Volunteering Again!

I recently rejoined the Wellman Volunteer Fire Department. I am excited to be back in the fire service after a one and a half year absence. I just got my pager last night so I haven’t been on any calls yet, and I don’t actually have my own gear yet. Since the last time I was on, the department has purchased all new bunker gear, helmets, etc. that are personalized with name badges and such. I can’t wait to get fitted for my own. In addition they have added a bunch of new gear, most notably new Scott SCBAs and a new rescue truck has been ordered. Last week I trained on running the pump on the main pumper, so I should feel pretty comfortable with that if I get the nod to pump at a fire. I am also considering going for a Firefighter 2 certification. I have been a certified Firefighter 1 since 2000. I would also like to become an Instructor, and maybe an EMT/Paramedic, but I guess one thing at a time.

As far as the farm goes, things are pretty good. Our garden is growing well and we are looking forward to getting veggies to eat right out of the garden. Hannah canned/froze 25 pounds of carrots the other day, so we have a few carrots to munch on for a while. She purchased them at one of the local Amish stores. 

Hannah has been working on the family history album and it looks to be mostly done for now. More pictures and other information from my side would be helpful to fill it up a bit more though. She did a great job of getting names and dates put in the correct order. Each person has their own section with a page listing things like birthdates, parents, siblings, marriages, deaths, etc. It looks very well organized and it took a lot of work on her part. Keeping it up will be an ongoing project as people are born, die, and so. Good job Honey!

A little catching up!

Well it’s been a while since I wrote so I thought I might let it be known that I am still alive. I have rejoined the fire department here in Wellman. I hope the experience is more rewarding this time around. So far everyone has been really nice, and several people have said they are glad to see me back. Last night I went to my second meeting and did some training on the pumper. Most of the pumpers I have used in the past are pretty much the same, but each one has it’s own little quirks so it was nice to get a feel for the one Wellman uses. I am still waiting to get my pager and my gear, but I figure there is not reason to rush, everyone is pretty busy. It will be fun to start going to calls again though, so I am hoping the chief can get me a pager sooner rather than later.

Hannah continues to work on the family album. It is quite the undertaking but I think she is nearly done. Basically it is Hannah and my direct family trees, us, parents, siblings, grandparents, great grandparents and so on back a ways. She is currently working on a sort of index and then she should be pretty much done except for a few loose ends.

We have new neighbors next door. They are really nice, and I think they are planning on being here for a while.

The chickens are getting big; probably a few months from laying eggs yet, but they are looking healthy and acting like chickens. The younger ones haven’t quite figured out that they can leave the barn when the door is open, but they like to run free in the barn if I let them.

The flooding seems to be pretty much over for now, and I got back to work last Thursday. This week has seemed a bit more normal so far, but it is only Tuesday. Hopefully it will continue to be a regular week. Last week when I was off I spent the better part of three days spreading gravel on the drive so we don’t have to keep sinking in the mud when it rains. I spread about 40 tons of gravel with the bobcat we  borrowed from Charlie.

It’s been dry and not too warm as far as the weather goes. It’s nice out her on the farm.

Well I’m off for now.

Historic Flooding

Water keeps rising in Iowa City and Cedar Rapids Iowa. Cedar Rapids has already seen flooding today that is significantly higher than the floods of 1993. Iowa City/Coralville is still waiting to see how high the flooding will go. They are now talking about flood waters 6-11 feet above above the 1993 flood levels. The 1993 flood is sort of a bench mark for other floods in the area. The Coralville Resivour has water flowing in that is predicted to be much much faster than that of 1993 as well. So to make a long story short, the Floods of 2008 are most likely going to make the floods of 1993 look tame from the standpoint of the amount of water. However, new levies and banks built since 1993 may keep some of this water from actually causing serious damage, but any levy breaks could really cause a heck of a problem. To add to the misery, it is raining again today and may rain off and on into tomorrow, and then again on Sunday depending on which forecast you look at. I work in the Iowa City/Coralville area and they continue to order more evacuations in many lower lying parts of the city. There are several areas where the Iowa River is already out of its banks in Iowa City/Coralville. To say the least, this a very significant weather event. The FEMA director is supposed to be in Cedar Rapids, on Friday.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Thought I would add a post. It is raining like crazy today. Seems that the wet winter we had has carried itself right into spring. The temperatures have slowly begun to rise over the past few weeks, but while there have been a few warm days, overall it hasn’t been too hot, yet. Our garden is starting to grow nicely although the side Hannah planted does look more full than the side I planted. I am hoping my plants will catch up soon. I think I may have planted some of the seeds a little deeper so they are just taking longer to get to the top.

Hannah and I have been on a weight loss challenge the past week. We have been trying to watch what we eat, not snack between meals, and get exercise. On Sunday I was down to 142lbs, but his morning I was back at 144. I am going to blame it on going to Taco Bell last night and having a taco pizza, a regular taco and a full sugar soda. I need to watch it today, and maybe I will be back to 142 by morning, or at least 143, that would put me below where I was last Wednesday.

Hannah cleaned house all day yesterday. It looked really good, which isn’t out of the ordinary, she does a great job of keeping things clean from week to week. Of course having me home all weekend doesn’t help as I tend to add to the work at a much faster pace on the weekends. I don’t know why that is, but I seem to use a lot of dishes. Maybe that means I am eating too much.

On Saturday I spent the evening cutting trees out of the ditches along our road. It had gotten to the point that we couldn’t see pulling out of our driveway without sticking the nose of the car into the road. Plus, some of the trees that were growing along the road were starting to block our beautiful view of the countryside. Now we can easily see down the road in both directions, which also makes it safer for everyone when pulling out of our drive.

I went fishing last night and caught a couple of bass. I need to get some worms and see if I can catch some Crappie.

The Democratic primary voting ends tonight with South Dakota and Montana voting. I am hoping that Barack Obama will finally get the votes he needs and Hillary will concede the nomination so the whole mess can just move on. Hannah wants Hillary to take it all the way to the convention. I know she is leaning toward Jon McCain, and a drawn out Democratic party fight would certainly be in his favor. I am a long way from making any hard decisions at this point, but I think it would be much better for the process if Obama would just be declared the nominee and then they can start focusing on the General Election in November. That’s my take on it, which really isn’t worth much I suppose.

Long Weekend

The holiday weekend is over and now we are back to regular programming. Yesterday Hannah and I went to Ottumwa to visit mom and dad. I helped dad put up some trim on their new garage. Hannah and mom looked through old pictures for Hannah to use in her family history album. Later we all went out to eat with Grandma Nadine, Aunt Pat and Larry. It was a nice time. Afterward Hannah and I went back to mom and dad’s and played Phase 10 (a card game). Before coming home we stopped at Super Wal-Mart and picked up a few food items. Hannah and I got home around 10:45pm.

On Saturday Hannah’s mom and sister Emily came down. Emily brought our niece Maddie. We ate lunch together and talked. Then I went and go a couple of smaller chicks to bring out for Maddie to see. She petted them and didn’t seem scared of them. Hannah then went with Emily, Maddie and Janet to the park in town while I stayed home and worked on some things. Apparently Maddie told Hannah it was the best park ever and she didn’t want to leave because even grandma went down the slide at the park. I think they all had a good time.

Yesterday was Memorial Day, so that is why I wasn’t at work. However, I was wide awake at 6:30 am. Of course today, when I had to get up at that time, I really wasn’t in the mood since I knew I was going to be going to work instead of having another day to do what I wanted around the farm.

Hannah is done baby sitting after school. Alex won’t be here the rest of the school year because he has activities after school every day this week. He wasn’t hard to watch after, but now it will leave Hannah with more time to get other things done during the day for a while. She is going to start working as an aid through the school district for a child in town who is disabled. She will be working part time, and while she will get paid, I think she is doing it more out of the kindness of her heart. We had talked about her just volunteering her time anyway if the school didn’t work something out. I haven’t met the child or the parents, but it sounds like they could use the help of a trained teacher. Hannah wasn’t interested in going back as a regular teacher, so it’s nice that they would hire her as an aid. Hopefully it won’t be stressful for her, and she will get a lot of satisfaction out of helping.

Fred and the chickens are all doing fine.

It’s cloudy and rainy again today. We had a series of big storms on Sunday in Eastern and Northeastern Iowa. One storm with an official EF5 tornado destroyed parts of Parkersburg and New Hartford in Northern Iowa. at least 6 people were killed, 70 some injured and several hundred houses were destroyed or badly damaged along with the high school in Parkersburg and several businesses. The pictures from up there are simply unbeleivable. Entire neighborhoods are just gone, reduced to piles of wood, shingles and smashed cars. It’s a wonder more people weren’t hurt.

Parkersburg, Iowa, Monday, May 26, 2008 after an EF5 Tornado on May 25, 2008.

More Planting

Well we have basically everything planted that we have talked about for this year. Yesterday I planted the last of the strawberry plants and planted a couple of blueberry plants (we might get one more of these). So unless we see something we think we can’t live without we are now on to the waiting and weeding portion of the program. Several of our previous plantings have now sprouted and more appear each day. It’s always fun to watch things grow, of course it’s even more fun to eat what we have planted ourselves. With a little help from above, we should have a pretty full garden this year.

It’s raining today here in our little part of the world. I am waiting to start watching the Indianapolis 500 race coverage. I hope it’s a good race.

The people who rent the other house have been moving out and the moving van just returned to pick up what I expect will be the last of their stuff. Even though they were quiet and kept to themselves, it will be odd not to have anyone living next door for a while. They are moving to Alabama. After this past winter, I am sure they will enjoy living somewhere where it probably won’t snow every other day for months in a row. Hopefully that was just an out of the ordinary event and not a preview of future winters.

Alright, I am off to feed the cats, chickens and Freddie. Then to the shower. After that I am planting myself on the couch for most of the rest of the day.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

We got the strawberries planted. I built a new bed about 14 feet long and 4 feet wide. Currently there are 12 strawberry plants in them. I noticed that we got 11 early strawberries and one ever bearing. Problem is we didn’t realize this until they were already in and I was looking at the tags we had thrown in the box. Oh well, I guess we will just have to wait and see what’s what. So now we have two garden areas. One is 33 x 21 and one is 25 x 25. The second one is where we made a couple of lasagna garden beds this year. I also planted two tires with potatoes, and I plan on planting at least one more. As the potatoes grow you add another tire on top and fill it with dirt up to the top of the plants. They will grow taller and then by the time they are waist high you let them finish off. In tires the size of average tractor tire you are supposed to be able to get 50 lbs of potatoes. However, our tires are basically regular auto tires, so we will see how they do. As least I won’t have to dig them up, just take the tires off.

Now I need to mow the yard, do some trimming and things should look pretty good. We have talked about getting some blue berry plants. It sounds like they are particular about the soil, so I will probably test it and make adjustments before we plant any blue berries. Our raspberry plant is looking good, and if is spreads like the one at our previous house, in a couple years we should have an abundance of berries.

This weekend is Memorial Day, so I get Monday off. That will be nice, it’s been a few months since we had a holiday off. I am looking forward to watching the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday. I hope it doesn’t rain there so the race goes off without a hitch.

We attended a new church last week, the Salem Mennonite Fellowship. I think we are planning on going again this Sunday. Everyone was very nice, and one couple had us over for dinner. We have been contemplating going back to church for a while and have been looking for someplace with a good community atmosphere, and this church seems to fit that bill. I guess we will see how things go. Honestly, some of the Mennonite beliefs are divergent from my own, but on many areas we have similar views. I can understand their point regarding Pacifism but I don’t know if I can agree totally at this point. I do think that looking for non-violent ways to deal with situations is the way to go, but I believe that the government should supply a strong military, and that they should be willing to use it for the defense of our nation. I also think that it is not completely un-Biblical to be a part of the military. So that is probably my biggest difference in thought from  the little I have read. Hannah has read a lot more about the Mennonites and Amish, so she probably has a better understanding at this point. I have a bit of a learning curve ahead of me if we continue to attend.

More another day.

Blogging Doesn’t Come First

Well, the weather is warm and it has become obvious that there are so many other things to do instead of blogging. Not that I haven’t enjoyed writing, and will cotninue to do so, but I have been spending a lot more time outside these days. By the time I usually come in it’s getting late and I would rather spend that time with Hannah and relax. So I would guess that what was intended to be a nearly daily blog probably will be somewhat less so during the summer. What I am saying is, I guess I will write when the time is available, or when I really have something interesting to say. It might be a couple days in a row, or it could be several days in between. We will just have to see.

Yesterday I went fishing after work. I got started a little late, and I think I caught the tail end of the feeding time. I was out for about an hour and a half. I caught one 2 lb large mouth bass within about 10 minutes. I spend the rest of the time just practicing my casting, by default of course, because the fish were done biting. I was fishing in a small pond across the road. I know there are lots of fish in there, and some big ones too. I caught a huge bass last year out of there, and put him back. I haven’t hooked him again since. In addition, when I first got to the pond last night, I could see several fish swimming around, but apparently only one was interested in what I was offering. I tried three or four different loures, but no more luck. I even when back to the loure I caught the first fish on, and the one I caught the huge bass on last year, and well, to tell you the truth, the loure I have caught more fish on than any other loure I have ever used. Anyway, I did end up taking last night’s catch home so I will be having some bass fillets sometime this weekend. Maybe for breakfast on Saturday with some eggs and hasbrowns. Yummy.

Hannah bought some flowers to put out by the garden and an hanging plant this week. She also picked up some strawberry plants. We are still not exactly sure where we are going to put them though. I will have to work on that this weekend. I did get some potatoes planted, and we have several more seed potatoes which need to go somewhere. Hannah and I also planted Watermelon plants, acorn squash, pumpkins, cantalope, and some more herds. Probably other stuff, but I can’t remember all of it.

The chicks we bought this year are getting nice a big. They are about half the size of the full grown hens and looking bigger everyday. I noticed one of last years hens is a little unfreindly to the others, but I am hoping once the new ones get older they will all figure out the “pecky order”, and get along. We are still new to this chicken thing, so it’s interesting to see the dynamics.

Freddie is getting along fine. The weather hasn’t been too warm for him yet and he enjoys being out when we are working in the garden. He likes going fishing too, but he makes it rather hard to concentrate on fishing because everytime I cast, he wants to chase the loure into the pond, and he likes to wade in the water near the shore. I didn’t take him last night, but every once in a while he will get to go. Sometimes we just walk over to the pond so he can wade in, and I don’t have to worry about fishing around him. I don’t know if it really makes a dfference in the amount of fish I catch or not though.

It hasn’t rained in a few days, and they were talking rain this weekend, but it keeps chaging to the point that we might get a few showers here and there, and that is it. It has been nice to have some dry weather for while.

64F, no rain.

Well, I’m off to do other stuff for now.

Gardening

Saturday Hannah and I planted the garden. We put in basically some of everything we are wanting to plant into the main garden. Later on we are going to plant more in other gardens including the two lasagna beds. We may plant some things along one of the fences too. I want to get some strawberries to plant, so we will have to look for some good plants. I personally enjoy ripe strawberries right off the vine. Of course mixing them with sugar is a great treat too. We planted several varieties of tomatoes, peppers, beets, beans, cauliflower, lettuce, cucumbers some corn, and several flowers. I am sure there is more but that is what comes to mind right now. We has started some things indoors, but that didn’t work out at well as I had hoped. We might have to do some research before next year so we can be more successful with starting plants in doors.

I finished picking up another large pile of branches and then we went inside for the evening. On Monday I am going to stop and buy some chicken wire to help keep the chickens, rabbits, etc. out of the garden. Then we will probably work on building a more permanent picket fence around the main garden area.

Today I mowed the lawn and picked up some old wood chips that were looking bad around some Asters planted by the house. I need to pick up the old wood chip mulch under our swing and some on the front side of the house and plant grass seed instead. I am hoping it will be more chicken friendly. They were tearing up the mulch that we had down. I would much rather mow some more grass than have to put wire around every single place we don’t want the chickens. We also did some house cleaning today. I helped by cleaning the bathroom. Hannah did dishes, dusted and did some laundry. So we should be ready to start the week off fresh.

We did a lot of manual labor this weekend and man am I tired. Hannah said her legs are sore from planting the garden. It will probably take a couple days to recuperate.

It rained all night last night, so the garden is well watered. I don’t think we will have to worry about water for several days. I am not sure how much rain we actually received though because our rain gauge got knocked over. It was pretty windy yesterday and today too. The sun is out this afternoon/evening and the wind has died down now as well.

May 8, 2008

It was another nice evening to be outside. I cut down a pretty big tree this evening. It was growing behind an apple tree in one of the old pastures. Looked to me like both trees just sort of ended up there with out any real reason. The larger tree was making it impossible for the apple tree to grow straight and most of the apple tree branches on that side were growing straight up instead of out because of the other tree. Now that tree is gone. It was a lot larger on the ground than it looked when it was standing. However, it needed to go, so now hopefully the apple tree will be able to fill out on the north side since it won’t be competing with another tree. I don’t feel too bad about cutting down a tree since we have planted several others since we moved here.

Weather:

Thursday: 68F, Breezey

Wednesday: 72F, .048 inches of rain