August, 2018

August is certainly a sneaky month. It feels like summer, but school gets going and then the month is suddenly gone in the blink of an eye!

The boys and I wrapped up our summer vacation by meeting up with Joni and her boys at her parents' place in Jennings. 

 I've heard so many stories about this town and the people that live there and it was fantastic to visit and see if for myself!

 Joni's dad had the older boys help him check cattle.

 That evening we ate pizza and went to the Decatur County Fair!

 Once we finally all got up the next morning we headed for home,

 but not before I made the boys pose for a photo (they weren't thrilled about it).

 So after being gone for a long time, I was curious to visit my garden again. Holy moly were my tomato plants tall!

 Vacation is great, but there's nothing like coming home!

 We had a fun church swim night in Hillsboro with lots of juicy watermelon to snack on!

 Levi got his trombone - and immediately started to work on figuring out how to play it.

 And Noah got his football practice pads.

 While we were on vacation, my mom had picked several large bags of green beans for us from the garden.

 And then it was time for school to start! 5th grade for Levi and 7th grade for Noah!

 August was a beautiful time in the garden - all the flowers were in full bloom, the plants were healthy and producing strong.

 We had way too many grasshoppers this year - what a gross and crusty insect.

 The tomatoes came on and they came strong! Levi helped me process them to get sauce going.

 We also had lots of peppers!

 The goats!

 The boys got together with Abram and Mabel and friends for their annual lemonade stand! Technically, this happened before school started...but it was in August. :-)

 Flowers and sage from the garden for co-worker Kate's 30th birthday party!

 Happy birthday dad!

 And then for Labor Day weekend we got to host Ben's family! It started out with fishing with grandpa Schrag at Kyle and Mandy Funk's pond.

 The clouds that evening were just magnificent!

 Ben the goat whisperer. :-)

 The tomatoes just kept coming!

 And our fall planting of green beans came up quick and put on lots of beautiful blooms!

 Oh it was so fun to have little Simon at our farm!

 He even got to come to Noah's first football game! Noah's #10.

 It was warm and windy that evening!

 Simon loved all the animals at our house. Wilbur and all the cats got lots of love from Mr. Simon.

 Cousin Ezra was here too! It was a full house and it was so good! Ezra was really excited about the tractors at the farm

 so we made sure he got to ride in one!

 Grandma and all the Schrag grandchildren!

 Aunt Susan came and joined in the fun and it was so good to have everyone together!

The visit was quick, but lovely, and then it was back to canning tomatoes.  

Next year, I'm not allowed to worry about tomato production until school starts. Someone, please remind me.