Month: August 2005

August 21, 2005 – Televac 62000

highhopesgardens August 21, 2005

As today is the last day of the state fair I’ve been waiting to show you all my favorite vendor exhibit from the fair – the Televac 620000 Personality Analyzer.
televac
As an information technology professional, one who works flawlessly from creating content for black screen mainframes to a web browsers, the Televac 62000 caught my eye.

The Televac only costs $2.00 for a complete personality profile. A bargain considering a guinea grinder is $5.50 at the fair. The Televac is obviously a powerful computer. You can tell it is powerful because of all the flashing yellow AND red lights. You can tell it is powerful because it is very large. You can tell it is powerful because of the name: Televac 620000, “Tele” meaning it communicates via telephone lines, and “vac” telling you it runs on powerful vacuum tubes instead of silicon chips, and 62000, which is a very high number. You can tell it is powerful because it has a huge floppy drive on the bottom. All these factors tell you how powerful it is.

August 20, 2005 – Every Which Way

highhopesgardens August 20, 2005

This morning we went three different directions. Linda went to the Iowa Farmer’s Union annual meeting and got to hear John Edwards, 4 gubernatorial candidates and three Secretary of Ag candidates, in addition to spreading the word about the Sustainable and Entrepreneurial program at MCC.

Grandma and the girls went to the Grinnell market where they had a good morning – the girls each netted $20.00 on their baked goods after paying their parents for expenses.

Martin and Dad stayed home to say goodbye to our guest and do stuff around the farm. We moved the portable electric fence around the pine trees that had grown up with mulberries and weeds. The goats did a great job of clearing it up – better than a brush cutter. I’ll put before and after pictures up in a few days.

We’ve discovered that the windfall apples are loved by the cows. Here are the kids feeding the cows the apples.
feed cows
feed cows

August 19, 2005 – ‘Nother Hot Day

highhopesgardens August 19, 2005

Today was another 90 degree plus day with plenty of humidity. The girls spent most of the morning in the kitchen making cookies for market tomorrow and the afternoon on the slip and slide.
slipslide
slipslide
The hot weather is good for our buckwheat crop. After we harvest summer crops in the garden we sow buckwheat since it grows well in hot weather. Here’s part of the patch where the potatoes used to be.
buckwheat

This picture is a few days old – today it started to show flowers – an added bonus is more forage for the bees.

August 18, 2005 – Got Goat?

highhopesgardens August 18, 2005

Pictures don’t get more goaty than this! Here’s Paullina standing up against the lower half of the barn door.

Number One and Number Two are growing up nicely. They suffered the fate many of us face of being born male.

I promised more milking pictures. Here they are.


Hand milking is a long lost art. Here another human gets passed down this basic farmsteading skill.

August 17, 2005 – Joy!

highhopesgardens August 17, 2005

Martin enjoying a wild swing from his sister.
Today was full of odds and ends – changing oil and plugs on the mower, picking up chicken food and setting up the brooding room (chicks may come in mail tomorrow or Friday), canning tomatoes, and so on…

This week we have a visitor for “country mouse/city mouse exchange. Tonight she helped milk the new goat.
goat milk