Wordless Wednesday: Halloween Edition

Adventures in Potty Training...Again

It feels like I've been potty training for years. Maybe because I have. Anywho, it's Tate's turn this time. I figured since he wakes up dry, it was time. He does pretty well except that he won't tell me he needs to go. If you take him every couple of hours, he'll be dry. Forget to take him, wet. I think I need a couple of days of him half naked and he'll get it, but I haven't had a couple of days with him lately.

Anywho, yesterday Pat took him in the tractor in the morning. He took him potty twice, but when I got him at 1:30 he was soaked. Luckily Pat had a diaper in his pickup, but no pants. So poor Tate got to wander around the corn field like this:
It was pretty chilly in the morning when they left and Tate wanted to wear his new snow boots. Maybe I'm biased, but I think he's rocking the pantless snowboot look.

Skip to My Lou

We recently made a quick trip to my parents' where my niece attempted to teach Cole how to skip. I didn't get a video then, but I got one last night of both boys attempting to skip. It's definitely good for a giggle.

The Great Fall Flood

So this post is a little late, but here goes.

About a week and a half ago we got a ton of rain. Some areas got up to 6" of rain on already saturated ground. We didn't get quite that much, but we got plenty. Fortunately for us, our worst field had already been harvested for corn silage.

Corn silage was an adventure this year. Our cows eat a variety of grain and forage. We feed them a mixture of ground corn, dry hay, haylage (fermented alfalfa), and corn silage (the entire corn plant, chopped and fermented). Some years we also do wet corn (corn at a higher moisture than typically harvested) or earlage (the ear of corn, husk, cob, and all, chopped up). With all the rain we'd been getting our silage didn't get harvested until later than usual. We ended up having to have a neighbor chop the last bag of silage with his self-propelled chopper since there was no way our pull type chopper would make it through. Fortunately we finished, but our neighbor wasn't so fortunate. He chopped half a bag after we finished ours, but then got rained out. The bag sat open (which drove Pat nuts since silage spoils easily) for over a week until he finished it the other day. Silage is ideally chopped when the corn plant is still fairly green, but some years you don't get ideal.

We didn't get any wet corn or earlage harvested this year, but our cows can do without. The important thing is that they get a mixture of forages and grain and our hay crop this year was fantastic.

After a week of drying the guys have been off trying to find dry fields to combine soy beans. We've gotten out a few fields and so far the yield has been great. They are anticipating a long harvest, especially since one of Pat's uncle's fields went under water earlier this week. The water is receding, but the damage has been done.

Here are a couple of pictures taken about a mile from our house. In our area, we have a series of deep drainage ditches that dump into local rivers. The drainage ditches were full (the one by our house has got to be at least 12' deep) and overflowed into the road ditches and fields. The 6" of rain they got to the south of us also had to travel up these drainage ditches, which caused the loss of Pat's uncle's field.

These pictures are pretty mild compared to some of the flooding to the west of us. I didn't go for a drive out that way when it was at its worst and the couple of times I was out there I didn't have my camera, go figure!

Why I Don't Eat Lipton Noodles

Recently a friend of mine was complaining about having a cold. Normally that would not be cause for a status comment, but every time this particular friend complains about a cold or sinuses it reminds me of a story. When I was in college, the first time around, I was fortunate to have a lot of really awesome friends. One such friend's, we'll call her J, parents had recently moved to Lincoln. Her dad was in between jobs, thus her family was in between houses and living in an apartment. One weekend we decided to head to Lincoln and nab some real food. Keep in mind this was B.C. (before cell phones, or at least before most people had cell phones) and also when being on the internet tied up your phone line. We tried calling her parents to see if they were home, but her sister was on the internet, so we couldn't get through. So we stopped by. Her parents weren't home, but we decided to make up some Lipton noodles. I was never big on Ramen, but I lived off of Lipton noodles for years. Anywhoodle, while we were eating I said something incredibly hilarious, as I usually do, while J was taking a bite. My witty comment forced her to laugh and in doing so she inhaled a noodle. No big deal normally, but this noodle took a peculiar turn and wound up in her sinus. Seriously, you could feel it at the bridge of her nose. It wasn't a little spaghetti noodle either, it was a fettuccini noodle. She was of course in a bit of pain but the situation was so funny we were both crying with laughter. The noodle did come out with a sneeze, and I haven't been able to eat Lipton noodles since without thinking of that story. It always makes me laugh a little.