Harvest Time with Dad

It's the end of October and we've pretty much wrapped up harvest for the year. The kids and I were able to ride along several times and enjoyed the extra time with Mark. Our family continues to grow, thankful not in numbers just size, :) so Ethan is pretty quick to hop in with Grandpa or an Uncle so he gets a buddy seat.  

Future farmer pictured here! Elijah loves to help out and ride along in the combine! I'm very thankful Mark is willing to take him along and teach him about farming.

My attempt at a group picture didn't really work out today or really any other time this year. :(

We did have a little accident this fall. Anton got his finger smashed in the combine door. It was pretty beat up and we ended up bringing him to a large hospital in Des Moines to have it stitched up. He did great and it's healing very well. His fingernail is growing back healthy and his finger tip is normal looking, just slightly different shaped than his other fingers. He was given this little deer stuffed animal at the hospital and has slept with it ever since. :)

Ameila and Anton waiting for a ride one night after we brought out supper.

Soybean harvest near New Sharon, Iowa.

We had a storm which blew over the 90 ft auger earlier this fall. The poor thing just looks tough. 

Anton is checking to see if the beans are ready. This is done by  taking a bean out of the pod and biting it. If  it pops in half it's ready, if it smashes flat in one piece, it's not.

Happy, Happy, Happy

Sunsets are beautiful this time of year.

We brought Mark a cupcake for his birthday. He turned 35 this year!

Harvest Time with Mom

We attempted another garden this year, despite the lack of rain/TLC on my part it actually didn't do to bad. We're to a point in life were we can have fun with gardening as a family and enjoy the reward of some homegrown veggies. Here's a few pictures of what we enjoyed with our harvest.

I let the kids pick out a few things to plant and I handle the rest. This year everyone wanted carrots so we planted a couple rows. They ended up picking most of the carrots before they were fully grown. I guess the suspense of seeing how big a carrot you can pull was just to much for them. :)

I always like to plant a row of sweet potatoes. This year I had a mole or something nibble on almost every sweet potato! 

I new item we tried this year was brussel sprouts. My mother-in-law got plants for me from the Amish and they did very well! They were close to three feet tall! 

A close-up of our brussel sprouts. 

We have a couple apple trees which did amazing this year! We had more apples on our yellow delicious tree this year than the past 10 years combined! 

 My little crew of apple pie makers.

We also tried making apple sauce for the first time this year. One batch turned out great the other failed. Canning more applesauce and making cider is on this weekends agenda! If you would like some fresh apple cider or red or yellow delicious apples let me know, no charge, just come help press or pick. :)

September

Labor Day weekend always seems to be filled with fun stuff to do. This year the weather was unseasonably warm. So we took advantage of the heat and went boating with friends! We had a blast and enjoyed one last "summer activity" before the cooler fall temperatures arrived! 

Water is not Allison's friend. She wouldn't get in the lake and didn't know what to think of water skiers. Perhaps she's concerned with bacteria in the water like her mom. :) However as the night went on she relaxed a little. Hopefully next summer she'll enjoy the water more. :)

All the other kids loved the lake! Ethan even tried water skiing. After a few tries he was up and loving it!

We had to limit his turns or he would have been out there all night!

Another fun Labor Day Activity was going to Mark's Aunt and Uncles camp out. They had a obstacle  course going when we arrived. Mark, Ethan and Amelia quickly teamed up and ended up taking 3rd place. 

All the kids under 18 at the camp out that night.

I'm in my third year on the Mahaska County Farm Bureau Board. This month we did a highway clean up as part of our community service.

Amelia's 2nd grade class was asked to do a creative movement with the 8th graders for chapel last month. Amelia enjoyed this and loves to be with the bigger girls.

Chicago Trip

A few weeks ago Mark and I made a quick trip to Chicago to represent Farm Bureau Young Leaders at the Growmark Annual Meeting. We had a great time and always enjoy meeting new people. I have to admit though, I felt a little old with this group of young people. :) Most of them were FFA members in college studying in an ag related field. Only a handful of us were out on our own farming. Several of the FFA leaders gave speeches during the meeting and did an amazing job! All had passion and ambition, something that many of today's youth lack. American agriculture certainly has some fantastic young people coming into the business in the next few years!

The Young Farmer Representatives from Iowa Farm Bureau.

My favorite restaurant ever! If you love meat like I do, this is the place for you! It's a Brazilian style restaurant where gaucho chefs go from table to table serving 16 cuts of meat. Everyone gets a little card, flip it to green they stop by with meat, when your plate's full, flip it to red and they let you eat. :)  

   

After a fantastic lunch we quickly walked back to our hotel, the Chicago Hilton. We got a behind the scenes tour with our Young Leaders Group, which was very interesting. The picture above is of a chandelier in one of their meeting halls. This particular room has an $80,000 deposit to rent, yes $80,000!!!   

We toured part of the kitchen and one of their chefs demonstrated how he makes food sculptures. He made it look very easy, but you probably won't be seeing any food sculptures on my next fruit and veggie tray. :)

The view of Navy Pier from one of the penthouse suites,  this room will cost you $6,000 per night.

Several of these sculpture heads lined Michigan Ave. 

Chicago skyline.

The view from our hotel room. 

Creek Cruising

A few weeks ago a bunch of us went riding down the creek with our Rangers and 4-wheelers. Both kids and adults loved it! A good part of my childhood was spent playing in the creek and I still enjoy exploring nature with my kids today!  

Things didn't get started off well. We locked the keys in the truck. It took a bunch of people a long time to finally unlock it.

This was a common site. You would be driving along nicely and all the sudden just sink. Thankfully Kurt had a winch and was able to pull everyone out.

Gotta use those muscles! :)

This beaver dam was where we decided to call it quits. The kids and guys had fun breaking it down and letting the water out. 

It's impressive how much water the beaver dams hold back. We decided it wouldn't work out to head back the way we came with all the extra water so we climbed up the side of the creek and found our way to the road through the timber. Which was also an adventure. :)

((Hugs))

My pretty little redneck. :) Thankfully she let me put that tooth out!

Summer Summary (August)

Finally, I'm getting a little closer to being up to date with the blog! August was another busy month. The kids enjoyed having friends over a couple times, Ethan did football camp and of course shopping for school supplies is always a treat. :) Here's of few pictures of the end of our summer!

Watch out for these crazy drivers!

The kids got some fun experiment kits for their birthdays this year from Aunt Ang. Here they are creating a volcano. We are also growing crystals, which has been a lot of fun too.

Another end of summer event, the Dekalb Supper. This year Rick Santorum joined us.

Allison enjoys dumping out all the toys so she can stack the boxes. Seriously what fun is that? She also loves building towers out of blocks and knocking them over. Which seems a lot more fun to me, a lot smaller mess too. :)

Some of my flowers turned out pretty well this year, despite the lack of rain this summer.

Love zinnias!

We spent lots of time in the coalmine watching the guys ride.

Elijah is getting faster and faster!

If you're friends with me on Facebook you've already seen this one. The big kids told me one day that Anton was using a shovel to lift a mean chicken we have, so he could get her egg. I thought this was hilarious so a grabbed my camera next time he wanted to gather eggs. 

See it works! :) This kid is crazy about gathering eggs! Next year we'll have to get more chickens so he has more eggs to gather.

Amelia's first day of second grade. 

Ethan's first day of 5th grade. 

Elijah's first day of preschool!