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.

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 :)

JP Loves Cotton!

I am often reminded of how diverse agriculture really is.  I am generally focused on the production of food, but there is SO much more to agriculture, including, fuel, pharmaceuticals, and fiber.  One of those wonderful fibers is COTTON.  I LOVE COTTON!  I love wearing it, I love how easily it washes, I love that it comes from farm fields right here in the good old USA.  But noone I ever met loves cotton as much as JP loves cotton. 

I met JP at the 2010 Ag Chat 2.0 training in Chicago.  I think she smiled the entire weekend.  She's my kind of gal. 

If you like my blog and following my random adventures raising kids, corn, wheat, soybeans, pinto beans and cover crops, but would be interested in slightly more urban flair, and array of different agricultural products (like rice) you've GOT to check out JP's blog:

http://jplovescotton.com/

Special THANKS to JP for mentioning me as one of the "Farm Mom Blogs" she reads (I'm a latecomer in the comments section).

http://jplovescotton.com/blogs-i-read/blogging-home-family-farm/


Oh, and special thanks to JP for snapping this rare footage of the elusive Val Wagner and I in the wild :)

Wordless Wednesday: Faith, Hope, Love.

C.W., my four year old daughter, took this picture when our wee little man was brand new. This week he'll be 12 weeks old. My how the time does fly.

"...And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love".

1 Corinthians 13:13.

A Hunger For Faith-Based Ag Education

A vacation bible school student greets a calf at Entzminger Dairy, Jamestown, ND, as part of a lesson on "creation".


This time last year, I wrote this guest blog post for a dear friend and an "agvocate" I admire greatly, Michele Payn-Knoper at Cause Matters Corp. , about the concept of faith-based agriculture education. THANKS Michele for this opportunity!


Thought you all might be interested in seeing it since it's back to school time and as a farm wife and mother of a pre-kindergarten student, I'm thinking of what is being said about agriculture in the classroom and what I can do to help tell the story of agriculture both in and out of the classroom...

A Hunger For Faith-Based Ag Education

Enjoy!
Sarah :)