Saturday, February 7, 2009

A day at the farm

Today was my father's birthday.  Happy Birthday Dad!!!  So we made the 70 minute drive down to the farm to have lunch, visit for the afternoon and wish him well.
Here's the birthday boy!  83 years young!
It was a lovely day.  I'm not sure how warm it got here, but at the farm, it was a sunny, pleasant 68 degrees.  Warm enough for shirt sleeves.  The boys spent time outside, being boys:
Boys in the mud
Of course, they found the biggest puddle they could find and played in it.  If I had been smart, I would have brought along a change of clothes for them.  As it was, my Mom gave I11 a dry pair of socks to wear home.  The boys were sailing corn husk boats and then sinking them with rocks.
V and J14 also had a grand time outside.  My parents cut a large tree in the yard late last fall and some of it still remains. Mostly the brush and the logs too large to split.  Since they had been at Kum Do earlier in the morning they decided to practice their moves.  Of course, they were a bit more Errol Flynn than Korean stylized fighting:
Father daughter bonding??
But they had fun fencing on a log.  We took my parents some of our beef as well on this trip.  All Mom had asked for was soup bones.  I couldn't see only giving them bones so I included some ground beef and a small roast.
All in all, a good, relaxing day at the farm.  No pressure.  We talked gardening and I found out from my Mom that she may have some old canning jars in storage that I can have.  I'll have to check it out next time we're down there.  I'm always up for more jars, especially since we're working to have 50% of our food home produced or locally grown.
Well, it's movie night here and I need to make the popcorn.

5 comments:

  1. Boys and mud puddles... they just can't pass that up. Looks like a fun day. Hope you are enjoying your movie and popcorn!

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  2. Happy birthday to your father! It sounds like a great day all around, and yey for the warmer weather! It was nice here too, but not nearly 68*, I'm jealous. The fencing pics, those are priceless :-)
    Question for you about the jars: I thought that we weren't supposed to re-use jars? Or is it the bands/lids that we don't reuse?

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  3. Sara- The movie was fun. We watched 10,000 BC.
    Localzone- Jars can be reused as long as they aren't cracked or chipped. I have some jars now that were my grandmothers and have been canned in regularly for the last 40 years. If you take good care of them they will last almost indefinitely. Rings can be reused as well until they show signs of wear- they will sometimes rust. Really, the only thing you can't reuse are the lids. The rubber ring only reliably seals once. I will sometimes reuse old lids for something that doesn't need sealed (jars of dried beans, for example) but that's about it. Normally they go into the recycling.

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  4. Yes, Happy Birthday to your father!

    Jars as a bonus! Oh, such luck and I'm pea green with envy. That is the one spring purchase I'm not looking foward to.

    Have a great day!

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  5. Happy birthday to your dad! That looks like a WONDERFUL day - and 68 would be pure heaven about now:) Love the fencing pictures!
    Kris

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