Ten Years

Over this past weekend Ben and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary.  We quietly celebrated by going to Wichita for dinner on Saturday - a rare treat for us these days. 

I found myself reflecting over our ten years of marriage while we were out and about on the farm on Saturday. The weather was beautiful, the leaves are changing, the combine was waiting to go cut beans and our whole family was outside in the bright morning sunshine.

Ten years ago we thought we might go do voluntary service, maybe in Chicago, maybe not. Then I chickened out and we never filled out the paperwork. I didn't want to leave my family behind. Now I understand more than I did then, just how strong the pull to the farm is for me.

Ten years ago, children sounded like a distant, delightful-yet-terrifying idea. It only took a couple years into marriage for that to change. Now we've got a 7 year old and a 5 year old. Sometimes we wonder how in the world we are qualified for a job as important as parenting.

Ten years ago, we were happy to be living in a small rented house in Newton on West 7th Street. It was a quiet street, we went on lots and lots of walks, made the rental feel as much like our own home as we could and enjoyed feeling like grown-ups. Now we're  working toward building a house - praying that it'll all work out.

Ten years ago my husband worked at Bethel College and I worked at the Newton Chamber of Commerce. Now he's a farmer and I work at Mennonite Central Committee.

Ten years ago the farm was a place we visited several times a month. Now we live here.

Ten years ago we wanted nothing to do with pets - who needed a pet?! Now we have a dog, cats, chickens and cattle.

Ten years ago we decided to get married in October to avoid how devastatingly hot our church gets in summer, but also because October has always been special to me. Now, it's still my favorite month of the year.

Ten years ago we had no clue how fast time would fly. We'd been waiting to finish college, waiting to get married, waiting to be "adults", waiting for so many things. Then time started to fly and each year seems to go by faster and faster.

Ben and I are blessed to have each other. We are a better team today than we were ten years ago - I can only imagine how we'll grow together in the next ten years.

Trip to Maxwell

The rolling hills of prairie grass at Maxwell Game Preserve seem like they must be far away from the farmland that surrounds our house, but in reality there are less than 20 miles that separate us. It's close by, but we rarely go there and take in the scenery and change of pace the preserve has to offer. 

Sunday we decided to invite Grandma and Grandpa along for a trip out to Maxwell and the county fishing lake. The landscape colors were beautiful, very few bright fall reds, oranges or yellows, but lots of subtle changes - grasses turning from green, to yellow, to rusty red and whole patches of the prairie turning a plum color.

The buffalo were way off in the distance and we didn't spot any elk on this trip but that didn't take the fun out of climbing the tall lookout tower.

Just a bit further down the road was the fishing lake. We are rarely near a body of water (big or small), but when we are, I'm always keenly aware of it's power and mystery. The boys are drawn to it - running toward it, teetering on the edge of falling in.

The boys and grandpa skipped rocks and we tried to not to disturb the fishermen who were working hard to actually catch fish. We watched them go by in their boats and wondered if they were having any luck.

The whole thing made me wish we'd made time this summer to try camping as a family. Spending time outside, just being together with no other distractions is incredibly precious. Even food tastes better when eaten outside.

There's also a lovely nature trail near the fishing lake. The boys ran ahead, loving the adventure of the unknown places the trail would lead.

It really is unknown since there's no map posted nor any signs along the way to let you know where the path will lead you.

This is the work of a beaver, right? We wondered what it would look like the next time we visited the trail.

The cotton wood leaves were rustling high above our heads while down below on the path it was calm and quiet. We encouraged the boys to slow down and look around at all the interesting plants, leaves and animals along the path.

They did for a little while - then lost interest in the details and again focused on the greater challenge of the mysterious path.

We have walked the path twice now and never made it to the end. Each time we've ended up turning back from fear that the boys' energy wouldn't last to get us all the way back to the trail head. Maybe next time, when Ben can be with us, we'll finally complete exploring the trail.

Snotober

Friday was supposed to be a rainy day with highs in the 40s. Well, I suppose the highs were in the 40s, but it all went downhill from there. The boys were home from school and we'd assumed the rain wouldn't happen (it hasn't lately) and that we could simply bundle up and get some farm work done. Well, that plan fell through when it started snowing. 

 The temperatures dipped below freezing and it just kept snowing and snowing. My tomato plants had been looking their very best a day earlier - chalk full of green tomatoes (finally!). But, even before the cold and snow, I knew they were doomed - too little sun, too cool to ripen.

 The snow eventually covered the ground and lasted until the next morning.

 It made for a very, very long day which oddly felt like a snow day in the middle of February. I felt like we were in a 24 hour time warp.

a new plan

The desire for spending time in front of the TV/Play Station/computer had reached, what felt like, a new all-time high at our house lately. There are a lot of factors that play into why our children were spending more and more time in front of screens, but it was becoming apparent that it was a problem that needed to be dealt with. 

 So we have a new plan - who knows if it'll work in the long run, but after one week we're pretty pleased with it. Here's how it works: Each kid gets five, 30 minute screen time tickets for the week to use how and when they chose. In addition to that each kid was given a set of four tasks/goals/chores to be done on each weekday. Noah's were practicing piano, 15 minutes of reading, being nice to Levi, feeding the dog and cats. Some of them are simple chores, others like being nice to Levi was something that Ben and I decided at the end of each day. The goal of the chart is to complete all the tasks each day with the reward being a ticket for 30 minutes of screen time over the weekend. If they do everything on the chart they've earned two hours of screen time to use over the weekend.

 Levi managed to get all his tasks done and enjoyed using his extra tickets this weekend. Noah didn't complete everything (practicing piano has certainly been a struggle!) so he learned the hard way this weekend that it's worth doing everything on the chart. A Sunday full of NFL football with only one ticket to use was pretty hard for football-loving Noah.

We've adjusted the tasks for week two to address some of the behavioral challenges going on around here (i.e. showering and going to bed without fighting or crying). We'll see how that goes.

Pumpkin Days

Saturday I spent an hour or so processing the pumpkins I grew in the garden. I love doing this. It's easy and at the end of the process there's pure pumpkin goodness.

 I processed nine pumpkins and they absolutely filled our oven.

 While they baked, Levi kept very busy. First recording the books we'd read on his Book-It sheet,

 then drawing pictures:

 About an hour later, the pumpkin was fork tender and ready to be cranked through our Victorio Food Mill.

And then there was this:

 a bowl full of pumpkin puree. I bagged most of it for the freezer, and kept some out to make

 pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. Oh my, they were so, so good.

 Then on Sunday we met up with my sister and niece at Papa's Pumpkin Patch!

 The big slide is by far the boys' favorite part.

 The kids had a great time playing, running around and exploring.

 The kids floated from one thing to the next at the playground. We visited the pigs and chickens

 and then played some more.

 Finally it was time to go find our pumpkins. Levi and Rylee were antsy to go back to the slide, so Noah and I went out and found a pumpkin for Noah and one for Levi.

We had a great time finding the pumpkins - so little drama since it was just me and Noah - maybe doing things as a family of four is overrated.....? :-)

Shed Happenings

The shed is a place where all sorts of work happens. Generally speaking, I don't understand much about that work - it involves a large vocabulary of words that are foreign to me. So yesterday afternoon, Levi and I headed out to the shed to learn what the Farmers were doing with the combine.

We got to look at the intestines of the combine, stick our heads inside the guts of that huge machine. I felt nervous doing that even with the thing turned off! Goodness it's a powerful machine. Ben explained that in the photo below (yes that's a piece of cardboard which was placed there while they worked, it's not typically there) the plant starts to get separated - stalks from grain,

Then those teeth like things work together with air to further separate the stalks/leaves/husks from the grain. The grain falls down, while the air blows the other stuff out the back of the combine.  There are augers below that take the grain up to the combine's grain bin.

Levi spent some time rocking and eating Skittles on a concave - which was the part getting worked on yesterday. Concaves are an essential part of the machine, the Farmers adjust them for harvesting different crops so the concave will let grain of different sizes through. Or something like that....I think I'm close on that explanation.

They added the somewhat rusty looking piece to make the gaps in the concave smaller - the difference between harvesting corn and soybeans. Clear as mud, huh?

Then this happened - Levi's life flashed before my eyes when this tool chest fell on top of him. He had pulled every drawer open while playing and then it fell on him.

Thank the good Lord that we were right there, got it lifted off him, and that he was OK. There were lots of heavy things on top of and inside that tool chest but besides a sore stomach (which took the brunt of the heavy tool chest) he was fine.

Safety lesson for the day: only open one drawer at a time. Just another reminder of how tricky and finicky life is.