Low Stress Farming

Dear Farmer came in yesterday and did his electrician thing. Wired up the outlets for a brilliant chuck wagon, the "sock" and the "shoe". Then we took a walk in the garden with children howling beside us (they are the local natives). He decided to get gas and took three daughters with him. When he came home, it still wasn't bedtime. What is this strange life? We call it " low stress".  No need for a pot of coffee and an hour of pacing to get worked up enough to walk out the door. No bombardment of phone calls or emails. For anyone wondering if it's worth it to make a major lifestyle change or have a stroke...do the change!!!

What we changed to:
Pay cut
Tiny house
Smaller herd
Bigger garden
More time
New job
Moved location

No Regrets!

Dear Farmer's New Day Job

So, we kinda left you hanging.  We were hanging too...
but now we know what's going on!

Dear Farmer has left the fields full time to tackle another aspect of farming, while the family farms during the day.  Dear Farmer's new day job is at an organic soybean processing plant.  What's he doing?  He's running the plant.  Actually, he's firing up the machines and running the soybeans to them in order for the machines to process the soybeans.  BY HIMSELF!  {sigh, he's so amazing!}
While Dear Farmer is gone during the day the Wife and the children are farming the garden, preparing for the goats and the chickens, and cutting a lot of grass.  The "Sock" and the "Shoe" suit us very perfectly, we find.  We are people that like to be out-doors rather than in-doors.  We like to spend time together, rather than cleaning.  And we are minimalists...well, some of us more than others.

The largest challenge of Dear Farmer's new position...we are in a location that doesn't have internet.
The Wife didn't know how much email was  part of life.  And grabbing information off the world wide web. And GPS. Messaging.  Blogging. 
It's a bit of a pain, but everything has challenges.

Like Dear Farmer's new day job, a job he's never done before. Never even thought it existed.  But he's doing it to spend more time doing what he loves most...spending time with his family, and farming.

I love this Dear Farmer!

Blogging Standing Up

The joys of moving include...Blogging Standing Up.  Literally the chair has been packed, but not the computer...yet.  Is it possible for a large family to move in ten days?  Answer: yes.  However, that "yes" comes at an expense.  Little sleep, the children being out of the house, no meals being made, or ate, and no social activities what-so-ever!  So, for each piano lesson add one day more of packing.  If you have to even think of breakfast, add four hours more of packing.
We are twenty-four hours away from our goal of being done packing in ten days. Now, breakfast is going to be REAL interesting...because I have no idea of whether or not I have pots...I think the Haus Frau packed them...
Next blog in a week from "The Shoe"!
Keeping Calm and Farming On....

Jell-O: part of the Tapestry of Family

There is an art in the family that appears on the buffet line at every family gathering...the Jell-O.
In our family, the Jell-O rarely comes plain...there's always an additive.  The additive makes it stretch further, and gives it some sort of health(maybe). The Amazing Farm-Wife tells me she will only use a couple boxes of the gelatin concoction...so the additive is that much more important.
Here's the Jell-O's we know best:
Lime with cabbage shredded in
Lime with cottage cheese mixed in
Orange with cottage cheese mixed in
Orange and Lime both got carrots and sliced celery
Pineapple mixed in with just about any flavor

Our family has a special list of favorites, because there's people that we have had over for dinner that do not understand/like the wonderful taste of cabbage shredded into their Jell-O:
Raspberry with Raspberry Pie Filling
Peach with Peach Pie Filling
Blue with Blueberry Pie Filling
Strawberry with (did you guess it?) Fresh strawberries!

Old-timers remember Jell-O plain gelatin with veggies and hard boiled eggs in a wonderful visual display, but it takes a little getting used to for younger people...

Regardless how the Jell-O comes, it's always served with love, laughter, and a whole bunch of great people!

Threads of a Multi-Generational Family

There's lots of great things about being part of our big family.  But the Wife's favorite part is that there's a bunch of people!  Grandma, the Amazing FarmWife, had just left the arena of "mother of little children" when us older grandchildren were born.  Thus creating a multi-generational family setting for all of us to grow up in. The Wife was growing up with Aunts and Uncles, our Great-Grandmother was a presence in our daily lives.
It was always an adventure to go to Grandma's house...with her revolving door.  First one there got the beds!  As a younger child, I just prayed we'd be late, so I could sleep in the living room on the floor and listen to my mother and her siblings stay up late and laugh as they told stories!

 Three of the Wife's favorite movies are: Cheaper by the Dozen(1950 film), With Bells on their Toes(1952 film), and My Big Fat Greek Wedding(2002 film).
(The first two are books also, read the books!!! The movie, however, was good as well.)
The reason these were/are the Wife's favorites are because of the family situations, and close to real life!
When Frank Gilbreth, Sr. answers the question: are these all your children?  And he says, "Yes, they are, and it's NO PICNIC!" About him children are hooting and hollering...That's the Wife's life on a daily basis now...but I am sure the Amazing FarmWife had her own moments of chaos.
Films that mirror our own lives and give laughter to all the hard times we weren't laughing at; that's therapy.

Upcoming we have a wedding in the family...it's the first wedding in a long time. A family tradition is to compose a song to sing to the Bride and Groom, based on their favorite musical...a tradition that was started some twenty years ago.  The more family who comes to the wedding, the more singers there are.  Sometimes the crew has even had time for props and choreography.
We watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding with Uncle Photographer-he's all excited about another new family tradition: spitting on the bride.  All this time, we had no idea our family was so Greek!

The best parts of being in a large family are bunches and bunches of people!  In our family, that's bunches of laughter, bunches of love, and bunches of support in every and all situations.  All these threads, woven into a beautiful tapestry of Family.

A Mission and a Message

Honorable Son No. 1 has always been a "man with a mission".
His catch phrase is, "Living the American Dream!"
What is that????  Check it out on his blog...farmingthedream.com
I know that you'll enjoy it as much as we do!

Country Hospitality: Example E

Part of Country Hospitality is making sure that you don't care what the other person looks like...the Wife had just gotten out of her robe and thrown her hair helter-skelter(not suburb ready by any means, not even a lick of make-up on!) The neighbor was a little more polished than the Wife.  She had been to the store.
She lives down the road quite a way.
She drives past the farm everyday, saw that we were outside and thought, "Today is it! I'm stopping!"
So glad she did.
She grew up on a beef cattle ranch in N Dakota.  Where her oldest brother(who just turned 80) carries on.  His son, in his 60s is trying to convince his dad it might be time to take it a little slower.  At least, just ride the ATV, instead of the horses, to check the fence lines. She's the youngest of 12 children!  Most of them still live in N Dakota, she's one of the few who doesn't and misses being there with the family.
She made this comment, I think you'll love: "Farming works this way. You clock in when you're five and you clock out when you die."
She's right.  I gets in your blood.  The hardwork, the ethic, the appreciation, the smell of fresh air, the quiet of the breeze and sound of the grass.
It's a great place to raise a family, that's for sure!
Now her son, grown with a family of his own, raised on his parents small farm down the road-lives in town. Guess what he does every weekend?  Takes his children to the farm.  So they can grow up with a taste of what he grew up with, which is what she considered so important, with a taste of what her father considered the most important way to raise his family.
Apparently she's familiar with Country Hospitality...because she drove up in the driveway and popped out to have a chat.