Farmer girl went off to talk about her project with some judges.  They look at her extensive book of information on her fields that was created over the last two years.  They ask her questions and guess what, she actually knows the answers!  This is unlike her mama who has been around farming for the last 22 years and I wish I knew half of what this girl does!

Good luck today girl.  You got this!  Farm on!

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Here is the update I included with this photo on the farm page: “God’s handiwork enlightens the sky as we apply #anhydrous to the soil of what is to be a field of corn this coming crop year. #plant17#heritagehappenings #justin“

All true.  The part I left out was that this is the first day or spring work.  So it signifies the beginning of a season of single parenting due to long work days for the hubs.  It means juggling kids’ activities alone.  Sitting on the sidelines by myself., cheering on my runners during their events alone!  The fight that ensues each night when I break it to the kindergartener that it is again….BATH TIME!  Ugh!  He hates bath time and he ain’t afraid to say it.  Loudly, with gusto.  This I have to endure alone. 

Also it means that those small honey-do items in the house will likely not get done until the end of June.  The reality of this photo taken on this day is that it is:

TIME OUT on LIFEand GAME ON for FARM WORK

I’m all in, I’ve got my uniform clean and ready, I’m a gamer and a veteran.

But the first day of field work each season is always a little bitter sweet.

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1. We live near a small river.

2. We went on a little gator ride recently.

3. We ran into our neighbors out in the woods as they were taking a walk too.

4. The woods really belong to them, and they showed us this spot!

This is my nephew.  He’s pretty darn fearless. And I love him to pieces.

6. This little spot has been active in these woods for….ever?  At least for a very, very long time.

          This is my niece.  She is a tiny little thang, and I swear she is part monkey.  XOXO little doll!

7.  The neighbors built this little box several years ago.

8. Wid turkeys used to drink here.

          This is my oldest.  She was a little hesitant, but she did it after she saw that the boys lived. She just very well may be the smartest one of all of them!

Here’s the answer:

This is a natural occurring spring that is in the woods.  Apparently they would shoot the turnkeys when they came to drink here.  

It looks like turkeys are still drinking from it!  These turkeys are just ALOT cuter than the wild variety.  Wait, after having these kiddos for a few days, they got a little wild too!  

Drinking from cool clear spring water while taking a stroll in the woods, helps to fill a childhood with lovely memories!  We are so thankful our neighbors share their woods with us.  

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Country kids are usually good drivers because they have been driving since like….conception.  It all starts with toy tractors and leads to golf carts, Gators, Rangers, Rhinos.  It leads to  mowers and small tractors and maybe moving dad’s truck down the field to the combine.  Then big tractors and combines and grain trucks.  All before going down the road in a car. She’s 11.  Two years and she’ll be backing a trailer.  

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I am sure the hubinizer knows just how much rain we have had here in the last month exactly.  I’m just going to say, it taint much! In the hot sun, in the heat of the day, the field corn will curl a little like in this picture. It’s kind of like us squinting our eyes, it just reduces the bright sun’s influence.  

I am so positive the farmers reading this would not choose to describe it like this, but hey, it’s my blog!  Our corn has been doing a lot of squinting these days.  Sadly, it’s been focusing it’s efforts on squinting and wiping sweat from it’s brow and not putting much energy into growing full, healthy cobs full of juicy kernels.  We shall see, but some of the crop looks a bit iffy to say the least.  

On another matter, no matter the weather, this 1972ish golf cart is our number one go to entertainment around here.  This belonged to my husband’s grandparents who used it to tool around their yard and pond.  We inherited it many years ago and it is a staple.  

My advice:  if it’s feasible.  BUY ONE OF THESE BABIES FOR YOUR KIDS!  It’s fairly slow, you almost can’t tear it up (though we have done some damage over the years) and it’s cheap to run.  

Just do it.

You’ll see a lot of this baby on my blog.  I should name her.

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When you show pigs you need MANY items to get going.  One of these things is “bling bling” jeans and a shiny belt.  For the record, this belt doesn’t cut the mustard, but is going to have to do (says mom.) Look at that cool clip to clip of her number, yup, gotta have one of those special clips too!!

We are at national show here that is held at the Illinois State Fairgrounds. There were over 1000 pigs here for this event.  Pretty awesome I’d say!  The temperature is 102 so that’s rough on all these pigs who are already out of their element by being at the show, but you know what? PIGS DON’T SWEAT!  So you gotta keep them cool or they keel over.  Read—very bad deal for show pigs to die! 

Look at all of those fans!  The barns weren’t really all THAT hot, with all of the fans going.  The kids and adults were very, very busy watering down and washing off the pigs to keep them cool during this heat.  

The picture above is just one of the reasons we dove into this pig showing business.  Daddy and daughter sweating it out, working hard, taking care of something outside of themselves.  We walk, feed and wash these pigs 2-3 times a day.  That’s what SUMMER BREAK is for us. You know what, we love it!  It’s teaching hard work and responsibility and animal husbandry.  Love it.

The show ring is the center of it all.  We primp, wash, clip, spray, feed, water, walk, exercise and weigh the pigs in anticipation of the moments spent in the ring.  The showmanship is important too.  Presenting the pigs just so to the judge.  Such a fun dance it all is! We don’t have the best of the best hogs.  We are just beginners, but we are still competitive even at a big show like this.  At county fairs, now that’s more comfortable territory, but it is all great!

Little man is always right there in the heat of it all.  A pig bit his tiny arm this summer trying to eat the marshmallow he was holding. Luckily he just had a little bruise on his arm, but he was m.a.d. that the pig slobbered on his flip flop.  Though he will tell you each time he sees a pig in a picture book: “pig bite you,” that doesn’t stop him.  He’s in it to win it.  Or maybe I should say, he’s in it because we are.  Slopping the hogs with dad looks fun doesn’t it?

Though the middle guy doesn’t want to show pigs this year, and didn’t want a pig of his own, he is there to help.  (A bit of parenting advice from me: buy your kid a hog sprayer like this.  I mostly only see orange ones, and it’s probably not safety tested but it’s worth HOURS of entertainment for kids of all ages.)  We are making this a true family event, where we all have a role, we all work hard, we all take care of the livestock and each other.  Most of all why we love it…we are doing it together!    

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A little history for you…when we were first married, we lived in a nice mid-sized tenant house on a nearby farm.  It was just perfect for us.  We fixed it up a little and lived with it’s imperfections, as it was an old house.  In fact, I guess you could say we sort of loved it’s imperfections.  It was down a long lane, with only Amish folks for neighbors, which was a little unnerving, because I wanted to know I could call my neighbors on the phone in the night when I was terrified.  Which never occurred, so not an issue, but yaknowwhatImean…..  seven or so years into our marriage it was time to move into a different school district to be “home.”  Our oldest was entering school in a year and we HAD to be in our home district!  Multiple generations of this family went to our home district, so it was unthinkable that we wouldn’t!     So, we moved into my Hubby’s parents’ home and they moved to a new home.  This made our kiddos the sixth generation to live here in this house.  Now THAT is awesome!  Hubs and I knew from the day we got married and lived in that little tenant house, that we would want to raise our kids right here in the country, right here where their history was.  Right here where are roots are.  It’s pretty cool when two people agree so whole-heartedly on those important kind of things, ya know? 

So when a cousin brought us this photo she had found of Hubs’ grandpa swinging on our front porch, I was elated.  My baby plays right there in that spot. In the footsteps of his great grandfather.  Though I never met him, his grandfather was a kind hearted, genuine man with a love for farming and a heart of gold.  Many people say that my husband resembles his grandfather in many ways physically and in temperament.  He must have been a great guy then!

I am thankful for all that Great Grandpa did for this family and for this farm.  I am thankful for the path that he established for our family and for the integrity that he engrained.  I wonder what he would think of farming in 2011?  I know he farmed with no cabs, no air conditioning, no gps and no variable rate technology.  How things have changed in 100 years!

Maybe I ought to go sweep the inch of dust off that old porch floor now and read a few blogs out there on my iphone?  Grandpa would be pretty amazed at that I am sure.

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(Something I love about this boys is, he only took PaPa’s ipad.  That’s it, that’s enough entertainment for the 15 hour ride in a truck!)

In this family, it’s a long running tradition to vacation at these two small cabins on a an island is southern Ontario Canada. My kids are the fifth generation to do so.  The beauty of this place doesn’t come from the lavish accommodations or the 5 star restaurants, but from the sheer beauty of the land and the lake and from the act of doing the same activities as so many generations before have done. 

The fishing was great this year.  This is a northern my boy reeled in. 

He is shown here with our number one lake guide, my FIL.  He is the third generation of his family to call this place his home away from home.  He takes our friends and family all over to experience the grandeur  the lake has to offer.  The fishing, hiking, site seeing and history of the lake are astonishing and he has a passion for sharing it with others.  He especially wants to instill in our kiddos the same love for the lake that he has.  (p.s. I think it’s working.)

Our oldest boy had an absolute blast with his grandparents this summer.  Don’t think he missed us a bit.  The feeling wasn’t mutual, but the experience for him was well worth mama’s lonesome heart. 

That proud little smile makes it all worth it! Great catch!

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Well, he has met his match mister!  BZ (his name is really Cesar, but he doesn’t answer to that) BZ must have been the previous owners’ kid-slang for Cesar.  Anyhoo, BZ wins the big noggin’ contest here.  Hands down!

I love this blurry, fuzzy impromptu picture of the Boy and Beast.  They are pals.

Beastie Boys! Holla! Woof!

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We got him as a full grown boy.  I got a hankering for a new dog one Saturday morning and drove two hours the next day to pick up this beast.  You can’t tell it from here, but he is 145 lbs and on his hind legs, he is taller than a grown man.  I enlisted my poor dad to go pick up this monster with me in a van.  When the owner let him off the chain he had to stay on, he was a runner and a bit on the hyper side.  In case you didn’t know, hyper + 145 lb + paws the size of dinner plates=a nervous new owner.  He, right off scratched my dad and made his arm bleed with those enormous claws and then continued to run and run and run! No so good I’m thinkin’.

The previous owners were very concerned that we had enough space for this guy to run.  I tried to convince her over the phone that we were good.  She was emphasizing the importance of this, until I sent her a photo that was taken from a plane.  Then she KNEW we were a fit!  I understood why she felt that way once we saw him in action.

Remember that two hour drive I told you about, it suddenly seemed like a 200 hour drive with a dog like that loose in the van! Needless to say brother calmed down after the first half hour or so, but that head was a bit intimidating as he rode the whole time right between the driver’s and the passenger’s seat.  That head, THAT HEAD is no joke WAY bigger than a basketball!  Cesar, as they called him, rode steadily all the way home, roosted in the middle of us, heads in line.  He was good as gold and has been since the day he arrive here on the farm. 

He spends his time following us around, licking the baby’s face, trying to sit our laps and sleeping.  Lots and lots of sleeping! 

The boy hasn’t been one minute of trouble.  He’s loyal and protective.  He’s good with the kids, but will make a grown man think twice before entering our yard.  That’s our boy! 

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