Because I have never experienced a Snipe Hunt personally – this story has truly opened my eyes. However, not in a surprising sort of way. You see, I’ve been married to the Mark of the story for 32 years and understand that there is definately a reason that Rene and I stay on the same side of things. Having a support group is invaluable! Thank you Rene for giving me the first hand version of this story! Aunt Ronda 🙂

A well-written story, if not objective, but I wonder if Ronda perhaps should have written about "a first-hand version", rather than "the first-hand version". It would seem reasonable not to form an opinion and/or lend one’s support based on just one person’s account. Hmm!

I’m not sure what put the bee in my bonnet (perhaps relatives akin to yours), but this reminds me of the time that I convinced my high school boyfriend that minces (as in mincemeat pie) were an animal similar to a rabbit, but more long like a weasel, common to the west (he’d recently moved to CO from NY) and without a lot of meat on them, so best cooked in a pie!

Snipe hunts!! A rite of passage when I was a kid and now my own kids are going through that stage too. I grew up in rural Calif and our snipe hunts were loud and long..lots of older cousins. Since I am the oldest of my own siblings I loved my chance to take my brother and sister and younger cousins on a snipe hunt. My oldest kids (now grown) were taken by my younger brother and my youngest kids..still home….have been on snipe hunts all but the youngest two..who are both 12 and will surely go on their first hunt this summer at scout camp and girls church camp. They do it a little different here in Utah..but it is basically all the same…good clean fun. My older two kids at home can hardly wait to take their younger sibs and have kept it quiet now so they don’t suspect a thing. I love it. Thanks for the memory!

I rememer those "rites of passage" well. Grandpa telling us to pick a long piece of grass and touch it to the electric fence….we "wouldn’t get shocked"!! Yeah right!

My favorite memory is turning 16 and driving. I was sent to town to get "axle grease". I was told to not come home without it as it was needed on the farm. I must’ve stopped at a dozen garages and gas stations inquiring about ‘axle grease’ to no avail. I vividly remember my grandfather, uncle and some farm buddies standing outside the house grinning from ear to ear as I pleaded my case as to why I didn’t have any. That’s when I learned, there IS NO SUCH THING AS AXLE GREASE! I had to drive to another town for months to get fuel to avoid embaressment!

Ha-ha-ha!  Love that! As I was reading your story, I thought, hmmmm!  Why are all the shananigans at the hands of our "FarmBOY" family members….Guess they thought they had better get us while we were young, as no doubt they’d never get us…. don’t cha think?  Just once i’d like to send one of them into the fabric store………………………

hi rene, I ejoyed this very much ,have a geat day good blog,blessed be the mo farmers daughter,carol branum

Thanks Carol.. I hope you will "come back often" as farmgirls, I am sure we will have "like" stories to share.

I remember snipe hunts as a kid…

But I was AMAZED to find out when I looked up a bird I found in our farm orchard in a birding book, that it was a SNIPE.

I found one without looking!!!

Brenda,

Ha-ha, where was that little birdie when I needed him?

HA Snipe hunting! Thanks for the memory Rene. I remember well going snipe hunting with the youth group and after we had all fallen for it, hearing Pastor Wes up on the porch laughing…..(probably near the same field you were "snookered" at. Thanks for the memories, I think I have a snipe hunt to plan for my two young children..

Ha-ha~ Yes Wes had that same mischievous "bent"…Although, I do love knowing that I wasnt the only one that fell for that…

Yum Yum Yum, I just picked up my first spring load and my mouth still waters as I read about Grandma Doris’ picked delicacies!

Rene,

Love your blog!

Would really enjoy if you would share your grandmother’s recipe for pickled asparagus.

Look forward to reading more!

Blessings,
Cheryl

I love asparagus. I remember when I was in High School my sister Elizabeth and I would have to take turns going up to the orchard to cut the asparagus, it seemed like we went every day. It grew so fast. Thanks for the recipe from Grandma Doris.

oh yummmy! hummm, fried Asperegus,,,,really sounds yummmm!
Next to Chocolate, most everything fried tastes good!

>^..^<

Ha-ha… You always brighten my day.. Here at the local Burger Ranch they sell fried Aspergus, come on down for lunch!

Asparagus! Oh, golly, do I love that stuff. I can’t believe you are only paying $.79 a pound for it. Around here, the homegrown stuff is going for at least $2.99 a pound, and we’re paying it, too. Of course, the spears are the diameter of your thumb and have that lovely purple tinge. A friend who owns some country acreage has been out and about looking for the wild stuff and has had some success, both with that and the fiddlehed ferns in the more swampy area of the woods. We love those, too, as well as the morels. Not so much luck with those, though. I don’t know why, but then, I’m not the wild mushroom collector she is. Another friend has been back in the meadow, far away from pesticides and automobile fumes, collecting dandelion greens for salads, and also the heads for his "killer" dandelion wine. Whew, that stuff can do you a mischief if you take in a little too much. Later in the season, we’ll be out in the fields and woods scrounging whatever is available. Looking forward to the wild strawberries, then the first crop of red raspberries, then the black raspberries, and, finally, the blackberries. My friends and I have a regular circuit we make for collecting the berries. I’m not the one with the in depth knowledge, except for the berries, but I can carry the basket, bucket, or box, so I earn my share of the swag. Mother nature can be a real "peach". Love your blog!

Kaye,

You certainly sound like a girl after my own heart. I would like to spend more time foraging. My hubby and I do like to go to the mountains and look for mushrooms and berries, and some years have better luck than others. I told myself this year I will make dandelion wine and watermellon wine, just to say I did it! I planted huckleberries, blackberries, raspberries and blue berries this year, so who knows the mischief I will get myself in with that, and my little apricot tree is loaded with fruit this year…  Thanks for taking the time to read my blog and sharing your story with me too.. Love that part of the blog the most!

hi rene,Love the blog….the old forklifts are for scrap iorn,and i dont know what it is worth in your state but in missouri it is worth 1.25lb,i think but i havent called in a while, that is for short,last time i called was on earth day for my daddy,he deals in scrap now that he is 82 years old and has quite a business now just piddling with it,aluminium cans are down right now,just .45cents a lb.He regualrly goes to garage sales,and he buys old pots and pans ect that is aluminum.I got to go with him once to the sale and their were over 100 cars in line just waiting to sale scrap.I Think one of those fork lifts would be great to have on the farm,just to clean the barn out.thankx for a geat blog,and i am looking forward to reading more,blessed be,carol branum,the missouri farmers daughter,lamar mo.

Thanks Carol… Sounds like your dad has found a great hobby!

Those girls sound wonderful, I have always wanted a few chickens but have left it a bit late. I can’t move around easily enough any more to keep up with things, but I love reading everyone’s blogs and posts about their chicken adventures…

Karin

Hi there Rene:

I am new to the country as my husband and I retired to two and a half acres in a lovely country setting near Ladysmith, BC. Canada. I am slowly turning the land into my own Naturewood where I will plant native plants and wild flowers and ‘Violas Gardens’ which I hope to cultivate into a small Market Garden in the next year. I would love to have some chickens but know nothing about raising chickens. Could you give me a site or some information on simple chicken raising. I would like to use the eggs for eating and possibly sell a few dozen each week and the manure to fertilize my garden soil.

Thanks Marian

Hi Marian,

Sounds like you are living the dream. Check out http://www.backyardchickens.com they are loaded with info. Also come chat with us farmgirls over at http://www.maryjanesfarm.org click onto "chat with other farmgirls" as there is a wealth of info.. I sure can say that, "All I ever learned, I learned from a farmgirl". 

Keep me posted on your adventure!

Rene’

I have lived on a farm with my husband for 25 years. We don’t have chickens but I would love to have some. It reminds me of my childhood when my mother raised chickens and we had baby chicks and fresh eggs to eat. That was the life growing up. Like many of you, the demands of time at work is keeping my husband and I waiting for retirement to add more critters to our brood.

Cathy,

Boy it does take time to have critters, but I sure love it!  My "girls" are the best. I think I save a bundle on therapy just because I have them :), I can’t think of a better retirement reward 🙂

Living with Chickens by Jay Rossier is a wonderful resource full of color photos and invaluable information. Chickens are in our furture so I’m gathering information now. I love the beautiful Buff Orpington hens and am wondering how I am going to find just the three beauties I’m allowed to have in Mercer Island, WA. Any resources when you can’t buy chickens in bulk? Most websites such as McMurray’s Hatchery advertise wonderful breeds but sell in high quantities only.

Thanks!

Hi Blair,

There are a couple of ways you can get your girls. In the spring local feed supply stores will carry them. If you go in a head of time, they will also special order for you to be shipped with theirs. Also, find a local food co-op and hang a flyer for others looking to purchase, you can purchase them together. Which is what we did. If youre a part of a local farmgirl chapter~ some of those gals will want in for sure.  If you are wanting to get some prior to Spring; watch craigs list, capital press or the local paper for someone parting with some. Also places like Washington State Tilth has a great "Ad’s" list,so watch them as well.. Good luck!

This is my first year to have chickens. I have 5 Buff Orphingtons and 6 Barred Rocks. Yesterday was their first day in the coop. They turned 5 weeks on Monday. I love it. When they see me coming, they run to meet me. I have named one after my daughter who lives in Tacoma. Her name is Jessica and she has a mean streak.(the chicken) She was the only one to roost on the side of the brooder box and jump on another chick as it passed. Then she would run and jump back up on the edge of the box. Haven’t named them all yet. Your blog is wonderful.

Hey, that sounds like someone I know! Well written. No doubt, cows can be scary at times.

Rene,

Your wit is very charming. I do not question that as good as you are now you can only get better, and better. You have found a niche where your passion not only drives you, it is also something that you can share with others. And sharing is so such an important part of our life cycle.

Someday when we are together again I will tell you my ‘black cow’ story. It was a very funny, a very embarrassing happening. Humiliation too, if you like. Makes a real life cowboy hang his head in shame. A very humbling experience, too funny.

John

LOL for 20 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You made my day! Thanks for sharing.

Hahah.. I know Bonnie, you are laughing "WITH" me…. LOL

this story was so funny i laughed for an hour and chuckled all day making others wonder what was up with me. love love loved it….

Ya!.. You sound like my son… it still cracks him up!

That was a great story. I am a city girl – wanna be farm girl. Just saw my first cow in person about 3 years ago. It made me feel good to know that even farm girls can mistake a cow for a bear.

Ha-ha!  Ya! I suspect I wont live it down for a while!