Season Changes

I'm sitting here labeling my lip balms and have numerous thoughts racing in my head so I thought, why not write em down? Things have changed for my family this summer and I lost a bit of my mojo for soapin' and such.

Unfortunately, my Step Dad passed away in June from terminal cancer. While we knew his prognosis earlier in the year, it was still a devastating loss to my family. Death leeched it's way into our lives and stole a piece of life from us to soon. My kids lost their papa tractor. And while there are all sorts of emotions that come with death, it's incredibly heart breaking watching your own mother grieve from the loss of her husband. I'm thankful for the time we did get to have with him and all the lessons he taught us throughout it all.

This summer is almost over and I feel like it was stolen away from me. I ended up getting pneumonia shortly after Ron's passing and spent many many weeks coughing so badly I was in tears and ended up tearing a muscle in my ribs and had to be put on an inhaler and antibiotics to treat my symptoms. I never really understood how pneumonia can be so devastating to kids/older adults until I got to experience it myself. It was incredibly miserable and I would never wish it upon anyone. But I'm thankful for my health and the fact that I was able to recuperate from it. Complaining about it made me feel guilty compared to others that have life threatening diseases. So, I'll move on.

On a high note, Steve and I ended up buying some cows! They are beef cows and will be butchered this fall so we're pretty excited about that. My son named them Bob and Barley.... Bob Barley? He's four so I have no idea how he came up with those names, haha but they stuck. They were fairly friendly at first until they escaped our pastures not once, but TWICE! After that, they are a lot more timid with us, notably, since we had to force em back into the pastures again. The solution to our escapees was to up their food and let them have more access into other parts of the pastures. The land out here is not the greatest, so the cows ate up all the green weeds and foliage fairly fast and they truly thought the grass was greener on the other side. Well, it was... but that's not the point.

Steve and I are working on the infrastructure and health of the land we own and have plans to till up all the fox tails and weeds this fall to make way for some pasture seed we bought a while back. Next year starts the overhaul of our pasture soil health regeneration plan. Our plan after tilling this fall is to never have to till again. We believe that every time you till up the soil, you ruin all the microorganisms and nutrients that are present in the soil. If you look at the mono-culture fields (farmers that use lots of land to grow one specific crop like corn) they consistently till the soil up every year, grow the same crop year after year, and then have to pump the soil full of man made fertilizers and use potent herbicides to rid the land of weeds. This depletes the rich top soil year after year until you're basically left with crappy soil that is not very nutrient dense to grow crops in. We're flipping that method upside down and want to add to the pasture soil every year, year after year, to help regenerate that rich top soil. It's a process, but one that works wonders once the soil is in good health.

Not that soil health interests all of you, but on a side note--our chickens started laying eggs this past July! We have ten hens and are getting on average around six eggs a day! There's even a few hens that occasionally lay us a double yolker egg! The yolks are a rich yellow color due to eating bugs, meal worms, and our black solider fly larvae! It also helps letting the chickens free range all day and it's fun to see them go after grasshoppers and rollie pollies. And my oh my are our chickens friendly! I've got one chicken who is basically my shadow when I'm outside working on the farm. Her name is Sweetie and she is gorgeous and incredibly docile with the kids. I've grown to love another hen which I've named Emma. Emma is our only chicken that lays white eggs so I enjoy having that color variation mixed in with all the brown eggs. We're starting to get so many eggs that people are offering to buy em which is nice to reap the benefits of all the work we put into keeping the chickens happy and healthy!

Farm life is still so fascinating and humbling for us. Everyday brings new adventures and I can't even begin to tell you how much my boys love the farm life. It's how I was raised and I am so thankful and grateful to be able to create these memories with my children. There's something so rewarding about going out when the sun is peaking over the mountains while getting the feed ready for the cows, watching them jump, moo, and skip towards me in excitement. It's like I was created for this purpose--to cultivate the land and tend to the animals. If you ever get the chance to help on a farm, I highly encourage it.

Well, I think I've rattled on a bit too long today and need to go feed some cows again. Until next time, hug your loved ones and always be thankful.

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"Though farm chores and construction work are the most physically demanding jobs that I currently do, they feel like recess to me. And there's something really beautiful about work that feels like play."

-Chip Gaines