Decorations

Every year I decorate the archway in our dining room and the doorway to the living room. I have a pine garland with red berries that I bought at least 15 years ago. I add some white lights and a bow at each corner. The long shelf above the archway was a Christmas gift years ago. It was handmade to match the woodwork in our old farmhouse. You should have seen me in the car the day I picked up this long shelf at the shop where it was made. It would not fit in the car. I had the one end in the front seat of the car and the back end was hanging out the one side window. I love this shelf. I filled it with old jars, milk bottles and tins.

My Santa Collection

Pics of my trees

Here are some pics of my trees I decorate for Christmas.

Christmas is Coming

Wow, I didn't realize it had been so long since I was on here. I can't believe it is December. Christmas will be here before I am ready . Also our one grandaughter has a birthday in Dec. She will be 7. I can't believe she is going to be 7. I remember when I was keeping her before she started school. Seems like so long ago. Now she is in First Grade. Also my birthday is this month too. But I am nowhere near 7. LOL ! Way beyond that . This year is the first year I won't buy my Thomas Kinkaid Christmas cards . I won't be buying any cards at all. I will only be sending cards to family.I have cards from other years I will use. Just can't afford the stamps . I will also be cutting back on Christmas presents . Mostly I will give family craft things I have made.
Last week I finished putting up all the trees . I have a 9' tree in the one living room, a twig tree in the other living room, the 7 1/2' tree in the dining room, a 2' tree in the kitchen, an 18 " tree in the downstairs bathroom and a 1' tree in the upstairs bathroom. The 7 1/2' tree is my primitive tree .It has all primitive ornies on it and white lights. The 9' tree has ornies I have collected over the years , some antique ornaments from my mother-in-law, ornies with the grandkids pics in them and ornies people have given us over the years . I didn't start putting out all my decorations til 2 days ago. I just couldn't get into the holiday mood. Probably because the milk prices aren't any better . Paying the bills isn't any easier . And we have pretty much sold about all we can sell to help pay the bills. Not sure what we are going to do. Can only pray God will help us out, like He has always done.

Getting Nowhere !!

Well , I have written another Letter to the Editor of our local paper,the CDT www.centredaily.com .I said in the letter that I have written to my politicians and I am getting nowhere . They have their hearings and do all their studies and hear from dairy industry people. The dairy industry people they should be hearing from are the farmers. Farmers who are in danger of losing their farms to these ridiculous prices we are getting for our milk. A dairy woman , Alice Allen, has filed a class action lawsuit against Dean Foods alleging monopoly pricing. Dean Foods and Kraft are showing record profits while dairy farmers are struggling to survive. There is something rotten in the wood pile !! Farmers are writing and telling their stories. We need to keep it up and keep the pressure on . My husband and I are still struggling. We are so far behind on our bills now , it will take years to ever catch up . If we ever do .

Harvester Died

Well , the new ( very used ) harvester has died. The whole time hubby was trying to fill the silo , it kept breaking down. That should have told us something right there ?? Yesterday , hubby and the neighbor were in the field and suddenly the harvester let out this big boom and crash . Something vibrated loose and went thru the harvester. It can't be used the rest of this year . Hubby has to try and work on it this winter and get it in shape for next year. That is if it can even be fixed. He doesnt know yet, til he starts to tear it apart. Luckily, we have the very best farming neighbors. They came over today and are helping us fill the rest of the silo with their harvester. I don't know where we are going to get the money to pay him for his time. But we are so lucky they are helping us out. We so appreciate it ! We have a 50 ' concrete silo and a small metal silo ( this one has to be an antique !! ) . We are working on the 50 ' silo right now. Hubby wants to fill the metal silo about half full. This week in our local paper www.centredaily.com a farmers silo , full of silage collapsed .It hit part of their barn and also killed 15 of their animals . A very big loss for the farmer and his family. Luckily no people were hurt. The farmers were 15 minutes away from going to the barn to start their work . I worry about our old metal silo falling down .I will worry the whole time they are filling it til they are done . I will say a prayer to keep them safe .

Forage Harvester

We will soon be filling silo .But we had a little problem this year. Last year we borrowed a harvester from another farmer . About 2 weeks ago my husband goes out to see if we can borrow it again this year .The farmer tore it apart , he didnt have it .He said I meant to come and tell you. So we were at a loss what to do . We don't have the money to pay our bills, with these lousy milk prices, let alone go buy a harvester. We asked around everywhere to see if anyone had one . We are a small farm , so all we needed was a 1 row. No luck anywhere . There was to be a sale of machinery on Saturday ( 19th ) . My husband decided to go and try and get one. No idea where the money is going to come from. But it is something we had to have or there was no way to fill our silo. He went to the sale and did get one . We were so glad . But to pay for it , we are going to have to send 2 cows out tomorrow . Which of course will mean we will ship out less milk. So we will be making even less money to try and pay the bills. It is a vicious circle. There doesn't seem to be an end to the low milk prices . And I keep reading where Dean's Food and Kraft are having record profits . At the farmers expense ! Oh yes, we got our huge raise in our milk prices ,thanks to Sec. of Agriculture Vilsack .We got a whopping $12.00 a hundredweight instead of $11.30 . Wow , what to do with all this money ! It is a joke! A joke on every hard working farmer , who struggles every day to pay the bills. How much longer are we to take these insults ?? Something needs to be done and now ! The milk price has to be raised immediately to at least $ 17.00 .So farmers can try to at least keep the farms they have worked and struggled over for years ! I read in one of our farm papers there were 250,000 farms in the US in 1980 .Now in 2009 there are only 50,000 . And there are going to be even less if something isn't done NOW !!!!