It Rained!

We have been having some very nice weather recently, even though it is almost January already... Today got up to the mid 30s again, and this afternoon it decided to RAIN! Usually if we get any precipitation this time of year, it comes in the form of snow...  My boots even got muddy while I was doing chores tonight! Just for reference, here is a picture of what it looked like about this time last year:

This year it would be hard to find a patch of snow on the ground anywhere! It looks pretty brown and dead around here...
  Andrew B.

A week ago... (WARNING: Long Picture Post!)

... we went up to the Garrison Dam to see the record setting water levels, and all of the consequential flooding.  On the way there we stopped at the park in Wilton in order to have a picnic! I had my camcorder along, and took a bunch of photos, so I will make my way through the day with photos:

The Wilton Centennial Park:

Had to laugh at this sign:

A nice spot for a picnic!

I liked this lamp post, thought it would make a good picture...

And the trees too! :-)

Another sign on the other side of the pond:

My beautifull sister:

The neat old bridge:

And the water fountian:

After lunch we continued on our way to the dam... Here you can see the Missouri river as we were driving across a bridge:

We finally got to the dam, and after finding a place to park, we walked around for a while and looked at all of the water... Here you can see the spillway structure, and how high the water is:

On the other side of the spillway, you can see all of the water pouring out:

Here you can read a little history of the spillway:

 This year has been increadably wet, and with the above average snowfall in Montana, the water in Garrison Dam is the highest it has ever been. In fact, this is the first time since the dam was built that they have had to let water out of the spillway!  When we were there, they were letting out about 61,000 gallons of water per SECOND!

 Here you can read a little history of the Garrison Dam:

 And a little about the powerhouse:

And a picture of the powerhouse, and a lot of water!

The next couple of pictures are on the full side of the dam, showing the intake for the power plant:

There sure is a lot of water around there! I am glad we aren't anywhere near all of that water...
  Andrew B.

Pictures!

I finally have a little time to post some pictures of the damage caused by the thunderstorm that came through last Friday:

 I got to looking through these pictures and thought of the words to the old hymn "... His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form, and spreadeth His might on the wings of the storm."  To see the damage that a simple storm can do, really makes you realize how small and insignificant you really are:

These pictures were all taken in and around the small town of Kintyre, ND, which is only a mile and a half away from our farm... Here is a picture of what used to be a grain bin at the local elevator:

The wind also destroyed the front door:



Needless to say, we are very thankfull we didn't get very much damage from that storm!  It did however loosen up a little tin on one of our pole barns, which flipped up in a little squall we had this afternoon:

Here is a quick picture of my garden tractor, all put back together and ready to mow lawn!

 Check out my next post to see what project I started today!

  Andrew B.

Projects, and the results of a large wind.

Hi all,
  We have been busy around here, but I guess that's nothing new!

 Wednesday morning we got all of the cows and calves into the corral, then after allowing the cows to go back out of the pens, we tagged all of the calves that we hadn't got tagged earlier. After letting the bigger calves back out with the cows, and putting the small ones in a trailer, we opened the fence and started walking the herd up to the pasture.  First the cows thought they had to stop in the alfalfa field and have their breakfast, but we did manage to get them moving after a couple of minutes...  We did get them up to the pasture without too much trouble, except for getting three different "vehicles" stuck... (One of the four wheelers, Jacob's dirt bike, and some friends who were helping us got their Polaris Ranger stuck too...) Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures, as we were too busy chasing cows to take time to take pictures...

 We have also recently gotten around to bagging up some of our wheat for sale, both in 50 Lb bags, and in 10 Lb bags...

Now I need to work on updating our farm's website, www.seedsofhonor.com to reflect the availability of our wheat. Anybody need some wheat?

 Here is a picture of another of my recent projects:

The engine finally went out on my John Deere garden tractor sometime last fall, so I decided to put in a remanufactured engine. Here you can see me working up the garden with it:

I am still working on breaking in the engine, so haven't put the hood back on yet. :-)



Here is a picture of me and a lamp that was given to us because it wasn't working... Dad and I took it apart, and I was able to get it working again. It only needed a little bit of soldering on a circuit board inside, as one of the solder connections was bad...

I was going to post some pictures of the damage after a large thunderstorm/windstorm that came tearing through the Kintyre area early Friday morning, but I guess that will have to wait till I get more time. Right now I need to go help dad work on an old plow that we are going to use to plant a bunch of potatoes in the field this afternoon...

 Andrew B.

Another very wet day...

The past week has been nothing but a big wet mess! Today it is raining again, so we are all trying to work inside as much as possible... Here is a video clip I took a couple of days ago when Jacob and I went out to check cows:



Most of the snow has melted again, but that just means there is even more mud... We are praying for nicer weather, both for calving, and so we can get back to cleaning grain...
 Thanks for stopping by!
    Andrew B.

Done Combining!

We are finally done with this year's harvest! We just finished combining the corn, and it is already trucked into the yard and stowed safely away in the bin. And just in time, as it's supposed to start raining and snowing tonight! We were able to get done a lot earlier this year than last year, mainly because we had a lot of sunflowers last year...
That's all for now, but hopefully I'll have more time to blog soon...
Andrew B.

Working in the shop...

Hello all,

Another weekend has gone by without me posting to my blog, so I will have to make a quick post this morning... :-)
As most of you probably know, Mom and Jacob are currently in Georgia for a class they are taking, so the house is a little quieter for a couple of days. They had a good flight down there, and seem to be enjoying themselves... :-) We would appreciate prayers for a safe trip home as well.

Dad and I have been working in the shop the past couple of days, as the weather has been quite wet, which isn't very conducive to making hay... Our latest project? Tear apart the old Chevy pickup known around here as "Rusty"! More specifically, tear apart the motor and use some of the parts to repair the motor from our "White Truck" -- an old Chevy 2-ton truck with the same model of engine... The "White Truck" hasn't been running very well lately, and after some diagnostics we have come to the conclusion that the problem is either the camshaft, or the lifters, -- both of which mean almost a complete tear down! But, seeing as we have the motor from "Rusty", which used to run very good (before it started pumping oil in the wrong places...), we have decided to attempt to swap the good parts into the motor from the "White Truck"... A big job! I will try to get some pictures of the whole project, but when you're laying on your back under a vehicle, and your hands are covered in grease, one of the last things you want to do is grab that nice clean camera and start taking pictures, so I can't guarantee anything! ;-)

A picture of the"White Truck":

"Rusty" with the motor taken out:

Another view:

"The" motor, hanging from the cherry picker:

The other side:

My other project, which I am finished with for the time being:

Look familiar? Now I just need some snow, but not for a couple of months!

Got to go do chores and get back to work...

Andrew B.

April showers bring May WHAT?

I looked out the window this morning, and I saw a couple SNOWFLAKES!--Yikes! It has quit now, but there were a couple of flakes floating around out there for a while... I thought it was Spring! :-) Oh well, what can you expect in North Dakota?

As you probably already know, if you read any of my families blogs, the railroad has been taking our rocks, to help rebuild part of the track where it runs through Goose Lake. I thought I would post a couple of photos that you might not have seen yet:

High Seas on Goose Lake:

In this picture you can see the water spraying over the tracks: (Sorry it's so blurry)

I drove out a couple of days ago when they were loading up rocks, and got a couple of pictures:

A couple of pictures of where they are unloading the rocks (and dirt) down by the tracks in Kintyre:

Well, that'll have to be enough for now...

Andrew B.