Wordless Wednesday

 Happy & Safe Harvesting!
Ashley

Barley Harvest

 Our neighbor helping us bale the straw.

 Chugging away, two days ago we had a half an inch of rain and were able to get back at it last night.

 The sunset was so beautiful last night!

 Full to the brim and ready to dump.

 Our son is obsessed, got in an hour or so before bedtime.

 Getting ready to ride home in the grain truck with Grandpa.

Happy HOT Friday!!!!! Heat warning again today!

Ashley

My favorite time of year

This (and calving season) are my absolute favorite times of the year! When we get to harvest the fruits of our labor is such a great feeling. And even more so when the harvest is plentiful! I love watching the grain fill up the combine hopper. I love watching it pour out of the auger and into the truck with the sun setting in the background and the crisp night starts to wrap it's arms around us. I love the smells of harvest, the air just smells different. (Thank goodness I don't fight with allergies) I love wearing sweaters and sleeping with the windows open. Drinking coffee on my verandah in my slippers and a sweater wrapped around me. Something else I love so much about harvest is that it takes all our family to make it happen. It is a lot of family time, maybe not always happy happy happy if you get my drift but none of this would happen without effort put forth from all of us. Even the kids. They LOVE riding and being a part of what's going on. We try to limit their time in the fields for safety reasons but the fact that my son usually knows more about what's going on out there than I do makes me pretty proud. If his love of farming continues, we will be so proud when he wants to farm the family farm some day. So, not only do I love harvest in the fields, I love harvesting my garden as well. It's not huge but it's producing! Here are some pictures of my favorite time of year so far. We are not yet combining....could be today, tomorrow or the next day. Still trying to dry the barley out that sat in the rain last week.

 Swathing barley. We were also swathing canola the same day but I did not get a picture.

 I have so far picked enough cucs to make eight jars of pickles and lots of fresh eating.

 And I think this is the earliest that I have some almost ripe tomatoes to pick! Yum!

Have a great day!

Ashley

This N' That

 Life has been so very busy. We can see the end of the oats now, and hopefully the canola is done today. Then it's the sunnies and they aren't far away either. I can't wait to put this harvest behind us. We started harvesting on August 16. It is now October 15........So almost 2 months to the date we have been start and stop combining on a crop that with nice weather should normally take us roughly two weeks! Anyways, I just love above picture of our little girl trying to blow on a dandelion.

I try to include both kids in baking once in awhile but it tests my patience and I have like -50 patience lately. It is easier when I don't have extra kids and I only have one extra now so things are much calmer around here lately. This pregnant momma needed to slow down and take a break.

Here we are working on oats, yep story of our life this year!!! And thank goodness we invested in a second combine this year because the other one has been giving us grief :(

 

And since we have a hundred other things on the go, why not start bringing the cows home???!! Lol. For some reason our simmental group came home two weeks earlier than the charolais group. They are up North at a PFRA pasture. The rest of our cows are around home.

 Here I am 28 weeks pregnant. Very hard to believe that in about three months we'll have a new family member!!

The hill of dirt if finally gone in front of my house, I just need to harrow it and plant grass/rye seed so I don't have dirt in front of my house next spring!

The kids got a new pet, someone passed down this goldfish to them. We need to get him a bigger tank but for now this will have to do. They still have yet to pick a name.

On Monday our silage crew showed up and chopped all 70 acres in one day. This is amazing to me because it usually takes us a week! (last year it took us a month---LOTS of breakdowns!!) This big self-propelled machine is just amazing, it chops super fast!! They did have to leave part of one field  because it was just too wet. They did get all three trucks stuck at least once and the machine once. But it's all done and it's nice to be able to stroke it off the to-do list.

 The silage pile.

We square baled the barley straw. We need to have squares for the barn for the winter.

 The other day Tanner went square baling with Grandma. Not very many kids can say they went baling with their Grandma! I had lots of leftovers from hosting Thanksgiving at our home Saturday night so that night I made a huge shepherd's pie for supper.

I FINALLY got some pictures of the fall colors, it's my favorite time of year and I'm soooooo guilty of using my phone to take pictures. I hate doing this because the pictures are never as nice as from an actual camera.

I was also quite disappointed in myself because I totally forgot to take any Thanksgiving pictures at all!

Anyways, Have a great day.
Ashley

I'm telling you, put meatballs in the freezer!

We can finally say we have two field combined under our belt! One oat field and one barley field. We had hoped to move onto canola today but as I was typing this it was raining once again! This time my mother-in-law operated the new to us combine with my Hubby in the other one. Uncle Bob was trucking and my father-in-law 'trying' to swath oats. They are tough to deal with this year as they are flat as a board. We also had a neighbor down baling straw for us.

SO of my wheels start turning. What are we going to have for supper today?? I had put a perogy/farmer sausage casserole in the slow cooker at lunch time for us. (at that point I was not sure how the day was going to turn out) But it would not be enough for everyone and wouldn't suit my father-in-law as he has Celiac. The other day I put a couple pounds of meatballs in the freezer. Just in case! Well I just pulled them out, cooked some rice and s/s sauce, corn for a veg and sliced fresh tomatoes. If my mother-in-law or sister-in-law are reading this I'm sure they are laughing at me. I just can't stop talking about how happy I was with myself to have been a little more prepared and organized for once! lol. There I was with a full spread of food on the table and I'm pretty sure I did not spend a whole hour preparing it. I will be using my freezer more often. Why have I not done this before! ha ha. Ok, I'm done now.

I forgot to mention how pleased my hubby was with me because I spoke for a new bed for Tanner that I seen for sale online. Just 15 minutes away. So Ali and I left at about 5:30 last night to go get it. That's another reason I was so pleased with myself. I got the bed and had supper ready by the time everyone walked in the door around 7:30-8pm. Then because they love me sooooo much, him and his Dad carried it in and even set it up after we had supper. ;)

We have a sick little girl on our hands, she did not sleep well last night for being completely plugged up. I thought she was a little warm this morning too but it might have just been because she just got out of her warm bed. She has been picking fights all day long with everyone! So I'm glad it's Friday and the weekend is just around the corner.

Ashley

Tired, but for a good reason!

Yesterday we were back at those oats again. It felt so good to get in the field and stay there till it was too tough to combine any longer. I have been itching to get out of the house and into the field for days now. Looking after extra kids day in and day out tends to make you feel house bound. So when everyone left yesterday I stole (mwahahahahahha) my Hubby's combine from him and took over. With my father-in-law in the second combine we were able to get something accomplished while the sun shone. Of course that demoted my Hubby to the trucking position. Let me tell you, trying to concentrate on driving a combine, trying to not get it plugged or wreck it in any other sort of way with a two and four year climbing the ceiling and walls in there is interesting to say the least! But I'm a mother, so multi-tasking is a piece of cake......right?;)

Once we were done, it was so nice to come home to a meal all ready for us. Big salute goes out to my slow cooker! ha ha. It has to be one the most wonderful inventions of all time.

So when my day was finally done (our kids were asking to go to bed and were out like lights) I was pooped. BUT I'm OK with being tired when we've been able to accomplish something. And that something is our crop laying out there, so that makes it a very important something.

Happy Harvesting!
Ashley

Combining, donuts and cinnamon buns

 Our little Ali is at the point now that whenever her brother heads out the door with Dad, she has to go too...except that is almost impossible. She is too young to be following Dad while he's busy in the field or working in the yard. So today when she was having a meltdown I promised her she could go inside and paint...well she was all over that! She was very excited to do that. I always feel guilty because I let her brother do stuff like this all the time even when he was younger than she is now...the story of the middle child..lol.

 And this morning I was craving a fresh homemade donut. So what does the pregnant lady do? Make donuts. I really have to curb my spontaneous cravings of food that I can actually make myself...because making donuts is not just a one hour episode!! It's an all afternoon affair. And then in between, I made cinnamon buns, laundry and made lunch for the guys. So by 5 pm. I was pooped. Which is the norm lately. But. I must say the fresh glazed donuts were soooooooooooooooo worth it ;)

 Plus a bonus! My little sister came out and helped me make them! We had a nice little visit.

 Me at 20 weeks preggo................

 Ali and I were waiting for Daddy to come around the field with the combine so we had some fun with the camera. We have the cutest little girl!!

 We found a pretty little Monarch sitting in the weeds. Ali loved it.

 Checked out our Sunnies across the road while we were waiting. I love them! I will NEVER forget that on our wedding day there was a field blooming at their peak right beside the place where we had our reception. Someone mentioned going and getting a picture while we were waiting to make our entrance. I said no, that we didn't have time. I will always REGRET that. Sigh.. So on our way to South Dakota for our honeymoon wouldn't you know we also seen lots of beautiful sunflower fields. We even stopped and took a picture in one. But it obviously did not erase my regret!!

 This is her 'Cheese!" lol. Hilarious.

 Combining the winter wheat.

 Just look at that little pigtail, she's adorable!

 I have always meant to take this picture right here and finally this year I did it. I just never took the time before.

Ali and I went for a round with the boys before we went and prepared supper...........at Subway ;)

Have a great night!
Ashley