Category: Country Life

Catching up on our family news…

We got some snow on the valley floor in Oregon just last week! We don’t get this “white stuff” very often around here, so even when it’s just a tiny itsy little bit…..it’s a giant colossal big deal to our kids. Late school start and it didn’t take long for the three of them to gear up, knock the dust off their sleds and head out for a hill to sled down.

Also another update, we moved to the home place! Which means, yes, I now live in the same house that I grew up in (no it’s not weird, don’t make it weird!). We switched houses with my parents so they live off the farm for the first time in 40 years and we are back on the farm raising the next generation.

It’s been so great to be here, through harvest and starting school again, the holidays, and getting back into the swing of the upcoming spring season. It has taken a little getting used to, like any big move, but the kids love it and I love being here and more helpful even when the kids are home.

Plus we are on a much less busy road and so we added a new family member this fall….Booker the Border collie. He’s super smart, except when he’s being super dumb, and he’s been a great companion for all of us.

Harvest Kids – Photo Friday

This is one of my most favorite photos that I took this summer. Harvest was tough on us this year. The weather, while hot, was consistent and good for seed harvesting conditions. But mentally it was very draining and long. Every field was a different challenge, a different scenario, sort of like choose your own disaster (instead of adventure) for how you wanted to handle what was happening. Some of that had to do with pests like voles, other things were more challenging like seed shatter due to the high heat wave we had during cutting, add that to an overall dry spring, topped off with the usual equipment breakdowns and harvest juggling.

But this photo, and the ones below, show my favorite part; sharing harvest with our kids. They love being out in the field with us during harvest. Either playing in the dirt, riding on the combine or helping Matt take a truck in to the cleaner to dump seed. Their love for the field is something that will never get old for me as a farm mom and hopefully never get old for them either!

The Start to Harvest & Dinner in the Field

Harvest like most of 2020 hasn’t proven to be “the best” quite yet. The weather has been questionable for the start to summer; which has made it a slow start for harvesting our seed crops.

I looked up at my dinner menu today and had to laugh. It looks like this….

And to be seeing that just a few days into harvest makes me want to scream and (mostly) laugh all at once. It will all get done, I know that. But the stress level of farming can drastically change from day to day and even hour to hour this time of year. Which means I am either cooking for 10 to go or cooking for 5 for at home. Which as I’m writing this doesn’t seem like a lot, but the beer you have to pack for “to go”…it’s a lot (haha!).

So for now I will just keep waiting for that sun to shine, just like pretty much every farmer here in the Willamette Valley and if you’re hungry, and can follow that menu, send me your orders 😉