Rafe and Ike take a break after a hard afternoon of digging dirt and playing tractors.
Tell me Pyrenees aren’t the best dogs ever.
I heart them
M, O & RH ~ the girls’ 1st day of school ’05
Madeline really proved herself able to take on the responsibility of a dog with her hard work on her 4-H dog project this summer. But as well as Ike did, he’s really my dog. Plus a Pyrenees is just never going to be competitive in agility events. She wanted a dog of her own.
So we told her that she could buy her own puppy. The rules were that she had to save up her money for not only the puppy but the shots and vet work as well, and Matt & I had to approve her choice of breed.
She’s diligently saved her allowance and babysitting money all summer, even turning down a shopping trip offered by her Aunt Amy. And we let her keep $100 of her ribbon auction money. So it didn’t take as long as I expected for her save up a pretty good chunk of cash.
Settling on a breed was difficult. We ruled out all small breeds immediately, since we already own a giant dog. Don’t want anyone getting stepped on and crushed. It had to be a breed that would be both good at agility training, and good with the livestock on the farm. After several months of research the list was narrowed down to a collie or a German shepherd.
Then the question was whether to adopt a dog from a shelter or buy a puppy from a breeder. And it came down to the best interests of the farm. We just couldn’t take a chance that we’d get a dog home from the shelter and it would take after the chickens or the cats or anything else. We felt that a puppy brought up with the livestock would be a better choice.
So we started looking for local GSD breeders, and found one about 45 minutes away. And he happened to have a litter of 8-week-old pups ready to go Sunday. Madeline was about $45 dollars short of his price, but Matt & I decided to advance her the difference so that she could have a few days of dedicated puppy training before school starts Thursday.
So after that long-winded introduction, meet Abbie…
A fixture at the annual Cedar Valley Memories steam engine show is Stan’s ferris wheel. Stan was a friend, mentor, and co-worker of Matt’s. He was always tinkering with stuff out in his shop. An empty reel that had held electrical conduit sparked in him the idea of making this ferris wheel (the large red “wheels” on either side). He loved doing things that brought fun and joy to his grandkids and a lot of other kids as well. He is missed by many.
Plans for catching up on housework and picking green beans went by the wayside tonight as soon as the girls ran in the house saying, “Sarah’s got milk!”. I went out with them to have a look, to find that she had pushed open a gate, crawled under the corn crib, and made herself a dirt nest under there to deliver in. A half dozen fresh eggs coaxed her out so that Matt could wire the gate shut. After many vigorous attempts to get that gate back open, she gave in and did it our way and nested in the cattle shed.
It’s really cool to watch a sow giving birth when she’s free to move around and build a nest. I’d only ever seen one birth in a crate. In between contractions Sarah would get up and fluff up her nest.
Then all of a sudden she’d flop down and push out a piglet. 
She would also walk over and check on her already-born babies in between contractions. It’s interesting to hear her “talk” to her babies. Just like cows have a special “moo” they use to talk to their calves, sows have a special grunt they use to talk to their piglets.
Our job was to keep the piglets out of her way while she was nesting and delivering. Matt quickly constructed a corner “creep” by screwing a couple of 6-foot boards across one corner and hanging a heat lamp overhead. As each one was delivered Matt snatched it up, cleared its mouth and nose, and placed it in the creep.
The labor team
A piglet, literally 30 seconds old
The piglets are unbelievably spunky. This one, only a couple of minutes old, is up, walking around, trying to climb stairs.
After about 2 1/2 hours of labor, we have 8 healthy piglets! More pictures to come, of course 🙂
This past weekend was the 10th annual Cedar Valley Memories steam engine show, held just a few miles west of Osage. The show just gets better every year. It was a beautiful day to be outside walking around, enjoying the displays and demonstrations.
I love that these machines and implements are being preserved along with the know-how to use and maintain them, thanks to the many volunteers who work on this year-round. One thought kept running through my mind the whole day – with peak oil right around the corner, who knows but that these skills may be called upon again some day.
One of the most impressive demonstrations was the plowing with this goliath Reeves engine.
It pulled the plow like it was a toy wagon. Each set of blades was individually manned by pulling up a lever to lower the blades and pushing down the lever to raise the blades.
It cut thru the soil like butter. (And beautiful, black Iowa soil it is, too.)
For some reason, this turned out to be one of my favorite pictures of the day.
‘Tis the season for steam engine shows. Zanne over at The Farmers Wife is reporting on one in Illinois.
Could you bring just one more pail of corn? Aw, c’mon, we’ll be your best friends. How about we give you five bucks? Bet your mom would bring us some. Here’s an idea – let’s play feed the cows, you go first! No?
A little spin on one of Rafe’s favorite books, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus
Delivery of Sarah’s next litter is nigh, so yesterday we moved her out of the love nest and into a deluxe birthing suite. She is literally in hog heaven what with all kinds of green things to eat, and part of the cattle shed all to herself.
This is all we saw of her after the move
Winston, bachelor once again
This is 4 of Sarah’s first litter, almost all grown up. 
Stay tuned for a birth story, within the next week or two!
he’s going to get Olivia for this…
(Now that my ISP has restored FTP access, let the blogging resume.)
My cousin Tim, amongst other interesting things, is a pilot. One of his piloting jobs is crop dusting.
The aphids moved in on area soybean fields in the last couple of weeks, so the skies have been filled with planes and helicopters spraying insecticide. Tim was spraying in the area and I got the opportunity last Thursday to take some pictures.
Then on Saturday we were at Tim’s parents picking sweetcorn. When we went back up to the house his mother met us and said, “Becky (Tim’s wife) called and said a plane crashed but she’s almost positive it’s not Tim.” Matt said, “We’ve got to get back to town, I may have to go to work.”
Sure enough a large part of the town was without power. It was chaotic. The plane – identical to the one Tim was flying – crashed shortly after takeoff narrowly missing a Super 8 motel, a drive-in packed with suppertime customers, and someone’s garage. It crashed through power lines, breaking off 2 poles, and then a willow tree before landing in someone’s front yard.
Matt and the rest of the line crew worked until 1:30 in the morning before getting power restored to everyone except the drive-in. (Yes, an old-fashioned drive-in where you eat in your car. But the waitresses don’t wear roller skates and poodle skirts anymore.) They couldn’t disturb the crash site until after the investigator came, so Sunday noon they got clearance and worked all of Sunday afternoon also.
Taking away the plane. The cockpit is a burned out skeleton
The tree it ripped through. Can you imagine a plane dropping into your yard?
The Super 8 and the broken power pole next to it
The pilot was very lucky. Landing in the middle of town as he did, there were lots of people around that jumped in to pull him out of the plane before it burst into flames. He came away with a broken collarbone, a couple of crushed vertebrae, and chemical burns on his hands and face. It could have been so much worse, for him and for the people enjoying their supper at the drive-in. Close call, indeed.
