winter Archives - Brown Acres Custom Harvesting

Catch The Moment #13

The days have flown by for me as usual. I even thought I missed getting pictures a few days. But between my camera and phone I had each day covered. I even included extras this week. I cannot even believe March is over! I thought I was going to get so much more done. Now I find myself picking 1 or 2 projects I want to complete before we head south. It will be here before we know it! Here are my pics for the week…

During lent, we have Wednesday church with potluck. I walked outside to get my food just as the sun was setting.

Oh Brett. I left the room for a minute and he fell asleep eating his pizza.

Friday we had lunch at the Dairy Queen in Lakota on the way to Grand Forks.

Saturday was a Bountiful Basket Food Co-op day. I love basket days! It’s a co-op we can order from every other week with pickup in Devils Lake. It’s all volunteer and direct from farmers.

On Sunday, church was cancelled. Unfortunately, it was due to our pastor being hospitalized for illness. He should be out later this week.

The guys took a dip in the hot tub before breakfast. I joined them for a bit too. It was a great start to the day!

This was one of my projects this week. I removed the closet rod, cut some boards, screwed them to the studs, painted and installed hooks. It is so much better! Even my littlest guy can hang up his coat now! The closet was also a test plot for painting our original linoleum – circa early 80’s. I hope to paint the bathroom, laundry and kitchen floor sometime this month. We’ve been wanting to add-on but it hasn’t happened yet. I can’t stand the thought of living with our floor for another year, so this is my solution. I can’t wait to have it all complete!

Brett and Sadie making the slow trek to the shop across the slippery rough ice in our yard. The poor dogs have been wiping out all week on it.

I have some extras for this week, with things starting to get crazy busy around here I’m not sure if I’ll be able to keep up with this regularly.

Tuesday we met Mick just as he was coming down the hill headed for home. He was hauling wheat to the ND Mill in Grand Forks. It’s 140 mile drive and usually means sitting in line all day. Currently he has only been able to haul about once a week. He takes a load whenever they will let him. The ND Mill is the only place around taking wheat and only on certain days for farmers. The other days are for area elevators to haul. There is a huge train shortage in North Dakota affecting grain transportation. It is due to train delays and the oil boom in western North Dakota.

We went flying for a little bit on Tuesday afternoon. This is downtown Hannah, ND. I was standing in front of the sea-green building in the center when I took my first picture above.

This is our yard from the mailbox during the snow melt.

This was taken through our pickup windshield on Friday. For about 20 minutes the sun had a full circle around it. It’s called a 22° halo and from what I’ve been reading is the same concept as sun-dogs.

I drove Max to school one day so he could sleep in. The sun was rising in my mirror on our way.

Do Something Amazing Today!

Erica

For more information please visit the girls who sponsor Catch the Moment 365

Week #11 Catch the Moment 365

March 12 – March 18, 2014

We’ve had an incredibly busy week around here! I didn’t end up with any decent pictures of the kids, but miraculously I managed to get a picture everyday. We had a couple thawing days this week, but there is still plenty of snow in northern North Dakota! Snow must have been my theme for the week. I have lots of snow pictures! We are ready for it to be gone and enjoy the warm days of spring!

We had a road trip day Wednesday for appointments. This was one of the many herds of deer we came across. They were out eating everywhere we looked. There are a lot of deer in the area this year – I see hundreds in my travels. They really like to cross the road in the dark!

I know this is such an ugly picture, but it is reality. This is what northern North Dakota looks like in March. The big pile of snow along the north tree line is my garden – buried! It’s going to take a while for it to melt and dry up! I can’t wait!

Coming in for a landing! This is our grass strip runway – even though it is brown, it is the only grass you will see around here this week. You can see there are some bare spots starting to appear in the surrounding field. We had wheat growing in the field last year. Our farm is to the north in the trees. It won’t take long for the snow to melt if we could have a few warm days.

The sunrise from my kitchen window. I love our North Dakota sunrises – my husband doesn’t understand my obsession. He thinks I have way too many sunrise pictures. Obsession or not, I love watching the sunrise & set here! The theme for the week was lucky. I feel very lucky and blessed to call North Dakota home and see these beautiful sunrises and sunsets throughout the year.

We had a snow squall move through Sunday afternoon. Our yard is very protected, but for awhile we had terrible visibility. It came as quick as it went, but had an ugly presence.

Monday night I attended Ladies Ag Night in the next county over. Katie Dilse – Speaker Extraordinaire drove in from Scranton, ND to speak. She did a wonderful job energizing and entertaining us! She made us laugh and cry. Her message was about maintaining OUR ‘grease zerks’ like we maintain our big rigs, connecting and lifting each other up. We had a blast! It was great to hear Katie’s message and connect with other farm women from the area just before our busy spring season gets underway. Check out her site to see Katie in action at the US Custom Harvesters convention this year http://www.katiedilse.com/

This is our old grain dryer from the 70’s. Mick has been busy drying our wheat this month. It is an automatic batch process grain dryer which runs on propane. It will dry 180 bushels of wheat per batch. Our wheat has been in an air bin since harvest with 15% moisture. It needs to be dried down to 13.5% moisture. The dryer is noisy and needs constant supervision – just like our kids!

For more information please visit the girls who sponsor Catch the Moment 365

Catch The Moment Week #9

Another bitterly cold week in North Dakota! We spent most of the time indoors. We had sickness make its round in the house this week. Hopefully we’re on the end of it now! We’ve been pretty fortunate this year health wise. Here are my captures from the week.

North Dakota Sunset

Our only North Dakota sunset from the week. It’s been a very cloudy & windy week around here.

North Dakota ground blizzard

This is the way it goes in North Dakota, especially this time of the year. We had dentist appointments an hour away today and had a blustery drive down.

day-59

This weeks theme is ‘Day in the Life’. This is typical around here – the girls come inside to warm up. We’ve had another bitterly cold week again -30°F on a few days. They spent a lot of time inside this week.

Day60

This is another typical scene. This time of the year usually brings the frost out.

Brett just wanted to watch his movie. Of course Mollie-Jayne had other plans. He was getting annoyed by her silliness.

This is the longest Mick’s plane has ever sat outside since we’ve had it. He’s had a lot going on in the shop so it got the boot and sat in front of the house for close to a month. When he went to move it, there was too much snow and it was stuck. He wasn’t very appreciative of me capturing it either. 🙂

Day 63

My Max hasn’t made it in very many pictures since he’s at school during the day. I definitely need to work on this. We made chocolate cake for dad. Max had to have the beater!

For more information please visit the girls who sponsor Catch the Moment 365