June 2016 – Farm Life in Black & White

The last two weeks have been pretty hot here in central Iowa! Too hot to have extra heat from the oven in the house; so when it is time for dessert I like to turn to ice cream desserts. Today I am sharing one of my favorites – Buster Bar Dessert. It is easy to make and contains butter and ice cream! A great treat to celebrate June – National Dairy Month!

Milk Jug

BUSTER BAR DESSERT

1 reg. size pkg. Oreo cookies ½ cup melted butter

½ gallon softened vanilla ice cream 1 pkg. salted Spanish peanuts

2 cups powdered sugar 2/3 cup chocolate chips

½ cup butter 1 can evaporated milk

Crush Oreo cookies with their fillings. Combine crushed cookies with melted butter and place in bottom of 9×13 pan.

Spoon softened ice cream over crumb mixture. Sprinkle with peanuts. Place in freezer.

Combine remain ingredients in sauce pan and heat until chips melt. Bring to boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Let cool thoroughly (cold).

Pour over dessert and freeze until firm. Before serving, allow to soften slightly.

Buster Bar Dessert

Even though we are not dairy farmers – our cattle operation would not exist if it were not for a dairy farm. We raise Holstein bull calves which we purchase from a dairy farm. Holsteins have black and white markings and are the most common dairy breed.

Photo credit to Joe Murphy.

ENJOY a glass of ice cold milk and many other dairy products as you celebrate National Dairy Month!

JDM-Milk-is-local-Infographic

Have a great day!

Julie

Each season has its own beauty, but this time of year has to be one of the best. It changes so fast!

This was our view on the way home last Sunday night, May 29th.

At the beginning of last week, we had just finished chores and were sitting on the patio enjoying the evening and watching a little rain fall. We could see the rainbows, but the shop was blocking my view for a picture. I told my guys I should go over to Grandpa and Grandma’s and take the picture of the rainbow over the cornfield, but it just felt too good sitting. Then I got this great picture from my niece, Heather!

Photo credit to Heather Jansen. Thanks!

J and E ‘s Delicious Sweet Corn continues to grow! It is hard to believe that these are the same rows of corn that the school children walked through a month ago! Snickers likes checking the sweet corn too. Saturday night Jacob was cultivating the sweet corn to get rid of some weeds.

Field corn – June 2, 2016

Snickers will soon be hidden by the corn.

One morning last week we woke up to these guys running all over the barnyard and yard! Not the best way to start the day! But, it does get everyone out the door pretty fast! As you can see we have added extra chains to the gates! You can see the calf shed in the background. This time of year we have the doors open for air movement so the big steers even went in there and one calf decided to “run with the big boys that morning”. Grandpa and Grandma also got in on the roundup. Grandma’s main job was to keep the black and whites off of the yard, out of my flowers, and off of the road!

Grandpa leading the little guy back to the calf shed.

What corn looks like after it has had a few hooves through it. Most of it did stand back up by the end of the day.

It is time to move calves out of the calf shed and prepare for the next group of calves. The barn that the calves go to when they leave the calf shed was in need of some new gates; so Grandpa’s shed became the Van Manen Gate Factory last week. (Emily – you are missing out on welding practice! I say this because she will take a welding class at ISU this fall as she works on completing her AG ED degree.)

Making gates, loading gates, and installing posts to hang the gates.

Saturday was moving day as we moved the calves out of the calf shed. This week we will take the pens apart, clean out shed, power wash panels, and wash buckets. It is predicted that we could have new calves by Saturday or Sunday!