Today I am going to force myself to sit down and try to remember how to blog again. I have so many thoughts—plans—ideas floating around in my head I hardly know where to begin. Dreaming can feel very unproductive and I guess at some point a person has to just buckle down and do something. Anything. Lots to do. I'll try to get into some of these plans/projects in upcoming posts.
I am honored and amazed how many people have told me that they read this blog. I therefore feel terrible when I've neglected to post for so long and dearly hope all you of you will stick around through my dry spells. My absence here is easy to sum up with just one word—harvest. It might just be that August will always be a month of hiatus on this blog. But don't give up on me!
So, harvest.
This year will be remembered by the seemingly constant stream of breakdowns we encountered. It left everyone feeling a bit cranky and anxious about being behind. Five or six weeks of harvest drags on long enough, and everyone gets a bit edgy trying to get the crop in the bin before bugs/wind/hail gets to it first.
Imagine having one of these tires go flat. It cost us a day's work and a few grand$$$. Ouch.
This was before harvest but (Tom is going to kill me) imagine getting stuck so bad you have to go fetch the wife and the tractor:
Despite all the hiccups, in the end we got the job done!
I spent the last week (plus) of harvest on the combine because our hired help had to go back to school. Truthfully, I enjoyed this reprieve from the long days of playing housewife, house mom, and slave to the kitchen. My mom carried the extra burden of watching my kids and doing all of the cooking. At some point I helped harvest each of the following crops:
clockwise from top left: mustard, lentils, spring wheat, and canola
Cool, right? Here is Abby posing in front of a mustard field:
And Eva eating dinner in the field:
The kids are always happy to see their daddy for a bit during dinner. Heading out for a combine ride:
All in all, we had a good outcome. The worst of the hail storms missed us and we had enough rain to make things fair pretty well. Now we are working to get our hay sold and delivered and will be prepping to do our fall seeding soon. Never a dull moment!
Back with more soon!