Some dogs chase their tails, some chase squirrels, some chase tennis balls.  Not mine….

Hank is a golden lab.  He is a nice mutt that isn’t particularly a retriever, but more of a chaser.  He chases buggies and bikes ALL THE TIME.  The poor Amish people that have to drive by our farm, but now he has started chasing airplanes.   He isn’t exactly a super smart dog either and maybe this is proof.

This is another behavior our beloved red head has that maybe alot of dogs do, but he is the first I have noticed.  He paces the rows of crops. 

 Up and down.

 Back and forth. 

Running and walking.

Dry and soaking wet.

Is this some kind of doggie psychological disorder?  We need a doggie psych eval out here stat ya’ll!

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She describes riding on the school bus like something in a movie.  Bunches of little kids, many of which are Amish.  All with their eyes on the tall blonde haired, blue eyed Finnish girl!

She enjoyed the experience enough that when he sister arrived to the US, she wanted to be sure that she got to take a ride on the bus as well.  Benefits of country living I guess!

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It turned out wonderfully, Iago came to work on the farm all summer.  He didn’t know alot about working on a grain farm.  His farmily, after all, had a small farm in Brazil where they have some animals and some fruits and vegetables.  No huge big green equipment.  No field corn. No soybeans.  They grow these amazing mangos!  WAY more fun than field corn!!

Iago had a little apartment in our little town.  He rode his bike to work.  He rode his bike VERY FAST to work almost every day.  Iago learned alot I hope last summer including farm stuff like weed control and planting and spraying and yields.  But he also learned some English vocabulary that he didn’t have before!

The big part of the summer was, WE learned ALOT from Iago.  He was so good to the kids.  Our little one Beau still talks about Iago.  Iago was the tallest person he has ever met.  

This is a photo of Iago’s last day before he returned to college in Kentucky.  It was a sad day for the family.  But how lucky are we that we have a forever friend on the other side of the world?

His farm in Brazil.  Maybe sometime we can go visit him.  Wonder if Beau will still think he is the tallest friend in the whole world?

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This planting season has been a trying  as far as weather goes.  Trying on our patience that is.  We thought it was going well, bee bopping through the fields getting the crop planted and then it started raining and we have been stalled for many days.  In for a few, out for a few. The guys could probably tell you just how many and I probably could look it up, but let’s just admit that I don’t care that much and I have other stuff to do… but let’s just say, it’s time to get those crops in the ground!!

Selfishly, it has been a GREAT spring!  Justin has been around a little more than usual to help me get through two simultaneous track seasons.  We have junior high and high school going on at the same time.  That’s alot of standing at the finish line.  With a 5 year old, it also means alot of hanging out in the vehicle out of the cold, rain, wind etc.  It’s been great having my man there to help with these!  We are almost done.  Today is the last meet of our awesome season! As a veteran farmer’s wife though, I know that I am going to pay for this extra time now with him being busy later.  And I’m thinking summer and fall will be interesting with side dressing and spraying and then harvest being a bit strung out.

We have an extra kiddo in our household! That makes a total of four.  We have been hosting an exchange student this spring. I always wondered what it would be like to have four kids.  I don’t think this is reality.  She is 17, independant, she doens’t roll her eyes at me or give me attitude.  Her room remains clean, I haven’t had to tell her even once to eat, bathe, clip her nails or do her chores. She’s a dream of a fourth kid.  She is not just ANY exchange student, but THE BEST exchange student.  She is wonderful.  She is from Finland.  I hope to share some photos of her time here soon.

It has been rainy, and windy and dank here. The fields that are left to be planted have just not been dry enough to get back to the business of planting.  Until today, the day of the last hoorah or a track meet for high school AND the night where we present our Heritage Family Farms scholarship at the high school.  So, we do what every family does…reorganize and make it work.  The good news is they are able to plant a little today!  Little by little it will all get planted.  We have faith.  We are farmers.

And just for fun and because I’m not procrastinating my blog anymore due to lack of photos etc….here’s an awesome video from Peterson Farm Bros.  So true (just not right now)  #ihateweeds #itstoohot #chanceofrain hallelujah!

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I’m trying out posting from my phone- scary and probably not pretty. This month I have worked through some posting “fear” and today my final post I’m at it again.

Posting from an iPhone seem nutty, with my history if grammar. Yikes! But here goes, what the hey, I’m up for winging it!

Today, I am so, so, so over the top thankful for my friends Steph and Missy. Steph and I go back to the ole pre-k days and Missy joined the trio in college.

To say the least these two and I are as thick as it gets.

Both of them are born and raised farm girls. Both married livestock jocks and both work in the ag industry.

They answer lots of my questions and advise me on being a good farm wife… alot!

Between us we are amazed at the number of kids we have and the craziness of our schedules. Trying to get our families together is like trying to sort dust. Nearly impossible!

We have managed a few traditional, regularly scheduled meet ups.

This photo is of our meet up last year at the Farm Bureau Annual meeting. They are important girls there. I just pretty much hang. Works for me!

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Note: white fluffy kitten, days old, eyes not open yet

Note: sticky, terrified toddler

We worked with the kittens and the toddler.  We made progress.  Sigh of relief for the future of our farm.  If our little farmer is afraid of white fluffy kittens, the future may be bleak for our operation.  Farming ain’t for the weak of heart.  You gotta be tough.  You can’t be scared. Scared of grain marketing, maybe.  Scared of kittens, not okay.

  Now that’s more like it!

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The last two days had 6 Objectives:

1. Eat
2. Giving Thanks
3. Family
4. Eat
5. Shopping Strategy
6. Eat

I spent my take partaking in #1,2,3,4 and 6.  Sadly/gladly I didn’t do #5.  This is the first year of many years of late, that shopping strategy wasn’t  priority for me.  The good part is, it left more time in my day for #1,2,3,4 and 6.
Pertaining to #1,4 and 6, I was responsible only for a vegetable and a salad one day and pumpkin bars and rolls the next. I am thankful that just the other day, I made a ridiculous amount of green beans that were well received and a salad that got raves from my children. So I repeated.  I bought rolls, so really I just had to make make pumpkin bars.  Sadly, I choose one with chocolate chips.  Though they were good, they really should be called chocolate chip pumpkin bar cookies.   Not so Thanksgiving Festive. 
The secret to the green beans is slow cooking in a homemade chicken broth.  No canned stuff here.  Homemade chicken broth from a homemade chicken, grown right here on the farm.
Dontcha know a homemade chicken takes better than a store bought chicken?  Well, broth from that homemade chicken tastes better than store bought broth too!  The second secret is homemade bacon, sliced thick.  Again, store bought bacon doesn’t taste nearly as good as bacon raised on our own farm.
If only I’d grown the green beans, people may have fainted when they tasted this recipe.  Growing my own beans will have to be for another year.  Maybe another lifetime.
The salad my children were oogling over is a bit of a mystery.  The ingredients were, iceberg lettuce, Wish Bone Italian dressing, sliced olives, croutons, shredded carrots, tomatoes.  Hmm….nothing tricky there! Kinda dump and go, but what the hey! Sadly, this time around, they didn’t eat hardly any.  DANG KIDS!
#2 is NOT unlike the veggies I try to gag my kids with everyday, I try to be thankful everyday, everyday, everyday! I’ll be honest, some days I gotta dig a little. On some topics, I gotta find that place in my head and in my heart. 
This holiday I was reminded of 567,598 reasons why I should be THANKFUL! 
Boom to the Pow for Thanksgiving.  Belly up!

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Today I am thankful for ALL of the families that allow their dads and husbands to spend their free time with us here on the farm to make harvest and the fall field work happen.

Good ole’ fashioned work ethic hasn’t been lost here on the farm with any of our employees.  In recent conversations with several of the guys, it is very clear that they aren’t afraid of the work and they will take on the hours and even be excited about it! 

For guys with families at home, if the families are not happy with the Dad working long hours, then the Dad doesn’t do it!  It’s a little like the “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!” saying.  So we really want these ladies to know how much we appreciate THEM!

It can be rough on the mom to be a single parent to kiddos while dad is working ground after his 9-5 or when he is here at the farm before the sun comes up and stays here well into the evening.  Often these guys will grab a quick supper after work and head on out to the field to work ground well into the wee hours of the morning or put in long hours here at the farm during the day and on into the night. Then they will sleep a little and do it all over again.  Yes, they get paid, but it is still a hardship on the family.  Many of these dads don’t see their kids awake for more than 10 minutes each day (or less) throughout the farming season. Once this harvest, my hubby mentioned he hasn’t seen the kids awake in a whole week.  Wow.

Another conversation I had recently with a guy and his wife, that works ground after his 9-5, made me realize just how much a part of their family life OUR farm is!  They were jokingly talking about them finishing a room for him to sleep in during harvest so he can SLEEP IN a little and not be awoken by his wife’s hairdryer early in the morning.  I know that our harvest and planting seasons mean a real change for our family in it’s routine.  (Actually harvest lasts so long it’s like a real NEW routine, not a temporary change in the old one.)

LiveJournal Tags: 30 days of thankful,harvest,work,employees,grateful

  But to hear from both spouses how OUR harvest season is a real change in THEIR family routine made me appreciate their dedication even more. 

Justin and I hope that our kiddos can see the importance of hard work and integrity and the value of doing a job right and seeing it through to the end.  We try to instill that into their lives on a daily basis. 

So today, I am thankful for ALL of the people involved in our harvest.  We are doing important work here people and I’m glad you are on OUR team!  You can see a few of the people that put in long hours here on the farm at our farm website.  There are more not pictured that work seasonally but many aren’t pictured because the photog (me) isn’t available to photograph them the crazy overnight hours that they work and the photog (me) is a little behind on the updating. 

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Mama loves that I can take my babies to the field or out to the shop at any time to see their Baby Daddy.  There are really very few exceptions to this rule.  One of those is when he is doing anhydrous ammonia.  It’s a little dangerous, pressurized gas at below zero temps.  But other than that, usually there is a spot for one or two kiddos almost anywhere he goes.

This is especially true if the kiddos come wielding a Dilly Bar or Blizzard.

The stinky part is, Baby Daddy is ALWAYS working.  Always in a field, in a tractor, in a bin, in the shop, in a semi.  It’s a rarity that he is hanging with the fam on the couch watching Duck Dynasty Marathons. 

But it’s our life, and we love it, and that’s all that matters. 

Because farming requires such nutso hours and because the hubs is a serious worker, when baby number three came along, (I like to say, when I got knocked up AGAIN.)  Isn’t it way more colorful when put like that?  Anywhoo…I quit my full time job in town to be the go-to, the chauffer, the taker of the baby to the field, the follower-arounder as Daddy works and carries baby.  It’s my job and it works for me (though somehow I think I may eventually miss that Teacher Retirement System thing.)

I never got to really hang with my dad at his big desk with the stylin’ phone.  I didn’t play under his desk for hours.  I didn’t run around his office, kickin’ it on my skateboard like my boys did tonight. I didn’t bring him Dilly Bars. 

Farming is a lifestyle and we’re bound determined to make the most of it! 

ps-Baby Daddy will give rides in the combine or tractor or semi to almost anyone wielding a Dilly Bar or Snickers Blizzard, so if you find yourself cruising the country, hankering for a spin in some big equipment, swing through the DQ first!

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We love our small town and played a little game the other day about “if you could live in any of the surrounding towns, rank them in the order in which you would prefer to live in them and why!” Well, it was clear to all of us that THIS is the town for us to live in and we wouldn’t change that.  Yesterday, exemplified the small town atmosphere we love.  It is a new tradition in our town to have a Lighted Christmas Parade!

We donned our Santa hats and helped with our organizations’ entries. Our local 4H Club had an entry of course!  It was last minute, but we are flexible and it was so much fun for he kids!  Love it!

The Cub Scouts had an entry involving a tractor and trailer on which the boys collected canned good for the local food drive.  Someway, somehow, we are always working for those in need in our town and that is amazing!  We have a very active food pantry and clothing closet here.  There is a lot of need in our little town, and there is a lot of giving going on as well. 

This little Boy Scout is a little goofy….but I wouldn’t trade him.

Next up is the cutest little thing ever!!!  I think we need one of these out on the farm.  Ours would be a hopper bottom of course instead of a van, but we haul corn and these guys haul garage doors!  It’s a tiny little tractor/trailer.  It made it’s first public debut at the homecoming parade, which is where I fell in love.  You can visit the company’s website here.

You can see the driver and the scale from this angle.  He’s crunched in behind the cab.  Isn’t it adorable?  It would take us forever to haul corn, but I’m going to vote for one of these to be added to our fleet here on the farm.  haha!

The mayor may have had the best ATV entry.  That’s him in the passenger seat.  He worked all day on all of those lights and even had a reindeer mounted to the front with sparkly reins and a fully decorated Christmas tree finishing it off in the back. 

We heard several comments that there were so many spectators at the parade, we were wondering who in our town was left to be IN the parade.  The streets were hustling all day with local shoppers.  We were offering buggy and even camel rides.  Yes, our town has it’s own camel that shows up often at festivals and most notably, our Christmas Eve service held in a barn in the middle of the country. 

After the parade, Santa and Mrs. Claus were there for the kids to visit.  They brought cookies and hot cocoa and the grade school children decorated the Christmas trees lining the area for Santa. Our baby wasn’t going to have any part of Santa.  Had he been our oldest, I would have pushed for him to sit on Santa’s lap for a photo.  Being that he is the third, I videoed his crying and used the video to entertain him later at supper. It’s called Evolutional Parenting. 

Dirty little sweet face. 

I’m thankful for our little town, where we can participate in so much COMMUNITY!

…and I’m thankful for this dirty little sweet face…

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