Bringing Home the Bacon

Good gravy (I have taken up saying this since Husband doesn't curse and I was the only one to blame for our household's junior potty mouths), it's Fall. And I still haven't shown you the before/during/after pictures of my kitchen update.
Before: greenish "marble" laminate counters with a yellowed fluorescent light cover--only one bulb working.
Carbon dating and a close examination of the many knife cuts evident on the laminate surface have led scientists to believe these counter tops date to the early Aquarius period or possibly late Happy Days epoch.
To save money on the almost airline-like add-ons involved in having a big box home improvement chain do this project, we removed the counter tops ourselves. I use the term ourselves very loosely, of course, in that Husband did it.
I thought we were well-prepared. Fortunately, they did not have a box on their billing slip for We Pulled out the Oven and OMGOMGOMG!! The workers even kindly looked away while I frantical…

Remembering my grandmother tonight... she spent hours reading us books from her well-stocked bookshelf, she always had chocolate pudding ready in little bowls when we visited, she used a wringer washer well into the 1980s, she made notes of the weather and occurrences daily on a calendar and she said "yallo" when she answered the rotary dial phone she kept on the wall in the kitchen.

She really hasn't been that Grandma for many years and I'm glad that after almost 97 years of life, she is at peace.

Grandma Brown with Ryan in 2001.

For many years, I dreaded the end of the county fair. The end of the fair meant saying goodbye to the 4-H animals we had fed and tended for months; the end of the fair meant saying goodbye to fairtime friends; and later, the end of the fair meant I wouldn't have the opportunity to flirt with the world's most dreamy pig farmer. Sigh.
I still am a little sad at the end of the county fair but for the last 14 years I have been able to go home with my handsome farmer, so now I can spend the end of the fair boasting to friends and family about all the great things my kids did that week.

In case any fashionistas have accidentally found this blog, I want to assure you that the above photo was taken before Labor Day. The boys (Ryan is on the right) are dressed in their white to show their dairy heifers. Why white? I don't know. Asking people who are about to work with cattle to wear white is about as ridiculous as expecting people who are about to paint a room or cut open a body to …

I want everyone to have shavings on their rug and children with black knees. Join us at the county fair, won't you?  See my Top 10 fair attractions and treats at DaytonMostMetro.com.



I'm not sure what's more rare, my mother-in-law taking a photo, or me being in one. Here I am last Sunday, helping prepare the pig pen at the fair--sometimes I do actually help.

Every issue of Sports Illustrated has a brief quote titled Sign of the Apocolypse, a humorous but true sports news item that makes you wonder--have we gone too far? In that spirit, I present another installment of Sign of the Farmpocalypse, because I just can't make this stuff up.


Conversation Husband had at the local soccer fields:

Rural parent: Hey, how ya been. Say, you're a man about town, right?
Husband: (uncertain) I guess.
Rural parent: Well then, do you know where I could get a chicken dressed?

Husband was happy to help but we couldn't help laugh later. Apparently, where we live, being a man about town means knowing where to get your chicken butchered.