High Trestle Tale

I'm 2 for 2 on getting caught in the rain the last couple weeks...don't go walking with me, I guess!  Today's story is quite a doozy though!

My friend and I have been wanting to check out the High Trestle Trail and thought today seemed perfect since I would be going by there on my way home from Ames.  According to the weather guru's, we would be clear of rain until at least noon.  So we chose an early meeting time of 8:30.  We figured it would take about 90 minutes to complete the 5 mile walk.

It took us 60 minutes to get to the bridge from Madrid...we had to stop a couple times for the kids and to help a biker who fell, or it wouldn't have taken us so long to walk the 2.5 miles.  It was a beautiful walk!  The sun was shining and it was hot!  The trail route is very scenic.  There were lots of other walkers and bikers out...perfect day for this activity!!  Or, so we thought....

As soon as we got to the other side of the half mile bridge we noticed the sky getting darker and thunder appearing to get closer and louder.  We took a little break at the covered picnic tables to grab a snack and rest our legs.  We debated whether to stay there until the rain passed or just head back and hope we beat the rain.  I thought if we could just get back across the bridge we could at least have trees to shelter us from the rain a little bit.  So, we walked as fast as we could across the bridge...we weren't so sure we were going to make it as the wind picked up and air felt cooler.  We debated turning back to the shelter (which really isn't very big).  Just as we crossed the bridge it started to sprinkle.  At this point we ran into some good family friends and stopped to visit with them for a minute...and then it really started to rain!  We pushed the strollers over to the trees, but they really weren't good shelter...we were getting WET!!  We decided we might as well just get back on the trail and walk, because we certainly weren't staying dry where we were at. 

It rained for the entire 2.5 miles back to our cars...and it wasn't what I would call a "light" rain either.  We were SOAKED!!!  Walking in wet shorts, socks and shoes was not exactly ideal, but at least it was keeping my mind off of the pain I was having from a blister on my heel that formed somewhere along the trail.  Luckily, I had worn a hat to keep the sun off my face...it helped shield my eyes from the rain as well. 

When we got back to where we parked about an hour later and Rylee got out of the stroller, I saw that her clothes were just as wet as mine, even though I thought I had her mostly shielded from the rain.   I checked Wyatt next....same story!  I had no idea they were getting so wet during those 2.5 miles...Wyatt was even sleeping through being wet!  Neither of them ever complained...such troopers!!  As luck would have it, we had just come from a couple of days at Grandma's house, so we had dry clothes to change into in the van!  I also had a couple of beach towels since we had gone swimming.  We were all so happy to get into dry clothes!! 

What an adventure!  It was fun, but not something I want to do again anytime soon (walking in the rain, I mean).  Rylee did ask if we could do it again sometime :)  The trail however, I would do again when there is a 0% change of rain for the entire day!!!  :)  If you haven't been, it's beautiful!  I want to go again in the fall, as well as at night time when it is all lit up. 

Donate Your Red Stuff!

Don't give blood because you don't like needles??  Don't give because you don't have time??  Just never thought about donating blood??  Whatever your reason is.... you should consider changing your mind.

After my accident almost 7 years ago, I nearly died from blood loss.  I went into hypovolemic shock, which, in a nut shell, means the body's organs don't have enough blood for proper circulation and they start to shut down.  I had to have blood transfusions right away and over the next few days, as my body was still losing blood.  Doctors were worried I might not make it if they couldn't get the bleeding stopped.  It took almost 50 units of blood over those several days to replenish my body's supply. 

50 units of blood...each unit from a different person.  50 separate people to save 1 person's life...mine. 

Summer months tend to have the highest need for blood supply.  I am so very thankful that there was enough blood supply the day of my accident that August.  As of this posting, the LifeServe Blood Center of Iowa website show that they are in critical or urgent need (meaning less than 3 days worth of blood on hand) of almost each type of blood.  Wow!!  To think that 1 in 7 people entering the hospital need blood and our blood supply center has less than a 3 day supply on hand right now is very unsettling!! 

In addition to traumas like mine, I know mothers who have had to have blood transfusions after giving birth, as well as newborn babies who needed blood.  Every 2 seconds, someone somewhere needs blood.  You never know if it will be someone close to you in need, or even yourself.

I had never considered donating blood prior to the accident and didn't really know anything about it to be honest.  If you are in this same boat, here is some information for you, taken from the LifeServe Blood Center of Iowa website.

* If you are at least 16 years old, in good health, and weight at least 120 pounds you may be eligible to donate. 
* Donating blood takes 5-10 minutes (plus time to register, have a quick health screen and eat a snack when you are done :)...total of 45 minutes to 1 hour )
* You can donate every 56 days
* Only 38% of the U.S. population is eligible to donate...but only 10% do annually (SCARY!)
* About 1 in 7 people entering a hospital need blood
* 9 out of 10 people who live to age 70 will need blood in their lifetime (WOW!)

If you have been thinking about finding a way to help your community on a regular basis, donating blood is a GREAT option!!  It's free, you can do it on your own time and you'll walk away knowing that your selfless donation possibly saved someone's life! 

This Thursday, June 26th is LifeServe Blood Center's 32nd annual Blood Donor Day.  They will be set up at Valley West Mall and Capital Square.  If you have never donated blood or haven't in awhile, this may be a great day to start!!  For more information on this event and donating blood in general, visit http://www.lifeservebloodcenter.org 

 

BLOOD DONATIONS SAVED MY LIFE!! 

Be a Hero and donate your red stuff!!!!

Country Life - How Sweet It Is!

It's been a long time since I've written about living in the country.  The past few days I have seen life in the country through new eyes and wanted to share with you why I have re-fallen in love with the county life. 

At the top of my list is definitely the scenery!  Not all country scenery is the same of course...some is just flat crop fields, but others, like mine, is rolling hills with lots of timber. It's quite breath-taking!  I never get tired of the view from my window or the scenery as I make my way towards my house from the highway.  Almost daily the landscape reminds me how blessed I am to live in the middle of such beauty!  In addition, we see the stars in the sky almost nightly, which is something I never noticed when I lived in the city due to city pollution, street lights, buildings, etc.  Speaking of pollution, the air we breathe out here seems so "fresh" without lots of cars driving and buildings releasing who-knows-what. If you want a glimpse of this natural beauty, take I-35 to exit 52 and head west from St. Charles to Winterset...b-e-a-u-tiful!!!  You can also catch some of the Madison County bridges on this drive! 

Next on my list is the peacefulness that comes with living in the country.  Besides the sounds of nature, we don't hear much out here.  About once every 90 minutes a car or tractor will drive by, but the rest of the sounds are birds, rustling leaves, cicadas right now and that's about it.  We have a creek and marsh very close too, so we also hear geese and frogs...sounds I happen to love falling asleep and waking up to with my windows open.  We also have cows close to us at certain times of the year and will occasionally hear them "moo".  And a couple times we have heard a coyote attacking another animal...but lets keep this post happy :)

Speaking of wild animals....we have deer in our yard daily.  My husband planted several food plots to feed and attract the deer and turkey and we also have a salt block outside our window, which the deer LOVE!  We have turkeys in our yard at least once a week.  We have also seen 6 bobcats, one just this past Friday!  Last year we had a mama and her two babies in our yard...they were so fun to watch playing!!  It's funny when I tell people about the bobcats and they get scared....none of these animals come out when we are outside.  We happen to have very large windows in almost every room of the house and we are constantly looking out them, so we see all of the wildlife that way. 

Another thing I love about the country is the freedom we have to do anything we want to.  When James and I moved into our first house in the city we had the cops at our door on day 2 because we had a boat parked in the yard and the neighbors complained.  We also had a neighbor yell at us for having a truck parked in our yard.  We knew we needed to get out of the city, where there are no rules...we couldn't have a bonfire in town???  Last week I was reading some covenants for a subdivision....they made me cringe...I cannot imagine living with so many rules.  If a person doesn't care about anything outside of their house, I guess it's not a big deal.  But, rules regarding my own property...I just don't know if I could get on board with that.  My favorite was "no clothes lines"...hahahahah!  I get that they were trying to keep the place from looking "trashy", but still...if I want to save some energy, I want to be able to use a clothes line (I don't currently, but still....).  We can do whatever we want to out here...zero rules!  Bonfire, shoot guns (okay, I don't know if that's actually legal, but everyone does it, so no one is going to call the police), light fireworks, park in your yard, camp in your yard, blast music, raise crazy animals, you name it...we can do it! 

Along the freedom and peaceful lines, I also love that we don't have neighbors watching us.  I am a social person and do enjoy the occasional visits from neighbors, but most of the time I am thankful that I don't have neighbors watching everything I do.  I can run through the sprinkler with Rylee without being embarrassed, wash my van without worrying if I'm getting water in the neighbors' yard, exercise outside with feeling watched, etc.  We do get together with our neighbors on occasion to catch up and we all watch over each others' places, but beyond that it is pretty private. 

As I did not grow up in the country, I am a little worried that my kids are going to miss out on a lot of "typical" childhood things (riding bikes to friends' houses, playing with the neighbor kids, etc)...but I have been assured by several who grew up country, that my kids will have different types of experiences than city kids, and possibly their country experiences will be beneficial long term (ie, farm kids can probably outwork city kids).  I guess we'll see...and hopefully my "city-ness" won't hinder their experiences living in the country :)  I'm just now starting to be okay with them getting filfthy every time we go outside! 

There are plenty more smaller reasons I love living in the country, but these I listed are definitely the biggest and most important.  Of course, it has it's downsides too, but ultimately, I feel a sense of peace and calmness being surrounded by nothing but nature.  In this sometimes crazy world, this is a feeling I am so blessed to encounter regularly. 

Never Stop Learning

What a fun Friday we have had and it's only 2:00pm!  Our day has been filled with learning (disguised as fun).  A little over a week ago, Rylee asked if cows come from milk and how.  A couple of hours later I saw on a Facebook post that the ISU Dairy Farm was having an open house the following week (today) and that it was kid-friendly.  How ironic!!  So, I put it on our calendar and told Rylee we would go see first-hand how milk comes from cows.

The open house turned out to be even more entertaining than I could have imagined!  I figured it was just a guided walking tour of cattle barns and getting to watch the cows be milked.  Instead, we rode on a wagon through the barns as we learned a lot about the cattle and that particular operation.  Rylee and Wyatt both loved being so close to the cows!!  We also got to watch the actual milking process through a large window (I think anyone can go and watch this, as it is in the visitor building).  By the way, the milk from this operation is sold to Swiss Valley, if you were curious as I was.

Now, I loved the wagon tour and learning about the operation....I wondered for a brief moment why I didn't choose animal science as my college major (and to be honest, I just learned about that major on the tour today .. I also learned that 50% of the Ag students at ISU are "city" kids).....but Rylee's favorite part was what came after the wagon ride -- Food and Fun!!

The wagon dropped us off at a barn (picture the hoop barn with fabric roof -- which I learned they use because they are less expensive than a structure with metal roof).  Inside this barn were baby calves to pet, "cow mix" to make (like trail mix, but mimics a cow's diet...think Candy Corn instead of real corn feed), a real cow stomach to look at (man, they're huge!! No wonder they can eat grass all day!), coloring pages and crayons, and best of all...DAIRY FOODS!!  Yogurt (I found a new fav...Land O Lakes..yum!), milk....and of course.....ice cream!!!  And let's not forget they also had bananas...and let's really not forget that they also had.....doughnuts!!!  I wouldn't have had a doughnut, except that it is National Doughnut Day and would have been very un-human of me to not eat one. 

I really learned a lot today and felt very in-tune with agriculture.  I feel so fortunate to live near an amazing "Ag college", and particularly one that provides awesome learning experiences like this one....and for free!  We will definitely be going back again next year!

To continue our "Ag day", we went to James' work to have lunch with him.  As usual, we got to climb in the tractors and ride the little pedal tractors.  Rylee thinks Daddy just plays with farm equipment all day :)  And Wyatt wishes he could play with them all day!!  He is going to be a "large machinery" fan, I can already tell!

Rylee has been to Daddy's work many times, but a couple of weeks ago she asked me, "What do people do at work?"  She always hears me say "he's at work", or "Grandma's at work today.", etc.  So later that same week Rylee had a chance to go to work with Grandma for a couple of hours.  It was a slow day in the office and the bosses were gone, so Grandma's co-workers didn't mind having a little helper.  I thought it would be great for Rylee to see what other types of "work" people do besides "play with tractors".  Well, turns out Rylee and Grandma just watched Frozed on the computer while at work, so this was a skewed example! 

Today, after lunch with Daddy, we went to visit Grandpa at work (where I knew there would be "real" work going on).  Rylee was so excited to see Grandpa's work!!  She went running up to Grandpa and held his hand as they walked around the warehouse and saw people running fork lifts, carrying boxes, etc.  I feel better now that she has seen people working hard and not "playing with tractors" and watching movies :)  I will make an effort to point out people working when we go places too....which will aid in our discussion of "where money comes from" as well. 

I am so enjoying watching Rylee learn about life and welcome all of the questions she asks.  Learning is never ending and something that takes place a lot in our house.  James and I both love to learn new things and are always doing "research".  I hope that my kids will always be curious and eager to learn.  It's days like today that I am so thankful to be part of their lives 24/7 and provide these fun learning opportunities...and learn right along with them. 

Speaking of learning...anyone wonder why it's sometimes spelled D-o-u-g-h-n-u-t and other times it's d-o-n-u-t??  I first used the latter, but then decided to look it up as I wasn't sure I used the right spelling.....turns out it is better to use the longer word, as that was the original way to spell it......

Our Mini-Vacation to KC

A few months ago, Rylee asked to go see some elephants.  She has been into them for a little while now.  So, I checked the zoos around us and found that Kansas City was the closest zoo with elephants (glad I checked online first because I could have sworn the Omaha zoo had them and would have just gone there and had one disappointed little girl!).  KC is only 2.5 hours from our house, so we picked a weekend that we didn't think would be too hot and booked a hotel with a pool.  I read reviews online for some of the "typical" attractions, and found that most of them weren't worth the money.  We asked some friends who have lived in KC for other recommended entertainment and had a small list of places to check out. I am so happy with the choices we made, because all 4 of us really enjoyed ourselves!! 

We left Friday after lunch in hopes that the kids would nap on the way there.  We started our trip with a stop at Union Station.  The building was beautiful, but that's about all we could say about it.  We didn't find it overly exciting.  We stepped outside onto a pedestrian bridge that goes over the train tracks and got to see 4 trains go by in a matter of minutes...Rylee at least enjoyed that part of the stop. I would recommend not making this stop if you are not a big train enthusiast.  There is a small science center within the station, but we didn't go in since there was an admission fee. 

We checked into our hotel after that and Rylee and James went swimming right away (we weren't inside our room 2 minutes and Rylee already had her clothes off in preparation for putting on her swim suit).  After swimming we met friends for supper at Jack Stack Barbeque.  Their cheesy corn bake -- A-MA-ZING!!!!  I'm excited to try out their "at home recipe" they list on their website. 

On Saturday morning we set off for the zoo around 8:30...we wanted to get in and out before it got too hot.  What we didn't realize was that we would be at the zoo for 5 hours...and it would be 85 degrees the whole time we were there!!  It was a hot day and we walked A LOT!!!  The zoo is over 200 acres and is pretty spread out.  You can walk 6 minutes without seeing an animal.  But, this didn't stop my husband and I both from stating that it is our new favorite zoo!!  It is so beautiful and so well maintained!!  I actually felt like I was in the animals' natural environments.  The walkways were plenty wide and even though the zoo was busy, it didn't feel crowded.  There were plenty of shady places, benches to sit on and large fans spraying water to cool us off.  Something that I really loved was that the animals would lay in the shade right up where we could see them...as opposed to the Des Moines zoo where half the animals are laying so far away from the patrons that you can barely see them.  It appears as though the zoo purposefully put the shady spots up next to the spectator fence or glass.  The lions and gorillas were playful up against the glass.  The polar bear also seemed to be showing off for us as she repeatedly swam right up to the glass. 

The elephants were the first thing we went to see, and they didn't disappoint!  There were 5 of them and they were all standing right up at the fence and appeared to be watching us.   I felt as if they wanted to talk to us...like they knew this little blonde girl drove a long way just to see them :)  I was in awe of the large creatures...I may have enjoyed them more than Rylee.  We even stopped back by to see them a 2nd time. 

James' favorite was the penguin building...I have to admit, watching them speed swim and then pop right out of the water is pretty entertaining!!   We also enjoyed a sea lion show -- I am so amazed by their trainability -- smart creatures! 

Rylee rode the carousel a few times (her favorite part of the zoo), and we took a train ride of course too.  The ride she got to experience for the time though was the sky glider.  She and I rode it back to the middle part of the zoo after we finished seeing all of the animals in "Africa", because it was a long way back and we needed a little break (okay, maybe that was just me...she could have ridden in the stroller). 

We highly recommend the KC zoo if you haven't been.  If you have a membership to Blank Park Zoo, you get in for half price! 

On Sunday, we went to Deana Rose Children's Farmstead.  We thought the zoo was fun, but this was more "hands on" fun, and we all had a great time!!  First of all, it is only $2 admission (free during the week)!  And then for $10, a child can fish in the pond with a provided cane pole and worms, ride a pony, mine for mineral rocks to take home, bottle feed a goat, and take a hayride.  You could pay for all of these things separately, but this was a great deal!  We all took a turn or two fishing (Wyatt just watched) and caught 4 fish...Rylee even kissed hers.  She LOVED her pony ride...though I still think she likes to ride the fake horses on the carousel better.  She liked mining and brought home about a dozen neat rocks.  The hayride was actually pretty long and went through the timber...the Clydesdale horses that pulled the wagon were beautiful!! 

My personal favorite activity though was bottle feeding the goats!!  You could just walk right into the goat pen and feed them.  Rylee was excited as she carried the bottle into the pen....until 3 goats started jumping up on her like a puppy.  She freaked out and started bawling.  I grabbed the bottle from her and took over as she clung to me like a leach, scared to death.  Once I was finished she asked me to pick her up and she wrapped her arms and legs around me so tight...she was truly scared of the little goats!!  I could have stayed there and fed them all day long though. 

The farmstead had so many other activities as well.  We went into the old school house, where Rylee got to write on a little chalkboard and talk to the "teacher".  We also fed geese, rode pedal tractors, played on the playground, shopped in the General Store, and got ice cream from the Ice Cream Parlor.  The shops were set up as they might have been long ago.  I just love visiting places like this!!  We spent 3.5 hours there and I could have gone for a second round!  The farmstead was so well kept...I still cannot believe they charge so little for admission.  I did notice that a lot of the staff were volunteers.  We highly recommend this place and will definitely be visiting it again!!

There's nothing like spending time together as a family, and it was a huge bonus to be outside all weekend!  Although it was hot, we had plenty of water and sunscreen and were having too much fun to notice how much we were sweating.  Little Wyatt was a trooper all weekend as he just chilled in the stroller!  I was very impressed with him!  He missed a couple of naps and didn't complain at all.  And Rylee...we did so much walking and she voluntarily walked about 85% of it!!  She did amazing too!  Our first family vacation was a success and I cannot wait for #2!!!