Gearing up for Spring...

I have been working hard in my greenhouse. I absolutely LOVE spending time out there! I keep buying seeds, seed trays, clear domes and seed starting pots. I purchased enough to plant another 720 plants last night! 😀 Here are a few pics!

These are our chocolate tomatoes! So tasty!

My seed trays I purchased last night to plant! 

A few other seeds planted.

One of our newest additions to the farm!

So cute! They were laying in the sunshine Friday morning.

Farm work is beginning to pick up! Babies are being born, plants are being started and Winter clean-up has begun. Now, it's time to get ready for Spring! 

Why???

So, after getting our taxes done by a great tax preparer, I had a scary thought, but I kept it to myself. It was one of those thoughts that you just don't want to voice, because you're afraid of the answer. After a few days of it rolling around inside my head, in a quiet moment in the field with My Farmer, out it came. 

We were looking at one of our ponds and discovered the dam broke. Water was gushing out as fast as the underground spring is flowing into it. It was a heavy hearted moment. It was a moment that just gets you down. Having a dam repaired is VERY expensive and we just did it two years ago. 

So, out came my thought. I looked at him and said, "Do you ever wonder why?" My Farmer responded with, "Why do we farm? Why do we do this? Why do we continue to lose money every single year by farming?" I looked at him with a tear in my eye and shook my head yes. He simply held me, took a deep breath and said, "I don't know." I looked up at him and said, "Because I love it." "Me too," he responded.

I love to see my cows, each with their own unique personality, in our fields. I love to see them graze in the pastures that we work so hard to keep mowed down and weed free for them. I love the smell of the fresh grass, the hay, the ponds, the cows, the diesel fuel exhaust from the tractor. I feel more centered and at peace in my fields. Even if I'm working hard, I'm centered, I'm grounded, I'm needed and I'm appreciated, (even if it is the cows that appreciate me.) ;-)

So, even though our tax preparer advised us to raise our prices, I'm not sure I can. We are actually working harder than ever on this farm. It is pretty much a full time job. We are going to continue to work hard, grow our business and pray. Pray for the right decisions for our farm, continued growth of our farm and the perseverance to work hard.

Hard work goes a LONG way...

TheWhen we moved into this old farm house almost four years ago, I had a list a mile long of projects to complete!  I have tackled quite a few of those projects, but keep adding new ones!  I decided that with this last nice week of good weather, I would tackle our wooden deck/porch.  This sounded like a quick and easy project...I was wrong!

To start, I headed to our local Lowe's.  I spoke with a very knowledgeable lady about how to care for a neglected deck.  She led me to a wonderful product!  She told me NOT to power wash my deck, which I was planning on doing!  She took me down an aisle to the Olympic Deck Wash.  I can't describe the awesomeness of this product!  I simply poured the product into a garden sprayer (which I also purchased), then I simply sprayed the entire surface of the wooden deck with the Deck Wash.  I sprayed the spindles, the floor, everything!  I had so much fun!  I may have gotten a bit carried away though.  I went through THREE of the bottles of Deck Wash.  These were 2-1/2 gallons EACH!  Thankfully, I have a bit left and can do our wooden doors and our pool deck.  Whew!




I was instructed to let is set for about 15 minutes, then hose it off, which I did.  I then had to let it set for a few days to ensure that the surface was dry.  We had a couple downpours, which really put me behind schedule!

Then my porch went from being old, dingy, grimy and slick when it rained (because of mildew I'm guessing) to this bare, dry, stripped down wood.  It was an improvement, but still, it needed some major work!

So back to Lowe's I went, for more advice!  Wow!  There sure are a LOT of options for paints, stains, etc!  I was overwhelmed, to say the least!  I am SO thankful for my wonderful Mom who helped me out!  We finally settled on a chocolate stain, so the wood grain would still show through.  Our roof is brown, our house is white.  We did shutters and storm doors in black, so we figured the wood deck should match the roof to tie it all in.  It was an awesome choice!

It took us THREE days just to stain the deck!  It is 200 square feet of beauty now!  Before, it was an embarrassment!  Lol!

Here is a link to the stain that we purchased.  It is AMAZING!  I can't stress this enough!




So, now that the deck is done...who wants to see pictures?!?!  Be prepared to be amazed!

The BEFORE, with the water hose...

The DURING, the left side is stripped bare, the right side has some lovely stain on it!

(Notice the floor is still bare!) 😬

Here are toe shots of the DURING awhile I was staining the deck.

The floor AFTER!!!!!

The lovely railing! It's just beautiful!

Ok,so there's a little 'how-to' and maybe it will inspire you to tackle a project!!!!!

My FAVORITE day of the year!

Today, My Farmer let me sleep in a little! We have one sick kiddo, so I was thankful for the extra rest! But I couldn't sleep too much...I was too excited! Today is my favorite day of the whole year! The day we work cows! 

My Farmer called all of the cows up to the corral and the corral yard. The cows meandered around while munching on some fresh grass. My Farmer & I got everything prepared last night. We only give our cattle one single vaccine called Blackleg. It is only used once when they are young. We also gave them a minimum dose of wormer. That's it. That's the ONLY things the cows get all year long. Tags are sorted, needles are purchased, everything is set!

My farmer got all of the cows into the corral holding lot. Then he came to get me. Out we went. He would walk the cows, one at a time, up the corral lane. We had another person catching the cows in the head gate. When the cows were stopped, I would pour the wormer on the cow, then I would give each calf the blackleg injection. We would call out the number of the animal, it's sex and what we did to the animal. She recorded ALL of the information in a notebook for us. It is a family job when we work cows! We really missed our oldest son who is sick with a sinus & ear infection. Our youngest son didn't really help much, but he had a great time learning! 

All of our cows were ran through, then they were turned into a new field. They were SO happy to get some new grass!

Yes, today was a LOT of work, but we have a wonderful time as a family! Some years it's a horrible mess with cows being mean or jumping a gate. Some years you lose your temper or patience. But this year...this year was perfect! Even on bad working & sorting days, it's still a wonderful experience. 

Time to re-prioritize

I am the most forgetful person! The kids laugh, my husband is my human calendar, it's bad...like really bad! My kids ask if I have my keys, phone, sunglasses, purse, etc. before we leave the house. My husband will text me reminders through out the day. I utilize the calendar app on my phone. You would think I could remember things!

A dear friend of mine loaned me a book, a wonderful life changing book! It's called 'The Best Yes', by Lysa Terkeurst.  My dear friend is always looking out for me. She is good for my soul. She brings me back to reality, she prays with me, she laughs with me & she's even cried with me. I love her! Anyway, she saw how overwhelmed my life was. She knew what I needed. I needed to see that I was telling everyone Yes, whether I had the time or not, whether I wanted to or not, at any cost, I couldn't say no! I can only read a few pages at a time in this book...it hits home. It's sad and embarrassing that I let my life be decided by so many other people. So...it's time to take back MY time. It's a slow, painful process, but the world will go on if I say NO. They will just ask the next person on the list....the world won't stop! Lol!

So, by freeing my life of other peoples needs, I'm hoping to be more mindful of small things, like my keys, phone, purse, etc. Then maybe my sweet little kiddos can worry about more important things, like whether the kitty cat has had enough snuggles for the day! 

Welcome September!!!!

With the start of a new month comes many new things on our farm! Believe it or not, we're still calving!!! We calve just about all year round. Many farms try to have all of their calves in a shorter (8-10 week) time frame. We have never got around to doing that. Ha! So, calving year round seems to work for us! We had two calves in one week recently. One was born on our oldest sons 11th birthday! So, of course, we let him name the baby heifer calf. 

We purchased all of the strawberry plants & most of the raspberry bushes at a local nursery this past weekend! We got them in the hard, dry ground last Saturday & have been hauling LOTS of water to them daily. We already have raspberries and strawberries producing! We are SO excited to be able to add those to our farm for ourselves & our customers!!!

As I said before, our oldest son turned 11 years old recently! Wow! I can't believe how fast time flies! He should still be a toddler! He is an amazing,,tender hearted, kind, caring young man. He has a sense of humor like his dad! He is a bit shy, until you get to know him! He is an amazing young man & I'm so proud of him! I'm so thankful that god chose me to be his mom! 

With the unofficial end of Summer coming up this weekend, we have been doing lots of things on the farm. We have closed our pool. :-( We are cleaning things up and preparing for the inevitable....Winter! Yuck!

Well, time to get back to the stove & finish fixing supper for my family! 

A wonderful Summer....

It's been amazing! I absolutely LOVE having my kids home! It's fantastic!

Let's see, last week my kids showed in our local county Fair. My youngest is still too little, but next year! My middle one is in her last year of Mini, she was awesome! She showed a 265 lb. Holstein steer. My oldest is in his 2nd year of 'real' 4-H. He showed the same Holstein steer as my daughter, he showers an 860 lb. Holstein steer & an 1,010 lb. Holstein steer. He also showed in Showmanship. He came home with 2 second place ribbons & 2 third place ribbons. The next day he showed a Holstein heifer calf. He won Grand Champion in Showmanship. He also won 1st place in his class, then followed up by winning Grand Champion in overall Dairy Heifer. So it was a good day!

I've been canning like crazy! I've done tomato juice, green beans, blackberry jam & peach jam! Yum! 

I've also whipped up some AMAZING recipes lately! Chocolate banana brownies! So good!!!! Even the kiddos liked them!

So, I finally purchased the 21 Day Fix program. It seems like a basic idea, but I LOVE to cook & bake & wonder how the containers will all work, so we'll see! If nothing else, I hope to eat more veggies!!!

We just finished doing hay this past week! Whew! That was a huge undertaking! I believe we are going to have to purchase another baler before next year! 

Here's a great picture I took tonight from my back yard! It was so much more amazing in person!