All The Dirt

You guys seem to like the silly little post I did on fixing up my bedroom.  So just for fun, I thought I'd show you some of the other things I've done to the farmhouse since buying it in April of this year.  None of it needed any major overhauls or anything, but I've had a lot of fun adding my style to the place.

 Confession: I hate to do laundry!  Always have, always will.  I'm pretty domestic, I think.  But the tediousness of all that folding and matching and remembering to switch the wet things to the dryer ahead of the mildew setting in.... Oiy! Thank God Prairie Granny seems to be quite fond of that chore and helps me stay on top of it. She's like my laundry fairy! 

One thing I had to do was fix up the laundry room.  As you enter my front door, the laundry room and all it's mess is directly to your right.  It's also a walk through to my bedroom and bathroom. A very visible, high traffic spot. And it needed HELP!

 

 

I know some people really love wall paper borders.  I am not one of those people.  I put one up once in my oldest son's nursery and I did like it then.  But that was almost 8 years ago....

 

I also didn't want to keep the wire rack shelves. Maybe in a laundry that isn't right next to the front door it would be ok.  Like in a basement laundry.  But they felt too utilitarian for me....

 

So now....

 

 

 

This is the view you can see from the entry area.... 



You know how I'm a little obsessed with old things?  One of my very best friends gave me this old cabinet the other day.  (You know who you are and I love you to pieces. Even when you don't give me things!)  It was forgotten in a storage trailer for like a million years, covered in nasty, greasy dirt an filled with wasp nests.... but I LOVED it!  Some wasp spray and a good scrubbing and now it's the perfect cupboard to hold all the laundry soap and stuff!

 

 

The sign above the cupboard was a gift from a dear friend from the church used to attend before I moved to Geraldine. I sure miss her and the sign makes me smile. The piggy bank is the one Prairie Granny actually made for me when I was a baby.  Now it's the perfect place for all those coins we pull out of jeans before throwing them into the washer.

 

 

 

Another friend made this awesome coat rack out of barn wood and antique, wooden thread spools.  It's the perfect place to hang this old time scale that I still use to estimate the weight of alpaca fleece before I send it out for milling....

 

I didn't realize until I wrote this post that my laundry room is so filled with love!  But three of my friends and my mom all helped add to the character of my laundry room.  No wonder I actually love my laundry room now!

 

Bye for now,

B

 

Rainy Day Projects

Ok, so let me start by saying I am not an interior designer. Like, at all.  Not a title I'll ever claim.  But I do like my home and my farm to be a reflection of me and the life we lead.  I like things to be beautiful.  At least to whatever level I can pull off.  (Don't peek into the downstairs family room right now! Two, two year old tornados just hit it.) I don't like to spend a lot of money on many things and try to be as frugal as possible in my pursuit of a pleasant home. 

Today was a very cold, wet, soggy day in Geraldine.  Autumn has definitely set in.  So other than feeding and watering all the critters and making sure everyone looked happy, we've hung out inside.  That gave me some time to do a couple of fun things.  First, hired man Jim and I took down a chandelier from the other house and moved it over here.  The other house is now opening as an assisted living home so the lighting needed to be updated to suit senior living better. 

My room at the farm has been bugging me.... It felt too big and empty. Nice, but kind of lacking character.  I was even tempted to move into one of the smaller bedrooms downstairs that are cozier.  But that would be kinda crazy.... So I decided to quit whining and fix up my room!

I found this photo of what the room looked like when I bought the house....

This is how I had my room for a while.  Nice enough, but I decided the zebra rug was a bit crazy.  It's now in my closet and is very happy there.  It's also nice on my bare tootsies in the mornings.

 

 

 

I had taken some pretty cool photos of old barns, old branding irons, (probably my favorite photo ever) and one of my saddle.  I've had them printed and framed for a while but never got around to hanging them.... until today!



 

 

Now they make that huge empty wall look a whole lot cozier!  The room also desperately needed a better light fixture. I absolutely hate those standard fixtures that the home builders put in! They should be against the law in my opinion! Just kidding.... we already have way too many laws.

 

 

 



So the chandelier now hangs in the center of my bedroom and looks fabulous!

 

The last piece I need to scrounge for is the right dust ruffle for the bed.  Home is always a work in progress if ya ask me.  Some of my favorite things in here are the Boston Terrier pillow from Pottery Barn and the antique phone. You know me and old things, I can't get enough.

 

So now you know what this farmgirl does for entertainment on rainy days.... I'd rather putter around and figure out how to spruce something up than sit in front of the TV all day.  And of course rainy days are good for blogging too! 

 

Bye for now,

B

 



Homecoming!

As I have said before, kids are very important in this town.  Folks here know that they truly are the future.  Everything possible is done to support our kids and the school here.  Sports are also hugely important to the kids and the town.  Many of the kids know that sports are one of the best chances they have for a college scholarship and pursue it from grade school on.  So I'm sure you can imagine, Homecoming is a BIG day for the town of Geraldine. Yesterday was that day!

Everyone comes to town for the parade.

 

No Montana parade is complete without kids, horses and tractors....

The homecoming queens must've been cold!  It was only about 40 degrees yesterday morning....

Gotta love the Duck Dynasty float!

After the parade it was time for FOOTBALL!  The make up of the football team is interesting.  We didn't have quite enough kids to form a football team.  But neither did the neighboring town of Highwood.  So they worked together to form a co-op team called the "Rivals", because the two schools used to be rivals.  They now take turns hosting the games and practice at both schools. But that way they are able to have a complete, six man football team.

There aren't any official cheerleaders, but these girls did a pretty darn good job!

The boys won their homecoming game against the Box Elder Bears.  Forgive me that I don't know the exact score. I'm NOT a football expert whatsoever and I'll do better next time! But it was a good game and a very good day....

 

 

Bye for now,

B

Are Ya Lost?

The first time I came to Geraldine was to look at the little yellow house and mobile home that were for sale.  I found the ad on Craigslist for the cute, little house in a cute, little town and it also had a cute, little price.  So I had to come and see...

After looking at the house and trailer for about thirty minutes, it was decided I should go to the local feed store to inquire about a place to board my horses.  I could not move here if I didn't find a place for my four legged "babies". Perry is the owner of the feed store, the mayor and looks like he just stepped off his horse after filming a Marlboro commercial.  He would know who might board them for me....

Just as soon as I walked into his store, a older gentleman with white hair, glasses and obvious "farmer" attire, said to me, "Are ya lost?" 

"No," I said. "I'm actually here on purpose! Can you believe it?!"  I smiled my friendliest smile at the farmer and Perry. "Oh....." said the farmer. "You're the gal that's lookin' at the Bronec house."  Which of course, I was.   "Ya got any kids?  The school needs kids!"  He was glad to hear about my three sons.  Keep in mind I had only been in town for thirty minutes or so and had spoken to no one except the couple that was selling the house!  That's how fast word travels around here!

Fast forward two years....

Prairie Granny was pulling into town on the road in front of the grain elevators the other morning.  Off on the side of the road at the intersection was a guy who obviously wasn't from around here.  He was a very distinguished looking gentleman with a bright.... yellow....Ferrari....  Granny just couldn't resist....

She pulled up beside him, rolled down her pickup window and asked, "Are ya lost?"....

Bye for now,

B

Hey Hay!

Farmer Tom is our cousin over north of Fort Benton.  They have a very busy, family farm that has been operating for four generations now.  Farmer Tom married into the family and into farming.  It's a bit of "new" thing for him, but he has taken to it very well in my opinion.  I am very grateful that Tom and Roger grow some nice hay, put it into nice, small bales and haul it over here for me.

The first load they hauled went like clockwork.  Roger has designed this handy dandy trailer that slides the stacks off the trailer and onto the ground in a very nice stack.

 

Today was different.... Just as I was heading out to take some things to Farmer's Market the phone rang.  It was Cousin Joellyn calling to let me know that some of the hay had fallen off the trailer en route.  Could I please bring a truck so we could get them off the highway and back onto the semi trailer?  Of course! 

 

 

I had the easy part of the job.  The driving along to pick them up, job.  A thunderstorm hit just as we were loading them.  Then it rained....  Jake and Tom are probably pretty sick of stacking bales tonight....

 

Once they got the trailer out to the farm, the next task was to slide the stack off the trailer.  Unfortunately this was not Tom's day.  The cable that pushes the slide down and therefore the hay off, broke.  So there we were trying to figure out how to get about 300 bales of hay off the trailer any possible way other than by hand.  Lucky us! I have this little backhoe sitting here on the farm....

 

 

But our idea of pushing the stack off with the bucket didn't work.  And our idea of pulling the stack off with the straps, didn't work either.  But lucky for us I have this really cool little forklift just sitting here on the farm.... So after we filled up it's big ol' flat tire, we put it to work pushing the stack off the trailer....

 

 

It actually worked! Kind of ....

 

 

Look! It's a bale-ka-bob!

 

 

My very favorite saying these days is, "Good enough is perfect!" That's a quote from my favorite farming guru, Joel Salatin!  The hay is off the trailer!  We'll fix the stack a little and it will be perfect!

Don't ya think?

 

It was a perfect summer evening in north central Montana.  Tom made the comment that it was waaayyyy better to be out bucking bales on a Montana evening than running on a treadmill in some gym.  I could not agree more!  Now we have just two more loads to go.... wish Tom luck!

 

To read more about Farmer Tom and his lovely wife Joellyn, go to www.montanaprairietales.com

 

 

Bye for now,

B



Baaaaaaa!!!

September arrived today and that little fact makes me smile.  I love autumn. It is starting to feel like it's on it's way, even though it was ninety degrees today..  Next month I am hoping to have some wether lambs that are ready for the freezer.  But before that happens I wanted to be sure to harvest their wonderful fleece.  I plan on having it blended with some of the alpaca fleece.  I'm told it will make amazing yarn!

The young man I bought the lambs from last spring happens to be an actual sheep shearer!  Shearing is very much a dying art and I am so pleased to see a young guy that is still willing to work that hard!  Most of the old timers that used to shear around here are long gone, so I am very lucky that Josh was willing to come all the way out here to give my lambs their haircuts!



Josh Pecukonis, sheep shearer extraordinaire.
 



We also had Jim helping us again today.  Jim has become pretty much invaluable around here.  Especially since he is a sheep whisperer!  It was his job to wrangle the wooly buggers and hand them off to Josh.

 

 

Then we'd shear each one and I'd gather up the good parts of the fleece and bag it.

 

 

Then Jim and I would scoop them up and haul them over to their pasture.  It's sure is easier than trying to drive them anywhere!  They scatter like ping pong balls!

 

Boy, I'm sure glad I only have nine of them!  They are weighing between 80-100 pounds or so!

Up and over!

 

Of course we did have some spectators! 

When we were finished we had some of Prairie Granny's awesome homemade pizza and ice cream!  The best part of a tough project is the dinner afterward!  I'm very grateful to have help in that department or we'd be eating at the local bar and café on a day like this.

Special thanks to Josh's mom, Anita for taking the great photos for this post!  It sure takes a village to make everything work some days.  Thank God for the village.

Bye For Now,
B

A Hunter's Hideout

Mom and I had a crazy idea.... There is a real shortage of lodging in Geraldine.  The closest motel is 26 miles away in Fort Benton.  The owner of Rusty's Bar has opened a cute little B&B next to the bar, but it's only got three rooms.  Every fall this town fills with hunters.  Rightfully so, since we have an abundance of amazing wildlife in this area.  But there is like, no where for them to stay....

 

So ta-da!! Here's the project!

 

 

This old grainery building was built in October of 1962.  The date is written into the concrete floor. I love that they did that! We think it will make the most awesome bunkhouse/ hunter's cabin!

 

 

It's built from stacked 2x4 lumber.  The stacked boards offered enough strength to hold the tremendous weight of bushels and bushels of wheat.  The boards are still in beautiful condition....

 

 

The bunkhouse will have two bedroom areas and a common area with some comfy furniture and a mini fridge, etc.  However for now it is a "dry cabin".  Yup, no plumbing.... so Prairie Granny and friend Jim had another little, necessary project....

 

We didn't really make Jim dig this hole by hand.  We used a little trencher.

 

 

 

If there is such a thing as a cute outhouse, I'd say this one is cute!

 

 

We hope to have this completed by the start of hunting season.  Wish us luck!  I think it will be a very fun thing to have visitors and I hope it's good for the community as well.  If the hunters stay here in town, they'll buy gas here, eat here and frequent the little grocery store.  Let me know what you think!

 

Bye for now,

B