View From the Back Forty

Its fall ya’ll, and at the Brown household that means we are deep into harvest.  But harvest can be frustrating and long, especially for Mom who is taking care of the home place and Brown boys while Farmer Brown is out in the field.  Football, and combine in the yard-so it is definitely fall! Today started out as one of those long, frustrating days.  I was tired from a long week, and goodness it he been a long week with the boys.  Maybe the week was an after affect from the full moon, goodness not sure.  So after kiddo naps, the Brown boys went to ride in the combine & tractor for awhile.  And apparently I got my second wind for the day, and set my attitude appropriately.  First goal:  Pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  The pumpkin cupcakes were made with pumpkin I have previously canned, so it’s always fun to make recipes with an ingredient I have made.  Secondly, first attempt ever to make frosting.  Bo...

Every time Farmer Brown is in the field for planting, harvesting, or any other task that needs to be done for crops, it is inevitable that I will have to learn something new.  Today it was running the big tiller, or as I like to call it “Big Beasty.”  If unfamiliar with a roto-tiller, it is a piece of gardening equipment that has blades that break up the earth to help with planting and weed control.  Big Beasty is big, and heavy, we are talking most of my weight and almost as tall as I am!  I have done my best to avoid learning how to start and run this tiller, but today was the day to learn.  F.B. had tilled the garden earlier in the Spring but due to heavy rains, the soil had crusted over.  I needed to take care of some weeds, replant a couple plants, and finally finish planting the rest of the garden since it is the middle of May already.  I tried our small tiller but realized it was not big enough to break through the thick crust of soil in th...

Where is my Ruth Bader Ginsburg? Warning : Politics and religion will be discussed, if this will offend you, please stop reading now.  If you are still with me, grab a cup of coffee and let’s go. I don’t know about you, but I really do not like this presidential campaign.  There are very few candidates that I like, depending on the poll that you look at, I don’t like the top three.  Social media has been on fire with this lately, of course, with people campaigning for their favorite candidate and their ideas to save the world. And this is perfectly fine, even though I strongly disagree with most of them. The world to me seems so divisive, and angry.  Even though I’m a news junkie I occasionally think about living in a cave until November.  But this is not an option.  I was really feeling down, when I heard the news of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, and the fight over his vacant seat didn’t help.   I almost got lost ...

If you give a Mom an hour she will notice that the curtains in the living room don’t look the same.  When she sees that they don’t look the same, she takes the curtains down and puts them in the washer.  To remove one set of curtains the Mom has to move the couch, when she moves the couch she notices that she needs to vacuum under the couch (it has been awhile let’s just say).  After she puts the curtains in the washer, the Mom sees her toddler and asks if he needs to go potty, he does so they head off to the bathroom.  After helping in the bathroom the Mom remembers to get the vacuum and the Mom vacuums under the couch, and she figures if you vacuum under one couch you should probably vacuum under all the furniture. So she moves the recliner and love seat, and vacuums there too. When the Mom is done vacuuming she sees how much dust has built up on the windows, so the Mom cleans the windows.  After this the Mom sees her toddler again, and asks him if he nee...

It has been a rough week.  We are in the middle of winter here in Nebraska , which means cloudy, cold weather.  We had a case of the stomach flu, I had to explain a couple life experiences to the oldest Brown boy, that no parent should have to explain to their child, and least of all our worries- we had a pie crust catastrophe!  A few of the pumpkins harvested this year! But this is life, things happen to us and we have to make the best of it somehow, I suggest pumpkin pie as one way to do that.  But let’s begin our story at the beginning, this summer we planted exactly one pumpkin plant that produced literally half my garden space worth of pumpkins.  We gave some away, we sold a few for the boys to make money, and I still had roughly 20 left to take care of.  The pumpkins “mocked” me in our basement until New Years weekend, when I finally felt I had the time to take care of them, and that means; can them.  I cut up four pumpkins, and this gav...

Merry Hallothanksmas and Happy New Year! It has been busy in the Brown house lately!  I’m sure it has been busy in your house as well.  For us, it feels as though we have been running since Halloween.  At one point I saw a sign that read, “Merry Hallothanksmas!”  I feel this is fitting for the holidays, I don’t really have an answer to this issue, but it feels as though Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas get smooched together in some weird, food eating-celebratory craziness, where I’m just trying to keep my sanity and our family together. The crazy is finally over now, and a new year has begun, along with that comes great possibilities. I personally don’t make actual new years resolutions; I’m not quite that organized-yet.  But I do have a few goals for myself and family.  Goal #1- Purge our house of all unnecessary things! I am done with clutter; my goal is to purge our house in six months of all unneeded things.  So far, I have clean...

Invisible Veterans It is the week of Veteran’s day, a time to remember those who have served this country, and those who have given the ultimate sacrifice.  It is a very important day, a day that should not be ignored or trumped by sales ads.  I believe we should teach our children about the sacrifices veterans have made so that they can have the life they live. They are the reason that we live in the best country in the world, I don’t care about political issues blah, blah, blah…we do live in the best country in the world!  (I’ll explain how I know that later.) But there are veterans that I feel do not get the attention that they deserve, invisible veterans. Men/ Women who came home after serving and went back to their regular lives.  These are veterans who may not talk a lot about their service, and it may not be due to seeing terrible and horrific events in war.  It may simply be that they can not find the words to describe what they saw.  Or th...