Saturday harvest

My sister and Rylee Jo came out to the country to get in on some wheat harvest. It's always fun to spend time out in a wheat field - don't you think? 

 When we got their my dad was in a far corner of the field so we had some time to burn while we waited for him.

Throughout harvest, Noah spent hours and hours hanging out with cousin Kyle in the tractor pulling the grain cart.

 But while they waited for the combine to fill up again, they came and visited with us.

 It's tough to wait on a combine...

 but here it comes!

 And soon, my sister and Rylee were off in the combine and both of the boys hopped in with Kyle and I was standing all alone in the field!

 So I found a seat on the header trailer and watched the clouds float by. The sky was amazing, and I was sitting on top of a hill so I could see for miles and miles around.

 Soon enough the bin was full again and Rylee was ready to move on.

 And harvest rolled on...

 And just before we left, here came Ben up over the hill with the airseeder planting soybeans.

The farmers tell me that if everything runs smoothly we should wrap up harvest in the next day or two.

Out in the garden

The garden has kept us quite busy lately. A bigger space means more to care for - but both Ben and I enjoy working in the garden. Growing food and flowers is a fun challenge.

Potato and onion harvest is complete! 

 Slowly, all of our new perennials are starting to bloom. :-)

 Lucky for us, the garden is in the shade in the morning, so even on the hottest Saturdays we can work in the cool shade.

 Our sunflowers around the edge of the garden are growing, volunteer pumpkins/squash are thriving and soon they'll run into the watermelon vines...I'm hoping they'll all find ways to get along.

 The zinnias I planted in one corner are slowly starting to bloom - I love the fun color they add to the garden. :-)

 Ben and I picked green beans for the first time this morning. I'm afraid that only planting two rows of beans will have been a mistake...but we can always plant more later this summer. And our sweet potatoes are looking good.

 This is our first year growing corn...it didn't come up that great, but what's there looks good.

 It's kind of a crazy plant.

 The giant sunflowers are grow, grow, growing up.

 Pumpkin flowers are my favorite.

 The okra had a rough start - but thankfully our second planting are thriving.

 Tomatoes.

 I'm trying to grow an herb garden, I have a lot to learn - including which herbs are which...but surprisingly everything I planted out there is still growing.

Now that we got the entire garden mulched with straw, I'm hoping that the weed battle will subside. Now to be creative and use all the goodness that this garden produces (or at least most of it!). :-)

Harvest Start

The wheat is ready, the ground has dried (a week ago it rained 4 inches) and all the farmers are ready for harvest!

 Suddenly, even the youngest farmers are spending more time in the shed,

 waiting, watching and wanting to help.

 Levi, though, has a very short attention span - so once the combine had rolled past our house he decided it was time to go swimming. I took him to Aunt Pat and Uncle Myron's pool for a couple hours - it was kind of fun to hang out just the two of us! He's a lot fun and made me laugh pretty hard (kind of like his dad). :-)

 Later on he was ready to dedicate his attention back to trucks, tractors, and the combine.

 Ben took me and Levi for a ride around the section to switch out trucks

 and Levi gave Grandpa a hard time via the radio.

 Harvest certainly is one of the most interesting times of the year on the farm. Wheat that was planted in the fall, and has survived all sorts of weather conditions, is now ready. What may look like a fantastic field may not produce high yields and a field that looks tired and sad just might produce well. You just never know until harvest.

And the adventure continues this week!

Week at Camp Mennoscah

Last Sunday we took Noah out to Camp Mennoscah for a week of fun. He LOVES camp, but the drive to camp is long and gives plenty of time to ponder all the upcoming unknowns. Thankfully, Noah doesn't seem to get as nervous as I did when I was a camper. I usually felt almost sick by the time we got there because I was nervous about all the new people I'd meet.

See, even as we waited to check-in, he was totally chill. 

 Each of the two years we've done this, it has felt weird walk toward the Boy cabins. Noah got to be at camp with around seven other kids from Goessel so there were plenty of familiar faces at camp when kids were being dropped off.

 Second year in Wasp Nest - and not excited about his mother snapping photos...

 there, that's better, kind of. :-)

 On the way home, I realized I failed to pack extra hearing aid batteries for him. So that gave us incentive to write letters and drop them in the mail on Monday.

 Sadly, when we picked him up on Thursday morning he reported that he hadn't received any letters and his hearing aids died on Monday. Nice. Clearly, he was feeling just fine about it though. :-)

He told us all sorts of great things about camp - midnight swims, river play, a hay rack ride across the river, camp fire, fun rec times, good food (he apparently ate LOTS of food), and they could lick their plates! Maybe we're boring parents, but we told him licking his plate was something that should only happen at camp. He also lucked out with having a cool, some-what wet week at camp. He's ready to go again next year!

A year ago...

It dawned on me today, that just a year ago a crew of men were here building our house! It seems like much longer ago than just a year. But, while I was looking back for photos of our house, I came across this one from June 2014:

and lucky for me, I snapped this photo this morning! 

 It's amazing what a difference a year makes. I showed him this picture and the first thing he said was, "You can almost see my underwear!"
Back to the house...here it was a year ago:

and this is our front porch today:

June 2014, 

 and June 2015.

Baseball

It's June and that means it's baseball season for our boys. This is our first summer with two baseball players, so that means double the fun. 

Levi first game was at the end of May and just before we got to the ball diamond he told me his tummy felt nervous. 

His team is made up of boys from both 2nd and 1st grades. They give it their best at each game,

with just about equal parts goofy and serious. Levi generally does a good job batting - rarely striking out, and he's improved his fielding skills too.

Watching kids who are just starting - and usually aren't sure what's going on during the game - can be challenging as a parent, but it's good to watch the boys have fun and improve.

Noah's team is made up of boys from 3rd and 4th grade and they use a pitching machine. His games are usually quite fun and the hour time-limit usually sneaks up on us.

He's been hitting the ball well - and is learning that fielding is harder than Alex Gordon and Mike Moustakas make it look.

Speaking of, we have been watching a lot of Royals baseball at our house. I think this season alone I've watched more baseball than the rest of my life combined!

It's fun to watch Noah have fun playing and it's great to listen to the boys encourage each other.

Noah hit a home run in a game last week and Ben wasn't there, so Noah grabbed my phone right after the game so he could text Ben about it. :-)

And, our boys take their baseball very seriously. They have to have all the right stuff to make them "official" - pants, cleats, hats, sunglasses, gloves, and eye black. And smeared eye black is even better - they think it makes them look tough.

We're about halfway through the "season" and just the other day Noah told me (again), "I can't wait until I can play MLB - that'll be so fun!" Keep dreaming kid, keep dreaming. :-)