Lately, I have spent alot of time appreciating WHERE God has planted my family and seeing the beauty all around us. I guess I have been looking through new eyes, visitor eyes. Maybe it is because we have had several visitors here on the farm in the last year, maybe it is because I'm getting to be "that age." The age where you get all sappy. But look at this this straight out of the camera photo of the flat lands of Illinois full of corn and bean beauty.
Each year my hubs plants millions of seeds, thousands, billions...technically not important here, and look what happens. That there is God's grace for us.
I can't deny the beauty of it all. The lush green leaves contrasting with the deep black soil. The new growth fertilized by the drying and dead remnants of last year's crop. Beauty.
Acres and acres, miles and miles of fulfilled promises on the backdrop of flat plains and far reaching blue skies. Beauty.
We don't have mountains or waterfalls or 1,000 lakes or rolling hills here in Central Illinois, but what we DO have is absolutely breathtaking....if you look at it with a thankful heart.
So, as I write the blog post for our farm, I have to hold myself back a little. I can't just write whatever I want. This here, this is MY BLOG and I can just be myself with my weirdo humor. So on the other blog, I titled this post "Look to the Sky," My point over there was that it is fungicide season. My point over here is....LOOK AT THAT CRAZY DOG chasing an airplane!
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 phych eval out here stat ya'll!
Our sweet Essi. Since she kept her grades up, she did not have to go to the last two days of school...no finals!! She was so happy! I got to snap a photo of her before she made her last ride on the big yellow American school bus!
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!
Humor on the farm....corn head....not to be confused with a cheese head.
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A cheese head seems so much more fun. Don't you think?
Our combines have precisely 2 choices of attachments. CORN HEAD or BEAN HEAD. Pick one but not both.
Here you can see that the combine is literally pulling it's own head. Why does this make me smile? They have a little deal called a HEAD CART. It's just that. A cart for the head. Pull the head where your field is. Unhook the head cart from behind the combine. Drive the combine around to the side of the head cart and put your head on. Then go about your business.
When you are done with the field and want to head home, Simply place your head on the cart. Unhook it. Drive around to the front of the cart, hook it up and pull your head on home.
Farmers don't find this so silly and practical. But I do.
Throwback to ISF 2013 maybe? Kids and livestock. Makes me proud. I didn't get to be a livestock kid much when I was growing up. Showing a few goats at the McLean County fair is not exactly being part of it all.
My kids on the other hand are getting to experience it all. Rhode Brothers' Cattle are tied up in the barns at the Illinois State Fair. The "Nine Is Fine" crew spend their time between the swine, cattle and sheep barns checking on a tending to their animals. Bonding!
Show days tend to be staggered between the families. Someone is almost always getting ready for the ring or showing. So there is ALWAYS something to do.
Sometimes something to do looks like this.
Back in the day, my girl like flowers in her hair. Not anymore. Fifteen year olds don't wear flowers in their hair in the show ring I guess.
But they do wear blingy belts still. And they do wear those cute numbers on their blingy belts.
This was a gilt she was working with. We got out of showing gilts for a few years after this show. Hubs decided that we needed to focus on barrows. Gilts are very different than barrows.
Loving on the pigs. Important part of the job.
Can you tell I like the little numbers and clips. Some moms have make up and leotards. I get exhibitor numbers and boots. I'll take it.
Oh, and it was the year of sequined shirts. She's going to love reading this post about all things from the past like:
1. sequined shirts
2. jeans that are a little too short with her boots (because of skinny butts and long legs!)
3. gilts
4. flowers in her hair
5. BRACES!
Illinois State Fair 2016, we are excited for you!! We won't pack our hair flowers this time!
Last summer we were blessed. Last summer out of nowhere a Brazillian student at Murray State contacted us. We took a risk. We didn't know him from Adam. We didn't know anyone who knew him, but we decided to go for it. We invited him to intern on the farm.
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?
I've been on a break. Three years. But whatever! Life gets busy, but I've missed my little stint in blogging and I'm going to try to get back on the bandwagon.
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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