Fall and All of Its Glory!!!!

There are a lot of people who say they either don't like the cold, or they hate when it's hot, but I honestly enjoy each and every season.  But I think the absolute best part is the changing of the seasons.  I'm not talking about the date written on the calendar where summer officially becomes fall; I mean whenever you can feel the shift in the air; when the wind somehow whispers that winter will soon be coming.  It's fantastic.  Nearly as much as I love feeling that shift, I love thinking about all the things that fall into my classification of "fall."

•  Fall makes me think of the way the leaves change color, creating a beautiful array of reds and oranges and yellows.  And of being a little girl playing with my younger sister, Annie.  We had a game that we played when the leaves fell off the trees.  We loved to scrape them into a big pile and make a nest out of them.  Then we would find rocks to put in our "nests" and we would pretend we were birds.

• Fall makes me think of harvest.  I can practically smell the corn that would pour out of the trucks and into the auger to be stored in the bins.  I can hear the tractor as it revved up to run the auger, and the sound of the corn pouring out.  I think of the black shirt I would sometimes wear and the way it would pull in the last remnants of heat from the sun as I stood there.

This isn't my family's farm, but this is the same basic setup we use.

My dad cutting corn last year.

• Fall makes me think of making soups and baking, especially apple or pumpkin goodies like apple cake, apple pie, apple streusel muffins, chocolate pumpkin bread, pumpkin butterscotch muffins, etc.  I love the way the oven warms up the kitchen from the cool chill of fall and the way the smell of cinnamon permeates through the house.
• Fall makes me think of baby calves and checking cows with my dad.  Morning and night we would go out and check for any new babies that had been born that day and speculate on which cow would have hers next.  Along the way we would take time to run over hedge balls that had fallen off the trees so the cows couldn't try to eat them because we were afraid they would choke.

Now that I live out here in western Kansas, I realize that the things that make up "fall" for me may change.  After thinking about this for a while, I realize it is a good thing.  I'll always treasure all these memories and pull them to mind every time I feel fall moving in, but I'll also get to add new and different things to that list.  Here are a couple of things I already know that will soon become a part of my "fall":

• Fall means milo harvest - getting to work alongside my husband and his family as we cut milo out of the fields and the conversations we have on the CBs while cutting (they can get interesting at times!) :) 
• Fall means pheasant hunting - I went with Taylor for the first time a couple of years ago and it was fun, although I will be sure to wear warmer boots next time.  Walking across all those pastures and swinging your legs up and over the tall grass was a pretty darn good workout.

Milo harvest last year

It's kind of exciting to think about my life as it changes and what other aspects it will include over time and who all will be a part of it.

Western Kansas Fact:  Dreams (at least in the agricultural industry) seem to be bigger out here.  Back home the opportunities, especially for the younger generations, to expand and grow in agricultural endeavors seem to be fairly limited.  There is only so much land available, and as more people move further out of the cities, more and more land gets developed and the land prices increase.  But out here the population is smaller and practically the whole economy of western Kansas is based on agriculture.  So there seem to be opportunities for anyone who is willing to work hard enough to get them.  It's okay to dream big because those dreams can actually become reality.

In Your book they were all written, the days fashioned for me. Psalm 139:6
I loved this scripture because it reminded me that no matter what we face in life, we can find peace in knowing that God has a specific plan for us.  And even when we find ourselves turned away from Him and heading down the wrong path, we can trust that He knew it would happen.  But the great thing is that He will use that wrong turn in our lives to create something good.

Enjoy the fall weather and have a great rest of the week!
Lyndee

5 rattlesnakes = 1 pie

I love to bake, especially during cool fall and cold winter days with music going or a Walt Disney movie playing in the background.  However since I also love to eat what I bake, I try not to make a lot of goodies all the time.  I wouldn't have enough hours in the day to work off everything I consumed.  So a lot of times I find reasons to bake that allow me to give away most of what I make, like bake sales, dinners at church, etc.  It's great living next to the feedyard as well because any time I need to get rid of some food, I can take it down there and it will disappear in no time.
Well today I had to make a pie for Taylor because of a deal I had made with him earlier this spring.  However my love of baking was not the reason behind this deal.  I made it known to my husband and people at the feedyard that I would bake a pie for anyone who killed five rattlesnakes anywhere near our house.  Jim, an employee at the feedyard, has already earned one pie this year.  Apparently the snakes like to lay on the end of our driveway at night where there is crushed up asphalt.  The black rock retains the heat from the sun better so it's a warm place for them. 
Last night Taylor went to take some papers up to the office, and right after he left the house he called me and told me to bring his gun out to the driveway.  I walk out there with a spotlight and his gun to find him tossing gravel at the snake so it would stay in it's defensive curled up position and wouldn't go anywhere.  Then he proceeded to shoot it and rid us of one more harmful creature.  That put Taylor up to the magic number 5.  So today I baked him the peanut butter pie he asked for.  I hate snakes and love to bake, so I'd say it's a pretty good deal for me.

Speaking of baking, the other day I was making some birthday cupcakes for my niece's first birthday, and I had to call my mom for a recipe.  Calling her reminded me of the many, many times I had called my grandma (her mom) for help and suggestions as I was first learning to bake.  Like me, Grandma also loved to make cookies and cakes and muffins and so forth and so on.  Plus she was generally in the house, so she was a great person to get a hold of when you got a question while making something.  One of my favorite memories of calling her was on my parents' anniversary.  Us kids had decided we would cook Mom and Dad a special supper, and we picked out a delicious looking cake to make as well.  We'd gotten the cake into the oven without problems, but we hit a slight snag with the frosting.  It was a homemade mocha frosting.  Not having made anything mocha before, we got slightly confused by the term "coffee."  I believe the recipe called for 1 cup of coffee, so we grabbed the coffee can, measured out a cup of grounds and poured them into the frosting.  When they didn't mix in well we realized that maybe we'd done something wrong.  I can remember calling Grandma (for about the fifth time that day), and telling her about it.  When we got to the part where we told her we dumped in coffee grounds, I can remember her starting to chuckle and saying, "Well you had better get those out of there."  Unfortunately it was a little late for that, so we just decided to go with it.  That night we had a coffee ground frosting chocolate cake.  Truthfully it was pretty good except for it was a little funky to feel the coffee grounds in your teeth and it was definitely a strong coffee flavor.

I'm guessing I'm not the only one who feels this way, but I frequently have disjointed, meandering trains of thought.  Thinking about calling my grandma for baking help made me start thinking about all the things I remember about her. 

• She had some of the prettiest handwriting.  After she died, I made copies of a bunch of her handwritten recipe cards and made a special recipe book of them.  It makes me smile each time I look at them.  
• Nearly all of Grandma's food was delicious, but she had a habit of trying out new and mildly interesting recipes and using other people as guinea pigs for them.  One time she made a green tomato cake, but refused to tell anyone what it was or what was in it until after they'd tried a bite. 
• She had the softest hands I'd ever felt.
• When she answered the phone, she would say hello, but her "hello" always started with a "mmm..." at the beginning, so it was more of "mmmhello..."
• She was great at playing Chinese checkers, but Grandma wasn't above cheating.  Sometimes we would get distracted and forget whose turn it was, but it seemed like most of those times she ended up saying  "I think it's my turn."  Sneaky, sneaky  - acting like a innocent, senile woman!  :)
• Purple was her favorite color and lemon was her favorite flavor.

I could go on and on, but these are some of the first things I think of when I think of her.  And they all were just little individual quirks that made grandma, Grandma.  I don't think about what job she had, or what chores she did during the day, or whether her floor had been freshly swept, or any of those things.  I hope that when I have kids and grandkids I can remember that it's the time spent together and the little things that matter.  Sure we all have responsibilities, but sometimes the biggest responsibility is to realize when they can wait. I wonder what my grandkids will remember about me someday...

Kallan's Birthday cake.  If the amount of green frosting on her hands and face was any indication, she really liked it.

Western Kansas Fact - Spotlights are more of a necessity than a useful tool.  The same goes for shovels and hoes.  Maybe this isn't just a western Kansas fact, but growing up we had a yard light and no specific need for a spotlight at night.  Out here though, you have to be a little more careful of what you can't see.  Anytime I walk outside in the dark, I have a spotlight with me.  I want to make sure there aren't any rattlesnakes in my path.  Hoes and shovels are good for killing any snake you find.

The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.  Luke 18:27   I love the hope in this scripture.  No matter what we face in life or what obstacles we come up against, nothing is impossible.  The biggest thing is to make sure we aren't taking credit for the miracles He works.  We have to realize that so many things occur every day with His help and guidance that would otherwise be impossible for us, and we need to praise and honor Him for that.

Have a great rest of the week everyone!
Lyndee