Will Blog For Comments

So as we have established I took a slight 2 year blogging hiatus....let's call it a sabbatical.  But I started up again, mainly to appease my mother but also to document this new beginning in our lives of living on the farm. But since posting the updated blog on my facebook page I have had almost 100 page views - which for me is remarkable! I'd love to get some comments with all of this newfound blog love, let me know who you are and what's going on in your life and what you want to hear about more in ours!

Hustling up 'the Hill'

I had intended to get some pictures on Sunday night to help explain the wonder that is Slow Pitch Softball in a small town. But apparently, I did not understand what having my 16 month old at these games meant. It did not mean sit down, drink a beer, and watch a bunch of your peers run around after a yellow ball. Instead it meant never sit down, not for a second, and you run around after a little girl while your peers laughed at you! At this ball diamond there is "the hill" a great place to back your vehicle up, open up the back and watch the games from the comfort of a tailgate or some bag chairs. The "hill" also provides endless entertainment for the kids. But when you have a 16 month old that doesn't understand come back, don't go in the dugouts, or watch out - it means you spend a lot of time up and down the hill picking her up, dusting off her knees, and setting her up right so she can take off again. We enjoyed the playground area and all of the slides and being just far enough out of mommy's reach to force me to have to climb up the stairs to set her on the slide. I also had to referee a bit, as my daughter does not understand yet sharing or stealing other kid's toys. But we followed it all up with a trip to the concession stand, so....good times.

My husband pitched for his team, and afterwards he was talking about the game and I realized how very little I had seen. But the important thing was that they won! You see, in small town Kansas, on a Sunday night, when the wheat is looking bad and who knows when you'll even be able to get it cut there is not much more important than that softball game and an Icee pop with our daughter.

Beer Bratwursts

Tonight for supper we had brats - yummmy. I cooked them in beer and then threw them on my grill pan for a few minutes at the end so they'd get that dark brown charred yumminess. And with them I had some caramelized onions. Just thinly sliced yellow onions on a med-low heat with some oil and a good pinch of salt, I added some garlic about halfway through. And then when they were done - all soft and brown and delicious - I added some of the beer that the brats had cooked in. It was so good! This was a meal that I had been saving for harvest, I figured brats were easy and well liked by everyone, and wrap them up in some foil and they would stay warm and be easily transportable. But like I talked about before - with harvest never seeming to get off the ground I'm having to steal some of the meals I had planned for that time - because I don't have any other food in the house!!

Now we are off to the ball diamonds for the highlight of our summer - Sunday Night Slow Pitch Softball! This is serious business for the county, yes I said county. I will have to capture some of the highlights and share them tomorrow!

Is it Harvest Yet?

Today is June 6th and we still have not really "started" harvest yet. A few fields have been cut, here and there, but not much. And if you know a farmer, you're probably familiar with that first day of harvest mood they have. Part excited, part nervous, part payday!, part hurry the hell up-let's go,let's go, LET'S GO! 

Well we definitely haven't had that. My birthday is June 30th and normally is right in the middle of harvest, in fact 2 years ago, we were completely done with harvest at least a week before my birthday. I'm pretty sure this is a first for most everyone in the area that harvest is this late. Here in North Central Kansas, we experienced a drought during the spring months and then a very late freeze, followed up by lots of moisture. So, as I understand it (which....doesn't mean much) the wheat went from looking horrible - some wasn't even worth cutting, to having a some late heads coming in, but that meant there is still a lot of green out there, which puts your moisture high, and with all the rain the weeds are now getting bad, which also jacks up the moisture. So, the fields are producing more wheat than we first thought, but it's not easy cutting. They are waiting to let the green stuff ripen, but then the weeds are getting worse, so then do they spray?

Have you ever seen a frustrated farmer, playing the waiting game on your couch?  It's not a pretty sight. He can't even enjoy the extra time at home because his brain is constantly going - well maybe those 20 acres are ready, but what if it's not? Do we need to take this wheat to the elevator or put it in the drying bin? When is the latest I can put my double crop beans in? Should I have sprayed that? Should we try again tomorrow or wait til the day after that?

But hopefully we can get started tomorrow (or maybe the day after that- ha!) and get this thing over with. We love ya harvest, you pay our bills, but it's time to go!

Trash Can Adventures

Thursday was Trash Day here at the new place. Now a week ago Thursday was also trash day.....but I missed it. Forgot about it, and there's no helpful reminders like a whole street of neighbors with their trash cans out here on the farm.I had meant to set it out the night before, as I am unsure what time they come by. Of course I woke up at 7, realizing I had completely forgotten. So I quickly grabbed the screaming Claire out of her crib and went outside to drag the trash down to the edge of the driveway. As I took the first load (because yes there were 3 different loads) I realized I hadn't quite done this the best possible way. 3 loads of trash down the driveway in my flip flops with Clarabelle in her pj's just trailing behind.  As I tried to pull the trash can with one hand and carry the cardboard box with the other, the trash can rolled and tipped  more than once, forcing me to take it by itself, using both hands - thereby creating the 3rd and most dramatic of the trips. I mean, I'm a farm wife now, right? Where's my flatbed truck to do these things? Or better yet, my own gator to fly around this gigantic yard with? I mean seriously.

All I have to say is: Farm Wife Status - Amateur.

Life as a Farm Wife

I spent who knows how long this morning going back and forth about creating a whole new blog or just updating this rusty, old thing. Well my decision is obvious, as this is an update with just the Blog Post being titled "Life as a Farm Wife" instead of a whole new blog. My decision is only partly based on my enjoyment of going back and reading old posts but mainly centers around the difficulty of naming a whole new blog with something "unique" and not already taken by the plethora of other farm wife's out there!

So a few things have changed since the last time I updated this blog. In fact, the day after my last post (June 29th, 2012) I found out I was pregnant! After 4 years of struggling with infertility, it was an amazing moment. That positive pregnancy test came after our 3rd cycle of shots in the stomach, every other day visits to the clinic that was 2 hours away, followed up with an IUI, and yes - it was all worth it.

I got huge! And I have to explain- the reason the belly's hanging out the bottom was because I wore that same outfit in every picture as we documented the bump. Also this picture was literally like an hour before we went to the hospital. We were scheduled to go in, to be induced, so no middle of the night madman rush to the hospital, which Mark was disappointed by (but seriously, we lived 2 blocks from the hospital, I doubt it would have been that crazy.)

This is when Mommy and Clarabelle Hope got to see each other for the first time. She is beautiful.

 

Here we are during last year's harvest. This was actually on my birthday, June 30th.

 

At our wonderful friends' wedding (the Cantillon's). Both Mark and I were honored to stand up as part of the wedding party.

 Showing off her masterful skill of quickly and quietly climbing everything. We have now resorted to only using folding chairs in the kitchen so we can fold them up after we're done eating.

There are hundreds of other pictures I want to share to document how adorable and rambunctious and sweet my little girl is....but I just want this to be an update of the past 2 years! Another exciting, scary, and long awaited thing is that we have moved to the farm. You might have noticed in the above picture that the dining room looks very different than the previous pictures I have shared of our house. Our house in town, that I absolutely love, is for sale. It was our first home, I spent hours-days-weeks updating and painting and decorating so that it felt like "us" when you walked in. The farmhouse we have moved into was Mark's grandparents. And if you have ever moved into a family member's previous home, you know the difficulties and emotions that come with it. But there are many wonderful things about being able to live on the farm-being out in the country, so close for Mark, it really will be wonderful. Yep I now truly get to experience everything that goes along with being a farmer's wife, including the "trips to town" I remember from growing up - where those 10-12minute drives into town seem like such a chore, and any chance you are in a town with a Wal-Mart or equivalent store requires a stop because who knows when the next time you'll be there will be.

And so....such is life. The Minutes that are purely Miranda's are few and far between. But life has become much more enjoyable and meaningful in the hectic moments. And I hope to keep updating and documenting all of my minutes.