost the chickens, we lost all the eggs from ALL of the chickens for a minimum of a month. Last weekend was the climax of the illness. Our favorite hen, our only Rhode Island Red got sick and died in Phil’s arms. It appears that the worst is over, we have two hens that are still suffering, the rest seem to be much better. In a couple of weeks the medicine will be out of their system and we will once again get back to selling eggs. My customers are understanding and anxious to get back to production.

I have been getting up at 3:45 every (weekday) morning and going to the gym before work. Although it is good for my body, it makes me very tired and probably cranky. Phil says I pretty much fade out after dinner. I try to sleep in on the weekends to “catch up”. Sleeping in for me is 7 AM!! I had planned to get up at 7 because we have some things to do this morning but at 6:45 I was awakened by a loud Cock a doodle doo from the barn area.

I am amazed to see Phil becoming more and more like my dad. They never met so this is kind of crazy. Phil was a city boy. He used to pay his guys to take care of his garden! He had never lived in the country, never taken care of machinery etc he paid his workers to do all of that. (He owned a sprinkler business) Now, living out here he is maintaining all of the machinery. He builds whatever needs to be built, and he keeps this place running. He will take some scrap wood and make a chicken “hospital” or fix something that I would have thought unfixable. Every day he is growing more like dad in all the good ways.

Reinventing Myself

I sometimes feel as if the person I was four years ago is gone and replaced by someone else, not entirely but in many ways. The person I used to be enjoyed going out frequently. I was an avid follower of the local arts and went to many productions of theater, opera, etc.


The new me. I really love to stay home. Our house is not beautiful. It is not a house to entertain in and I don’t really like it. Our land is breathtaking. I am so happy that I feel like I am in a place I belong. I love watching the gardens grow and change. It is so exciting to pull up a fresh sweet carrot unlike anything you will ever get in a store. The blackberries are so sweet and juicy; you mouth smiles without realizing it.

Winter is tough. I go through a time when I am at least somewhat depressed. The lack of sunshine affects me more than many people. I try really hard, but it still makes me crazy. I have found a new project this winter. My boss, Dale, is a hunter. We hit it off when we first met, and have been building a friendship every since. He brought me some deer meat a while back and I made it into jerky. Since then I found that you can request deer meat from hunter who want to hunt but don’t want the meat. I butchered my first deer a few weeks ago. I wasn’t sure if I could do it. Phil went with me to pick it up and by the time we got home it was pretty late, so left it for a few days (it was quite cold outside). The day I worked up my courage it was still cold outside! Phil helped me drag her into the garage and onto a makeshift table. He said it was up to me to do this, and he played Packman.

The first cut was the most difficult. I started at the neck and skinned her out. I was surprised that I got it done so quickly. Cutting the meat off was not difficult, but I am sure I didn’t get all the cuts right. I washed it all off the next day and started making jerky. The rest I froze until I am ready to start on it again. I was amazed that I was able to do that! I am (was) pretty wimpy. My next step I guess is to actually go out into the yard and shoot one all by myself.

I started another new project recently. I have always wanted to make a rag rug. I have been saving wool and denim for quite some time to complete this project. I broke out the denim and started cutting it into pieces and then started the project. I want to braid one and crochet the other. This one is crocheted. I think I started out with a fabric that was to thick for a novice. It is going together, and honestly I think it is going to look pretty darn good, but it would have been easier with thinner fabric. I will post a photo when it is done. I think if I cut more tonight I may be able to finish this over the weekend. I think that the braided rug is next on my agenda.

We have been struggling with sick chickens lately. Some of them have caught a cold (I didn’t realize that happened). We have them on Antibiotics and away from the rest of the laying hens. They will have to stay isolated for a while until all that gets out of their system ….. so we don’t eat the antibiotics. One poor chicken has a really icky eye. Phil is building her a special isolation cage to keep her away from the rest. I am not sure if she is going to make it or not.

In September I got 3 baby chicks for free. Phil raised them by hand in his garage then built them a HUGE cage in the barn. We found out last week that at least one of the three is a rooster. I was out in the garage feeding them when he crowed! It startled me … then he did it again! We did some research about how to trim their spurs and keep us a little safer when he is big. Our last rooster was pretty hard on the hens. I wonder if we will have some babies this spring?