My son loves the snow. Unfortunately, he has been in the group of youth who don’t really remember too many great snows.
I was lying on the couch, nursing a migraine, when I heard my husband speak.
Sometimes I think my son is trying to give me a heart attack.
The day began before the sun, as most of mine do.
It is the time of year when we feed our cows hay. They are still let out into the fields every day to graze if they so desire, but since we’ve had several heavy frosts already, there is very little nutritional value remaining for them.
Our 150-year old farmhouse has been in a state of construction or remodel for the entire duration of our marriage.
A friend of mine always says, “You should have a dog and a spare.” Her theory is the second dog helps ease the hurt if and when you lose the other one.
I have made mention in the past how my husband and I like to go to auctions. When the weather is nice especially, an outdoor auction can be a lot of fun. There is usually a deal or two to be found and getting to bid on an item that you really like is quite exciting.
Fall is upon us. The leaves have begun to change into a beautiful kaleidoscope of color and drop to the ground. The nights are cooler, and there is occasional frost on the ground in the mornings. It is time again to prepare myself for the long, cold, dark of winter.
This weekend was amazing. My husband convinced me to do something I do only very rarely: take a vacation day from work.
One night last week my husband woke me up, saying I kept shaking my hand and smacking him. I replied that something was biting me. As I came further to consciousness, I realized the strangeness of the statement I had made.
We have a few new additions on the Zoeller Farm. A half dozen new additions, to be precise. A friend I made at my last job was downsizing her own farm and asked if my husband and I might consider incorporating her six cows into our herd. After serious consideration of whether our pasture and…
My eldest child came over this weekend. We had planned a workday for our charity, Grandma’s Lap.
A few days after my mom passed away in 2013, I brought her dog home to live with us.
In all the years I’ve been a runner, I have nearly always run alone. On the treadmill, on the track, or on the road, it has been mostly an adventure in solitude.
What a week. I wasn’t even really sure that only a week had passed.
We have been in the process of building a hoop barn recently.
Several years ago, I was really into running.
I’m going to tell you a secret. I have an “old” cellphone. Alright, that’s not really a secret. I actually get asked a lot when I’m getting a new one.
I spent the weekend playing catch-up around the house and farm. On Saturday, I did all of the laundry, most of the house cleaning, stripped the sheets off the bed, caught up our receipt book, and balanced the checkbooks. I was kicking butt and taking names. I was moving and grooving. I was r…
My middle kid has always had a soft spot for animals.
I recently made a purchase I was quite hesitant about, but am now extremely glad I did. I bought an ice cream maker. In my mind it was the old fashioned, electric crank style of maker.
For the second time now, I have watched as one of my children has walked across the gymnasium to get their high school diploma. Last week, it was my middle child, my youngest daughter. Her school year was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic that shuttered schools and businesses all over the c…
The kids and I have spent several hours in the past few weeks working on our never-ending battle against multiflora rosebushes.
It just me, or did summer arrive overnight?
The weather finally decided to get spring-like this past weekend, and I couldn’t be more glad. The garden I planted a few weeks ago got replanted Saturday because several of the plants succumbed to the frosts of the week prior. But the soil felt warmer and the sun felt wonderful after so man…
There have been some strange things going on around here lately.
Our bottle-fed calves gave me yet another run for my money this weekend.
Fun fact about me: I have this habit of starting projects that I think will be fun, only to get distracted, bored, or frustrated about halfway through and decide to abandon it or change it completely.
Now that calving season is about over, it’s time to get the cows in the configurations that they will be in for the rest of the year.
What a month we’ve all had.
Last spring, when we turned the bull in with the cows, I made a point to mark my calendar for this year’s calving season. With an average gestation of 280 days, I noted in my calendar Feb. 19 as the first likely day we could have a calf, if our bull got friendly on his first day in the field.
When I think about things that get better with time, I think about cheese, wine and Sam Elliott’s mustache. When I think about things that do not get better with time, I think about milk, meat left in the sun and my own mustache.
I may have mentioned a time or two about my yard. How it is so rare to have grass growing that my motto is, “If it’s green, it stays,” regarding weeds. How there is often far more weed eating than actual mowing that needs to be done in summer.
Cold and flu season finally caught up to the Zoeller house. My son came home a week and a half ago with the sniffles and a mild cough. Nothing very serious, and it didn’t even keep him in bed, or make him shy away from his chores during the few days he was affected.
We got the first real snowfall of the season last week. I was incredibly excited about it. I love to see the beauty of the snow-laden branches of the trees, the pristine appearance of the fields, and the lack of lanes and lines on the roads I have to travel to work.
I have been feeling quite unappreciated at home recently.
“I’m so spoiled,” she said. “By him loving me, I mean. No matter what, he always takes me back.”
I’ve been trying very hard to have supper started most mornings before I leave for work. This can be a challenge, but I’d say that I’ve been successful at least three days a week so far this year.
Did I tell you the one about my mom’s love of recipe cards? Several times in the years since she’s been gone, I have found stashes of them in belongings that I have been slowly sorting through. The last stack I found in my dad’s house when he passed away and since then, they have been sittin…
People tend to fall into two camps this time of year.
There has been a lot of rain this winter. Lots of rain, even more mud, and very little snow. Seems like a drastic change from when I was a kid. At least in my recollection, there were a lot more accumulative snows that allowed for days filled with sled riding and snowmen and snow forts being built.
I’ve spent two nights at the emergency room in the past week. One evening was for my husband, who was cutting apart an old vehicle and had a 30-pound piece of metal fall on his foot. The swelling and bruising would have been enough of a reason to have it checked out, but add in his diabetes,…
One evening last week, at a somewhat respectable time to be in bed, I had settled in for my overnight slumber. Shortly after I had snuggled under the covers and begun to drift off, I thought I heard a knock at the door. Knowing that nobody who knows us would have the audacity to show up at t…
My husband has always been an excellent bargain shopper and a skilled salesman. It used to be that he’d buy the weekly papers that were filled with advertisements and could use them to buy and sell whatever he needed or had. I think in olden days he’d have been known as a huckster, and becau…
The holidays are different here at the Zoeller house. Often, it is just our nuclear family at holidays, and we’re OK with that. We don’t generally have a great feast, opting instead for something simple to make and simple to clear away. That way, we maximize the amount of time we spend with …
I think I’m going to use this column to give a few updates. I’ve begun a few stories recently that could stand to have the loose ends tied up. To that end, I’ll update you on the blanket I’ve been crocheting. (See what I did there? “Tie up loose ends” is a perfect transition into talking abo…
This weekend, I felt for the first time since I started my new job like I could handle doing something extra instead of just playing catchup on the laundry, dishes, and house cleaning. I decided to work on a project that my husband had begun for me last fall that had never been finished.
I started to crochet a new blanket for our bed this month.
Our super sick dog is hanging on, and maybe improving a little bit. Along with our veterinarian, we’ve decided to continue his medication and current treatment for a second week. In addition to trying to kill any bacteria remaining in his chest and leg, we are desperately trying to prevent a…
About a month ago, our 8-year-old Rottweiler started limping. We took him to the vet, who determined he had an infected toenail that required a partial toe amputation. We scheduled the surgery.
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