Decorating for Christmas

We woke up yesterday to our first snow. It wasn't deep and was melted by afternoon but does give the feeling of winter. The temperature wasn't much over 35 degrees F. all day too. Burr - I am not ready for cold weather. I prefer winters with temps in the 40s and 50s but living in Nebraska that just doesn't happen too often.

Now that Thanksgiving is over it is time to get the house decorated for Christmas. Since we have a Christmas party next Sunday at our house it motivates me to get my decorating done early.

Over the years since I started quilting I have made a few quilted pieces I use only during this season. Will be showing them as I get them photographed and posted in the next few weeks.

This first wall piece I made around 1985 - don't have the exact year as I didn't put a label on it. Looking closely at the fabrics they definitely look like the 80s though. There are small prints and pin dots in this quilt.

I hand pieced this entire quilt made up of 2" drunkards path blocks for the funky boarder, and the 1" triangle squares that make the green tree in the center of the quilt. I put the quilt in a large quilting hoop to hang it on the wall. I hand quilted this piece very sparingly. This year I hung an artificial greenery swag over the top of it - like the way it looks so may do that again.

Hoop measures 24" across.

We had a great time this week at family celebrations. Celebrated Thanksgiving with my brother and his family and my mother. My brother and I even re-learned how to play a card game we used to play when we were kids at home. My nieces had never played Pinochle before so after my brother consulted the Internet we found out the rules of the game. My mother had a nice time playing too. She has Parkinson's disease and her right hand and arm shake so much she couldn't hold the cards so I was her official card holder. Was a really pleasant way to spend the afternoon digesting the wonderful dinner.

Yesterday we went to our youngest daughters home and helped them celebrate their youngest child M.'s 3rd birthday. He was so cute - after opening a gift and looking at it he would turn it around and show it around to everyone else. Wasn't sure about blowing the candles out on his cake but got into it after the first candle went out.

The other 3 grandkids all older (6,7,& 8 years old) had fun watching and helping M. play with his new toys too. I just wish we could all be together more often as the kids are growing up so quickly.

I do have a funny story to share about M. A couple of weeks ago he and his family came down to our house for the day. He and I were playing "kick the ball" outside on the sidewalk and later we were walking back to the garage to find something new to do. As we were walking I told him the next time he comes to my house I would have my Christmas tree up. Of course for an almost three year old his favorite response is "why?" He doesn't remember last Christmas so I explained how I put pretty Christmas things around to make the house look nice. After a minute of silence (I could see he was trying to digest what I had told him) he said "Grandma, I am going to be Darth Vader for Christmas what are you going to be?" It was almost more than I could do not to laugh. He was so serious and was thinking of Halloween I am sure. I told him I might just be a reindeer and he said "that would be a good one". You just never know what the little ones are thinking.

Back to decorating....

Lynn

Happy Thanksgiving

I want to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving, even readers in other countries that don't celebrate the American Thanksgiving tradition. I think we all need to have a time whether it is a national holiday or not, to remember all the things and people we are thankful for in our lives. Do you readers from other countries have a special holiday like the American Thanksgiving?

Of course the American Thanksgiving usually revolves around a large dinner of family and friends. Traditionally a roasted turkey is served with all the accompaniments. This year John and I will be going to my brother's home about 3 hours from here for the day. My mother will be there but our girls have other plans for the day.

Also a tradition for our family at least is to help with the dinner by bringing some food. My assignment is to bring a Jello salad. I don't make jello or at least not for a long time, but grew up with a mother that made it frequently so am going to use one of her recipes. The red Jello is mixed with melted red hot candies, shredded apples and chopped celery. It is really pretty tasty and the one of the few Jello salads I like plus pretty simple to make.

Pulled out an old quilted piece I made many, many years ago to show you since it looks kind of Autum like. I use it as a table topper but it could be hung on the wall too.

This quilt was started in a class at the NQA show in Lincoln in 1991. I got the top done right away but had never finished it until our guild had a UFO challenge in 1999-2000. That year we were to bring the UFOs we thought we could finish during that year to our first meeting in August. They photographed us with our UFOs and we had to sign a contract listing the projects we brought. At the May meeting we had to bring back our UFOs and show how many we really got done. I was quite productive and did get a lot finished but not all I had contracted though. (Kind of like putting too much food on your plate - eyes bigger than your stomach kind of thing.)

This class I took in 1991 was by June Ryker of Colorado - her original pattern for this is Designer Logs II. She is a great quilter, designer and happens to be a second cousin of my husband. I loved doing these odd shaped log cabin blocks in her design. You can not see the quilting from the front so the second photo is of the back. My machine quilting was a little wobbly but I do like the design I drew for the blocks.

I drew the designs onto Solvy and pinned it to the quilt top over the blocks, quilted the design then removed as much of the Solvy film as possible before I washed the quilt.

I do remember one thing about this quilt that was not exactly fun....all those corners and Vs to bind.

Until later.....

Lynn

Apron

This is one of the two aprons I made for an auction coming up in December for one of the organization's I belong to here in my home town. It was a simple apron to sew up and I got the pattern by tracing an older apron I wear all the time and love.

It is made with one layer of fabric and the edges of the arms and sides are just turned under twice about 1/4" and stitched. I used the Elmer's School glue (with the tiny tip to get a thin line of glue) on the last fold then pressed it to dry the glue then edge stitched. It was fantastic - no pins!

That worked so well I used the glue to do the top and bottom hems and attached the pocket with it too before stitching. I even did the strings with the glue.

For the strings I pressed under 1/4" on both sides, put a line of glue down on the edge of one side then folded it in half and pressed it dry then edge stitched them. This was a fast way to do the strings so I didn't have to mess with turning a small tube and getting it straight to press.

I even played with one of the stitches on my machine to make a decorative edge to the pocket.

They turned out really cute so hope they bring a nice price at the auction.

The auction will be at our house the second Sunday in December. The members and their husbands all come. We eat snacks and bid on the donated items. Sometimes the bidding gets pretty competitive between some of the men on the homemade Cinnamon rolls. It is a good time and the money we raise goes to educational projects supported by the organization.

Needless to say because I am having all those people at my house in a couple of weeks I will probably start decorating my house for Christmas on Friday. I should be cleaning the visible parts of my house but the last few days I have been trying to organize my sewing room closet, and storage pieces so I can find what I have.

I just purchased two of the taller skinny plastic drawer units. One unit sits where a shorter one was next to my sewing table and the other tall one went in my closet. The short one was moved around to the other side of the sewing table.

I have found things during my cleaning binge that I didn't even know I had. I found things that I have been looking for plus got rid of a lot of junk. Didn't get rid of any good stuff though.

I have a brilliant idea for getting rid of the good stuff that I no longer need or want. I am to do a program in January for our quilt guild and thought I would have everyone that comes sign their name to a slip of paper. After the program I would set these good but unwanted items on the table and draw names and let the gals pick out something if they want when their name is drawn. I think that this is the best idea I have had in a while but my husband says I am just giving my unwanted stuff to someone else to deal with. My argument is - one woman's junk is another's treasure - right? I'm not going to force anyone to take something if they really don't want my offerings, just giving them the opportunity.

Lynn

Quilt Guild Tonight

I have quilt guild tonight and am looking forward to the meeting and program. One of our members makes fabulous Christmas stockings so she has been asked to do the program for tonight. She plans to show how she makes them plus show us lots of examples. Can't wait for the meeting tonight as it will be fun to get together with other quilters. Have been going crazy sitting here at home.

We are also having what we call a "Jack Block Lottery" tonight too. Everyone that wants to makes a block in the chosen colors and pattern and you get to put your name in the drawing for each block you make. We used to do this a long time ago at our guild but haven't done it for quite a while. The women really liked the one we did last month and wanted to do another this month so the program chairman obliged. The plan originally was to do it only a couple of times this year. The block below is what I made and it is not a hard block and I would sure like to win all the blocks to be able to make a Christmas quilt. The blocks are 12" finished.

This is the first sewing I have done since my surgery and it sure was nice to sit down and sew something. Plan to do a little stitching on a couple of aprons I am making today.

I did finish basting an old small top I had made years ago. I had made it then put it away, then pulled it out to show as an example of how to use the water soluble thread to machine trapunto for a guild program I had to do once. It got put away again after I got 6 of the trapunto motifs all ready. It was sitting in a bag with the backing in my UFOs just waiting to be finished.

Got it out and pressed the wrinkles out of the front and back and decided I would practice my machine quilting on it. I baste all my quilts the way I learned from Sharon Schamber in her free video from her website. To me it is so easy and works really well to hold everything together. Check out her other great free videos oon the site too. As you can tell I am a real fan of Sharon's work and her videos. She also has lots of videos on YouTube too that are very informative.

The photo below is of the quilt partially basted on my table. I have never done a bed sized quilt this way but the two large wall hangings I have done worked great as well as the smaller pieces I have basted.

Maybe if everything goes right we might be done harvesting tomorrow by noon. I sure hope so! This has been the longest we have ever been at the job of getting our crops out of the field since we have been married I believe (37 years). Take that back....there was one other time I guess I forgot. That year we had to deal with snow. Remember having to wait until some of the drifts melted so they could get the combine through the fields. That was a worse situation than this year I guess so we should be thankful we have just had to deal with wet weather not snowy wet weather.

Until later.....

Lynn

Another Day, Another Doll Bed

Farmer's Nightmare 2001

10" x 14 1/2"

Now you all might wonder why the name Farmer's Nightmare for such a pretty looking quilt. As I was thinking about this Boyds Bear doll bed that my husband gave me for Christmas one year I wanted to make a quilt that reflected what he does. He is a farmer....so I thought about crops he grows, cattle he raises, typical dress of a farmer, etc. What I settled on was making a quilt that reflected some of the pests he fights each year.

My original idea was to do a "redwork" inspired quilt with bugs and weeds he has to deal with yearly in the crops he raises so I sat about making a list of possible candidates. I had no problem coming up with lots different weeds and asked him about what bugs he has to fight for his crop health. I had quite a list when he finished telling me but the problem was most of them were in the larva stage and that means they would be fat worms - YUCK! I did not want to put any of those on my quilt so looked only at the weed list and I had enough to make the number of blocks I wanted to make.

It was decided then........... an all weed quilt.

I proceeded to draw simple line drawings of the different weeds then transferred the drawings to Solvy and pinned the Solvy to my white fabric. Using my sewing machine and red thread I stitched the designs. I lowered the feed dogs on my machine and used an embroidery foot. I ended up going around the lines twice to make the lines show up - one line of stitching was not enough for the impact I was looking for.

After the designs were all stitched on over sized squares I trimmed them to size (2 1/2" unfinished) and finished piecing the quilt then machine quilted it in white thread.

Now for the list of weeds.

Row 1. (left to right) cocklebur, dandelion, lambsquarters

Row 2. pigweed, buffalo burr, bindweed

Row 3. shattercane, puncture vine, sunflower

Row 4. velvetleaf, milkweed, black nightshade

Row 5. musk thistle, ragweed, foxtail

I had to laugh when I got this quilt top finished my husband wanted me to print a scan of it. He wanted to take it to the elevator to ask his farming buddies to id. the different weeds. That was a real compliment to me as John hardly ever says anything about my quilting other than - That's Nice!

This quilt won the Pride of Nebraska category at the 2001 Nebraska State Fair. When ever I have given my doll quilt program to audiences where there are men, this is the one they are most fascinated with and want to get a better look at after the program.

Lynn

Another Doll Bed

Tulip Garden - 6 1/2" x 8 1/2'

Made in 1994

Today you get to see another of my doll beds. This was the very first doll bed I ever owned. Bought it because I thought it was so cute and it was only a few dollars on sale. I probably would never have started making miniature doll bed quilts and collecting doll beds if this bed would have come with a pretty bedspread. It was covered with an ugly piece of fabric so after I got it home I wondered if I could make a quilt sort of to scale that would look good on this doll bed.

That started my journey of collecting doll beds and making the tiny quilts that go on them. My friends and relatives have given me many of the ones in my collection over the years but now have put a moratorium on any more for a while at least. I have 30 doll beds that I have made quilts for and probably another 25 that are just waiting. Most of the doll beds are quite small and are the kind that doll house hobbyists use but I do have a few larger ones in my collection as well as some tiny ones.

I don't make the quilts using exact scale but design them to look right to me on the bed. I just don't want to deal with having to use math to figure out the correct scale. I design most of the doll beds on the computer now using the Electric Quilt program but this first one was drawn out by hand on tissue paper and foundation pieced by machine.

The blocks are 1" square and to give you some figures there are 11 pieces in each block and 276 pieces in the entire quilt if I added up everything right. I hand quilted this quilt between the blocks and in the border.

Guess that is all the information on this quilt - stay tuned for more doll beds and quilts revealed later.

Happy Quilting....
Lynn

Confession

I have a confession to make - I have not been posting since Monday but wrote the last 3 blog entries on Monday and used the "Post Options" to have them posted on the later days. I had some sinus/nose surgery early on Tuesday morning and knew I wouldn't feel up to blogging for a few days at least. I thought I would try changing the post date and time under the post options to see if I could get it to work. This way there wasn't such a long gap between new blogs - didn't want you to think I forgot you. It worked like a charm - will use it again if I know I will be absent for a while.

My surgery went OK and I am in recovery mode now. It has taken more energy out of me than I thought so still not getting much done but resting. This morning however I am going to post photos of another of my doll beds and tell you how I made the quilt for it.

The quilt on this doll bed is called "On The Dot". I made it in 2007 for the Drunkards Path Challenge our guild had that year. The rules of the challenge were: 1. Have at least 8 Drunkards Path blocks in your quilt; 2. Drunkard Path blocks could be made anyway you wanted to make them; 3. Use at least one of the three pre-determined fabrics in the quilt.

I am always looking for a way to make a quilt for another of my doll beds and decided I would use this challenge to make the quilt for this bed. I used two of the challenge fabrics in the quilt. The vine border and the brown corner squares and triangles were all challenge fabrics.

I had always wanted to try to make a Drunkards Path block using poke-a-dot fabric and found this green/gold fabric that would work with the challenge fabrics. The dots are about 1/2" in diameter so the cutting and piecing was a little tricky. I am glad they didn't put a size limitation on the challenge as mine was the smallest and the only one made from poke-a-dot fabric. There are lots of ways to get a Drunkard Path block besides the traditional pieced blocks. Just Google the block and you will find several.

To help with the piecing I did starch my fabric very heavily so the dots would not move or shift when cutting and machine stitching them together. Was a little tricky to get the curves to match at the edges of the design but I was determined! The finished quilt measures 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" and I hand quilted it. It won the hand quilted miniature category at the Nebraska State Fair in 2007 much to my surprise and delight.

Time for another rest I think - my recliner is sure getting a workout this week. TV sure gets boring though so trying to do some reading between naps.

Until later.....

Lynn

Small Sewing Machine Models

I started collecting sewing machine models or nick knacks or what ever you want to call them when the prices of the toy sewing machines got so high in price. I could find them new in stores and also all kinds at flea markets and antique stores. The prices are usually not very high so makes looking for them more fun. My friends and family also joined in by giving me some for gifts over the years too. I have placed a ruler in the photos so you can see the size of each.

This first one was a gift and is supposed to be a bird feeder. It is made of resin and much too nice to put outside. I keep it on my kitchen counter and keep the drawer filled with hard candies.

The first one in this grouping is a small toy tea set. It is made out of resin and is really a fake tea set as there are no open areas for tea or pouring spouts and was given to me one Christmas.

The next two are music boxes that were gifts. When they are wound up the foot pedal goes up and down and the thread goes round and round. There is a tiny mouse on the top of the thread on the left one.

Third is a very small wind up toy machine. There is no real needle but the needle bar moves up and down.

This metal machine is a clock and was given to me by a good friend.

The girl holding the machine is a magnet and the other is a block of wood made into a stamp with the copper treadle machine on it.

The clear machine is made of glass with a little plastic used for the machine foot and wheel. The light blue one is a ceramic machine.

These two machines are made of resin and are pretty cute!

The small black machine and the treadle that is next are both sold to be used in doll houses. You know the kind of doll houses that are not for play and are usually made and decorated by adults. The next two are just small resin machines.

These two machines are hinged ceramic boxes.

These three are ornaments to by hung on Christmas trees

The first two of these metal sewing machines are pencil sharpeners. The last one looks just like the middle one but is not a pencil sharpener.

I have two of the Renwal sewing machines that were given to me. They are made of plastic and were part of doll house furniture probably made between 1949 and 1955. The furniture was all combinations of the red, yellow and blue. My machines are alike except one has yellow drawers. By lifting a flap in the back allows the machine to fold into the case. One of the machines came with the chair.

Three more machines that were purchased in Hobby Lobby for use in doll houses.

This last one is a toy tea pot. Don't know if it came as a set but keep my eyes open when I am in flea markets or antique stores.

I display these machines all over my house so taking all these photos took a little time to find them all.

Until Later.....

Lynn

Toy Sewing Machine Reference Books

I have these two reference books on toy sewing machines. They have lots of photos of hundreds of machines, price guide at the time they were published. It is fun to look through them and see all the different machines that were loved by many little girls (or boys) over the years. I always wanted a toy sewing machine when I was growing up and never got one so maybe that is why I like to collect them now as an adult.

Until later....

Lynn

Toy Sewing Machine Collecting

I have a few toy sewing machines of varying ages in my collection. This Gateway machine was the very first one I purchased. The interesting thing about this machine is I know a descendant of the manufacture. One of the guys that comes hunting here each fall from the Cincinnati area noticed my machine a couple of years ago. He was surprised to say the least as his family manufactured this toy sewing machine in the 1940s and 1950s and he had never seen any outside his immediate family until he saw mine. I think they manufactured 3 different models.

The two outside machines are the same brand KayandEE Sew Master. The one on the left is missing the tension dial. These are both metal machines and the machines were manufactured from 1943 until 1963. The one one on the right is older than the one on the left.

The red one in the center is a JC Penney machine made in the 1960s-1970s and is made of metal and plastic.

The most expensive machines in my collection are these two Singer hand crank toys. I think the tan one on the right was made in the 1950s and the black one near 1948. They are heavy cast metal machines.

The machine pictured above is a Bell Portable Sewing Machine made in Pennsylvania. I don't know what year it was manufactured but it is not a toy even though it is quite small. It comes with a bobbin and sews a regular stitch not a chain stitch like the rest of the toy machines. I have a case and foot pedal, cords and other accessories stored away. The case that looks like a small suit case doubles as a sewing table when using the machine.

The first pink metal and plastic machine is a Crystal battery operated with a foot pedal machine - date unknown. The second one is a McCalls plastic battery operated machine and this is the most modern of my toy machines - it was manufactured in 1992. The red machine on the end is a Sew Rite machine and was made in the 1950s. I have the original box plus a lot of the original fabrics, patterns, etc. that came with the machine.

I have not added to my collection for many years as the prices for all toy machines has gotten higher than I want to pay. I am not ruling out purchasing any more - who knows if the price is right and I like the machine it might just have to come home with me!

Lynn

Old Miniature Quilt

I have not had time, nor the energy to work on my miniature since I have been in the field helping with harvest, so today I am showing one of the first miniature quilts I ever made. You can tell from the fabrics that it is pretty old - in fact I finished quilting it in 1992 but pieced it in 1990. Some of the fabrics have faded a little over the years but I still like to hang it up during the fall season.

Around the early 90s I became fascinated by small quilts and found this book by Mary Hickey and fell in love with the little quilts in the book. This was before paper piecing became popular, don't even know if it was even done at this time. If it was it was not widely known as it is now. Her quilts were all pieced the traditional way. I learned how important it was to be very accurate with my cutting and my seams doing these small quilts. There just isn't much "fudge factor" with blocks this small. I made this quilt I named "Maple Leaf Autumn" and several others near the same time - I was hooked on making miniatures after that.

I also hand quilted almost all of the things I made at that time too. I tried to draw small quilting designs to fit these small quilts and to keep my quilting stitches small too. After I finished this quilt I noticed my feathered heart quilting designs were a little off and not square with the block. Now I try to be very particular about these things if I can but still sometimes I just leave it when it is not perfectly square. (You can tell I tend to be a perfectionist - sometimes that is good and sometimes it is bad and keeps you from moving forward with new things as you worry about the imperfection of the piece you just finished.)

The little nine patch blocks in this quilt were 1" square and I thought that they were just so small - never thought I would be piecing things much much smaller now. When I first learned about paper piecing it was wonderful, now I could do my favorite quilts even smaller and keep everything so much more accurate.

I didn't have to drive the grain cart today as they had enough guys to run all the different pieces of equipment - yay! The guys are making good progress today but it just takes time. They were in the field by 8 this morning and will probably work as late as they can haul to the elevator. Last night it was 9 pm when John came in. Some nights it gets closer to 11 pm. If they can they fill all the trucks at night and empty them first thing in the morning it helps. Our bins are full so now everything is being hauled to the elevator and John said the lines are not long today so they are getting dumped pretty quickly. Last week some guys had to wait over an hour or more to dump their trucks. Thank goodness we could haul here most of the time to avoid those long lines.

Am just hoping it doesn't snow here like they are predicting in a couple of days. We still won't be done with harvest and it is a real worry. Farmers depend on their whole years income from their crops. If they can't get it out of the field or if they loose part of it they loose income for a whole year - you only have one chance to grow and harvest that crop each year. The inputs (costs for seed, fertilizer, chemicals, irrigation fuel, etc.) don't change if you don't get a crop - you still have to pay all those bills.

I try not to worry as it doesn't help but still don't breath easy until it is all safely harvested and binned.

Lynn

Harvest

This post is about what I have spent my time doing since my last post. Corn, corn, corn...waiting to be harvested or the term we use most is "combined". Combined or Combining are a funny words when you think about it and it can be confusing to the non-farmers out there. The machine we use to harvest with is called a Combine so that is where the word comes from so if I refer to combining you know what I am talking about. We aren't mixing things together like the common definition would give the word - just harvesting with the combine!

I don't drive the combine - way too many controls to watch. My job is driving the tractor and grain cart. I drive along the combine to collect the grain and then take it back to where the trucks are parked and unload it. I go back and forth, back and forth all day - kind of boring to be truthful. Saves time for the combine operator and he can keep harvesting so makes the job go faster that way. Most all farmers have grain carts now, unlike when we first got out of college and came back to the farm. Then we only had a combine and the trucks. More labor is needed now because of the extra machine to run so guess that is my job most of the time. We do have an extra guy that comes out after his regular job around 5 each night so I don't have to drive after dark. I am pooped by then anyway, besides I just don't like doing it after dark, especially if I have to back up. I never know for sure which way to turn the wheels of the tractor to make the grain cart go the way I want it and need lots of space with nothing parked close and daylight is a big plus. If I drove a tractor all the time I would probably finally remember how to do it but I only drive it for a few weeks at harvest time so forget between times.

Notice on the photo below the combine is unloading corn into the grain cart on the move.

In the next photo I stopped the tractor for a bit to get a photo of the combine full of grain waiting for me to come so he can unload. You can see a reflection of some of the stuff in the tractor in the sky as I took the photo through the tractor window. I try to get back after unloading in the truck as fast as possible but the corn yields have been so good that most of the time the combine has to pause a bit so the corn doesn't come rolling over the top.

Made it around the end of the field and am approaching the back of the combine.

I have to count three empty rows between my front wheel and the combine and that is where I drive. After I get along side the combine he starts going again and I have to keep up with him as he harvests and unloads onto me at the same time. Most of the time it isn't too bad as I can pretty much set my speed and the combine adjusts if he needs to fill the front or back of the grain cart. The photo below has some blurry spots in it because I took it through the dirty tractor window as we were moving along. Just held the camera back and clicked. Didn't know what I got in the photo until I previewed it. Hired may driving the combine in the photo.

The next photo shows my view most of the day. I can look out the side windows but need to keep the tractor going straight. I do have air conditioning and a radio for company though. We have a 2-way radio system in the combine, tractor and trucks to communicate with the rest of the crew but use it only when needed.

You can see I am just speeding along at 3.9 miles per hour. This is pretty much the speed of the combine/grain cart combination as we lumber through the fields. I do go faster after I am full on my way back to the trucks and faster still on my way to pick up another load. I don't like to go fast though as the tractor bounces and it makes it harder to steer it between the corn rows. If the tractor skips over to another row it can really bounce and you can loose control if it keeps going cross rows at a high speed. How ever fast I go feels too fast though. At the end of the day my ribs and back are really sore and after sitting for hours on end I get really stiff.

This is a view of the tractor and grain cart and the combine as they come to the end of the rows that they are working on. Obviously I am not driving in this photo.

My husband took this photo of me unloading into the truck. Normally I have my eyes glued to the auger and truck to make sure the grain I am unloading is going where it should be and not running over the sides.

Side view of the same thing - this time I am paying attention!

When the trucks leave the field they are either taken to the elevator in town or to our farm to be unloaded in our grain bins. We don't have enough bin space to hold all the grain we harvest so have to take some of ours to the elevator. All landlords share goes to town too.

The photo below shows John unloading a truck into the auger system to take it up to the drying bin. The corn moisture has been running 18-19% lately and it needs to be dried down some to allow it to stay in good condition and not mold while in storage. This grain will be stored until next winter or next spring probably before it is sold and hauled to the elevator.

This last photo shows a long range view of the unloading system. The small bin that the grain is going into first is the drying bin. There are large fans that blow heat into the grain until it is dry enough to unload into the larger bins.

Today I have the morning off as John is hauling the cows and calves back from one of our pastures. He has a crew of friends helping so I get to stay home. The guys help each other out and today it is our turn to call on them.

Lynn