Last Day of High School!

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!

You’d Forget Your Head If It Weren’t Attached

Ya'll know what this is called?  Yep a corn head.

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.

Flowers In Her Hair

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!

Our Tallest Friend...In the Whole World

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?

A Hiatus-No More

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!

A Horrific but Blessed Day on the Farm

Today I am decompressing from a very strange day yesterday.  My face book post had my phone buzzing and ringing all morning long. So many worried about me.  It’s good to know someone cares right?  I hate fishing posts on face book, so here is my follow-up…

 

Yesterday kind of went like this:

1. peed bed

2. fit from a kiddo

3. forgotten homework 2 minutes before bus

4. fit (kinda rightly so here)

5. incomplete homework and  upset child headed to school to learn a lesson in responsibility.  Hard parenting time when your kids have to learn the hard way, right?

6. fit at Wal-Mart, actually this was kind of me this time, just kidding, but I hate Wal-Mart.

7. trip to consult with orthodontist which is going to lead to many trips to town, thousands of dollars and mostly awful, pain for baby girl.

8. The question of where and how God is using me on and off of the farm popped up again today in the midst of all of this. This is the heaviest and most joyful issue on my heart daily.

9. Before leaving for a Christmas Concert last evening, Beau cut his head open with a stocking hanger that he pulled off of the mantel. I immediately figured out what to do with the other kids, and headed to Decatur to the clinic for stitches.  On the way over, my sister (thank God for that girl and all her kid health knowledge!) told me about liquid bandage. So I continued to Decatur to get that, because we know that the chances of the Dollar General having it was slim and I was already almost to Decatur! 

10. Oh, another small fit from a baby that kept saying “I hurt mom.” The fit was about the location of his car seat in the van.  So I moved the darn thing in the parking lot of Walgreens for my poor hurting, hungry child who had already had junk food  McNuggets for lunch due to orotho appointment.

11. On the way back home, I came upon a horrific car accident.  I don’t remember details, but know that many flashbacks and emotions flooded my head from our car accident in 1985 where I lost my mom.

12. Among my emotion I was so thankful that the accident wasn’t me and my baby and felt the simultaneous guilt that it was somebody’s baby in the flipped over car the firemen were trying to get into.  It was a fresh accident as there was no ambulance and police cars were headed to the scene from all directions.

13. To make matters worse, the thoughts of MY MOM were mixed in there too…oh my! This day is getting deeper.

14. We rushed back in town just in time to pick up Great Grandma (who I was worried I would be late to get) to take her to the Christmas Concert.

15. Witness a near crash as parents were turning into the school parking lot from the busy road. Screamed and nearly gave Grandma another heart attack!

16.  Baby still had blood in his bangs and no shoes, which I forgot in my rush to leave the house.

17.  In the school parking lot, I came nose to nose with the town Police. The lot was crowded and I was trying to get Great Grandma close to the door so she didn’t have far to walk to the entrance to the school. I have an unreasonable fear of police in school parking lots as I “passed” a school bus years ago parking in the lot at the school where I worked! Oh heavens!

18. Husband was standing in the parking lot somehow and watched the cop ordeal and gestured his disapproval of what,  I still don’t know…

19. Doctored Beau’s head under the dome light of the van and screaming and bleeding ensued.

20. Got into school and settled in seat in first or second row on the floor. Ugh! Toddler+Floor= Play, not sit and listen to lovely Christmas music from pesky older sister and her friends.

21. Toddler played with McDonald toy from lunch on the floor with his bloody hair flying in the breeze for the whole town to see.  Toy proved to be very loud as did toddler when directed to sit and listen.

22. Low rise jeans stink and I felt I was managing the toddler AND the creeping underwear hanging out the top of my too low jeans in the front row of packed gym full of Arthurites!  Classy.

23. Took him home after tricking him out of the gym with the  promise of concession stand popcorn that didn’t exist at Christmas concerts, but he’s two, it wasn’t a hard sell. The screams of disappointment were in the hallway, not to be heard by glowing parents proud of Little Suzy’s Christmas solo.

24. Fed hurting, tired toddler and had a wine and cheese while snuggling and watching cartoon. 

25.  Put heavenly children to bed, snuggled and giggled with them and told them how proud I was of who they are becoming. 

26. Detailed conversation with my loving dedicated husband, followed by a 2 am night of writing all of my emotions out on the computer screen to decompress and sort my array of emotions. (My 7th grade english teacher was right, journaling does help. Too bad I am just now learning that 23 years later. )

Hmmmmmm……sigh………oh……my……..

A day full of blessings and heart ache, a fast-paced, wonderfully awful day, full.

Thanks for all of your calls my friends and family.  I love you all.  I didn’t mean to scare you and I rarely put stuff like that on Facebook, so I am sure it seemed odd. 

So far, today hasn’t been full of weird, odd strings of events, but it really isn’t much better as I am praying for my friend and her mother, wondering about the outcome of the accident and pondering my plight in life.  Thankful for so much and mourning the loss of what could have been  in the events of yesterday and my life. (ugh, man, you can’t go there, known that since ‘85!)

I am happy to be surrounded by people who care and respond to a ‘hurtin’ unit.’ Love you guys!!

LiveJournal Tags: crazy days,parenting,loss

30 Days of Thankfulness on the Family Farm-Day 30

Day 30-Friends and Winging It

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!