Pumpkin Fest

Yesterday the beloved streets I walk down each work day in downtown Franklin were closed off for the annual Pumpkin Fest. I took Hadley and Callie with me (dressed as a doctor/spy and pig, respectively) and we had a blast. Here are a few picture highlights....


Main street. My office is at the end of this steet.


Callie and Hadley on the "great pumpkin."




Eric gave us a ride on one of the Franklin Pedicabs.




Callie


Hadley

Harvest Memories Old and New

Each year around this time I fondly look back on the memories of growing up surrounded by corn fields and harvest. Last year I wrote this entry about what it was like as a child. Yesterday, I had a chance to relive old memories and create new ones. It was perfect, a moment I will treasure forever. Everything was just as I remembered it with the exception of some new technolgy and additions that made the ride more comfortable....and harder to turn on the windshield wipers when my dad wasn't looking. Since last year I wrote about the experience, here are some pictures to mark our 2006 harvest...




The corn is definitely dry and ready to be picked.




Uncle Ron driving the combine (this is what picks the corn and takes it off the cob.)




All the husks, cobs, and stalks get shot out of the back of the combine...you don't want to stand behind it, trust me.


My dad is pulling up with the grain cart so Uncle Ron can unload the combine while simultaneously picking more corn.


Tranferring the corn from the combine to grain cart.




Dad and me in the tractor.


Grain transfer seen in the massive side mirrors.


Once the grain cart is full, we took it to the "pit" next to the bins and dumped the corn in there to begin the drying process.


Corn flowing into the pit.


When the pit is full at the moment or they're picking in a field far from the farm, the corn goes from the grain cart to one of the trucks.




Dad driving the semi...yes, I made sure I had the chance to honk the horn.


The trucks then unload into the pit, just like the grain cart.


This auger pumps the corn from the pit up to the dryer. The dryer makes sure the corn is dry enough to be sold.


Dad has to climb to the top of the dryer periodically to check everything...he snapped this picture while he was up there.


Once the corn is dry (or while it's waiting to be dried), it is stored in the bins until they sell it.




This corn cob dust is constantly swirling through the air around the farm.


I used to have to just sit on the armrest of Dad's chair, but in the new tractors I have my own!


The tractor's GPS system.


Tractor gears and switches.


They moved the windshield wiper switch to the other side of the tractor, but I still manged to sneak over and turn them on when Dad wasn't around.(read last year's post for that to make sense)








These are the trucks they used when I was little...now they've upgraded to the semis.


Semi truck door.





A couple of more "old school" pictures yet to come...

Home

Today I flew home to Nebraska. This may be the longest I’ve gone without being home for a visit…last time I was here or saw my parents was Christmas. Here are some of the little things that have made today wonderful….

- A hug from both of my parents and eating a delicious dinner with them before they headed off to their standing Wednesday night commitment of 25 years and counting (Awana). It’s comforting to know that Wednesday nights still look the same here.
- Cold weather outside and Mom’s grilled cheese & tomato soup for dinner.
- A break from the normal routine.
- The open horizon and fields here.
- Currently sitting in one of our big comfy recliners watching a movie on our big TV (soon to be LOST) with my sister next to me working away on her laptop too
- saw my first snowflakes of the season when we landed in the twin cities
- sleeping on both planes…I find the noises of the plane strangely comforting and they put me to sleep
- my ipod to help kill time in the airport…it’s possible that when going to Terminal B I had the moving walkway and hallway entirely to myself and started dancing to the John Mayer song playing on my ipod…
- the kind airport lady ignored the fact that my bag was a half a pound over the weight limit and then the sweet elderly lady that kept asking me questions about our flight before it departed.
- the book Soul Cravings that I’m reading…so good. Look for it November 14th...
- our cat Spooky is still alive and living in the garage. He’s not aging so well (or smelling so good)…I have to say he looks like the cat at the end of Sweet Home Alabama…it’s hard not to laugh
- my parents have wireless
- all the memories that come flooding back to me whenever I am here….like this picture of Farrah handing me the keys to her car when she was teaching me to drive a stick shift on Thanksgiving 2004. Boy are there stories there.




Much more to come from my trip here in the next few days….