Art with a Purpose

What can you make with a gazillion small pieces of colored tissue paper cut into little one inch squares? Flowers,of course!  That's exactly what the students at Decatur Northside Elementary were making in art class today after a lesson about the famous artist  Georgia  O'Keefe. Early this month, the Benton County Farm Bureau Women's Committee purchased art supplies for this school.   I was invited  today by Mrs. Raymond, the art teacher, to see the supplies we donated and receive thank-you notes from the students.

Mrs. Raymond teaches all the art classes for students in the rural Decatur school system. With a limited budget for art supplies, she was very appreciative of the donation for her elementary students. Students will have plenty of markers,paper,modeling clay and even a crayon melting machine to recycle bits and pieces of crayons. It is our hope that by furnishing more art supplies that the students will benefit academically by enhancing their opportunity for more creativity.

Seventy plus years ago the first Farm Bureau Women's Committee in Arkansas was formed to make a difference in the rural communities. I'm proud to be working for that same purpose today as a member of the Benton County Farm Bureau Women's Committee!

Happy Birthday Baby!

Happy Birthday Baby! We woke up Saturday morning to find the arrival of a new baby calf in the pasture.  We try to avoid having  dairy calves in the coldest months but we always manage to have a few new babies scattered through out the year.  As mild as our January weather has been this year, it's too bad we weren't  having alot more birthdays!

This baby calf stayed with his mother for about twelve hours in the pasture before being moved to the calf raising area.  Calves are separated from their mothers to ensure the best individual care and monitoring. Each of our calves is placed in an individual hutch and fed twice daily. Our babies are bottle fed for three days with the colostrum milk from their mother and then taught to drink from a bucket.  Grain is added to their diet when they start drinking from the bucket. I'm their momma for the next eight to ten weeks before they will be moved to a small pasture.

Experiencing new life on the  dairy farm is always a blessing and a reminder to me of the commitment we have to provide high-quality milk by taking good care of our calves and cows.  I think we may name this baby--January! 

Dairymom's Thankful Thursday

Early last fall Ryan found two little orphan kittens in the feed barn hiding between hay bales. The enclosed front porch of our house became home to Blackie and Fuzzy  until this past Sunday when I took them to their new home in the haybarn at Cody's house. Even though I moved them from the house, I'm thankful  for the fun I've had watching these cute curious  kittens grow into being  part of the farm family.

Wednesday's One-Dish Meal

Christmas in January is what we're celebrating tomorrow night when my church friends (my sons call us the "Blue Hairs") gather at my house for supper and Bible study. We usually just have dessert but since we canceled our annual potluck Christmas dinner in December, I'm hosting and preparing the main dish tonight. I find that I enjoy making Chicken Tetrazzini for my family or guests because it is simple,can be prepared in advance, and is a great dish to share with others.  It is also an easy recipe that can be prepared and frozen.

Chicken Tetrazzini

12 oz spaghetti,uncooked
4 Tablespoons butter
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
5 Tablespoons water
1 cup + 3 Tablespoons sharp cheddar cheese,shredded
1/2 to 3/4 cup pepper-jack cheese, shredded
4 chicken breasts, cooked and cut into bite size pieces

Cook spaghetti until tender,drain and mix with one tablespoon melted butter.
Place spaghetti in bottom of greased 13x9 inch baking pan. In skillet, melt 3 tablespoons butter; add soup and water. Stir until smooth. Reserve 3 tablespoons cheddar cheese. Add all other cheese into soup and cook over low heat until melted, stirring occasionally. Fold in chicken. Pour soup and chicken mixture over spaghetti; sprinke with reserved cheese.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until bubbly.

                  When I add a tossed green salad and homemade rolls--I'll call this the Blue Hair Special!

Truck Lovin' Dairy Farmer

Because we depend on our farm trucks every day to assist us in caring for our  dairy cattle and land, we tend to have special relationships with our trucks. The first truck I remember when I started dating the dairy farmer was "Brownie". She was a brown,flat bed Ford truck equipped with big tires that made her very tall and a good mud slinger, a large muffler with deafening noise on acceleration, a radio that played only country music and some type of hay spear on the back. In the beginning of my farming experience, when Brownie's name was mentioned, I thought there was another woman on the farm!

As I watched my son,Cody, feeding hay to the  dairy cows in the dry pasture, I thought about the efficiency of hay feeding with the truck and the importance of this farmer tool to our work on the farm. With the special hay feeding Deweze bed on our truck, two large round bales of hay can be picked up and brought to the pasture for the cattle. One farmer can efficiently feed alot of cattle in one day with this special hay feeding equipment.

Brownie is long gone from the farm but now that I've been on the  dairy farm for twenty seven years, I understand and appreciate the farmer's special relationship with his truck. From daylight to dusk, the truck is considered a member of the farm family--always ready and waiting to assist the farmer in caring for the cattle and land.  I can't imagine a day without our farm truck or the truck lovin' dairy farmer!

What Do You Learn from Selling Girl Scout Cookies?

The announcement on the radio about the arrival of Girl Scout Cookies  in our community brought a smile on my face and a flood of memories of my own Girl Scout experience. Troop 150 formed when we were in the second grade.  Our Troop leaders mentored us from the second grade until we graduated in 1973. I cherish the memories of our Girl Scout years and I'm grateful for the many lessons we were taught about making our world a better place by caring for each other and our community.  Here are the Girl Scout Laws as we knew them in 1963:

1. A Girl Scout's honor is to be trusted.
2. A Girl Scout is loyal.
3. A Girl Scout's duty is to be useful and to help others.
4. A Girl Scout is a friend to all and a sister to every other Girl Scout.
5. A Girl Scout is courteous.
6. A Girl Scout is a friend to animals.
7. A Girl Scout obeys orders.
8. A Girl Scout is cheerful.
9. A Girl Scout is thrifty.
10. A Girl Scout is clean in thought,word, and deed.

Money made from cookie sales is used to support troop activiites. Even though it's been forty years since I sold my last box of Girl Scout cookies, the skills that I learned are still part of my daily life on the dairy farm--goal setting,decision making,money management, people skills, and business ethics.
You can find more information about Girl Scouts at http://www.girlscouts.org/.

I hope you'll join me in supporting the Girl Scouts this year by buying cookies. I'll be having milk with my cookies.  How about you?