Weekend Happenings

Hi Everyone!

I hope you all had a nice weekend! My weekend was pretty good around here, though busy. The major highlight of the weekend was that my birthday was on Saturday! Woohoo! Today's post is more or less a recap of the weekend's activities, which were many and varied, and also of what's going on on the farm.

The crabapple tree bloomed (early!) in time for my birthday this year.

Birthday Happenings
Saturday was my birthday. Yay! I celebrated with Jeff, Tom and Carol on Friday evening. Tom and Carol had a nice meal of grilled steaks, tossed salad with volunteer spinach from our garden, potatoes from the grill, a nice crusty bread, delicious wine, and some cheesecake squares for dessert. It was low-key and nice to get together and share good food and good conversation. Saturday, my actual birthday, I got to take a group of Junior High kids to their track meet in Cut Bank, along with another Coach. It was a long day, but good to be with some of these youngsters as they're discovering the sport of Track and Field. They surprised me with a nice birthday card and some singing of Happy Birthday. Pretty thoughtful for a group of pre-teens, right? Made me feel special and appreciated. :)

It was a pop-up card- my favorite! :) Delivered on the bus ride home.

Farm Happenings
We are officially DONE with seeding. The winter wheat was, of course, seeded last fall, but we still had lots of spring wheat, peas, and barley to do this spring, along with some land that we re-seeded into grass. Overall, seeding went well with little to no machinery breakdowns. The biggest news related to seeding is that we purchased a new blockage monitor system for our air-drill (seeder) this year, which is a little hard to explain, but helps show the person who's running the drill if the seed is flowing through the implement and into the ground as it should be. Jeff, Tom, and Stephanie (when she was here) installed sensors on each hose of the air drill. Each sensor is monitored using an iPad app that Jeff or whoever is driving the tractor can view. The app would buzz if it sensed that no seed was flowing through a hose on the drill, and would indicate which hose was blocked. Then Jeff could go out and see what was up, or how that particular hose was blocked, clear the blockage, and get back to work. The system worked very well and definitely ensured that seeding continued to run efficiently. Without a system like this, a person could have a blockage and not know for a very long time, which means that part of the ground goes un-seeded. So, with this system in place, we know we didn't miss any ground. Pretty cool how technology can work in agriculture and improve productivity, and therefore yields. Now we just need some rain. Seriously, folks, pray for rain!

This is what an air drill seeder looks like. Normally, it's hooked up to trail and seed behind a tractor.

Fitness Happenings
Shape Up Montana ended last Thursday. Overall, I'm happy with my own performance this year. I wanted to make it to 500 miles and I eclipsed that and then some by reaching 565 or so. As a team, my team did awesome, too, and I can't wait to see where we finished in the team standings. I ran and biked quite a bit more this year than in previous years, and already have a 10K under my belt, so I attribute that as a big reason why I scored so many more points this year. Over the weekend, I ran on Friday and Sunday. Friday was a windy uphill run of 3 miles or so in the afternoon, and Sunday was an easy walk/jog combo of less than two miles. I was pretty sore for some reason yesterday morning, plus I knew that Jeff and I were planning our big bike ride for that afternoon so I didn't want to overdo it... I am planning to do the 10K at the Buffalo Jump Race Series in Ulm, MT on May 17, so I do need to concentrate on keeping my mileage and training up this week, then "tapering" next week in preparation for the race.

I love this logo for the Buffalo Jump races!

Bicycle Happenings
Jeff has a fitness goal this summer of getting in a lot more mountain biking. I told him that for my birthday I didn't want any presents, but let's plan to go on a long bike ride instead. So, Sunday afternoon, we spent about an hour and a half on our mountain bikes. For the first time, really, we rode through our pastures instead of on the gravel roads. We mostly followed cow paths, which are a lot like single-track, except where there were no trails, then we just picked our way carefully through the grass. We left from Tom's house and made a big loop heading out to the Southwest, crossing the creek, then by the tepee rings, across the Inverness Road by the gravel pit and reservoirs over there, then crossed back into Chuck's pasture, and headed toward home. We think we covered about 8 miles. Harvey and Abby came with us and particularly enjoyed all the creek crossings and reservoirs. We had a great time!

Our first creek crossing of the afternoon. 

Stopping at another reservoir. Dogs went for a swim. :)

You can see how brown the grass is in these photos. We really need some rain. 

The narrowest, most harrowing portion of our ride. Barbed wire fence on one side, steep drop off on the other...
No big deal, right? We made it through with no spills. :)

 It was a jam-packed, but awesome weekend of work, play, and celebration. How was your weekend? Did you do anything exciting? Happy trails, everyone!

One of my favorite views on our entire farm. Actually in some pasture that Jeff and I rent. Sage Creek with the Sweetgrass Hills in the background.