Sugar Creek Farm

Both girls are playing softball, and this year Rafe gets to play t-ball for the first time.

Rafe & Liv’s games are in the evenings, and Madeline’s are during the day.

Which adds up to a lot of bleacher time.

And in between the day jobs and the ball games, we somehow manage to do farmers markets, do chores, castrate baby pigs, haul broiler chickens to the processor & pick them up again, and haul home loads of hay.

But why is it that the laundry is always the thing to fall by the wayside? Maybe that’s just me.

1 year ago:

Mama said knock you out

My cousin had asked if we’d like to have a ride in his helicopter. Um, yes! Yesterday was the day.

Matt and Madeline were totally stoked about it. Me & Olivia & Rafe were a little more on the fence. Rafe thought he might do it if he had “muffins” for his ears, but in the end he decided against it.

Matt getting in

It was a very cute little helicopter, just big enough for the pilot and one passenger.

Matt going up

Madeline coming down

I was on the fence – I hate flying in general – but the photo opportunity was just too much for me to pass up. And I was so glad I went, it was a blast! It wasn’t scary, and it didn’t make me motion-sick or anything! The view was incredible.

The only time I got a little nervous was when we stopped for fuel. To fuel up, Tim had to land the helicopter on a platform built on a flatbed trailer. Then he started cranking on various knobs and such. Then he looked at me and said, “I’ve got everything locked down, you shouldn’t take off.” And then he left me, alone, in the helicopter, perched on a suddenly very small platform on the back of a truck, with the helicopter still running!

Um, shouldn’t take off?!?

But all was well. He’s a pro.

In this next picture our house is about right in the middle.

Our house again

And our pasture

Cows (& Star) in the pasture

Our house, and garden to the left. The garden has been very slow getting going this cold, wet & busy spring.

House, with the meat wagon parked in front.

My favorite picture of the day…garden, pasture, creek. The broiler chickens are in the upper right.

Olivia going up.

Thanks again, Tim! We enjoyed it so much!

1 year ago:

Flood pictures

The new piglets are as cute as ever, and at that age where they go on little walk-abouts. One day I watched as they scratched their various and sundry itches.

The rooster is wondering just what he’s walked into.

All together now!

1 year ago:

Summertime

Matt gets some of the credit for the pictures on this blog. Often when he goes out to do chores he’ll call back up to the house on his cell phone and tell me to “come quick with the camera, there’s a photo opp out here!” One day he came across this mama duck and her new brood, come out from hiding wherever it was she hatched them.

I headed out with the camera and couldn’t believe how many ducklings I saw! I counted, and counted again, and came up with 17 ducklings. Seventeen!

After a while I saw mama duck again and this time another duck hen was with her, so I think perhaps the first duck was just doing a little babysitting. Today I saw the two of them together again, this time on the creek. They’ve lost a few ducklings – I counted 12 today. Little ducklings paddling on the creek are pretty high on my “Cutest Things” list!

1 year ago:

Farm boy

A while back Olivia had an impromptu sleepover party. One of the mom’s asked me, “Are you sure you want all these girls over?” My response was, “What’s a few more?”

Some of the pullets hang out with the new gilts during the day and can often be seen standing on this snoozing mom. With a litter of 9 piglets constantly rooting and nuzzling on her I imagine her response to the pullets is, “What’s a few more?”

1 year ago:

Rejected farm slogan #14

This hen stole away and hatched out 6 chicks. That one peeking out from her wing is just the cutest thing!

Couldn’t you just die from the cuteness?

1 year ago:

Since you asked…

It’s May, that time of year when spring and summer activities converge and overlap, and blogging comes to a standstill for a bit.

(I enjoy the irony of an Osage Green Devil jumping over a St. Ansgar Saint hurdle 🙂

I’ve been making most of my kid & family updates over on Facebook (so friend me if you’re there!), but thought I’d exercise my proud mom perogative here and share a little about runner girl’s track season this year.

Most of the season she ran the shuttle hurdle relay, the open 1500m, and the 4×400 relay. The last couple of meets she’s run the 4×800 relay instead of the shuttle hurdle. The whole 8th grade girls team had such a great season.

Last year she broke the Osage 7th grade girls record in the 1500m. So her goal this year was to set a new personal best, which would also break the 8th grade girls record.

Her PB last year was 5:44, and the 8th grade record this year was 5:48. She broke that record the last 3 meets with times of 5:48, 5:40, and finally 5:29 at the conference meet on Monday. And what made her happiest? Proving her dad wrong. First thing she said when she got back to the stands, “Ha! Dad didn’t think I could break 5:30 this year!”

Her 4×400 team also broke the school record, twice! I don’t remember the times now, but they beat it by 2 seconds the first time and then by 4 seconds at the conference meet on Monday. They also broke the conference meet record, but unfortunately another team broke it by more.

And here’s just a random picture I took of one of her best friends, and it just turned out so cool i had to share 🙂

Thanks for bearing with me 🙂 I’ll be back with more cute farm baby pictures…

1 year ago:

Zorro’s a chicken

The maple tree in our backyard

Nanny at work

Oooo, all of that stretching makes a baby tired!

1 year ago:

Happy Spring

The new gilts have all farrowed! I was waiting to tell you until we saw how things would turn out, since the news has generally been bad in the past. The results are about 66% good news and overall I’m pretty happy with how things went with these girls, especially for them being first-timers.

I’ll give you the full story later. For now, I’m going to inundate you with pictures of cute little piglet butts.

1 year ago:

Back to the chicken pictures

More calf pictures for Brian.

This little beauty is Sophie. Her mother is Caramel. Usually Caramel has black calves, but once before she had one like this named Louisa.

Such a cute mother-daughter pair! I love how Sophie looks like a lamb as much as a calf.

1 year ago:

I am rooster