Here’s where you’ll find posts about being a momma to farm kids, a working momma, a special needs momma, a grieving momma, a tired momma and a refreshed momma. You’ll find some of the daily adventures of our little pack of hard-working, hard-playing Farm Kids and some of the painful home and heart lessons I’ve learned over the years.
Snakes, Bluebirds, and Dirt Bikes…the Daily Farm Adventures {129}
The farm is busy with Spring, spring, spring these days! We’ve been working in the yard, starting the garden, and cleaning up the winter compost piles in the weekend sunshine lately. The tractor blew a hydraulic hose and was stuck in the field for a few days. The worst part was that Coal was right there at the fence line with me, opening the gates, and got sprayed too. He wasn’t hurt, but I don’t like using dish soap to wash the dogs that was the only way I knew … Continue Reading…
Room-by-Room Cleaning Checklist Chore Cards for Kids…FREE Printable
Need to get some help keeping up with the housework? Trying to teach your children a regular cleaning routine? Room by Room Cleaning Checklist Chore Cards for Kids…FREE PRINTABLE via Walking in High Cotton
Continue Reading...10 Ways to Break a Melancholy Mood…Grieving and Growing
May can be a tough month for me. The farm is very busy, the kids are bursting with energy from the good weather and the end of the school year in sight, and I struggle not to be constantly reminded or linger on the loss of my parents. Mother’s Day is always a struggle for me–trying to focus on being a momma, and not the fact that I don’t have a momma. Trying to appreciate everyone else’s mother even though all I desperately want is my own momma. And the … Continue Reading…
How to Make the Homestead Kid-Friendly…So Kids Can be Safe and Helpful on the Farm
I’m on several homesteading forums were I repeatedly see questions about “can I homestead with small children?” These always puzzle me. People have always homesteaded with small children. Remember Laura Ingalls Wilder? She was 9 in Little House on the Prairie. And for us, we’ve always farmed/homesteaded with children. We laid our first fenceline when I was 8 months preggers with the Ladybug. So obviously I think you can homestead with children. And I write constantly about the benefits of farm life for our kiddos, so I’m also on the … Continue Reading…
How to Have Real Food for Dinner on Crazy Busy Weeknights
We have been in the midst of a very busy season around here. The kiddos have a summer full of family visits, sports practice, and fun camp experiences, against a background of our two full-time jobs and managing the homestead. I’d love to be able to say that eating a healthy dinner in the midst of all that running around is our number one priority, but can I be honest for a moment? Our #1 family wellness goal in this season has become just not eating fast food every night! … Continue Reading…
Easy DIY Luggage Tags
As I wrote last week with our Summer Camp Packing lists (did you download your FREE copy?) our kiddos have been adventuring away from home a lot this summer. They visited my sister, my mother-in-law, and now church camp. This is Speedracer’s first year at church camp and we’ve developed several little rites of passage for the first year. One is that they get their first toiletry bag (or shaving kit bag for the boys) and one is that they get their personalized luggage tags. This is an easy and … Continue Reading…
How to Pack for Overnight Summer Camp (with FREE Checklists!)
Well, it’s summer camp time again! The time when I buy new socks and boxes of Ziploc bags and start the sorting and organizing for the kiddos to head out to church camp for a week. Do your munchkins go to overnight camp? Our kiddos head off for a week each summer with their church group. Sometimes the different age groups go at different times, but this year all 3 of our farm kids are heading off together–that’s a new stage for us! {smile} Our first year I did a … Continue Reading…
A Simple Garden Gift Box Tutorial…Sending Love from the Garden
It’s the season-of-many-cucumbers around here. And while we’ve already made cucumber sandwiches, cucumber cream cheese wraps, cucumber salsa, and now creamed cucumbers, there are still so. many. cucumbers. Also suddenly an abundance of green peppers, blackberries and raspberries, tomatoes, and parsley. (Why did we plant so much parsley?!?) Much like our sudden spring abundance of eggs, we like to use what we can, and then share the garden goodies. So we’ve been sending out boxes of fresh, backyard goodness to co-workers, family, and customers. Here’s a quick, easy, and frugal way to … Continue Reading…
Great Football Movies for the Family
Well, we registered the boys for football this Fall. Practice doesn’t start until August, but we’ve started accumulating their gear. And they are so excited that they’ve started wearing it around the house and to do their chores, especially walking the dogs. You know, just to get used to it. {smile} Speedracer is particularly excited about it and has been filling all his extra summer minutes with football movies–which then inspire him to throw his gear on and run around the backyard like a gridiron superstar. When it comes to sports … Continue Reading…
How to Make a Great Outdoor Space for Summer Family Time
I’ve written before about how hard it can be to leave the farm for a vacation in the summer time. So we staycation a lot. And honestly, that’s probably more liberal than it deserves. We “staycation” a lot in the summer. On Friday and Saturday evenings. On our own back porch. After working all day. {smile} We’re blessed that the farm provides everything one could need to get a little rest and relaxation without having to go anywhere at all! It can truly feel like a “family vacation” with very little … Continue Reading…
Farm Life Makes Vacations Hard
We just got back from a short family vacation over the 3-day weekend and I’m reminded why we don’t all go anywhere overnight very often! {smile} The farm is hard to leave. And the work is hard to come back to! We spent some refreshing time with family at the lake and the crew got to do all-things-water-sports for a couple days. Kayaking, canoeing, boating, some fishing, swimming, even paddle boarding. They got to stay up late and sleep in (a little bit!) and not have to do any chores. … Continue Reading…
5 Tips for Raising Kids That Are Self-Motivated
We got a late night call from the sheep shearing about rescheduling our appointment due to rain on Sunday. You can’t shear wet sheep, so they had some cancellations from folks that couldn’t get their animals under cover. They knew we could, and asked if we wanted to bump our appointment up to first thing the next morning. It meant that Mr. Fix-It and I had to move the sheep from one side of the farm to the other and pen them in the tractor shed. In the dark. Without … Continue Reading…
There’s Nothing Wrong with Crooked Rows
We were having grilled chicken, steamed green beans, and salad for dinner the other night when Speedracer came over and asked me to make some broccoli for him because he doesn’t like green beans or salad. Now, he’s not known for liking broccoli either! But while planting the garden a few weeks ago he told me that “this year I’m going to eat this broccoli” and I guess he meant it. Not wanting to waste the opportunity to get my 5-item-eater to add something to his picky palate, I handed … Continue Reading…
Letting the Work Provide the Rewards
It’s no secret that our farm kids do a lot of work and chores around here. They are preparing to manage their own family and property one day and hands-on practice is the best teaching tool I know of. Our goal is to send self-motivated, diligent, hard-workers out into the world. But it’s easy to get into the daily grind and start to feel like all you do it work, work, sweat, and work, and then you start to lose motivation. I know–I feel it too sometimes! Much like our preferred … Continue Reading…
8 Tips for Carefree Flower Beds for Busy Moms
I love having beautiful flowers blooming all around the house in the spring and summer, but I’m no green thumb! And a lot of the DIY garden articles I love to read and google do not have the same definition of “low maintenance” or “easy-care” that I do! I don’t even bother with indoor plants anymore and I have a long history of killing outdoor plants by neglect. I just get too busy for all the weeding, trimming, deadheading, watering, splitting and replanting. Besides, our vegetable garden takes up most of … Continue Reading…
Letting Kids Be Involved in Every Step of Gardening
Do you have a flower garden or vegetable patch? Do you let the kids help you take care of the plants? Maybe occasionally plant one– after you dig the hole and carefully pull the plant from the store container? Or let them water–after you’ve done the planting? Or maybe you let them help with the planting after you bring everything home from the store? Each separate activity has value in and of itself, but this method lacks the big-picture view that lets children see gardening as a life skill they … Continue Reading…
Spring Break with Simple and Frugal Family Fun
The crew has been on Spring Break lately, so I’ve been hashing together a schedule between work and home to spend time with them–even if it occasionally means I’m working while they’re playing. It’s a joy to be able to hear them laughing (and squealing!) in the background! What are some of the simple and frugal (actually, mostly FREE) family fun we’ve been enjoying this week? Well, scrubbing water troughs for one! The kiddos had to empty, scrub and refill all the water troughs. Since we just recently rotated the … Continue Reading…
Redirecting Anger with Healthy Activity
We’re in a parenting stage where we deal with a lot of anger in our munchkins. We tend to think of that as something you deal with during the “terrible twos” and with toddlers, but it doesn’t magically go away when they become more verbal. I wonder if it doesn’t actually increase as your child’s mental and emotional capacity grows, but we start giving it different names. That sounds so negative! But the whole time they’re growing up, kids have to learn to deal with things like anxiety, disappointment, and … Continue Reading…
Helping Kids LOVE the Outdoors
It’s no secret that we spend a lot of time outside and love the outdoors. Peruse our Facebook page, Instagram account, or even here at the blog, and almost all our pictures are outside. In the fields, in the woods, at the tree farm…even without structured activities our days are split about 60/40 outside time to inside time, other than school hours. Maybe even 70/30…if the weather is nice on the weekends even 90/10! (Yes, my housework suffers for it!) Here are some of the ways we lever the kiddos … Continue Reading…
Using Sermon Notes for Kids in Church…Busy Book of Sermon Notes for Young Ladies Review
Our church recently had First Fruits Revival (hear the messages), which means we were in church several evenings in a row. It was a good chance for the crew to start using their new Sermon Notes books that we got them for Christmas. I posted about them on Facebook after the first night and got a lot of questions, so I thought I’d share some more detail here. It can be a challenge to get children to behave in “big church” as we call the congregational service–as opposed to “children’s church” … Continue Reading…
Building Puzzles…Activities for Busy Families
We stay pretty busy around here. Especially during the school year. Between school, work, the farm, church, and just trying to bathe, eat, and sleep, we don’t find much relax and hang out time. So we work pretty hard to make sure that we set aside some special “family time” activities to do together at home. This usually involves a lot of compromises. Maybe the house is a mess but we ignore it. Or we let everyone eat dinner in the living room so at least we’re still eating together … Continue Reading…
Blogging, Privacy, and Life in a Small Town
I’ve read several articles recently about whether “mommy bloggers” (I really hate that term, but that’s a post for another day!) are invading the privacy of their children and family by writing and sharing about them on the internet, Facebook, and other social media. It’s an interesting question. Especially for an introvert like me, who found a voice and far-reaching friendships through blogging. And I don’t think there’s an answer, yes/no, this is ok/that is not. I think every writer faces murky ethics at some point if you’re writing non-fiction. … Continue Reading…
What to Do When Chores are Hard
From the time our crew were old enough to be in a backpack carrier, there have been chores around here. By the time they could walk, they were helping drag empty buckets back to the feed shed, putting up fencing, and scrubbing water buckets. So we talk about doing chores a lot here, and you’ll find a lot of pictures of chores and chore time (or choring as we call it when we’re making up our own verbs) on our Facebook and Instagram accounts. And folks are often impressed by how much … Continue Reading…
Lunch Gear When You Pack Every Day! {School Days Series}
We’re getting ready to head into yet another school year in just a few weeks, and I know a lot of folks are already in school or full-on back-to-school mode. I’m still sorting and organizing to get us ready right now, and I thought this little {School Days} series might help any busy mommas new to the school scene–or frustrated because what they’re doing just isn’t working. In addition to managing clothes, chores, homework, and school supplies, there’s this whole time slot of our daily life that revolves around lunches. Yep, lunches. … Continue Reading…
A Day Together on the Eastern Shore
Our family and home life has been pretty stressful lately. Just a lot of responsibilities…and a lot of duct tape and wire nuts. Turns out when you buy a brand new house–with all brand new appliances–eventually they’re all not brand new anymore. It also turns out that the lifespan of most major appliances is about the same. Which means all our brand new appliances from when we moved in are now all on their last leg. All. Of. Them. Bless his heart, poor Mr. Fix-It is resuscitating our HVAC on a … Continue Reading…
Spring Break, Stitches, and Sunshine…the Daily Farm Adventures {110}
We kicked off Spring Break with a trip to the ER. Speedracer had a playground accident at school and needed six stitches. I was pretty traumatized by the whole thing. He was fine. {smile} Mr. Fix-It ended up picking him up from school and taking him to the doctor because I was in training for work when the call came through. I think everyone probably preferred it that way (except me) because my husband tends to be cool as a cucumber about these things while I tend to spend … Continue Reading…
There was this Girl Farmer…the Daily Farm Adventures {101}
I was walking down the alley with the dogs yesterday evening and ran into this girl… She was tall, and slim, and wearing a well-worn pair of muck boots like she knew something about the business of mud. Her barn coat was a little rough around the edges and shrugged comfortably across her shoulders as she warmed her hands in her pockets. Her scarf was set just so, casual and deliberate, just so to warm and breath, and there was a rosiness to her cheeks that suggested she knew the winter evening … Continue Reading…
Digging Dogs, Biting Mice…the Daily Farm Adventures {98}
I see the early side of 5:30am a lot during the week. It’s not my favorite time of day. And I firmly believe that if you have to get up while it’s still dark outside that coffee is mandatory. No one else around here–2- or 4-footed–feels the same. So when the Ladybug burst into the house from chores in tears the other day at 6:30 in the morning, my first thought was “Dear Lord, there’s not enough coffee in the world for this job, but could I please get just. … Continue Reading…
School Pictures from Home…And a Quick Weekend Update…the Daily Farm Adventures {97}
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no photographer. I have a wonderful camera (thanks to my wonderful Mr. Fix-It!) and I’m learning a lot just from experience–but it’s on my to-do list to actually sit through some classes (even online) and tutorials. I want to do better. And here’s one reason why…As the Momma, I have the opportunity to catch the best moments! The moments full of their quirks, their laughs, their attitudes, the essences of them. And every picture I get that I love, I know could be … Continue Reading…
When You Force Your Kids to Smile…Christmas Eve Pictures
I make my kiddos take a lot of pictures. {smile} Sometimes they like it, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they come out feeling a little forced… Sometimes I get the “eww…I’m not touching him!” Or I get fake smiles and James Bond {sigh}… And sometimes you just have to let them be who they are… And eventually you don’t get the “right” picture… But you get the best picture ever! Is that just kinda like life? Sometimes you just have to let it be what it is, and enjoy the … Continue Reading…