We were outside all day on Saturday, doing some extended yard clean up at the tree farm and taking a family hike. Mr. Fix-It’s father, sister, and family were visiting for the day as well.

It surprised me how much the kiddos have grown. I didn’t pack a ton of snacks, no changes of clothes, no extra hat and gloves…of course, we were right around the corner from home! But it’s amazing to think how far along this parenting continuum we’ve come. They each had a bottle of water, an apple, and lunch and basically we were all fine for the whole day!

Besides being starving around lunchtime, there was almost no complaining. We took down some trees, cleared some brush, raked some leaves, and burned out some rotted limbs. There were all kinds of kid-sized jobs, including tending the fire (where we were disposing of rotten limbs and logs), raking leaves and brush, picking up and stacking sticks, hauling logs and limbs (teamwork!), and even occasionally clipping branches with the loppers.

The whole family hiked down to the beaver pond at the end of the day, so there was also break time for running in the woods.

Only Coal was with me for the day, which he enjoyed but I felt a little guilty about. So I went back on Sunday for a short hike with both cattle dogs to let Red stretch those puppy legs.

The Cowboy ended up down and out Saturday evening and Sunday with a fever, which eventually turned out to be a stomach bug (I’ll spare you pictures of THAT!). And our temperatures dropped again, with snow flurries Monday morning. The Ladybug has been helping out in the house by baking muffins– so we’re freezing while doing the chores, but we come home to the whole house smelling like hot blueberry breakfast. Yum!

We’re still on lamb watch around here. We could have our first delivery any day now. We’ll have a much smaller season than normal since we’ve moved forward with our plans to downsize the farm and we’re about 1/2 the flock size of last year. But we’re still expecting a bit of excitement in the next 30 days.

And if you noticed our random collection of Carhartt work clothes (which we always recommend!) most of our favorite pieces can be found in their winter clearance section right now, and FREE SHIPPING with $99 purchase. Here’s what you’re seeing in our pictures…

Washed Duck Active Jac  (this is what myself and all the kids wear)

Heavyweight Rain Defender Hoodie (this is what Mr. Fix-It wears pretty much all winter long)

Unlined Duck Bibs (this is what else Mr. Fix-It wears all winter, with his sweatshirts, although you probably can’t see them since he’s sitting on the tractor)

Youth Duck Dungarees (our boys wear these since they think “overalls” are for babies)

Youth Midweight Hoodies (the kiddos each got a new one at Christmas this year, for not-quite-coat days and several styles are STILL 25-35% OFF)

Watch Hat (we have about a thousand different colors of this hat, one size works for adults or kiddos)

Do you have preferred work clothes, or just whatever’s available? Our Speedracer is a picky dresser when it comes to work clothes because he hates when they are stiff and new, so he’s always going back to his worn out jeans and tennis shoes and they don’t always hold up well to muddy, dirty, farm work. I’m glad our Carhartt stuff usually lasts long enough to hand down, after someone else did the hard work of breaking it in!