About Time

I had to walk to the barn one evening last week and happened to see this calf standing at the water trough with one of God's great sunsets framing him.  I'll never tire of seeing a great sunrise or sunset.

During this parenting adventure I find that I am constantly either looking forward or backward, but not relishing in the moment nearly enough.  

For instance, if I leave the house with all the kids now and feed them at 11:30, I have enough time to pick up parts, groceries and run to the bank and be home just in time for naps so I can run snap tests on cattle while the baby sleeps and then start supper during snack time.  Perfect.

Or planning for the week: We can help work cattle these three days and skip naps, and then schedule me picking up feed on Thursday afternoon at 2.  It's a 45 minute drive which will work perfectly for the kids to nap in the pickup. 

Or, you can plan everything perfectly, lay exhausted kiddos down for a nap and then your husband decides to dry fire his implant gun in the house multiple times to test it and now everyone is awake and cranky.  (I cannot even make this stuff up.  That happened as I was typing the previous paragraph.) 

As you can see, my life primarily revolves around working for my husband and then fitting the children in around the cattle and crops in our life.  

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I feel like this is how we operate in agriculture as well, always looking forward or backwards but rarely taking a moment to enjoy the now.  The kids were helping me grocery shop last week and I grabbed a package of multiple cans of wasp and hornet spray to throw into our cart.  Kenyon asked why I was grabbing that already as technically this is still winter.  My answer to him?  "It's about time to think about shipping calves."  

From his perspective I was being absolutely ridiculous, but in middle-aged parent math I feel this timeline checks out.  

It's about time to start calving, which means its then about time to turn cattle out on grass, then about time to burn, then about time to work calves, about time to bale and haul hay all day, then play baseball all evening, then about time to finish projects for the fair, then about time load trucks at all those pens with angry hornets and wasps.  

Yes, sir.  About three good blinks and it will be the end of summer.  Then it'll be about time to chop sileage, wean calves, preg check cows, survive the dreaded holiday season and BOOM.  It's 2025.  I feel like I should say Happy New Year, but at this point I don't know if I'm dreadfully late for 2024 or incredibly early for 2025.  

These are a Few of My Favorite Things (Summer Edition)

Now that we all have an image of Julie Andrews prancing around in a field stuck in our heads, let's proceed, shall we? 

I enjoy my morning run by the corn field.  It has finally grown tall enough that the blazing sun doesn't scorch me until it has risen fairly high in the sky, by which time I am certainly done running. 

This is quite possibly one of my favorite pictures ever.  We went as a family one evening to move hay bales off the field.  I let the kids out during one load to 'blow some stink off' and they played tag and ran to their hearts' content. 

Question: What is better than an impromptu party with your cousins?

Answer: Not a dang thing.

Also quickly becoming another favorite of mine: the dreaded cousin hangover.  When you play so long and so hard that your earthy existence hangs in the balance for the following 24 hours at a minimum.  Symptoms include: falling asleep at the supper table, crying for no apparent reason, scowling at the general public, and drifting off into daydreams of the fun times had while clutching your princess heart shaped mirror. 

Fishing as a family with our dogs.  They are so awesome.  

Does he have a future as a racecar driver?  His mother says NO. 

I love that child #2 has taught child #3 to slant at an unnatural angle and ruin any attempt to take a decent picture of them while clean and dressed in church clothes. 

She enjoys 'writing' letters to people and reads the letters aloud to me as she scribbles away. 

MOST of the time, he's the world's most helpful big brother.  He doesn't take that responsibility lightly. 

These kids have been feather-finding, egg-finding, nature-finding fools that summer.  It seems like I constantly have an egg, lizard, feather, toad or bug shoved in my face to admire. 

If I take a morning run in one direction, I see nothing but corn.  If I run the other direction, this is my view.  On mornings when I know it will be a magnificent sunrise I usually opt to run this direction.  I've yet to be disappointed. 

Her little smirk makes it difficult to parent in a stern manner sometimes.  

Our kids fell in love with snapping beans with their grandad.  Kenyon snapped for two hours solid and never wanted to leave and play with his siblings. 

The world's very best goodnight hug. 

Very similar to a cousin hangover, a grandparent hangover can also be quite lethal.  Beware. 

These are a few of my favorite things.  (Sorry, I couldn't leave you without that little earworm.  I hope it gets stuck in your head the rest of the day.) 

Content

I attended a media training several weeks ago and during this training we were asked to set goals.  One of my goals (which I obviously did NOT follow through with) was to create at least one blog post per week.

"Is that possible? Do you have enough content for something like that?" the session leader asked.

"Buddy, we have content.  It's the time I don't have." I replied.

So, without further ado, here's a bit of the content that I should have been posting weekly for, ahem, sevvvvveral weeks now.

We've been checking baby calves in the evenings.

Delivering eggs to great grandma.

Pulling over while driving to snap a few pics here and there.

We've been building workbenches. 

Stealing sweet feed from our horse.

Acting so dejected when I wouldn't let her up on the swingset to help me screw in boards. 

We've been having our annual heart checkups (still all good!). 

Riding roping dummies at night.

Burning, burning, burning. 

On the rare evening when it was too windy to burn, we skipped rocks.

We've been miserable with allergies.

As I stained boards on the swingset, the kids wrestled.

We've had shop picnics, car picnics, pasture picnics... you name it and we've eaten there.

We've been cloud watching, bird watching, who-was-in-that-pickup-driving-by watching. The upper deck of the swingset is great for observing life. 

We've been to the zoo...

I nearly died laughing.  She kept telling the tiger "Hiiiiiiii kitty". 

Picnic time with girlfriends.

Going to grass with cattle.

Being insanely cute.  Wispy hair is cute when you're nearly 2.  When you're 32 it's not nearly as endearing.  Same with freckles.  I've given my kids so many 'cute on kids, not on adults' type traits.  

I've been forgetting to utilize the 'action' setting on my camera, clearly. 

And I've been bathing kids.  Quite often, actually. 

It's an exhausting little life, believe me. 

Like I said.  We are most certainly not lacking in content, just time.

Life Lately

Here's a quick and dirty rundown of life lately down our little dirt road. 

We (I) am trying to help Kenyon hone his fine motor skills and learn to cut along straight lines.  What better way to practice than by cutting out coupons for your mama?  Answer: There is no better way.  He cut out LOTS of coupons for me, regardless of my need.  I almost feel obligated to purchase two bottles of Miralax at this point just to use the 75 cent coupon he cut out for me.  What a sweet boy. 

Some afternoons, naptime is great for the mama.  Some afternoons, naptime goes more like this:

...and the mama accomplishes nothing.

Is this Halloween or just a nice, dress up occasion like church or a wedding?  I'll let you decide. 

I think the chinks and spurs gave it away.  It was our feeble attempt at Halloween.  I'm not particularly fond of the holiday and thus put minimal effort into it. The clothes really are some of the boys' nice church clothes and the chinks and spurs were mine from my youth.  Made me tear up seeing Kenyon wear them. 

I dreamed this 'Flapper Girl' outfit up about an hour before we walked out the door to trick-or-treat at three sets of grandparents' houses.  She was also wearing Mary Jane shoes.  Regardless of this dumb holiday, the kids looked sharp. 

If the weather is even close to decent, you'll find the boys down at the horse pen, hanging out with their friend, Honey.  If I had a nickle for every hour I did this during my childhood, I'd be rich.  I love seeing Kenyon and John instinctively do some of these very same things.  I wish every kiddo could spend some time just sitting on a fence, talking to their best friend.  

Again, this little girl and her 'nap time'.  She was such a perfect baby, but now that's she's getting some personality to her, I just don't know about this one.  Too late to send her back and it's a bit too early in the day to start drinking...

Our little, local library has a story hour every week.  This is my favorite craft to date - a bat.  We read a story that talked about swallowing a bat.  

There was an old lady that swallowed a bat.  

I don't know why she swallowed a bat.  

Imagine that!

Later, I asked Kenyon about the little old lady that swallowed a bat.  Why do you think she did that?  His response: "I dunno.  I think she needed to go grocery shopping or something because she didn't have enough food to eat." 

I love that he is so practical and has some critical thinking skills established.