A couple of videos from Prairie Days!

Sorry i haven't posted in so long... I have been busy with many things, mostly making hay and working in the shop...
  Here are a couple of videos I uploaded from this year's Prairie Days! Enjoy!

Prairie Days 2012 pictures!

~Warning: Long Picture Post!~

I had a very good time at Prairie Days once again, enjoyed getting together with old friends, and meeting new ones! I came home with somewhat over 400 pictures on my camera, so have plenty to share with you all! Lets see:

Of course I have to share a picture of the classic Tug-of-War.  PULL!

 Anybody want a ride?

 During the "Costume Party", everybody was encouraged to dress up as some charactor, either historical or fictional... Can you guess who Cora and her good friend Miranda are supposed to be?



Can you figure out who Charity is impersonating?

 "The Doctors Office" -- a very fun skit performed by some friends of ours:

Thanks Mom for snapping this one of me:

Jacob and I with our new friend, Micah:

 Cora, with her new friends Lauretta and Sarena:

 A good discussion around the campfire:

Vollyball, of course!

A new game, "Capture the Bacon"   (Thanks Lauretta and Sarena for teaching all of us!)

  Who is going to get it?

 Many more pictures to come... Check back again!
  Andrew B.

10th annual Prairie Days!

Hi! Yes, I am back from Sioux Falls... Sorry I haven't taken time to write, but have been quite busy with the farm, and assorted other projects...
 Just wanted to invite you all to join us next weekend at Prairie Days! Would love to see you all there. Be sure to check out the Prairie Days website, http://prairiedays.weebly.com/.     I have also just uploaded a video from the very first Prairie Days, so you can see how much we have all changed in the past ten years! Boy does time fly...

 Best get to bed,
    Andrew B.

Where does time fly?

Hello!
  You might very well be wondering what has happened to me, due to my recent lack of blog posts... I assure you I have only been extremely busy, and haven't had the time to sit down and write what I have been up to. :-)  So, I will take a little time now to give a brief update of the past couple of weeks:

  The second weekend in January found our family at the Crystal Springs family camp, for the annual "Spring Fever Family Camp" hosted by some friends of ours, the S. family.  We had a very enjoyable time visiting with friends,

 making new ones,

playing Volleyball;

and ping-pong;

eating good food;

and listening to the excellent guest speaker, Kevin Swanson from "Generations With Vision"!

Thanks again for all of your hard work, S. family, and all of you who helped out too!

  Dad, Jacob and I have spent several days over the last two weeks over near Spiritwood, where we were working on taking apart and removing two grain cleaners from an old elevator...  It was a lot of work, but thankfully we have all of the pieces home now, so now we have to work on putting them back together...  :-)   

 Last weekend, Dad and Mom went to Aberdeen SD. for the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society's (NPSAS) annual Winter Conference.  On Saturday, I went up to Minot to help out with an Appleseed shoot, which was a lot of fun! I am an Instructor In Training with the Appleseed program, so am working hard to learn what I need to know to advance towards being a full instructor... :-)

 I have also been busy helping out with the Ron Paul 2012 campaign, attending our district reorganization meeting, making some phone calls to supporters, etc.  We still have a long way to go, but it is a good cause!

  In my spare time I have been working on a 2001 Dodge Stratus, which I picked up really cheap because the engine would not start.  It really wasn't a serious problem; the water pump had gone bad, and caused the timing belt to break... I have it in running condition again, although there are a couple of things to work on yet.  For instance; the back windows will not go up or down, there is a dent in the right rear door, and it needs a new battery... But at least it runs! ;-) 

  That's all for now,
     Andrew B.

Excelsior: Ever Higher

 Hello again!  I have once again been quite busy with the Fall field work, and haven't taken the time to post here, but I guess you have probably noticed that. :-)

 Today I just wanted to do a little promotional for "Excelsior!", a recently released Christian short film produced by two families who are both friends of mine... :-)  I actually haven't seen the full film yet, but the trailer looks interesting:



They are also hosting a DVD giveaway over at the Official Excelsior Blog, be sure to check it out!  Thanks for looking!

   Andrew B.

A long overdue update... :-)

Hello all!
 We have had a lot of things going on around here once again, and I have unfortunately been neglecting keeping up with them here on my blog... So I will try to give a quick rundown of the highlights of the past couple of weeks:

 On Wednesday the 24th, my Great-Uncle and Aunt R. and my second-cousin Hristiyan arrived after a long drive from Waukesha, Wisconsin. After a short visit over supper, they (My Great-Uncle and Aunt) continued on their journey to Bismarck, leaving Hristiyan here with us for a nearly week-long vacation!  I won't go into too much detail here, as Hristiyan has posted a good synopsis of his time here over at his blog "Man of Camo"  Cora has also posted a number of pictures over at her blog as well...  Suffice it to say that we enjoyed his visit immensely, and look forward to seeing him again! Here are a couple of quick pictures I took of him when we were over in the hay field:





 "Hey, don't take my picture!"

"OK, I guess one won't hurt..." :-)

And here you can see Hristiyan proudly standing on the bed of the "White Truck", which he was happily driving for us when we were stacking bales.  Thanks for the help Hristiyan!

We also spent a couple of mornings working on getting the old grain cleaner out of the Kintyre elevator, as the elevator will be closing down, and so we were able to purchase their old screen cleaner.   This project was made a little more complex by the fact that the cleaner had to come out of the North side of the elevator, which happens to be right by the railroad tracks... Here you can see Dad hooking the straps onto the cleaner so we can pull it out of the elevator a little bit:

(Several hours later...)   It's getting late, so I will have to make this short. :-)  We got the grain cleaner home, and into the shop where we can work on it a little, as it was sorely neglected in it's previous location... ;-)

  Of course we have been busy with the usual farm work as well, trying to get the second cutting of alfalfa put up amidst all of the cool, rainy weather... We are also getting close to starting our small grain harvest; we already have most of the wheat swathed down, so as soon as we get the combines all fixed up again, we should be able to go... :-) Your prayers for dry weather would be greatly appreciated!

 

  Best get to bed,

    Andrew B.

Prairie Days 2011: Friday

Hello All!

I will start off my official review of the 9th Annual "Prairie Days" with a photo of the welcoming sign posted at the entrance to "The Park":



Once again, our family had a very enjoyable time at Prairie Days, both being with old friends, and meeting new ones. This year we had the opportunity to meet some fellow bloggers, the K. family from Minnesota, so that was a lot of fun!  Be sure to check out their blog "Green Pastures Farm" 

 Prairie Days started out on Friday this year, with the special addition of an Appleseed shoot! If you are not familiar with the Project Appleseed program, be sure to check it out at http://www.appleseedinfo.org/.  It is basically a marksmanship class, with the special addition of some history of the American Revolution... Very interesting, and also very helpful!   My good friend Jonathan, (From "High on a Mountain") is the ND coordinator for the Appleseed project, and also a "Shoot Boss" -- the head instructor for an Appleseed event.  Seeing as there were quite a few people registered to attend, and none of the other instructors were able to come, he asked me to be a "Range Safety Officer." Basically I made sure that all of the guns were unloaded and safe, and helped with some of the demonstrations... It was a lot of fun! Here you can see me in the official Appleseed sweatshirt and cap:

I also like this photo of Jonathan and I:

Here is a photo of the shooting line:

And everybody down at the end of the range examining their targets:

 Here you can see everybody in the house for lunch, and a quick history lesson:

We actually arrived at Prairie Days on Thursday evening, in order to be there right away Friday morning. Here are a couple of pictures of us boys setting up our tent:

 Thankfully we didn't have any really bad weather, although it did rain some... Glad our tent didn't leak!

 That's about all I have to say for Friday, but check back soon for the rest of my review!

  Andrew B.

An Announcement, and more video from the convention...

Hello all,

 For those of you who don't know this already, today is my sister Cora's birthday! If you would like to send her your well wishes, you can do so over at her blog.

  As I promised, I will be posting some more videos from the convention throughout the week. Here we have the Litfin family's song:


More coming soon...
  Andrew B.

Pictures, as I promised!

Hello again!
Sorry I didn't get around to posting these yesterday, but I guess today will have to do... ;-) First off we have a picture of the building as it is now:

Going back a couple of days, here we are getting ready for Thanksgiving:

Cora made these wonderful Pumpkin Pies:

I arranged the cracker and cheese platter:

Some of our decorations:

Our patio door full of Stickies:

Ready for a Feast!

The day after thanksgiving we had a funeral to go to here in Kintyre. It was for an elderly neighbor of ours, who had been having health problems for quite a while... After the services, we stayed for lunch, and got a little time to visit with some of our other neighbors. Here are a couple of pictures of us and the Svanas children:

Olivia, age 10:

Sophia, age 9:

Cora holding Mariah:

And Me with Josiah: (Isn't he cute?)

We finally have enough snow to dig out the snowmobile and see what she can do...

We decided to try towing a sled behind, and Jacob was the first volunteer! Watch out puppies!

After going around the yard several times;

We decided to go out in one of the fields where we would have a little more room:

What fun! Cora took a couple of video clips as well, which I will be uploading shortly... Keep tuned for more fun!

Andrew B.

Back to building!

Yup, we're still working on that building... Today we finally got started putting down the plywood for the floor in the loft. We didn't get a whole lot done, as we spent a good part of the day working on the truck: changing oil, changing a tire, fixing a leaky air line, trying to straighten out the bumper frame where he hit a deer a couple of days ago... Now tomorrow he's back to trucking sunflowers to Enderlin... That means I'm in charge of the building again! Not sure if I like that or not. :-)
Yesterday we had an unexpected visit from a friend, but you can read all about that over on Cora's Blog... Always fun to have friends visit, even if it is because of an unfortunate event. Making you curious? Just go read Cora's post... ;-)
Today I finally ordered a new iPod touch! Can't wait for it to get here... :-) I was running out of room on my old one, and I like all the improved features on the new ones, so it was time to upgrade. Anybody else out there have an iPod touch 4G (or iPhone 4G for that matter)? Trying to find someone to try out FaceTime with... ;-P
Best get to bed,
Andrew B.

The Hay Delay

Sorry I haven't been keeping up with my blog lately, I have just been too busy with trying to get hay put up... I have been running almost dawn to dusk for the past week and a half, most of the time sitting in a tractor seat, going round and round and round............. It feels good to just relax and take a break!

Now for the promised video clips from prairie days! I will try to post several today, as I get the time to upload them...
Here is a clip of our family singing "I Am a Fine Musician" for lunch entertainment:



Enjoy!

Mayday, Mayday!

SOS! Time has gotten away! Help me catch it again! ;-)
How can it be the first of May already? I haven't posted in over half a month! Yikes! I have been busy with cleaning grain, as we finally got my grain cleaner running on the 19th. We are just about done with the season, only a couple more guys to finish up as soon as the weather cooperates... :-) On Monday I have to go in to the bank and make my 1st payment on my grain cleaner. Whew! What a hectic couple of weeks.
On the lighter side, last Saturday, Cora and I were able to ride along with some of the Dagley family and some of the S. family, to the (Homeschool) graduation party for a mutual friend of ours, RubyAnn. :-) We had a good time listening to all of the music, the speeches, visiting with a bunch of friends, and eating chocolate covered strawberries! :-) For more info, and some pictures, check out Cora's post HERE. I am in the habit of video taping just about every event I go to, and this was no exception... Now I am working on making a DVD of the recording, for a late graduation gift. ;-) (Yes, I will be sending you one RubyAnn, but it might take a while...)
--- Cora and Jacob want to watch a movie now, so I will have to cut this short. I will write more when I get some time...
Andrew B.

A Picture (For the Bartlett Boys)

Peter and Andrew:

This is a picture of the new style wrench for a DeLaval Cream Separator:

Sorry about the fuzzy picture, I had just brought my camera in from outside, and the lens was rather foggy when I took this picture... Anyway, you can get the idea. :-) Actually this is only about half of the wrench, the other side has a smaller sort of star shaped wrench thing, which I have yet to find a use for... Anyway, this is the only useful side. :-)

Best get to bed,

Andrew B.

I'm Back!, Pictures, and an Update...

Well, I'm back. This probably isn't a surprise to most of you, as it has been posted on my other family members blogs, but I thought I would say it anyway...
Like I said in my last post, on Friday we were going way up North to look at a grain cleaning unit that was for sale up there. On the way up, we made a little detour into Minot to pick up a certain giveaway there:

Cora has been wanting a Basset Hound for quite a while, and when she found one for giveaway on http://www.bismanonline.com/, she had to 'Pounce' on it. :-)
Here are some pictures of the grain cleaning unit that we went to look at:

We spent over an hour looking at the cleaner, trying to decide if it was worth what the guy was asking for it, and if so, what we would all have to do to it in order to make it work with our operation... The verdict? Yes, it was in fairly good shape, and it didn't look like it would be too hard to get it going again, so we called the owner, and made a deal; we would be back up on Sunday to pick it up.

Now, seeing as it would only be about 10 miles out of the way for us to go visit some friends of ours up there, (Who we don't get to see very often, because of the 200 mile trip,) we were able to go visit them for an hour or so. Then we had to head for home... Correction: Then Dad, Cora and Jacob headed home. Seeing as we had to be in the area again on Sunday, I had the opportunity to stay with the Bartlett's for the whole weekend!

I had a very fun time at the Bartlett's. Friday evening we spent playing games; I taught them how to play Pit, and they taught me how to play Stratego. (Which I enjoyed so much, I made my own from cardboard as soon as I got home. :-) ) I don't have very many pictures from my time up there, but you can check out the Bartlett's blogs, as they posted a couple of me... They are linked to on my sidebar; ND Homekeeper, Adventures of a Turtle Mt. Hillbilly, Mr. Flatpicker, Out in the ND Boonies, and ND Wood Hauler.

Here are some pictures I took while I was out at chores with the Bartlett's:

The Bartlett's dog, Samson.

Peter, milking Sandy.

Mrs. Bartlett, doing ?, and Peter straining the milk...

More later...

Andrew B.