Another Reason to Drink Milk!

One of my favorite publications is Disney's Family Fun Magazine.  There are TONS of ideas for, well, family fun....crafts, activities, recipes, etc.  Our local library has a subscription, so I get it read it for FREE!

In the past I have been disappointed in other family/parenting magazines for regurgitating misinformation and scare tactics from environmental and animal rights activist groups about food and agriculture.

That's why I nearly jumped for joy when I saw this recent article called "Another Reason to Drink Milk"!

THANK YOU Family Fun Magazine for sharing a POSITIVE story about milk! 

My family "back home" in Maryland raises dairy cattle and we graze dairy cattle here on our farm in North Dakota, so I know how hard dairy farmers work to get that milk from the cow to the kitchen table and how dedicated they are to making high quality products.

Featured on page 47 of the February 2012 issue of Family Fun Magazine!

Frosty Morning on the Farm

"Be still and know that I am God..." Psalm 46:10. 

This morning it was about 23 degrees out with heavy fog.  This, along with my baby boy not being at the top of his game, changed my plans for the day completely.  I was supposed to be blogging from the Dakota Grown Conference the Department of Agriculture is putting on in Fargo, but I decided to skip the 100 mile drive and stick close to home.

I have to admit that I started out the day feeling pretty disappointed, but there's nothing like the tranquility of a farm on a foggy morning with beautiful frost on the trees to set a person straight.

Well, that AND spending some time with my assistant farm cat caretaker :) 

Here Miss C.W. greets C.T., otherwise known as "Coon Tail" ..."because he has dark gray stripes on his tail." We also have the calico named "Rainbow Tail", the orange cat named "Orange Tail" and the striped cat named "Stripey Tail"...are you sensing a pattern here? :)

In other news, the "big blue tractor" (New Holland 9882) is getting new tires. If you think tires on your car are expensive, consider that this beast requires 8 of these huge tires.

Believe me you do NOT want to see the bill for this (and neither do I, ha!).  Ever wonder why your food costs are going up? Consider the enormous increase in the costs of inputs farmers have experienced in recent years.

 Thanks for stopping by!  Hope you have a wonderful weekend!
- Sarah :)

Apfelschorle!

I first tasted "Apfelschorle" at a farm museum in Germany.

 It was a beautiful place, overlooking a picturesque valley.

I could have spent a week there, but we only had a few hours, which included one of my favorite hours, the lunch hour :)

My fellow McCloy fellow in agriculture, Erin, introduced me to this wonderful drink. 

Here's what Wikipedia says about Apfelschorle (pronounced Ahp-fell-shore-luh).

"Apfelschorle, also known as Apfelsaftschorle, is a popular soft drink in Germany. It consists of carbonated mineral water and apple juice. The broader category Fruchtschorle consists of any fruit juice mixed with carbonated water, but Apfelschorle is by far the most common. Spritzer (that is wine mixed with carbonated water) is called Weinschorle.

Apfelschorle contains fewer calories and is less sweet than pure apple juice. This makes it popular in summer and among athletes. Commercially available Apfelschorle generally contains between 55% and 60% juice.... However, in most bars and restaurants, Apfelschorle is mixed ad hoc from apple juice and carbonated water."

I make it at home...a lot...ever since I introduced my children to "the special drink".

I love that it is bubbly like soda and not as sugary.

And it's SO simple to make!

1 part apple juice.

1 part sparkling water. (I found the "Mendota" brand at our local grocery store called Hugo's)

If you REALLY want to knock the kiddos' socks off, serve it in a wine glass, just make sure it's a wine glass you don't mind having broken. I don't know about your place, but my kids break stuff. all. the. time.  :-)

When served in a wine glass, Apfelschorle can also make a pregnant lady feel like she's drinking something alcoholic.  Not that I really NEEDED something alcoholic when I was pregnant, but it just felt nice to have that glass stem in my hand :)

Also, my oldest daughter, C.W., takes the ingredients for Apfelschorle when she's "snack kid" at her pre-school.  She has done this three times and it's always a big hit! 

However, I found out that this last time she was "snack kid" some of her classmates requested to only have the sparkling water.  When I asked WHY they only wanted the sparkling water she informed me that "it made them burp a lot".  Uhuh.

Well, I THOUGHT Apfelshorle may somehow impose some class and culture on them, but leave it to kids to just be kids! LOL! :)

Have fun making Apfelshorle!  Special THANKS to American apple growers, like my friend in Michigan, Jeff Vanderwerff !

Thanks for stopping by,
Sarah :)

Bang, crash!...well, what do we have here?

I sort, I wash, I dry, I fold, but I don't empty pockets.  When I do laundry, I figure if you wore it, and you put stuff in the pockets, it is your job to take the stuff out before you put your clothes in the hamper.

This can be dangerous, considering I'm married to a farmer.

However, it's also entertaining, considering he still wears the clothes that had the permanent marker in the pocket, and yes, I still wear the clothes that had the pink Chapstick in the pocket.  So this is NOT me pointing fingers, but I do want to tell you about one particularly exciting, and downright shocking, experience I recently had with our clothes dryer.

Here we go...

A few of these items are fairly standard...

Carpenter's Pencil.  Yes, to be a farmer you must be a "jack of all trades"...carpenter, plumber, electrician, welder, accountant, agronomist, chemist, biologist, wildlife behavior and nutrition expert, human resource manager, etc.

Pretty standard stuff here.  A few washers and a screw, although I'm surprised I didn't get a puncture wound from that one.

Alan Wrench, left over from the assembly of the crib.  Farmers, with their "jack of all trades" talents and their "I've seen in all, so this is no big deal" senses of humor, make GREAT husbands and are WONDERFUL fathers, if you don't mind the constant flow of mud/grease/dirt/smell of diesel fuel into your home, can be a mostly-single Mom 9 months of the year, and can handle phone calls like "Um, Jeremy's driving himself to the emergency room and he's bleeding pretty badly, you might want to meet him there." :-)

Told you I wasn't going to point fingers. Check out this collection of bobby pins I found...yep, those are mine :)

Pretty pink hair accessories...the kids certainly help with the collection of goodies that is building up in my laundry room.

 But NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING prepared me for the sound of what I thought was the dryer self-destructing and possibly igniting into a fiery ball of lint and Carhartt coveralls.  I had just put in a load of work clothes, and I do mean WORK clothes.  This load was so muddy they could have stood up on their own, and they bore the smell of manure from when Jeremy helped the neighbors move some heifers (young female bovines). 

All I heard was this HORRIBLE banging and crashing. I took a deep breath, opened the door of the dryer and what to my wondering eye did appear, but ten HUGE nails!  Together they must weigh a pound.

What the...!!??

It may be time for me to add a new step in my laundry routine...checking pockets :)

Oh, and here's a fun game for this Marvelous Monday, I'll send ten bucks (seriously) to the person can identify this item that I found in my dryer. I bet my fellow farming Mama's will be able to identify it, and I'm betting I'm not the first parent who's had a kiddo rip one of these off.

  

Have a GREAT week everyone!  - Sarah :)

p.s. And if you're having a not-so-marvelous Monday, consider this...

"Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you." - Peter 5:7, NIV.

My Baby Made Me Clean My Desk

This past week has been C-R-A-Z-Y!

I'm coordinating a conference that's 100 miles away next week and we've had everything from pinkeye, to the stomach flu, to chest colds, come through the house taking out one or more members of my family at a time.  Did I mention my dear husband (who I am very proud of) was out of town for three days while speaking at the Manitoba-North Dakota Zero Tillage Farmer's Association conference?


Here's what I looked like a few days ago:


(photo from http://www.cgiardini.com/)

I was lovely, really lovely.  The bonus is that I only had pinkeye in ONE eye, so instead of looking totally albino, I just looked like I was in a bar fight. 

At one point last week, I commented that I had so many irons in the fire, I was surprised my whole desk hadn't burst into flames.

A friend commented back, that it was actually National Clean Off Your Desk Day.

It really was.

Ha...ha...ha... :-)

I thought, clean off my desk!? WHEN am I going to have time to do THAT!?

And then it happened.

Baby boy got his 6 months shots, was up all night Monday night with a fever and had to stay home from daycare yesterday. 

However, I still had a TON of work to get done.

So here's the view from my desk chair yesterday...



















Oh you can't imagine the joy my litle assistant got from ripping papers off my desk and flinging them onto the floor, giggling/shrieking/squealing the whole time!

It was AMAZING how quickly I got my desk cleaned off and files put away that I've been wanting to file for months :)

He can't talk yet, but it was in fact, my baby that made me clean my desk.

Today, I breath a sigh of relief.  Baby is well again. Desk is clean.  Ahhhh.....

Now it's back to work for me!

Thanks for stopping by! - Sarah :)

Three little words that mean so much.

Photo courtesy of the Jamestown Sun.  Team Wilson in the 2010 4th of July Parade. It takes a strong man to push a stroller.

We (and I mean, Jeremy, myself, all three kiddos, and a partridge in a pear tree) recently returned from a 12 day jaunt to the east coast to visit family and friends for the holidays.  It was wonderful, crazy, joyful and stressful, but overall an incredible blessing. 

I'm grateful we could swing this, afterall, for the first half of 2011 we wondered if we'd even have a crop to sell. God has been so good to us, and so has Delta's frequent flier miles program. 

I am glad that we achieved what we had set out to accomplish- to catch up with friends and family we hadn't seen in ages, to introduce them to our baby boy and to help my Mom go through some of my childhood belongings and "downsize". 

Baby Boy Wilson is already six months old!

The downsizing process was quite the blast from the past.  Did you know that around 1985, I got a Pound Puppies watch? Did you know that little girls (including my daughter) are still drawn to Pound Puppy watches? ("Hey Mom...w..w...what's that? Can I have it?"- C.W.) Some items just HAD to be passed on and packed for the return trip to North Dakota :)

Pound Puppies!

Even Santa somehow knew that we'd be at Mom and Dad's for the holidays and dropped off gifts under the tree and stuffed the stockings that were hung by the chimney with care.

It was such a joy and a comfort to sit and visit with our loved ones.  They all asked what we were up to and Jeremy would always answer them with "Sarah and I farm..." 

So here are the three little words that mean so much to me.  Yes, "I love you" coming from my dear husband means a lot, but even more than that "Sarah and I", reinforcing that our farm business is a team effort and we're in this thing together.

Those three words, "Sarah and I", warmed my heart more than Grandma Joan's famous baked pineapple.

Grandma Joan and C.W.  Love you, Grandma Joan!

I recall sitting at a milk marketing meeting that I had set up when I was working as a dairy extension educator in Minnesota in 2004.  A very successful young dairyman and his wife were part of the group and when we got around the table to their place in the introductions, he said "Rachelle and I"...as he continued to describe their farm..."and, well, without her I wouldn't be able to do what I do".  He continued his introduction with compliments on how well she handles the bookkeeping for the farm (and she really is GREAT at that) and how they work together on so many things in their business.
I remember thinking to my (single at the time) self how rare it was to hear a farmer so forthright with compliments for his wife, and I silently hoped that someday I could be part of a marriage and a farm business partnership like theirs.

And now here I am, "Jeremy and I", farming and raising a family together.

Praise be to God for bringing us together.  Praise be to God for friends and family, especially Kraig and Rachelle, for the joy the Christmas season brings, for safe travels and for time to reconnect with my little family, even if it was over something as simple as Pound Puppies :)

Great ag books for kids...now with lesson plans!

It's no secret that I LOVE Rebecca ("Becky") Long Chaney's set of three children's books, written along with her twin daughters, Rianna & Sheridan! She's been a dear friend of mine since my days as a dairy princess and now, just in time for Christmas, her books now have lesson plans to accompany them!  These are my favorite books for leading story time for preschoolers and elementary-aged kiddos and there's still time to order them for Christmas gifts! I got four sets for family members!

Here's the scoop...

"Eight-Year-Old Authors Sheridan and Rianna Chaney are proud to bring you the third book in the "The Chaney Twins' Series." This book, "Star Becomes A Mother," is a sequel to book number one, "Little Star, Raising Our First Calf." In this endearing third book, the girls see Star become a mother herself, and watch as she nurtures her newborn calf that the twins have immediately named, "Starstruck." The story focuses on many facets of the beef industry and the good care farmers and ranchers give their animals no matter what the weather.

All three books are 32 pages and are full of captivating color photographs by professional photographer and the books' co-creator Kelly Hahn Johnson of Sharpsburg, Md. The easy-to-read text geared toward preschool and elementary-aged children has been selected by numerous Farm Bureau groups, Ag in the Classroom programs and county and state cattle women's organizations across the country as their “Accurate Ag Books.” Book #2, “Mini Milk Maids on the Mooove,” featuring the dairying industry, received the Ohio Farm Bureau's prestigious “Children's Literary Award.”

The books' editor Rebecca Long Chaney and twins' mother is thrilled “The Chaney Twins' Series” continues to make such an impact with ag education and is teaching children about animal agriculture.

Lesson plans have been developed for all three books. They are available in downloadable form on the Pennsylvania Beef Council web site at www.pabeef.org

Books are $12 each plus tax and postage, or for the three book-“Bundle” special, the set is $30 plus postage. For more information or to place an order, call Rebecca at 301-271-2732 or email her at chaneyswalkabout@aol.com, or place an order directly from her web site at Rebeccalongchaney.com. Box discount specials are available for agricultural groups. Email Rebecca for details."