Snippet

Snippet -a small part, piece, or thing; especially: a brief quotable passage.

 

I've been busy this week and have had a ton going on.  Oh don't get me wrong, my weeks are always busy, but this week had an extra celebration that wasn't planned for at this time last week.

 

Here is a little snippet of the following week for myself.

 

It started out with the baptism of my nephew's beautiful baby girl, Kylee Lynn.  My daughter, Samantha, was asked to be her Godmother and truly honored by this.

 

 

 

 

I think she is going to go out of her way to make an impact on this special little blessing from God.  Truthfully, at the ripe old age of 14 I believe my daughter has already made big impacts on other people's lives with her caring and compassionate ways that I am 100% sure they picked the perfect Godmother for little Kylee.  I can't wait to see what the future holds for these girls and look forward to watching them grow up together.

 

As my week went on I had to find the way to break the news to my 11 year old that his steer, Angus, that we have been raising since August at the farm, got sick with pneumonia and once this nasty cold spell hit earlier this week he passed away.  He was already sick on the below picture but was holding his own and we had our fingers crossed for a full recovery but well, he's no longer with us.

 

 

It was horrribly cold in these parts this week and on my drive to the farm on Monday morning it showed a wonderful -11 degrees.  Yuck!!!  So, needless to say, more work was required around the farm all week with frozen water tanks, frozen water pipes, cowies having to come back in the barn every day after getting some grub outside and it was tiring and somewhat depressing.

 

So, mid-week, to get out of the depressed mood that had overshadowed the house, Luke and I were spending some goold ol' Mama/Son bonding time while the other two were in school.

 

First he decided he should help me with my dishes (a new task he's been wanting to partake in a lot lately).  Not so sure I like this idea but what the heck?  He's happy, and if he's happy I'm usually much happier too.

 

 

 

Shortly after helping with the dishes he decided he should also watch the little stepping stool/ladder deal he was using as well.  Needless to say there was a lot of water on our kitchen floor?

 

 

After cleaning up the water on the floor, my belly was craving some homemade chocolate chip cookies (a Dahm family favorite) and Luke LOVES to help make those as well, so away we went.

 

 

 

His favorite thing to do is turn on the mixer and turn it off when I tell him to, and of course, he cannot wait to lick the beaters at the end of it all.  I made a double batch, which ends up being two full cookie jars, and well, they are almost gone already.  Yummy!!!

 

These cookies were much needed as a comfort food for me and like I said earlier, to help with the sadness I had been feeling all week.

 

On the same day my great niece was being baptized our family learned that my cousin, Donna, had passed away after a year long battle with ALS.  A brand new baby beginning her journey with the Lord not having any clue what great stories she would come to know and how powerful and mighty He is and one beautiful, humble and super kind woman leaving this earthly world to begin her journey with her God in Heaven.  It was rather ironic to me at the time.

 

 

 

I attended her funeral yesterday, a funeral she planned herself before her passing.  It was heartbreaking for so many people but simply beautiful, like her.

 

When I found out a little more than a year ago that she had been diagnosed I sent her a card in the mail explaining to her that whether or not she had known it she had always been such an inspiration to me as one of my older cousins.  She led her life through the Lord and was very family oriented, extremely kind, humble and I can't imagine her ever speaking a bad word about anybody.  She will be missed by so many.

 

There was a quote from the Little House on the Prairie on the program for her funeral that is a little snippet I would like to share.  I liked it a lot and thought it was worth passing on.  I think we should all think of this when remembering loved ones we have lost.

 

"Remember me with smiles and laughter, for that is how I will remember you all.  If you can only remember me with tears, then don't remember me at al.l"

 

Here's to you Donna.  Her favorite drink in the world is a Lime Vodka Sour.  I will miss you.

 

 

 

 

Bloggity, Blog, Blah......

 

Blah - a feeling of boredom, lethargy, or general dissatisfaction.

 

Ughhh...I have a case of the "blahs" the last few days.  I don't prefer to feel this way, I truly like to be more productive during my time at home, but I can't shake the way I've been feeling lately.  All I want to do is sleep (which I never can really because of Luke) and I want to hide away from society in my house all by myself.  Yuck!  How boring is that?

So...I decided that maybe, to try to get rid of the blahs that I've been having, I should give myself a little question and answer session and include all of you as to humor myself and possibly remind me of good things and happy things so here goes.

1)  What is your full name? - Dana Joyce Degnitz Dahm

2)  Have you ever wished your name was different? - Heck no.  Truthfully I feel very lucky that my parents picked out such a unique name and only once the entire time I went to school did I have somebody with the same name and she only stayed at our school for one year I think.

3)  Do you have siblings?  - Yes I have two.  My brother, Dion, is 10 years older than me and my sister, Delene, is 8 years older than me.  I remember as a child the two of them fighting A LOT but I rarely fought with them because of the age difference.  We really didn't have many things to fight about.

4)  First memory that pops into your head about each sibling? - Well with Dion I think it would have to be me idolizing him.  He was my handsome, older brother and well, I just thought he was the greatest.  In fact when my girlfriends would sleep over and we would play truth or dare, sometimes we would dare each other to sneak into his room and give him a kiss on the cheek while he was sleeping.  LOL!  And well, I would have to say with my sister it would just be hanging out with her when I had gotten a little older and she was driving and we would go to some picnics or fairs together to see Rocket 88 (she loved this band).  I also spent a lot of time with her when her children were first born and loved those days.  And she taught me to crochet when I was small.

5)  What are some of your best childhood memories? - Hanging out at the race track where my Dad raced on the weekends.  Times were so much different then seriously.  For example, as a parent now, if I don't see my kids next door at the playground for 15 minutes or so I start to worry where they are or who took them.  When I was little and hanging out at the race track I could seriously run crazy all day long with my friends (most of who were boys there) and my parents never really came looking for us.  They were just happy I wasn't bothering them or asking for money :)

Another good memory would be going up north most summers for a week on our family vacation to Big Sand Lake.  Some friends of my parents had a cottage up there that they rented out and we would go there almost every year to fish and just relax.  My fondest memories up there are of seeing the bald eagles in their ginormous nests on the point while out on the lake fishing.  I can also remember every night putting our scraps from supper out on the deck by the all glass front of the cottage and waiting patiently for the raccoons to come up, oh so sheepishly, to chow down.  We sat as still as we could inside and watched.  As a child this was super cool stuff.  There was one raccoon that came up a few years in a row that was missing its tail.

6)  Where is your favorite place to vacation? - The first destination that pops into my head is sunny Arizona.  I love the warmth and the saguaro cactus that surround the entire area but the biggest reason I like going there is to visit all of our friends that have migrated there over the years.  When we see them again and have our get togethers, stories are shared from the past, a lot of laughing is done and you forget about all of the craziness of your normal life.

Honestly though, I have been quite a few places already over the years and I couldn't really pick a favorite.  I have loved all of them in one way or another and appreciated something from each place.  I am very partial to mountains though I'll confess, so send me out west anywhere by the Rocky Mountains and I'm pretty thankful.  I will never get over their beauty.

7)  What things do you like to do in your free time?  - Free time?  What is that?  Ha ha.  No really, IF I get free time by myself, which is like NEVER, I like to go to stores like Home Depot and just browse and dream about if I had the talent to fix things I would buy this and buy that to fix up my house.  Or I would just go to a movie all by myself and then maybe for lunch.  And yeah, I like to browse at the Hobby Lobby too and get ideas about things.  If I have some free time with just the kids then I will usually take them out for lunch somewhere that Jeff won't go to (he is extremely fussy about where he eats and won't try new places), like Chilis or Beanies or Buffalo Wild Wings, and after lunch we might go play at a playground for a while or sometimes hit a movie, it depends on our mood at the time.  Also, I like to crochet, make photo books on Shutterfly or Mixbook, I recently taught myself to quilt and have that on my to do list for the near future and I could spend a great portion of my day just listening and singing to the many songs on my IPOD.

Enough with the questions, here are just a few thoughts and tidbits running through my mind at the moment.

***I need a break from my 4 year old.  Seriously, I love the kid but I am at home with him every day of the week, pretty much every hour I am awake, most of the time by myself.  One of these days I really have to pawn him off on somebody to have some alone time where I can just do something for me.  That rarely happens and if it does it's usually for a dentist appointment or something I'm not enjoying anyway.

***My hair is getting long.  It just dawned on me that I haven't been to a hair salon since April of 2011.  So I haven't had a haircut or professional coloring of any kind since then.

***Do any other wives get along with their mother-in-laws?  I'm not gonna elaborate here or I could get myself in trouble, but seriously am I the only one who is really irritated by mine and never had a special, trusting relationship with her?

***I LOVE my fleece jammie bottoms!!!  I wear these pretty much every day at home between milkings and they are soooo warm and so comfie.  I think I need a few more.

***A little secret, don't share with my husband if you know him.  My husband is also fussy about his soda.  He is a Coke man all the way, prefers not to drink Pepsi if he doesn't have to.  Most milkings at the farm we each have a soda.  His Mom usually has a good supply in her fridge that we get it from and she usually has a variety.  In the past I would bring out two cans of Coke, one for him and one for me but I found that part way through the milking he would open the soda that I brought out for myself and start drinking that one too when he was done with his and then when I finally got a chance to stop and take a drink it would be 1/2 gone and it ticked me off.  Sooo...I wised up.  I now drink Pepsi or some kind of soda I know he doesn't like.  He doesn't touch my soda now!!!

***The other day when looking through my house and stressing over the fact that I felt I would never get caught up no matter how hard I tried I calmed myself down and convinced myself not to stress anymore and get used to the fact that until my kids are out of the house it will not be in order.  I feel better today about it.

***I made Sam's favorite dish for supper tonight - Australian Pepper Steak.  Don't ask me what's Australian about it, I'm pretty sure there isn't any kangaroo meat in it or anything, but that's what the recipe is called.  She'll be happy.

***I should really stop now.  I'm sure I'm boring all of you to death.  Sorry.  When I get started sometimes I just can't stop.

So, it's Hump Day today, heh?  For you normal Monday through Friday people it's all downhill from here.  For people like me the days of the week really don't mean too much, they all run together.  This helped my blah mood, remembering some good things and sharing some of these random thoughts.  My brain has too much time to think some days.  That's not always a good thing.

I hope you all have a great rest of the week!!!  Ta ta for now.

 

 

One Year Later (a little late...)

“If you have faith in yourself, you will accept changes easily. You won’t be afraid of who you might become.”

So, this past month I celebrated my one year anniversary of being a full time farmer and farmer's wife.  Honestly, it didn't occur to me that it was even the anniversary until the evening milking that night, to which I made my husband (my new boss) aware and asked where my present was and to which he replied, "Oh I'll give you a present. *wink* *wink*.  No shocker there!  Nice to know that us working side by side for a year now hasn't changed the way he talks to me and his continued smart assness (is that a word?).

When I reflect on the last year I can say without a doubt that this has been a life changing experience for sure.  As with any other job this one has it's ups and downs and pros and cons but at the same time I'm glad I made the change.

I don't think anybody can truly understand "farm life" and being a farmer without firsthand experiencing it day in and day out.  And I don't even mean people that work part time on a farm, to me that isn't even close reality of it.  To be a true farmer and a successful one you must make a commitment to it that is almost unparalled in any other occupation out there.  Honestly, you have to be married to it really.  Heck, most farmers are more committed to their farms and their animals than most spouses are to each other nowadays.  It really is a "way of life".  But an honest, simple and awesome way of life for us.

Recalling the past year there are a few things that stick out in my head, good and bad and some well just very memorable.  I'll start with the good.

I LOVE the scenery.  Even in the brisk cold of winter and the scorching days of summer, there is nothing like seeing the sunrise in the morning in the East with the neighbor's silos in the distance, hearing the birds chirp, the calves mooing, dogs barking in the distance and nature waking up.  I believe it brings me that much closer to God and makes me really appreciate the world around me and puts life into perspective.

I LOVE that our kids can come to work with us and learn what work is.  Oh sure, when school is in session I do miss out on time with the two older ones as they are in school most of the while I am home and get done when I go back to the farm, but when they have days off of school (Christmas break and summer for example), I am home with them a lot more than I had been in the past.  And like I said, a lot of nights they come to the farm with me when they are done with school and hang out in the barn or run around outside and what not.  In fact,  there have been quite a few nights when all three of the kids and Jeff and I are doing the milking together without any additional hired help.  I think it's important that they are taught a good work ethic and can also appreciate what we do each day.

 

I LOVE the animals.  Oh don't get me wrong, a lot of days they can piss me off and be uncooperative and all, but they really are like little kids (or big kids in the case of the cowies as they are rather large).  Seriously, they look at me and Jeff like their Mommy and Daddy and they know we are in charge.  I have come to know most of them by their names now and not just their ear tag numbers and find myself having one way conversations with them quite frequently.  No I am NOT crazy, just compassionate and lacking adult interaction I think :)

 

 

And last but not least, I LOVE that I miss out on all the drama and bullshit involved with an office/factory job and that I no longer have to get up in the morning worried about who I have to impress today.  I work with my husband every day, he's been married to me for 16 years and has seen me at my best and worst and could care less what I look like when I'm in the barn.  The cows sure don't care what I look like so long as I am nice to them and take care of them.  So because of this I also save time and money, another bonus.  I go through a lot less hairspray, a lot less makeup, I spend a ton less shopping at Kohls for nice clothes, and a lot less deodorant because let's be honest, if I smell... I fit right in there, so I rarely wear it.  LOL!

Now onto the bad.  Hmmm???

Ding ding ding!  First on my list are the crazy hours.  I don't think I will ever be able to say that I enjoy getting my butt out of bed at 3:45 am every single day of the week.  And quite honestly every morning the first thing that pops into my head is usually "This sucks!" or "I can't wait to come home and take a nap".  Although the nap thing doesn't always happen obviously as I have a 4 year old barking orders at me all day.  Oh and did I mention this is 7 days a week (twice a day milking).  So, on an average week I work about 9 hours a day x 7 = 63 hours a week.  It tires you out, really.  A lot of physical labor!!!

One of the other bad things that pops into my head is the fact that I will never get used to or like having to ship any of our animals.  Obviously this is a business we're running here and our goal is to produce milk and sometimes if a cow can't get breed back to keep her milk supply going or well she just gets sick for some reason or other it doesn't do us any good to keep her so we eventually have to ship them.  Not fun.  Because like I said, they do start to become a member of our family in a way and I usually leave the farm before I see them get loaded onto a truck for that reason.

 

Another bad thing that pops into my head is....

Farming in the winter isn't real fun.  I've never been fond of winter to begin with and that was when I didn't have to work outside in it, but now it really bugs me.  Trudging around in the snow outside to get to and from the calf huts to feed my babies is a bitch to say the least and freezing water pipes and having to keep the cows in the barn more often so they don't get too cold just adds to the work we have to do.  Thankfully I've become pretty good at dressing for the elements (a lot of layers-not my best look for sure) and if you are in the barn at the same time as the cowies it is actually pretty warm, so I try to look on the bright side.

Over the past year I've had some memorable experiences at the farm.  The one that really stands out is the day I was hauling a steer back from one of the other barns (we rent two barns from other people where we keep our younger stock).  In the truck with me was the high school kid that helps by us and Jeff was still up the road with the tractor at the barn we had just come from.  My goal was to take the steer back to the main farm so we could ship him that day.  All is going real well until I turned the corner onto Jay Road where our farm is and I looked out the rearview mirror and the steer was standing on the road behind me?!  Honest to goodness I thought I was hallucinating and seeing things and my first thought was "How the hell did he get there?"  and the second thought was "Whose animal is that it certainly can't be ours?"

Well long story short, the high school kid obviously didn't close the door properly on the cattle trailer, the steer came out, for whatever reason when I went running back to the main farm (not even sure why I went running to be honest) the steer followed me and we got him mixed in with the cows before Jeff got back.  I think the steer had the "hots" for me maybe?  Either way I was happy he got back where he belonged and I was real happy.

 

Around the farm there are a lot of things that the kids can get into and it makes me nervous.  There are just too many big animals, moving parts and big machines and those elements and kids don't always mix.  In the course of the last year we have had a toddler put his hand into a moving pulley (emergency room visit needed), a 10 year old drop a wagon pole onto his big toe (toe still recovering), a 14 year old drop a wagon pole on the top of her foot (foot recovered now I believe), a 10 year old get chased by the same red cow that tried to run him over in the barn at an earlier date, a toddler get bucked up against a wall twice by a red cow (damn red cows!) and well, too many instances that I care to mention.  Overall though each of these has taught all of us lessons and what not to do in the future so we stay safe.

It's been a good change.  I think sometimes people in general don't have any idea what we do and look down us.  Those people to me are clueless.

 

Oh sure, we may not be the next Donald Trump or Oprah Winfrey BUT......we live honest lives.  We surround ourself with our kids, each other, nature, beauty and HARD WORK.  I LOVE IT!!!