finally and thankfully!

 Our first load of hay is in, finally! thankfully! As is usually the case my nephew was on hand to help out and this time so was my sister!! We figured out why families used to be so large, because it took that many people to get all the work done for survival! Here are a few pic from the day!

Yea! it's here! Who's going to make it to the top first?!

Dang! that's a lot of hay!

At first the work seems daunting! It's a labor of love and certainly like money on the bank!

No idea what he said, but he must have thought it funny, look at that sheepish grin!

Two hard working country girls! I love this picture!

Tossing in another bale! Photo credit: Jen L.

Two of the hardest working kids I know!

Working hard!

Bucking hay!

Bridger thought he'd be a big helper so he jumped up onto the wagon, turns out eh, not so much! My sister however was a big help! Thank you Jen!

YEA! We did it! We got it all in!!

Am I a big helper now Mom?

Cap'n Eli's ice cold root beer (which F.Y.I. is made in Maine and just so happens to be the worlds best root beer!) for a hard job done well!

I have a picture of the three of them in the hay loft from every year we've done this. I cannot believe how big they are getting!

chuck wagon...quite literally!

We had hay delivered the other day and it quite literally instantly turned into a chuck wagon or an all you can eat buffet. The llama, alpacas, and goats all took to it like a dog on a bone! I figured they were thinking, "Well isn't this convenient?! It's about time!"



I love this picture of Buckley, he's soooo expressive and looks as though he's just been caught doing something Blackberry told him he wouldn't get in trouble for. Hmph! Older brothers!

Hay Day #2

I spent the day doing hay with my kids; of course; and my nephew, another 150 bales in and not a complaint among them! It was very windy here today which was nice because it kept us cool, but was a bit of a pain because it blew the loose hay around us like we were inside a snow globe. At one point Andrew put his swimming goggles on to keep it out of his eyes, they didn't last long due to the fact he steamed them up almost instantly. Haying is hard but oh so rewarding work. Too cool off before dinner I took them to the lake, I'm surprised they had the energy to swim!We also dug potatoes and picked cucumbers to go with dinner tonight. After dinner cleaned up the pasted butts on the newest chicks. Out of 50 I think there were 6 that needed attention. Who but Twistie could make that fun?! After the butts were cleaned up they needed to be held to dry off, it was hard to find children willing to hold adorable baby fuzz balls, but I managed. ;-) So now as I write this the kids are getting ready for bed, we've got another early day tomorrow and it'll start with a taking the second batch of chicks; which are now beasts, to be harvested. I'm too exhausted to transfer and posts the pictures tonight, in fact I think I might even skip Army Wives tonight and head straight to bed! Thankfully the DVR is set to record it in the event that that is what I decide.

I am so thankful for these kids today, they worked as hard as I did and we had such fun. Not many kids; I know of a few, would be willing to work that hard or do work that hard and do it with a joyful heart. The best part of it all for me is that I never even had to ask for their help. I fully expect to do all the hay myself; I'm the farmer, and it is so nice that the kids help without being asked. I'm so proud of all of them.

100 bales in several more to go!

What to do for a birthday for a kid that has nearly everything, like so many American kids do?? Hummm...... Ding! (that's the sound of my brain coming up with a great idea!) I'll invite him down for a day on the farm! My nephew; whom you may have read about here, is like so many American kids that have more than everything they want and are nearly impossible to do anything for on special occasions, like birthdays. Well they don't call me Twistie for nothing! I printed up a flyer inviting him down in the summer for a day on the farm; the flyer said it entitled him to do farm things, like poop scoop, feed the animals, collect the eggs, lug water, stack hay, you know things the kids and I do everyday! You should have seen his face it was like I'd given him the moon! I had sort of planned to have him down at this time of year to really give him a whack at farm/country life by having him help with the hay. I've recently heard of "haycations" but thought I'd test the waters to see if it actually worked! ha ha! The hay was to arrive yesterday and I could use all the help I could get, as Garlic smashed my foot when I was picking out his feet the other night, due to his lack of balance, and I've got a pretty good idea I've got a broken bone or two in there. When the hay needs to be done it waits for no one, smashed foot or not. We had a dicey afternoon weather wise yesterday and it did not arrive, but was taken undercover, rain and hay do not mix well when you're looking at long term storage.... So the hay guy called and said it would be delivered in the morning. I was not about to let these kids be bored, so I came up with a new plan on the fly.

We pulled the garlic... Andrew lugged it to the porch...

We hung it up to dry...

We threw down the rest of last years hay to make room for this years hay...

They jumped into the hay which was stacked nearly to the top of the ladder... and did the evening barn chores. This was from 4 pm on. Three very tired children went to bed and slept as well as you can with the heat and a wiggly and notoriously gassy dog that they wanted to sleep with them not to mention the excitement of company! I'd have taken a picture but left the camera in the barn and was not about to limp back to the barn to get it. Though it was a great photo op!

Breakfast - fresh fruit and cereal! Isn't the fruit pretty?

The hay arrives and the heat does too, it's over 90 degrees and I've got 100 bales of hay to stack. Note, I do not have an elevator, yet, so each bale is lifted off and thrown overhead into the loft then stacked. It's hot, sweaty, scratchy, hard work but it smells SO good, not as good as second crop, which will come on another sweltering day in August but hay smells good and what a good job to have done. I'm so impressed with these kids, words cannot accurately describe how proud I am of them for their willingness to pitch in and help and only one or two complaints, and justified at that, it WAS hot!

That's a lot of hay, yet not even half of what I need for the year.

*My nephew thought this would make a good family picture so I let him take it. A hard working family!

Water break...

The hay is all unloaded and stacked in the barn in just shy of two hours!! We kicked butt and took names! I think that was the fastest unload in my history, I couldn't have done it without the help of my kids and my nephew. This is the From the Country Farm Hay Crew 2010 gulping down an ice cold root beer after a hard days work had been completed.

They told me it was the best root beer they'd ever tasted!

Seeing as how the hay essentially flew off the wagon and it was over 90 degrees and part of the overnight trip to the farm deal I took the kids to the lake to cool off. I was impressed, nobody drown from exhaustion! I was not however impressed with the language of the people around us or the couple having a fight at the picnic table not 15 feet from us. Talk about a way to ruin a trip to the beach! Needless to say, we didn't stay long.

One night ended up turning into two nights because of the hay and tomorrows plans, which is no big deal, he's having a good time as are Faith and Andrew and when I drop him off tomorrow and his mom tucks him in bed it'll be like "Good Night Son, see you next Tuesday!"
So what did I give my nephew for his birthday? Hopefully a lifetime of fond memories. (and maybe a good night's sleep.)

like money in the bank...

I've been at the wood pile for a while now splitting and stacking and this is the result as it stands currently. Having purchased a new chain for the chain saw helped speed up the process immensely! Lola, (my axe) worked wonders, took a bit of getting used to but works wonders just the same. I love the feeling I get when I split a foot+ diameter chunk of wood in half with one swing of the axe! It's powerful! I've still got a bit more to do but I don't mind, it's kind of therapeutic! While reading this past summer I came across a saying, I do not recall exactly how it went but I remember thinking I completely understood the sentiment. It went something like this..... '.....having extra hay in the barn, wood in the shed and ____________ is like money in the bank......'

The above picture is just part of the loft full of this years hay, what a long hard couple days of work it is, but what a sense of peace that comes along once it's done.