Bang, crash!...well, what do we have here?

I sort, I wash, I dry, I fold, but I don't empty pockets.  When I do laundry, I figure if you wore it, and you put stuff in the pockets, it is your job to take the stuff out before you put your clothes in the hamper.

This can be dangerous, considering I'm married to a farmer.

However, it's also entertaining, considering he still wears the clothes that had the permanent marker in the pocket, and yes, I still wear the clothes that had the pink Chapstick in the pocket.  So this is NOT me pointing fingers, but I do want to tell you about one particularly exciting, and downright shocking, experience I recently had with our clothes dryer.

Here we go...

A few of these items are fairly standard...

Carpenter's Pencil.  Yes, to be a farmer you must be a "jack of all trades"...carpenter, plumber, electrician, welder, accountant, agronomist, chemist, biologist, wildlife behavior and nutrition expert, human resource manager, etc.

Pretty standard stuff here.  A few washers and a screw, although I'm surprised I didn't get a puncture wound from that one.

Alan Wrench, left over from the assembly of the crib.  Farmers, with their "jack of all trades" talents and their "I've seen in all, so this is no big deal" senses of humor, make GREAT husbands and are WONDERFUL fathers, if you don't mind the constant flow of mud/grease/dirt/smell of diesel fuel into your home, can be a mostly-single Mom 9 months of the year, and can handle phone calls like "Um, Jeremy's driving himself to the emergency room and he's bleeding pretty badly, you might want to meet him there." :-)

Told you I wasn't going to point fingers. Check out this collection of bobby pins I found...yep, those are mine :)

Pretty pink hair accessories...the kids certainly help with the collection of goodies that is building up in my laundry room.

 But NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING prepared me for the sound of what I thought was the dryer self-destructing and possibly igniting into a fiery ball of lint and Carhartt coveralls.  I had just put in a load of work clothes, and I do mean WORK clothes.  This load was so muddy they could have stood up on their own, and they bore the smell of manure from when Jeremy helped the neighbors move some heifers (young female bovines). 

All I heard was this HORRIBLE banging and crashing. I took a deep breath, opened the door of the dryer and what to my wondering eye did appear, but ten HUGE nails!  Together they must weigh a pound.

What the...!!??

It may be time for me to add a new step in my laundry routine...checking pockets :)

Oh, and here's a fun game for this Marvelous Monday, I'll send ten bucks (seriously) to the person can identify this item that I found in my dryer. I bet my fellow farming Mama's will be able to identify it, and I'm betting I'm not the first parent who's had a kiddo rip one of these off.

  

Have a GREAT week everyone!  - Sarah :)

p.s. And if you're having a not-so-marvelous Monday, consider this...

"Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you." - Peter 5:7, NIV.

My Baby Made Me Clean My Desk

This past week has been C-R-A-Z-Y!

I'm coordinating a conference that's 100 miles away next week and we've had everything from pinkeye, to the stomach flu, to chest colds, come through the house taking out one or more members of my family at a time.  Did I mention my dear husband (who I am very proud of) was out of town for three days while speaking at the Manitoba-North Dakota Zero Tillage Farmer's Association conference?


Here's what I looked like a few days ago:


(photo from http://www.cgiardini.com/)

I was lovely, really lovely.  The bonus is that I only had pinkeye in ONE eye, so instead of looking totally albino, I just looked like I was in a bar fight. 

At one point last week, I commented that I had so many irons in the fire, I was surprised my whole desk hadn't burst into flames.

A friend commented back, that it was actually National Clean Off Your Desk Day.

It really was.

Ha...ha...ha... :-)

I thought, clean off my desk!? WHEN am I going to have time to do THAT!?

And then it happened.

Baby boy got his 6 months shots, was up all night Monday night with a fever and had to stay home from daycare yesterday. 

However, I still had a TON of work to get done.

So here's the view from my desk chair yesterday...



















Oh you can't imagine the joy my litle assistant got from ripping papers off my desk and flinging them onto the floor, giggling/shrieking/squealing the whole time!

It was AMAZING how quickly I got my desk cleaned off and files put away that I've been wanting to file for months :)

He can't talk yet, but it was in fact, my baby that made me clean my desk.

Today, I breath a sigh of relief.  Baby is well again. Desk is clean.  Ahhhh.....

Now it's back to work for me!

Thanks for stopping by! - Sarah :)

Three little words that mean so much.

Photo courtesy of the Jamestown Sun.  Team Wilson in the 2010 4th of July Parade. It takes a strong man to push a stroller.

We (and I mean, Jeremy, myself, all three kiddos, and a partridge in a pear tree) recently returned from a 12 day jaunt to the east coast to visit family and friends for the holidays.  It was wonderful, crazy, joyful and stressful, but overall an incredible blessing. 

I'm grateful we could swing this, afterall, for the first half of 2011 we wondered if we'd even have a crop to sell. God has been so good to us, and so has Delta's frequent flier miles program. 

I am glad that we achieved what we had set out to accomplish- to catch up with friends and family we hadn't seen in ages, to introduce them to our baby boy and to help my Mom go through some of my childhood belongings and "downsize". 

Baby Boy Wilson is already six months old!

The downsizing process was quite the blast from the past.  Did you know that around 1985, I got a Pound Puppies watch? Did you know that little girls (including my daughter) are still drawn to Pound Puppy watches? ("Hey Mom...w..w...what's that? Can I have it?"- C.W.) Some items just HAD to be passed on and packed for the return trip to North Dakota :)

Pound Puppies!

Even Santa somehow knew that we'd be at Mom and Dad's for the holidays and dropped off gifts under the tree and stuffed the stockings that were hung by the chimney with care.

It was such a joy and a comfort to sit and visit with our loved ones.  They all asked what we were up to and Jeremy would always answer them with "Sarah and I farm..." 

So here are the three little words that mean so much to me.  Yes, "I love you" coming from my dear husband means a lot, but even more than that "Sarah and I", reinforcing that our farm business is a team effort and we're in this thing together.

Those three words, "Sarah and I", warmed my heart more than Grandma Joan's famous baked pineapple.

Grandma Joan and C.W.  Love you, Grandma Joan!

I recall sitting at a milk marketing meeting that I had set up when I was working as a dairy extension educator in Minnesota in 2004.  A very successful young dairyman and his wife were part of the group and when we got around the table to their place in the introductions, he said "Rachelle and I"...as he continued to describe their farm..."and, well, without her I wouldn't be able to do what I do".  He continued his introduction with compliments on how well she handles the bookkeeping for the farm (and she really is GREAT at that) and how they work together on so many things in their business.
I remember thinking to my (single at the time) self how rare it was to hear a farmer so forthright with compliments for his wife, and I silently hoped that someday I could be part of a marriage and a farm business partnership like theirs.

And now here I am, "Jeremy and I", farming and raising a family together.

Praise be to God for bringing us together.  Praise be to God for friends and family, especially Kraig and Rachelle, for the joy the Christmas season brings, for safe travels and for time to reconnect with my little family, even if it was over something as simple as Pound Puppies :)

Great ag books for kids...now with lesson plans!

It's no secret that I LOVE Rebecca ("Becky") Long Chaney's set of three children's books, written along with her twin daughters, Rianna & Sheridan! She's been a dear friend of mine since my days as a dairy princess and now, just in time for Christmas, her books now have lesson plans to accompany them!  These are my favorite books for leading story time for preschoolers and elementary-aged kiddos and there's still time to order them for Christmas gifts! I got four sets for family members!

Here's the scoop...

"Eight-Year-Old Authors Sheridan and Rianna Chaney are proud to bring you the third book in the "The Chaney Twins' Series." This book, "Star Becomes A Mother," is a sequel to book number one, "Little Star, Raising Our First Calf." In this endearing third book, the girls see Star become a mother herself, and watch as she nurtures her newborn calf that the twins have immediately named, "Starstruck." The story focuses on many facets of the beef industry and the good care farmers and ranchers give their animals no matter what the weather.

All three books are 32 pages and are full of captivating color photographs by professional photographer and the books' co-creator Kelly Hahn Johnson of Sharpsburg, Md. The easy-to-read text geared toward preschool and elementary-aged children has been selected by numerous Farm Bureau groups, Ag in the Classroom programs and county and state cattle women's organizations across the country as their “Accurate Ag Books.” Book #2, “Mini Milk Maids on the Mooove,” featuring the dairying industry, received the Ohio Farm Bureau's prestigious “Children's Literary Award.”

The books' editor Rebecca Long Chaney and twins' mother is thrilled “The Chaney Twins' Series” continues to make such an impact with ag education and is teaching children about animal agriculture.

Lesson plans have been developed for all three books. They are available in downloadable form on the Pennsylvania Beef Council web site at www.pabeef.org

Books are $12 each plus tax and postage, or for the three book-“Bundle” special, the set is $30 plus postage. For more information or to place an order, call Rebecca at 301-271-2732 or email her at chaneyswalkabout@aol.com, or place an order directly from her web site at Rebeccalongchaney.com. Box discount specials are available for agricultural groups. Email Rebecca for details."



One little birdie can make one big mess.

This little episode happened way back in the spring, but I stumbled on these pictures and thought I'd share them at this time of thanksgiving.

I am thankful that my children are learning so many important lessons about God's creation on our farm.

One of these lessons is that sometimes God's wonderful creatures can make things messy on the farm :)

Like the little birdie that worked so hard to make this nest....way up inside the conveyor underneath the trailer we bought.  So when Jeremy turned on the conveyor for the first time to put fertilizer into the air cart so that he could distribute it in the field, it caused an instant backup and overflow of said fertilizer, which in turn, caused said farmer to have to clean up said fertilizer with that handy-dandy shovel in the background.  Isn't he lucky that his wife gave him that shovel as a wedding present?  Seriously...but that's another story for another day :) 

As always, Jeremy made the best of a messy situation, and used it as a teaching moment.

He brought over the nest and let the girls, who were helping us to chauffer Jeremy to assorted farm equipment that day, take a looksie.

The wee red head, ever the brave and fearless kiddo, practically dove right in.

Meanwhile, C.W., our calculated, more cautious daughter, wasn't quite so sure about it.

She came around, and we still talk about the little birdie nest. 

What lessons are you thankful for that your children have learned about nature?

Wilson Family Halloween

It was the wee-ist Wilson's first Halloween! Our little guy (4 months old now!) went as Curious George.  I made this costume with a $6 brown sweatsuit, a printout of George's face from pbskids.com that I laminated and some plastic bananas from the girls' play kitchen.  I put C.W.'s old brown gloves on his feet, and we strapped the bananas to them.  The bananas kept him entertained him the whole evening!

...and I was "The Ma'am in the Yellow Hat".  If you're not up on your Curious George facts, the "Man in the Yellow Hat" is who takes care of George :)

The wee redhead was "a pwincess wid uh cwown an uh wand".  If you don't speak two  year old, that's "a princess with a crown and a wand".  Earlier in the week she kept saying she wanted to "cawwy a WASP", but indeed, she meant WAND :)

C.W. was "Wonder Woman".  Yes, after much deliberation, this frugal farm wife coughed up 20 bucks for a few bits of shiny material held together with velcro.  In the past I have always made the girls' costumes, or used hand-me-downs, but this year precious sleep won out over what would have inevitably been a costume making all-nighter.

The big hit of the night was Wonder Woman's super hero partner..."Super Papa".  Straight out of the field, he donned a cape, mask, and T-shirt with iron-on logo, along with his Wheatgrower's stocking cap, Carhartt pants and muddy work boots, and was a REAL super hero to our little girl that night :)

Halloween would be MUCH more convenient for us if it was in, oh, maybe March, instead of smack in the middle of corn harvest, but all in all, it was a GREAT night for the Wilson family!

THANKS to Grandma E. for being our "official photographer" :)

 For a fun walk down Wilson Family Halloween memory lane, check out this blog post from last year.  I had just returned home from 21 days in Germany...what a difference a year makes :)

 http://farmeronamission.blogspot.com/2010/11/hello-again-readers-happy-belated.html

Be a Blessing

I have found that in life, the more I think about my problems, the larger they seem to be.  That's not to say that I think I should ignore big issues in my life and not deal with them, but more often than not, I just have to "let go and let God".  However, I'm the kind of person that doesn't sit still very long, so when I "let go and let God", I need somewhere else the expend the energy I was using for worrying.

The best way to use this energy is to "be a blessing". 

It might be calling up a long-lost friend and reconnecting and letting them know you care, it might be visiting someone in the hospital or nursing home, maybe baking a batch of cookies or a hotdish (otherwise known as a casserole in parts of the U.S. other than North Dakota) for someone who is recovering from surgery or just had a new baby.  Maybe you buy lunch for the guy behind you in the drive thru, or just flash a smile and say "Have a nice day" to a passerby.  It doesn't have to cost money.  It doesn't have to take much time either, but if you seek out ways to be a blessing to others and make their day a little brighter, you will find yours gets a little brighter too.

"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." 1 Thessalonians 5:16 (NIV).