LimeStone Station

Our rented light blue Toyota Camry kicked up a tornado of red dust as we sped down the narrow dirt road into the Outback. The cloudless sky added to the endless horizon where red met blue. Aside from the occasional goat or donkey wandering through the bush, we were alone. As my thoughts drifted looking out the window, I couldn't help but wonder, “What kind of a farm tour were we going to have with such sad looking land and roaming goats and donkeys?”

As we drove through the rusted gate, my husband was very excited to see abandoned vehicles and their parts littering the yard. We knew then, that Limestone Station was our kind of farm.

In the shearing barn, we watched as the sheep baaed their complaints while they waited to be wrestled. The state of the freshly shorn sheep was pitiful, like a proud lion getting it's mane shaved off. As they were led outside to the paddock, they seemed embarrassed to be naked.

Leaving the barn for the fresh air and blazing February Australian summer sun, we came to a pre 1940s flathead Ford V8 engine with aluminum heads and an aluminum intake. I imagined we found it exactly how it looked when it was pulled from its owner. It reminded me of home, of the exact engine that my husband and I purchased months earlier, only ours had a truck to go with it.

As the tour moved to their olive and carob trees, we discovered their methods for raising produce in such extreme conditions. Their white pots gave me goosebumps as they described the huge poisonous spiders that could be seen by birds, which would otherwise go unnoticed on black pots. The birds gladly lending a sharp beak.

As I wandered through the rows of potted plants under the black shade cloth, clicking pictures of the interesting carob plants, I heard my husband ask about a motorcycle. I glanced at the open garage door and saw a V8 engine on a long wheelbase with a seat and handlebars, which looked nothing like any motorcycle I had ever seen. As I walked into the garage, the smell of oil and junkyard rust reminded me of our garage at home. The owner detailed his plans for his land speed motorcycle, which was quite impressive. Even more impressive, when he explained that he would race later that month on the salt flats of Australia.

Ten years later, we purchased our small farm with it's black dirt, green pastures, and 83 ¾ feet tall white pine trees framing the northwest corner of the property. It's apple and pear trees that attract deer all year long. The pig paddocks that permit wallowing, running, and rooting. The laying hens that run wild through the garden in the sunshine and roost in their coop at night. While we molded our farm this first year, we took great care in naming it. It was only appropriate that we name our farm LimeStone Station. We have molded our farm to meet our needs and drive our passions just as its namesake has.  

Limestone Station combined our greatest loves: agriculture and engineering, our passions for producing food while building something new with something old. They did all this in the middle of the Outback with so little resources. This place was an inspiration for my husband and I, which is why our farm is it's namesake. Our farm is Limestone Station's baby that grew up to live far away from it's parents and didn't want to be like them, but realized that it had it's parents to thank for everything and started to act like them. We were on the other side of the planet and it still felt like home. Limestone Station was where it all started for us, and ten years later we are paying homage.

www.limestonestation.com

Daddies Change Diapers Too

Five years ago, after a long day of teaching I walked into the high school office to fill out a trip request form when the secretaries asked me how my sons were. At the time, they were still babies, so talking about crawling, walking, and eating habits were pretty common. My principal came out of his office and said that he was babysitting this weekend. Everyone was quiet waiting for him to explain his comment, and I was just hoping that he wasn't going to say he watching his own kids. He did indeed confirm my suspicion that he was "babysitting" his own children when he said that his wife was going to be out of town. I will never forget that conversation. I remember being angry that a dad would say that, but so grateful that my own husband would never do that. How do I know my husband would never say that? 

When our first son was born, it was pure joy. When our second son was born it was profound harmony in our family. My husband did everything I did. When the baby woke up in the middle of the night, my husband would get out of bed, tip toe to his crib, and bring him to me for his 3am feeding. When he was done eating, my husband changed his diaper, swaddled him, and rocked him back to sleep. When it was time for me to go back to work after maternity leave we didn't have daycare yet, so my husband took vacation to stay home with our son. 

When I was teaching, my husband was forced to be more involved because I was expected to be married to my work. Since I was in a man's job, it was expected that I spend the majority of my time building an excellent Agriculture program. I spent even more time with that program making sure it was a success because so many people expected me to fail because I was a woman. My husband never complained that I was working too much or missing out on all the important things. I was pregnant with our third child before I realized that I would never give up trying to be the best Agriculture teacher, which meant I couldn't be the best mom. So I gave it up. 

Now I get a little irritated when old ladies at the grocery store praise my husband for being able to get groceries and handle all four kids all on his own, or when they say how lucky I am to have such a helpful husband. I roll my eyes and think where the hell is my parade?! My husband knows that I'm not upset with him, I'm pissed as society. The same society that thinks it's okay for fathers to call watching their own children "babysitting."

My husband doesn't babysit, he co-parents. He is raising his children. He is being the best example of what a father, husband, and parent should be. My friend once told me that I got one of the good ones, referring to my husband. I would say that if every father taught their sons how to be a father then every husband would be a good one, not just mine. 

4th child: 4th baptism

As I was tucking my 5-year old into bed, he asked me if he was baptized. I said yes. Then he asked me if his brother and sister were baptized. My yes only encouraged him to keep listing extended family members. When I had to stop saying yes and move into the "I don't  know" category, he said he would talk to God about it. He ended the conversation by rolling over in bed, which was my cue to leave and be thankful he would be asking God the hard questions.

The baptism of our then 5-month old son prompted my 5-year old to ask these questions. Bracing myself for the all encompassing, "Why?" I started making a mental list of the reasons we baptized our children. He never got to that question, but here are the reasons:

1. It's tradition. The church where our baby boy was baptized was the same church my husband was baptized, where we were married, where my in-laws were married, where my husband and I received first communion and first reconciliation, where we were confirmed. Our sons wore the same baptismal singlet my husband wore.

2. It's a welcoming ceremony. It gives our children a sense of belonging, belonging to our family, belonging to the church, and belonging to our community. It gives them something mysterious and magical, kind of like Harry Potter. Not really, but it does make them believe in something bigger than themselves.

3. It's a starting point. They can believe whatever they choose, but we are the ones to give them their first lesson in beliefs.

4. It gives my babies more support. What could be better than having another set of "parents?" For that matter, who doesn't want to be a Godfather or Godmother? Add a raspy voice to Godfather, and it's a sweet movie impersonation or wings and a wand to the other for making all your dreams come true. Our siblings have all been wonderful Godparents, gangsters and fairies.

5. We celebrate. A baptism is always cause for a family party. We eat meat, potatoes, salads made with cream of mushroom soup or with mayonnaise, and big cakes. We usually entertain special guests like the priest that did the baptism or family members that flew across the country. Family members all dressed-up eating and drinking together is my favorite.

Leading up to the baptism, I was scrambling around making food better, making cakes bigger, and making my husband crazy. With this being our fourth child, it occurred to me that if this was our last baptism we better make it the best yet. With that in mind, I made three cakes, three different flavors, three different frosting flavors, and three different frosting decorations. We had prime rib, but thinking that wasn't enough we added pork loin. I put Baby's Breath on the tables as centerpieces. I asked my parents to bring their portable air conditioner to put into my in-laws garage, which is where the party was held. In my defense, I had gone a couple of weeks without air conditioning, and I wanted everywhere I went to be freezing. My parents did not indulge me.

I'd like to think that if I had made this list before we baptized our son, I wouldn't have been so focused on the extra things. Regardless of the food or the cake or the pictures, the outcome was the same. We baptized our baby boy.

Santa

As my husband parked our blue mini van at the local farm store, I explained the plan. "I'll distract them with the go carts, you go get the cat food, and we'll meet back up at the front."

My husband rolled his eyes like we don't need a strategy for taking our four little kids into the farm store. Last time our 2-year old was climbing all over the sacks of feed like a jungle gym, while my 5-year became obsessed with a $100 carpeted cat house. He tried to carry it around the store with us all the while pleading his case for the farm cats.

As soon as we walked through the sliding glass doors, the kids ran to the yellow and red go carts. The boys immediately hopped into the driver's seat, twisted the wheel, and gurgled out engine noise. My daughter walked past the go carts and climbed onto the seat of a mini bike. As I watched her grab the handle bars and crank the throttle, I thought, "Everything they drive will have a roll bar."

Upgrade the battery powered tractor

I was giving a polite smile to another stranger that remarked how I had my hands full, when my husband took the car seat with our 5-month old son out of my hands. He secured it to the red cart with the cat food signaling towards the exit. I told the kids we had to leave and no one moved. I just kept walking beside the cart and said goodbye to my three Rugrats. They quickly ran to catch up to us.

The drive home was 15 minutes of my sons trying to convince us to get a go cart. We explained that it was too much money, and more money than they had in their piggy banks. Then they started thinking of jobs they could do to earn money just like Curious George did to buy a kite.

The following week was spend brainstorming money making ventures for my 5 and 6-year old. This was quite a challenge, but raking leaves and picking up walnuts were among the ideas.  However, my 6-year old found a loop hole.

"I don't want to buy a go cart, I want Santa to bring it. That would be much easier." He said this while we were laying around on the couch watching TV.

Our entire plan of teaching the kids about hard work and the value of a dollar went right down the drain faster than Santa can guzzle milk. Their earning potential was so small that it would have taken them years to save enough and by then they would be old enough to be thinking of a vehicle instead of a go cart. Our carefully planned plot was short lived all because of a fat man in red.

My husband told the kids that Santa doesn't usually bring really big gifts, but I knew that was going to lead to a lot of questions that I didn't want to answer. Luckily, it was time for bed when the Santa conversation started.

My plan is to keep pushing the work ethic on them and go to the farm store without them.

If you have suggestions, send them our way.

Farm Love

“Steeler and Oreo are kind of like you and Dad.” My six-year said about the tom cat, Oreo, mounting our mama cat, Steeler. He described it further as hugging and kissing like mommies and daddies. While my husband and I watched the cats have sweet, sweet kitty love in the driveway, my mind raced to come up with an explanation that didn't require any detail.

My mind went another way, “Seriously! How many litters is Steeler going to have this year? Based on the last kittens colors, I would say Oreo is the baby daddy. Oreo isn't even ours, he isn't tame, and he is only around at dawn and dust, typical tom cat. They couldn't even wait until dark when the kids would be asleep! Effing Cats!!”

I had forgotten how unfettered a farm can be. Now combine that with little boys that think poop is hilarious, and a chicken's butt is watched more than Caillou on public television. So how do you explain farm love to kids? Just keep quiet, let them draw their own conclusions, and hope for the best or be very technical and when they get a little older get out the diagrams.

Keeping quiet and letting them come to their own conclusions is pretty difficult for me, but the technical method hasn't worked out very well. I tend to over explain things and put a different spin on it, which is one that I feel is acceptable for them. I explained chicken butchering to death (pun intended), but I was at a loss for words about sexing animals and reproduction. I taught inappropriate high schools about the different penis shapes for animal species, actually an entire unit, but I avoid explaining the difference between boy pigs and girl pig.

“The boy pigs have penises by their bellies, and that's where the pee comes out. The girl pigs pee by their bottoms.” My husband informed the kids while we were all standing by the gate watching them. I guess it wasn't too difficult. I don't even think my husband paused to think about what he was going to say.

When my son compared cat copulation to my husband and I, I was pretty concerned that he had seen something he shouldn't have. Then I realized that he really didn't know what he was seeing the cats do, so hugging and kissing was completely acceptable. He only knows what he sees and then relates that to what we tell him. We just need to be the first ones to tell him things and not TV or other kids at school.

I am thankful that the boys can see how animals act, which triggers questions which otherwise wouldn't be thought of until they are tweens and too embarrassed to ask. I guess this is one of the perks of living on a farm.

June: Gone too Soon

It has been one month since summer vacation started and, surprisingly, I'm not counting down the days until they go back to school. I deliberately did not enroll my kids in any summer programs. “Why?” You might ask. Because I wanted to cherish a quiet summer together without rushing around to their activities. What would you do with four little kids during the long summer days?

I'm a believer in boredom. When the kids get bored they come up with the best games and pretend play. I get the pleasure of seeing their imaginations. (However, mud slide runoff wasn't a pleasure to clean-up.)

I love having all the kids together. I gave them the best gift in each other, so why wouldn't I make them spend all summer together? I want them to have memories of playing with each other. I'm also forcing them to problem solve their own squabbles, which usually involves my 2-year old girl yelling at her older brothers.

I want my kids to think of summer break as summer recess. I want them to do things that are completely different from school. So it might surprise you to hear that I do a calendar each day. The calendar is more for me to keep from turning on the TV. It doesn't take much imagination to turn on the TV or iPAD, so when I write science on the calendar I plan things like putting Coke and Mentos together. Things that they haven't seen at school yet, but might in the future. I want to be the first person to show them.

When we moved to this homestead last year, I didn't realize the great opportunity it was for our children. I can't imagine what our summer would have been like living in town. The exploring means they find butterflies, caterpillars, toads, deer tracks, and sprinklings of flowers. The pig, chicken, and kitty chores every morning and night is just icing on the cake.

My kids are growing up fast enough, I don't need to enroll them in summer activities to speed that along. Once they start activities there is no turning back. I'm not prepared to start at the age of 6. They will have plenty of time for that in the years to come.

To The Mountains

Imagine you are in a van with an infant that needs to be fed every three hours, a two-year old that likes to have everything within reach which means she is covered in toys while sitting in her car seat, and a 5-year old and 6-year old that like to have dinosaur fights so loud that they drown out the radio. Now imagine driving 12 hours like this with no electronics, no iPAD, no Kindle, no DVD player, no laptop, not even a Leapfrog. This is how we went to our summer vacation to the mountains.

Actually, we avoided this by driving at night. We packed the car, put the kids in pajamas, snuggled them in with pillows and blankets, and were on the road by 9pm. I drove the first half which got us to the middle of Nebraska and the first gas stop. So in the wee hours of the morning, everyone woke up only to request an oatmeal cream pie. It was the start of vacation, so why not? After the sweet snack, I got cozy with the breast pump to feed our infant son while my husband drove back onto the interstate. We drove straight to my sister's house for her homemade breakfast of eggs and bacon.

My niece's graduation in Colorado was the perfect occasion to go on a family adventure. I told the boys the week before we left that we were going to the mountains. The day I told my 6-year old he told his Kindergarten teacher he would be missing a couple of days of school. How responsible? I waited as long as I could to tell the boys because I didn't want to hear, “Are we going to the mountains tomorrow?” everyday. Once I started packing, I had to tell them, or have them think that I was moving them out.

Day one of vacation was pretty laid back. We visited with my sister's family, checked into the hotel, napped, went swimming, and ate supper with my whole family, which included my parents and my other sister and her family.

I'm always amazed at what my kids remember about vacations. The free hotel breakfast is one of those things. My 6-year old son called it junk food, which really meant that they had a lot of sweet things. I think that was the highlight of day two for him. Well, that and playing with his
cousins. We got up early and went to Garden of the Gods, which is where they got to climb on rocks and “mountains.” I went with my sisters and parents to my niece's graduation, while my husband stayed with the kids. The graduation reception followed where all the cousins tired each other out.

The last day of our trip was spent in a lot of different places. We started the day driving to the Royal Gorge and exploring the suspension bridge. The Gorge was obviously awesome, but the kids spent more time at the playground area and looking at rocks. The rocks were such a success that we stopped at a rock store where they picked out their souvenirs, geodes.

We spent the remainder of our vacation eating. We went to my brother's for lunch and my sister's for supper. We said our goodbyes and talked about the next time we would see each other, which would be another year.

We spent Memorial Day driving the 12 hours home, which was not at night. The first paragraph is a direct reflection of this daytime journey home.

Our adventure to the mountains was a great start to our summer. It was also a great confidence booster. If you can take 4 kids all under the age of six on vacation and everyone has a great time, you can do anything. I can rule the world.