Neat idea to teach fractions

I wish I had thought of this when I was teaching.  I used pizza and measurements when baking to teach my girls their fractions.  (That way we could eat afterwards!)

We dug a post hole, and got a well

This afternoon we worked outside on more tornado clean up.  It finally quit raining on Thursday evening, so we can finally start to do a few things.

We finished hooking up the post hole digger on the tractor.  I went to fed a bale of hay, then noticed part of the post hold digger had come off.  It took us 45 minutes to locate the part that fell off (luckily I realized it so drove the tractor back to the house taking a different route, so I would not run over it).

So, we put the part back on and started in on fence work.  We took down the remaining fence and moved it all aside.  Most of it we can reuse, but one section I think is not usable.  Then, we had to pull up the t posts.  We used the tractor front loader to pull them up.  I thought after all the rain they would have come up easier than they did.  We originally put this fence in with t post, because we were not sure exactly where we wanted it.  This time, we moved it back some and now we know this is where we want it, so we are putting it in with wooden posts this time.

We dug our hole and set the first post, then we went to the other end and measured back and to set the corner post.  Then, the fun started.  As soon as the auger came out of the hole, I went to measure it to see where we were at.  When I looked into the hole, it was rapidly filling with water.  I looked 3 times, still more water coming in.  I told the husband he better get out of the tractor and come look at this.  I think he thought I found a snake or a body, because at first he did not want to get out.  Yep, we had hit water.  Not a water line, just water.  Water at 4 feet.  50 yards away is our well, which they had to drill 80 feet to find water.  When they dug the well, they told my husband that they had hit an underground river.  Not sure if this runs into that or what.  But, water at 4 feet was not what we were expecting to find.  It was literately bubbling out of the ground and into the hole.  We put the post in and out of it several times to mark how high the water line was.  The last time, it was up 7 inches.   I am thinking this may be a good place to put a willow or birch tree, since they like the water.

Even weirder, was, as it was filling up with water, these little tiny crawdad things came out of the dirt and started swimming in it--3 of them. Our farm has several springs on it, I think this must be another one. Wish it had been oil, or gold, or even a buried box of money (this is Jessie James country after all, maybe the outlaw did forget where he hid some?)  At least if there is a drought, we know where to find more water.

More rain

It has been raining almost every day for last 2 weeks.  Due to the rain, nothing has been done on the roof (other than the temp patching) and we now have a few leaks.  Nothing has been done to the barn.

Since the tornado, we have managed to get the downed trees out of the yard and easement up by the road and moved over to the treeline, for the wood cutters to cut; got all the debris picked up; and have gotten the new posts and fencing materials.  But, since it has been raining, can't cut wood, can't work on the house or barn, and its too wet now to dig the post holes.  We have to be careful we don't get the tractor stuck when putting out hay, let alone digging with it.

I have tried to burn some of the brush that came down (and what I cut off of some of the trees), but the wood is too wet to burn.  So, I have about 1/2 of a small burn pile burned.

We just need about a week of dry sunny days.

Wow. Its been a year.

I'm bad.  It has been a year since I posted.  I will try to do better.

In that year, the youngest twins graduated from high school, I have had surgery, one daughter joined the Army and her twin joined the Navy.  One daughter moved from Ireland back to the USA and another left the USA to go to Poland then Germany.

The latest news, is last month, we got hit by a tornado.  As a result, we are getting half a new roof and half a barn.  The tornado came about a third of the way back across our property.  It took the back half of the barn off, and most of the house damage is to the back side.  It also took down a bunch of trees, carried off the little tykes climbers, slides, well house, fence and lawn furniture.  It moved a grill off the back kitchen deck, moved my rain barrel from the back of the house to the front, took the liners out of the feeders and into the pond, got a stock tank, damaged the horse stalls and quite a few things just blew away and still have not been found.

Our neighbors between the blacktop and us all got it worse that we did, one lost 1 entire barn, 2/3 of another and their house.  Others lost parts of their roof and barn.  The next farm down from us lost part of their barn roof, kids toys, lean to and shed and had a horse injured.   Friends of ours a few miles away lost 2 barns, top of a third barn and damage to their house and their fencing was all laid over.

Strange how tornadoes are.  They take the roof off of the barn, but leave the shelving and don't knock over oil cans sitting on the shelf.  They lift the house off the foundation, but leave the floor and the trophies sitting on top of the trophy case and leave the pictures hanging on the one remaining wall.

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For the first 4 days following the tornado, our barn was literately being held up by the tractor.  The first remaining undamaged truss was resting on the tractor cab.  We had to call JD's friend out who has a tow company with his big boom wrecker.  They had to rig up a bock and tackle system to lift the barn off the tractor, then pull away the debris so we could drive the tractor out.  I still don't know how we got it out without getting a flat tire (those tires are $1200 each).

The lab refused to sleep outside for a week following the tornado.  He was in the barn we think when it hit.  So, for 7 nights he slept in the house on his rug, and had bad dreams.  He is doing much better now, but won't sleep in the barn.  Instead, he now stays on the front porch.

So, we are now waiting for it to quit raining, so the roof on the house can be repaired and the barn.  In the mean time, we have been cleaning up the yard and moving the fallen trees out of the way.  Hey if your near us and want free firewood, come cut all you want!  Just leave us a portion of what you cut for the opportunity to take what you need.