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. 

Making History

Everything from yesterday is in the past, and therefore its part of history. I happen to love history, which is probably why I document and record our family's history.

I started this blog over two years ago. Those of you that have stuck with me, thanks. I started this blog to help me get through the days when the only adult I was speaking to was my husband (besides myself of course.) I even documented my last days of teaching, which seemed tedious when I wrote it but now it makes sense in the progression of things. This blog made me accountable to my children. When I stopped teaching I was so concerned with the day to day activities. Really I was worried that I would use the TV as a babysitter melting their brains, so my solution was to set up a schedule that included crafts, experiments, and outside. I blogged weekly capturing those memories, and I'm so grateful I did.

Most everyone thinks of their day to day grind as mundane and not worth mentioning; however, they are dead wrong. Its those days that make history, your family's history. Ten years from now I won't remember that my 5-year old got his first loose tooth today and that he asked his big brother how his day was at school. I won't remember that my 6-year old told me to remember to tell his teacher that he won't be in school on Friday, how responsible. I won't remember that my 2-year old kept writing in this blog post by pressing the keys, running away, and giggling. I won't remember that my 3 month old kept rolling over for the first times only when I left the room. Figures, just when I have to pee he rolls over. If I don't write it down what will sustain me when I'm 80 in the nursing home?

When I took a hiatus from the blog when I was horribly sick carrying our 4^th baby, my husband asked when I was going to start up again. My sarcastic answer was probably something like, “I'll leave the computer next to the toilet, so between dry heaves and vomiting I might write something clever. All while taking care of the other three children.” However, that was the first time I realized that even if no one reads this, it still matters to my family.

When I got a new phone last week, I wasn't happy about loosing my old phone. But when my husband said I could take epic videos I started vlogging. That's right, I have my own YouTube channel. I know you are probably thinking what took me so long, but now I can document our homestead activities for our kids in the future. If I had a video of my parents or grandparents explaining their chores on a daily basis it would be worth more to me than anything.

So when each of my children graduate I will compile these blogs in a book for them. I might even make a video compiling all my vlogs. As high school graduates it might not matter to them then, but it will matter, someday. It's our family's history.

 

 

 

 

I'm 5

“Is my birthday tomorrow?” Was the question my 4-year old kept asking after we questioned him about what he wanted. This went on for about a month.

He knew exactly what he wanted, which was a Wild Kratt's suit with creature powers. I'm very familiar with the public TV show, which always leads me to the theme song replaying in my head. Gonna go wild is right, wild crazy.

My son picked three of his friends from his preschool class to invite along with his grandparents, cousins, and friends of the family. As everyone pulled into our drive way, they were greeted to a giant bouncy house on our lawn. We splurged on the bouncy house because I didn't want to plan games for the kid's entertainment.

Two days before the party I called the rental company to reserve the bouncy house, the giant obstacle course was the only one left. I went to the store to buy party favors, food, and decorations. The night before the party, I cleaned the house. The morning of the party I made the food for the 11am party, which didn't include the cake because there was no time. My husband picked up a cake when he picked up the bouncy house. I hung a couple of balloons on the mailbox, which was about it for the decorations.

Right before the party I was stressed and I felt like the party was going to be a disaster based on my last minute planning. I was scrambling around the kitchen when I looked out the kitchen window and saw a blur of kids in the bouncy house. Their screaming and laughing was enough for me to realize that my son and the other kids won't remember the food or the cake. They didn't care if the house was clean or if they streamers were hung. They will remember the fun they had, and my son will remember how special he felt on his birthday.

My husband and I will remember eating the hell out of that cake after the kids went to sleep at 7pm. Birthday success!

Tooth Fairy

“My tooth hurts.” My 6-year old son whined.

 

I looked at the offending tooth and wiggled it. I must have made a disgusted face because my son immediately shut his mouth and pushed my hand away. I smiled and said that he was going to loose his first tooth. He was so excited because his friends in his class had already lost some of their teeth.

 

A couple of days went by before he finally decided it was time for the tooth to be gone. He ate an apple and it came right out. I'm still surprised he didn't swallow it, it was so tiny. He put it on the window sill in the kitchen and forgot about it.

 

I started looking up the going rate for a tooth, which was crazy. The internet had the tooth fairy giving a couple of dollars to a crisp hundred dollar bill. I really wanted to do something different, which led me to discovering a company that sells animal teeth that the tooth fairy can trade for human teeth. My husband said he could just go out back and pull a tooth out of one of our pigs that had kicked the bucket. I'm still not sure if he was kidding or not, but the idea of pulling dead animal teeth gave me a shutter and a quick “No!”

 

The internet gave me the next idea of giving a quarter and a coin from another country. I loved that idea because we had a jar with foreign currency just collecting dust. At least it could collect dust in my son's piggy bank.

 

Our night time ritual went by and my 6-year old still didn't mention his tooth. I asked if I should go get it for under his pillow. He simply said no and rolled over in bed. I was disappointed because I was ready for the tooth fairy to come. I had done my research and even had some glitter to top it all off. The next night was the same, followed by the next night, and the next, until my husband said he will when he's ready. The next morning I asked him why he didn't want the tooth fairy to come, he explained that he didn't want her to take his tooth. Whew! I was so relieved that he didn't say he was scared of a little mosquito like creature that would fly into his room and his bed at night to take something that belonged to him. Yeah, because that's not scary.

 

That night my 6-year old wrote a sweet note asking the tooth fairy to leave his tooth. My husband helped him make a lego box with a lid to store his tooth and any future teeth, which was gently placed under his pillow.

 

Bright and early the next morning my son ran into our bedroom to show us what the tooth fairy left, a quarter, an Australian coin, and a note with glitter on it. We found Australia on the world map, which is where the tooth fairy had just come from before she made a visit to our house.

 

This ritual continued until the tooth fairy didn't make it to our house when he lost his third tooth. He was so disappointed in the morning, but the next night she explained what had happened. She was in Korea and had to stop across the ocean because of a thunderstorm. With her note and a quarter, a Korean coin that had 100 on it was left. My son was very excited that he had 100, which made up for any storm. (It just so happened that my brother was stationed in Korea when he was in the Army.)

 

A friend asked me what will happen when we run out of foreign currency, after all that is a lot of teeth between all four of our kids. I said, “The tooth fairy will just have to go to the bank to exchange her currency.”

Feed Them, Feed Us

"What is that sound?” I asked my husband at 3am when I was feeding our son. He grumbled that is was thunder. It had been so long since I had heard it, I didn't even recognize it. The thunder was followed by downpour rain. I elbowed my husband, and we both checked the weather on our phones. It was above freezing, but two hours north it was below freezing.


We had our Saturday all planned out. We were getting up early, putting the sleepy kids in the truck, getting breakfast on the way, and driving two hours north to the locker where our 10 pigs were done being processed. My husband had mapped out the journey to deliver all the pork to our 14 customers across 5 counties. Mother Nature sent rain, sleet, and snow.

I was driving while the kids were sleepily eating gas station donuts washed down with juice. I constantly caught myself checking the temperature in the rear view mirror, above freezing. I was speeding down the highway when I heard my 6-year old yell that his little sister was getting sick. My husband used her blankie to mop up the mess as I continued to drive.

We had to make an unexpected stop at my parent's house to clean up my girl. My husband went ahead to the locker and loaded up the meat as I got the kids cleaned and settled. We watched cartoons while the weather continued to get worse. We watched sleet pelt the windows, and heard the thunder snow. When my husband picked us up it was snowing heavily.

My husband maneuvered the truck through the snow, sleet, and eventually rain as we made our way south. I navigated and contacted our customers to give them ETAs. It was awesome to put half a hog in our customer's freezer at our first stop. Then the second and third deliveries, twenty minutes away. It was so worth it to see customer's faces as they looked through their boxes of meat, and even better to see my 4-year old shake their hands.

It was a family affair that lasted 12 hours and over 500 miles across Iowa. This is the ultimate farm to fork with transparency on all levels. These are the pigs that my sons named, and the pigs that my sons helped put into freezers. Yes, they made the connection that these were the same pigs, and it doesn't get any more personal than that. Food should be personal without any disconnection.

The day was made complete when I heard my 6-year old son say, “We feed them, and they feed us.”