Karbon Kounty Moos

Thanks for all the wishes, thoughts and prayers.

It’s amazing how real blogfriends can be.

I arrived back on Friday at 2:30 in the morning - in time for our tenth wedding anniversary.

I’ll write more soon.

Sarah Anne Elizabeth Whelan Pappas

God saw she was getting tired
And a cure was not to be
So He put His arms around her
And whispered “Come with me”
With tearful eyes
we watched her suffer
And saw her fade away
Although we loved her dearly
We could not make her stay
A golden heart stopped beating
Laying loving hands to rest
God broke our hearts to prove to us . . .
He only takes the best

Sarah was born 17 February 1938 in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York, a daughter of James Joseph Whelan and Sarah Crowley. Her mother died in 1946 when Sarah was eight years old. She was raised and educated in Brooklyn, New York. She married John Pappas on 05 Jun 1955. They lived in Brooklyn until 1961, when they moved to Astoria. They raised four children. John passed away from leukemia on 25 July 1978, leaving Sally with their young family. She worked at Morgan Guarantee Trust for several years. She had also worked at Mater Christi Diocesan High School, which later became Saint John’s Preparatory. Mom loved to shop, which earned her the nickname of “Sally Alexander”. She enjoyed her friends, Irish music, dining out, animals and traveling.

In 1995 she was diagnosed with interstitial lung disease. She was no longer able to work, or drive. But it didn’t keep her from shopping when she discovered QVC. She also managed to keep in touch with family and friends, spending the wee hours of the morning on the computer.

Our Mom died at 3:30 P.M. on Thursday, 21 April 2005, at Cornell Medical Center, NY, NY.

She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband John; her brothers: James, John and Martin; sisters: Veronica, Mary and Patricia.

She is survived by her daughter Karen and husband, Allan Hergenrider of Montana; son Thomas and wife Wendy of Howard Beach; son Steven of Astoria; son John and wife Karen of Indiana; brother Gerard and wife Barbara of Florida; brother Kevin and wife Henrietta of Connecticut; and numerous nephews and nieces.

It has been snowing and raining since Monday night. We welcome the wonderful moisture. The beets and barley are in, so this will help. Feeding is more of an adventure this way. It’s white outside, lots of snow on the ground, and still snowing. It’s that heavy, limb breaking, wet stuff. The puddles are mid calf. I’m in my coveralls, and soaked through to my jeans. I’ve hay leaves in my eyes, and straw in my hair. Mud tugs at my overshoes, with that unmistakable slurping sound. I don’t dare drive the pickup in the pastures. My bum knee hints at the barometric pressure and humidity. I heard a helicopter pass overhead while I worked with the still recalcitrant cow. That’s odd, not something we hear or see often here. Maybe they’ve lost another one of their wolves? We put the tractor and then the feeder truck away.

My husband turns to me and says:
“I’m so glad that I have you here to help me.”
Me too, my love, me too.

And soon I should be here.
Springtime in Astoria.
I’ll look up for the bear.

My mother is not improving. We’re back to wait and see, prayers and hoping for the best.

Thanks Kirk, for the gecko comment further down the page. It reminded me of my Mom and me and a frog in Florida. Remembering my Mom, young, vibrant and laughing helped me.

We had flown to Florida the winter after my dad passed away. There were some problems with the flights and the weather. I remember spending a few hours investigating the Atlanta airport with my brothers. I also recall having security guards take my camera and proceed to take it apart. This was 1979. Eventually, we made it to Florida and met up with Mom. I don’t remember why we weren’t all on the same flight. Probably those Eastern $99 flights.

We were staying at a resort, it may have been a Marriott, I’m not sure. It was huge. It was on the beach, and had pools with tiki bars. Our rooms were on the second level. All of the buildings looked exactly the same.

One evening, Mom and I were walking by a pond.

Me: Did you hear that?
Mom: What?
Me: I think it was a frog.
Mom: No.
Me: Now did you hear it?
Mom: No.
Me: How could you not hear it?
Mom: I didn’t.
Me: There it is again!
Mom: It’s not a frog.
Me: Huh?
Mom: I have gas, will you shut up about frogs.

Now we’re cracking up, and running back to our room. I was laughing so hard that I needed to get into the bathroom. I think that Mom did too - but maybe not for the same reason. We bounded up the stairs and started banging on the door for my brothers. The door swung open and we were faced by some strange man. I’m sure that he thought that we were the strange ones. He caught a glimpse of two hysterically laughing women on the brink of wetting their pants apologizing for pounding on his door before they ran away.

***Don’t forget to click on the photos - they’ll be larger and clearer!***

Hi everyone, this is Pandora from “An Offering of Myself to the World”
and I am very pleased to be today’s guest poster on “KarbonKountyMoos”. In keeping with her blog’s theme I have decided to share a story and pictures about my own “Sugar Beet Baron” who has been out the last week or so planting sugar beets. So here, hopefully, is an educational post.

I am starting off by showing a picture of what a sugar beet seed actually looks like. They are very small in comparison to how large a beet is when they are harvested in October. Beet seed is not naturally blue, it is colored that way to make it easier to find on the ground. I took this picture while I was looking down into the canister on the beet drill.

Here is one beet seed on the ground. I don’t know how easily you can tell the size of the seed from this picture. This seed is laying in the tractor tire tread on the ground. Hopefully that will give you an impression of the size.

This picture shows the outside of the canister which houses the sugar beet seed as it is being planted or drilled into the ground. It is a little difficult to see from this picture but there is a metal piece in between the canisters which is called a ditcher. This makes a ditch in the rows for irrigation.

Here is another shot of the back of our beet drill. You can tell by the number of canisters (6) that we can plant 6 rows at one time.

This shows the rows in which beets are planted. The deepest rows are the rows made by the ditcher. These are the rows which we will use to irrigate later on this spring. The first deep row on the right hand side of the picture is a ditch. The next line (row) has the beet seed planted in it, following that is a line just to space the row. The next line (row) has beet seed planted in it and following that is another ditch. Sugar beets are grown two rows together with ditches to irrigate in between. When the beets get larger their leaves will totally cover the ditches and it is very difficult at times to tell which rows to irrigate.

This picture is the side view of the drill. The large wheel behind the canister (containing beet seed) moves on the ground as the tractor pulls the planter. As the wheel turns it moves the gears underneath the canister which causes a beet seed to be released. This is how the beets are evenly planted in the row.

Here we see the tractor going off down the field. The long arm which is raised up beside the beet drill is a marker arm. There is one on each side of the drill. The one on the opposite side is down, marking a line in the dirt, so when the tractor turns at the end of the field the farmer has a guide to follow. This is how the rows stay nice and straight. When the tractor turns at the end of the field, the marker arms will switch, one goes up while the other goes down, to mark the next rows.

Here is the tractor taking off across the field. By the time my husband is finished; he will have planted 205 acres of sugar beets.

I hope everyone has enjoyed my little explanation of how to plant sugar beets. So the next time you put sugar in your coffee or sprinkle some on your cereal, just think about me, Moos and our Sugar Beets Barons.

Thanks Moos, for letting me have the opportunity to post on your blog.

That’s what she told my brother last night. One of the nurses told me that she’s in good spirits this morning. Mom is on oxygen, so we’ve been unable to speak.

I’ll take her advice.

Without further ado (what the heck does that mean?!), I’ll leave my readers in the very capable hands of Babs.

Hello, I’m Babs and I am the guest host of Karbonkountymoos today. This is a little bit like having the keys to the kingdom and sitting in the queen’s chair, I feel unworthy. Karen is so busy on the ranch; but will be back shortly. Don’t runaway; you won’t be stuck with me for long.

In the interim I thought it might be fun to swap snake stories. This would give Karen some entertaining reading and something to look forward to when she ventures in for a break; or, something to dread depending on how she views snakes.

I’ve lived in the country, in rural areas, I have even lived and been all over California; but, I never saw a snake until we bought a small acreage in Oklahoma. As far as I am concerned, I saw a life times worth there and don’t need to encounter another one. Here is one of my stories.

For almost two weeks I had the sneaky suspicion there was a snake in the house. There was no reason for such speculation and it wasn’t a paranoid kind of thought; maybe just a mom’s intuition. This particular day Hubby was working a double shift out of town. My two toddlers were playing down the hall; and I was giving my room a deep cleaning when all of the sudden this little baby copperhead came jamming out of nowhere. He was heading straight for the passageway leading to the hall. My main thought was to keep the snake in the room and away from the boys. Hubby is in law enforcement so I’m looking for some type of club . . . something . . . anything to grab. Nothing was in plain sight, so I stomped on his tail and quickly jumped up on and across the bed. I don’t think I have moved so quickly in all my life. My plan worked without getting bit. He came whipping around to see what had happened to his tail. He saw me, got scared and headed under the dresser. At this point I constructed a split door barricade to keep the snake contained. I put the boys in a room and half barricaded their door to keep them away from the snake (but still in my view). Adorned in rubber boots, rubber gloves and a hoe in hand I go back into the bedroom for combat. One problem, the dresser is too heavy and it won’t budge on the carpet. It did not occur to me to take the drawers out; I must have been in a panic. I knew an officer on the three man police force and decided to call the station. He was not in so I had to tell my story to a stranger (I felt like such a fool). They said they would send animal control. Animal control turned out to be the city gardener, an older fellow in overalls and a shovel. He was misinformed thinking the snake was in the yard. When we entered the house he became a little nervous as he had been outside all day and his vision was blurred with sun spots. He was the hands and I served as the eyes navigating his maneuvers to get a hold of the snake. In the end the gentleman reassured that I had done the right thing; even a baby copperhead can do some damage and can be deadly to a small child.

Here is a link to view snakes of Montana and provide more inspiration.

Now it is your turn. Don’t have a snake story? That’s okay, feel free to share a wild animal story or a sighting of an unusual creature.

image courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories

Thanks so much to all of you!

They’re treating my Mom for pneumonia.
It’s going to be wait and see.

I’ll keep you posted.

Thanks again for all your kind words and e-mails.

Oh! Almost forgot -
“Good Job” to Jason (no, not Jason - see, I did it again, Troy) for his hosting of the Second Rascal Fair. That should be Troy, who I keep calling Jason. Troy has told me that he has a brother named Jason, and he’s used to it. But it’s still no excuse. Sorry AGAIN, Troy! I can’t even remember my nephew’s name…

My Mom is still in New York Hospital, and not doing well.
I may be among the missing for a while, and wanted to let you know why.

I won a guest post at The Meat of the Matter!

I wanted to give everyone who commented on my cipher post
the “opportunity” of a guest blog turn here. I haven’t contacted all of you personally yet. I don’t have everyone’s e-mail addresses. If you don’t hear from me - and you would like to post, please contact me.

Thanks,
Karen