Farming update

Spring is a crazy, busy time when you farm. We had thought that harvest time would be the hardest time of the year, but we are finding that spring is harder on our family than harvest is. I didn't realize just how much went into getting crops planted and started well. After completing his first year of farming with Grandpa, John was given the option to rent a field from his granpda and try his hand at farming on his own. He was excited for the opportunity. They rotate between soy and corn and this was the year for that particular field to grow soybeans. He was still working with his grandpa with the rest of the land. But for this field, he gets to make all the decisions. So whereas before he was more of a farm hand, he is now an official farmer and is farming 140 acres of beans.

It's been a rough first year. The Midwest had unusually high amounts of rainfall this spring. Many fields were not able to handle all the water and just couldn't drain well before the next round of heavy rain came through. There are many farmers who were never able to plant their fields this year and it is sad to see that land just sitting fallow. Unfortunately, John's field was one that had trouble with draining. Every time we get a heavy rain, he has two lakes and a river on his land. He did buy crop insurance this year and that mandates that your crops must be planted by June 15th. (Mid-June is really late to start your planting.) Many farmers had to plant late this year because they had to wait for the water to go down first. John didn't plant until June 13th. He had to plant in less than ideal conditions because he had to meet that planting deadline. He had a lot of plants that never popped up or got drowned, so he wound up replanting parts of his field. Things were going well for awhile after that and then it poured and poured again. The standing water killed several acres of his beans and there was not time to replant them again. (It's not his lack of experience causing any of this. This has happened to many around here.) But he does have beans that are alive and growing well. It does look like he will be making a claim on that crop insurance this year. That will not provide as much income as actually selling beans would have. We are praying that we at least break even but are unsure how everything is going to turn out financially. The price of soybeans is really low right now. Please keep this situation in your prayers.

Due to all the craziness caused by the weather, spring was really stressful. John was working 14 hour days, six days a week, for about six weeks straight and it was really hard on our family. That is why I said spring is worse than fall. We were very happy for the opportunity to take a family camping trip over the 4th of July weekend. We really needed the family time. (More about that trip later.) But one bright spot to John farming his own field is that he can incorporate the kids a little. The weeds have been killer this year, since they love all this extra rain and they had extra time to grow before planting started. John had already sprayed his weeds a couple times and was not crazy about the idea of doing that a third time. So John had the idea to hire the boys to come and pull weeds in his field. They jumped at the chance to earn some money and spent several hours weeding by hand this summer. It was good bonding time with dad. They are getting bigger, so they were actually helpful and made good progress. They all bought new Legos and Hot Wheels with their earnings. :)

Once things were growing well, life got to slow down for summer. For us, this means that instead of working until 9:30pm, John comes home by 6 (and sometimes just after 5) and he also gets Saturdays off again. We were all thankful to have more time with him again and were looking forward to our trip to Branson.

We are about to gear up for fall. John and the other guy who works for grandpa just took a week off from work. It is now time to start preparing things for harvesting. The crops are not all quite ready to be harvested yet, but there is plenty of prep work to be done before we get to that point. John is back to working Saturdays again now. I'll let you know how everything turns out with John's field.

Getting ready to plant his beans

I can pull weeds too, mama. Can I have some money??

April

I had started telling you about our spring and then abruptly stopped. Here are the April highlights.

- Luke and Nathanael were both memory masters again in our Classical Conversations program. The end of year ceremony was very nice and we were happy that John's grandparents were able to attend and see what CC is all about. They treated the kids to dessert afterwards. We did not really fit in with our CC group here and never really made good friends. It felt like most people in that group had lots of friends already and they didn't really need any new ones. So there was not a lot of effort made to include the new family. Our group was also 40 minutes away in a suburb of Omaha (there is no group in western Iowa). As a tutor, I had to be there early to set up. I am still not at all a morning person, so getting up so early to drive in was really hard on the kids and I. Add to that my lonliness and the fact that I had seven 9 year old energetic boys and I was completely drained by the end of the year. After some prayer, we decided not to return to CC the following year. We are just going to stay home and do traditional homeschooling, but we will still incorporate the CC materials, as I have all that stuff and I still think it's an excellent program. We all have peace about this decision.


-We decided to forgo the traditional Easter celebration this year. It is hard to not be able to do what we used to do on special days, so we are making new traditions and new memories here. This year, we decided to celebrate a simple version of a Messianic Passover, complete with a Seder meal. I did a lot of research and found some scripts on how to do it and what to say. I made a Seder meal and we celebrated at home. It was totally awesome and brought so much more meaning to our Easter celebration. We all enjoyed it very much and have decided to make this an annual tradition. We may try to join a Messianic Jewish congregation one year for Passover, but it was good to have this first experience at home so we could explain everything to the children. On Easter Sunday, we went to church, watched Fiddler on the Roof, and then had dinner at a local park with John's aunt & uncle and grandparents.

Seder Plate (I'm going to order a real plate for next year.)

Table set with my late grandmother's china

John breaks the middle matzah

About to eat our meal

Looking for the hidden matzah!

I found one!

Look what I turned in my matzah for!

-John and I celebrated our 11th anniversary and I celebrated my 21st birthday. *cough cough cough* For my birthday/anniversary/Mother's Day gift I asked John if we could take the family down to Branson to the Sight and Sound Theatre there to see Jonah. (https://www.sight-sound.com/) John and I have been to the Lancaster location twice before and enjoyed the musicals we saw. I wanted the children to experience it. I knew that would have to wait until after spring time. Farmers do not take time off in April (or May or June....) So that trip was planned for sometime in August. (We just returned and I'll tell you about that in another post.) I ordered Georgetown Cupcakes for my birthday so I could have a little piece of home. (These are the cupcakes featured in the TLC show DC Cupcakes. They are the best cupcakes we have ever tasted and nothing here even compares.)

mmmmmm..... cupcakes!!

-Luke hit double digits! He was so excited, and mama was so sad! I can't believe I have a 10 year old! Where has the time gone??!? I'll have another one hit double digits next year. Yikes! This birthday was a little bittersweet as his "bigness" was showing when he requested to not have a party or go to a special place or have a birthday cake. (We used to do theme parks instead of parties, but the closest one is now 2.5hrs away.) Instead, he asked if we would be ok with spending a little more money on his gift. The boys are really into Lego Technic sets right now and those sets are not cheap, and he knows it. Then he asked if he could have a Dutch Apple Pie with vanilla ice cream on top. Those who know me well will know that I love making my kids really cool looking birthday cakes. So it was kind of sad to not make him one this year. Gluten free pies that taste great are very difficult to make, so I do not make pies very often. Pie is special around here. I told him that we could do that and also have caramel on top. He loved that idea. He did get his first Technic set and some motors to run it with and was a very happy boy. He's getting really tall. I think I only have a year or two max left before he passes me in height.

Birthday present delight- Lego stuff!

Easter 2015

So how do you like Iowa??

I'm so behind on blogging again. Sorry! I am going to attempt to remedy that with the next several posts.

April was a difficult month for me and that is why the blogging stopped. As the one year anniversary of our move approached, I really began to struggle with homesickness. It is not something that I was aware of at first. In fact, I didn't even realize why I was was feeling so down. People are always asking if I like it here and if it feels like home. I always respond that I haven't been here long enough to truly answer that question and I brush it aside. To be truthful, I say that because I really just don't want to think about it. But as the one year anniversary approached, I did begin to think about that question. Things aren't like I had hoped they would be by this point. I really don't fit in here and I feel like I stand out in pretty much every area of my life here. Church life isn't what I thought it would be like. Our CC group wasn't what I thought it would be like. Farm life isn't what I thought it would be like. But God is using it all to refine me. He is faithful to meet me at my need as I reach out to him. He even told me one day that he understood homesickness. Jesus had to leave the home he loved to come to this sin filled world and he didn't fit in and no one he met understood him. He knows what I am going through. Only for me, I didn't leave a perfect home and have to suddenly deal with being around sin, so it must have been even harder for him. No, it doesn't feel like home yet. But I lived in Virginia for a really long time and I had only been here 11 months at that time. It takes time to put down new roots. It's not a bad thing that it doesn't feel like home. This world is not my home anyhow, right? As I am allowing the Lord to refine me, I am finding a supernatural sense of peace. I say supernatural because I know it's not from me. Despite the challenges and unmet expectations, I am content here. I am not praying to leave and I am finding ways to be happy here. We are making memories and living abundant lives as best we can. So life is hard and it is different here. I miss VA and the ocean and the mountains and racial diversity and my family and my friends terribly, but it's also good and I'm fine with my life here. Does that make sense? Apart from the Lord, it really doesn't. But since God is here with me, it all doesn't have to make sense in order for me to experience joy and to have peace in the midst of pain. I know we are supposed to be here, so I will embrace being here with my whole heart and I will live the abundant life that Christ died to give me, no matter where that takes place. God has work for me to do here and work that He wants to do in me through being here. I look forward to seeing how that all plays out. And since I have this blog, you get to come with me on that journey. :)