A Hoop House Sneak Peak

Our hoop house posts are in! 

If you haven't heard of our hoop house project, you can check it out at http://crookedgapfarmhoophouse.com

We are so excited to have gotten the posts in before the ground completely froze.  Now we can finish up phase 1 of our project this year, which will include putting on the hoop and moving in the pigs! (Next year we hope to complete our project with electrical and cement work.)

A more detailed account of our hoop house construction will be posted in the future, but here are a couple sneak peaks as our kids' helped along. Our pace does slow a little bit with the extra help around, but the investment in our children far outweighs cutting out a few hours of construction.

Our 9 year old watches on as we work to square up the building.  Earlier in the day he had a quick lesson about the pythagorean theorem. 

Our then 7 year old helping lay out the steaks for the line posts.

The crew watches on as the first corner post is drilled.

Our 2 year old gives the hole his approval.

Our 2 and then 4 year old watch on as spikes are pounded into each post to help grab the concrete.

Taking a loader break. The kids have learned well from their grandpa who has taught them all about the John Deere union bell.

Our 2 year old watches on as Ethan straightens one of the holes due to some challenges with dull drill blades and hard packed clay.

Our 2 year old back filling some post holes after the quick crete has set.

This soil has to be tamped, of course to hold the post tightly.

Our now 5 year old helps out with the tamping as well.

Our now 8 year old also joins in the tamping.

All of the posts are in!  Our 9 year old helps measure to find out where to set the laser level. Today posts were marked and are ready for trimming down in order to receive the hoop house hoops!

We are so relieved to be at this point, and we are blessed to be able to have our children join with us in our journey.

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A Wintery Day's Carrot Dig

The Saturday before last we were working on projects outside.  To tell you the truth, I can't even really remember what we were doing.  All I remember is that there was snow on the ground, and the temperatures were expected to drop even further starting that evening.  
I had spent the beginning of November winterizing the garden.  Old plants were pulled.  Mulch was raked up and added to the perennial rhubarb and asparagus. Wire supports were wrapped up and stacked up.  The only things that remained were the broccoli that was still producing and two rows of carrots that needed dug, which had been companion planted with onions under the tomatoes. 

I left these last plants because other things were calling my name, thinking that I just might harvest some more broccoli (which I didn't) and knowing that carrots do quite well being stored in the cool soil. Some people even cover them with a layer of straw for insulation and dig them throughout the winter as needed. 

Not me.

I have a hard enough time finding time to peel them when we would like to eat them, let alone bundling up to go out in the cold, uncover them, and dig them.

Still, I left my carrots, planning to come back to them as soon as I could.

Back to last Saturday . . . As I contemplated the soon to be setting sun, snow covered ground, and my last two rows of carrots in the garden, I decided that they needed dug that evening or I should just forget about them.

After all of the work of preparing the soil, planting the carrots, pulling out weeds, and the fact that I hadn't yet harvested enough to feed our family through the winter, I opted for the former option. 

By the time this decision was made, the light from the warming sun (as warming as you can get in November) was fading fast, and the cold was creeping in.  My 7 and 4 year old headed into the house to warm up, but my 9 and 2 year old were delighted to stay out and help snatch up the carrots being surfaced by my potato fork, fascinated by the worms also unearthed despite the cold, somewhat frozen ground.

I was thankful for their help as well. Good company distracts from cold toes.

In a shorter amount of time than I predicted, our box was filled with beautifully sized carrots and frozen-ish soil stuck around them.

The box of carrots, along with a few worms hiding in stubborn chunks of iced soil, were set in the mud room.  A few days later I worked the last of the soil off, filled a paper grocery sack almost 3/4 full of still chilled carrots, and placed the sack in the storm shelter.

Although I won't dig carrots in the dead of winter, I can periodically muster up courage enough to venture out to the storm shelter in order to bring a assortment of produce into the house to stock the fridge and pantry.

Better yet, however, are the carrots that I can store in our pantry without fear of spoilage AND that are prepared to use.

A couple of years ago I received a free, larger scale food dehydrator in the mail from Cabelas, our favorite store. Okay.  It was once our favorite store.  In a former, non-farming life.  But we still do use our Cabela's card (which we pay off right away each month), and we receive wonderful points that allow me to do things like request a free food dehydrator delivered to my door.

I am still learning all of the things that my food dehydrator can do, but I have found out that one of these things is to dehydrate a good portion of my garden produce which saves freezer space, preserves nutrients, textures and flavors that might be lost in canning, and makes this produce ready to quickly add into my recipes.

While many of my carrots will remain in our storm shelter to be retrieved and eaten fresh, I do dehydrate many of my carrots.  To do this, I take a batch of carrots, peel them, run them through the food processor to thinly and evenly slice them, and then I spread them out onto the trays of my food dehydrator to dehydrate.

What I end up with are jars of carrot slices, 1/4 the volume of pre-dehydrated carrots, that are able to be stored on a shelf in the pantry, free from a blustery winter day's venture to the storm shelter.

Not only that, but I also have pre-sliced carrots that are ready to be used in any recipe of my choosing.

It is what I call Crooked Gap Farm convenience food.

On Saturday, we wanted to set the posts for our hoop house. Ethan needed my help the majority of the day, but 6 hungry mouths still needed to be nourished. My solution, I pull out my convenience food - grabbing jars from the cupboards, baggies from the freezer, and quickly put together meals like this turkey and noodle soup, which can warm on the stove until our meal time.

As I enjoy these warming meal, filled with the produce from our farm, produce that echos my spring, summer, fall, and sometimes wintery days, I am thankful. I am thankful for a husband who lives out his desire to have me stay home with our children, for our children who joyfully join me as I work at home, and for the ability to help support our family through opportunities given to me on the farm.

CGF Turkey and Vegetable Soup

• 1 qt turkey broth
• 1 pt turkey
• 1/4 cup + 2 T dehydrated carrots (1 1/2 cup fresh or frozen)
• 1/4 cup +2 T dehydrated green beans (1 1/2 cup fresh or fozen) or 1 pt green beans with juice
• 1/2 cup frozen or fresh chopped onion
• 2 cup frozen sweet corn
• 1 qt canned diced potatoes or 4 cups raw
• 2 stalks celery chopped
• 1/4 cup lentils
• 1/4 cup wild rice
• 1/2 cup barley
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/3 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp garlic
• 1 bay leaf (remove before serving)

** This recipe is based on the different ways I have preserved my produce.  Ingredients can be substituted, omitted, or additional ingredients added depending on availability.

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Tools of My Trade

About the same time the simple round food dehydrator we received for our wedding burned out, a friend told me about her Excalibur food dehydrator.  I did a little research on it, and was very impressed with the reviews of how it evenly dehydrates food, the various temperatures you can set, the amount of food it holds, and even all of the other uses it has besides dehydrating foods - such as raising breads or making yogurt. We had accumulated enough Cabela's Club points for me to order the model linked to free of charge. Although the simpler of the models, I am so glad that I went with this dehydrator instead of another round stacking dehydrator.  It is definitely worth every penny, even if I had paid for it!

This book is a wonderful resource on companion planting in order to grow foods without the use of chemicals. It details good and bad companions, how various plants work together for increased flavor, productivity, and pest control.  It includes information not only for the vegetable garden, but also for companion planting with fruits, nut trees, ornamental plants, and much more. Copies of this book can be found used or you can purchase a new copy from the link provided.

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The Urgencies in Planting Garlic

Setting up our farm has been a huge undertaking: emotionally, physically, financially, relationally, spiritually . . . in about every way, really. The days are full, and the list of urgencies seems to grow, rather than diminish as we continue to press on. 

One of the things I love about homeschooling, although extremely time consuming in itself, is that it is something that requires me to sit down with my kids and focus on them. But I don't want to just be their teacher.

I want to be their mom.

And not just their mom, but their mom who invests in them, who encourages them, who showers love upon them, and who speaks words of His grace, truth, and hope to them.

It is hard to carve out extra time when the list of urgencies expands, until I remember the urgency in them - in the minds being trained, the hearts being shaped, and the years which pass by so quickly.

Still, there are those things that just need to be accomplished, and if they aren't attended to, the livestock, our food for the winter months, or the bank account will show the worse for it.

So I am challenged to bring our children alongside of me as I work and as I tackle these "urgencies".

Some say that I am raising up a troop of farm hands, and although it might slow me down now, they will be of great help in the future.  True.  Maybe.

I'm sure many have heard the stories of grown children who love their parents but not the farm, especially those in farming regions.  I don't want my kids to just feel like they are farm hands.  I want them to feel like the farm has been placed in their hands.

Because of this, while I invite my children to come alongside me, being grateful for the time together, relationships built upon, and teaching being done, I am also seeking to instil a love of the farm in them. 

This past Tuesday, after school was completed, I had another opportunity to put this into action. With rainy weather followed by a forcast of freezing coming up, it was time to finish up a few projects.

One of these projects was to get my garlic planted.

I have never grown garlic before.  I have wanted to, but I have never had garlic to plant in the fall.  After a facebook plea for sources for garlic and planting advice, two of my friends came to rescue - one being another homeschool mom and the second being our fellow Farm Crawl and Downtown Des Moines Farmer's Market neighbors, Blue Gate Farm.

Between the two of them I received 2 different varieties of garlic, about 3 lbs altogether.

These beautiful bulbs of garlic have been sitting in my house for about a month while I took care of other farm urgencies. And now that snow and cold weather were coming, I had garlic urgencies.

I explained to the kids that our days of fall coats were soon going to be traded for days of snow boots and snow pants, and with that, the ground would soon become too hard to work.  Along with that, all of our garlic, which needed to be planted before the ground freezes, was still sitting in the house.

Over this past summer, my children have really began to understand where their food comes from.  They have helped me considerably in the garden planting, tending to, and harvesting our vegetables.  They have also lent helping hands preparing our produce to be frozen, dehydrated, or put into our perpetually going pressure canner.

With each food item they help me prepare, I place or let them place a little mark on the container. 

And along with giving thanks for the Lord's provision for our family when we sit down to eat, I also acknowledge those who have helped me prepare our food, taking my accounting from memories of working together in the garden, from marks on items taken out of the freezer or pantry, or from helpfulness that day as the meal was cooked.  (Not to forget Daddy's hard work in raising our meat.)

So when I asked the kids to separate the cloves of garlic for me in preparation for planting, they were eager to help.  While they worked, I was blessed to watch unexpected cooperation unfold.

Taking the paper off of the garlic was a little trickier for my younger two children.  When my oldest noticed this, he made it his task to peel the complete outer layer of paper off the garlic bulbs and then hand to the younger so they could break the cloves off.

They soon finished the task I had given them and continued on with their playing as I continued on with wrapping things up in the house.

We eventually worked our way outside, and I started my checklist, them bouncing back and forth from playing and helping as I needed.  The evening was creeping ahead, but I finally got to the garlic.

I soon realized, however, that I had failed to plan a spot for planting my garlic. I wandered a bit, trying to figure out where to plant them until I remembered I had also failed to plant chives around my fruit trees over the summer. 

It has been on my list of things to do, knowing that a planting of alliums around trees will prevent apple scab after 3 years. These alliums bring additional benefits too, such as repelling borers.  Other urgencies popped in though, and I didn't get my chives planted.

With a bag of alliums in my hand and the sun fading away, I called my kids over to help me nest each clove of garlic in the winter homes I was making for them around my fruit trees.  They carefully covered each clove up, happy to get their hands dirty, as I reminded them of all of the sauces and meals that we would use our garlic in and as I explained why we were placing them around our trees.

When we had finished encircling each tree, I thanked my kids and told them they could return to the corn stalk bales that had recently been dropped off in our front yard and that I would finish planting the garlic.  It probably would have been nice to have their help finishing up, but I wanted them to also enjoy the benefits of temporary farm playgrounds as well.

My three boys quickly scattered away, eager to crawl through the tunnels formed by the rows of bales.

Hannah stood beside me.  I asked her if she would like to go play as well.  She replied that she would rather help get the garlic in.  After all, it's fun to help grow her food.

I scanned my choices of where to plant our remaining garlic and chose the mulched fence line of my raspberry plantings.

We worked together, visited, and planted garlic.  A sweet time together.

Two days later, the ice came, followed by the snow. The garlic was in.

Balancing the kids' school, the home, the farm, and the family is difficult.  It's something that I have not completely figured out yet, and I am daily challenged in sorting out my urgencies.

Many days the urgencies of my tasks are weighed against the urgencies of training my children.  Often, the effects of a task tended to are noticed more than the effects of a child tended to.

After all, raising children takes consistency, perseverance, and patience.

Sometimes I can combine these urgencies. Sometimes I can't.

On Tuesday, as we prepared and planted our garlic, I was reminded of this.

Having my daughter prefer to help me finish planting the garlic and spend time together warmed my heart that cool night.

And to see my oldest help my youngest as they separated the cloves of garlic earlier that day blessed my heart as well. When he shared with me what he was doing as they worked, I know he was being blessed with the lessons he was acting out of caring for others.

These lessons are often hard lessons to learn, coming from times of conflict, which come from times of being together (which happens a lot when you homeschool!).

So as I consider my urgencies for the day, I remember the urgency in being together. Being together to invest, encourage, shower love upon, and speak words of His grace, truth, and hope while we tackle the urgencies of life. 

Follow The Beginning Farmer's Wife on Facebook for additional personal peeks at building a family farm.

Tools of My Trade
This book is a wonderful resource on companion planting in order to grow foods without the use of chemicals. It details good and bad companions, how various plants work together for increased flavor, productivity, and pest control.  It includes information not only for the vegetable garden, but also for companion planting with fruits, nut trees, ornamental plants, and much more. Copies of this book can be found used or you can purchase a new copy from the link provided.

The Quest for Yard Trees

Way back when, I wanted to go into horticulture, but the Lord led me into the education field instead. (Which I have also grown to love.)  From early on, however, I loved working with plants, dreaming up landscapes, and looking forward to the time when I would have my own property that I could dabble with.  I always thought that this landscaping would be worked around tall, graceful trees on the property, or at least some kind of trees.

7 years into our marriage, the time came for us to purchase our first property. We bought our farm . . . A blank slate . . . Literally.

When we purchased our farm, it was 23 acres of prairie grasses on a hill with a 17 acre woodland bottom.

We built our house on the hill- the bare, treeless hill. 

The wise thing to do when you purchase a treeless piece of land is to plant some trees and get them growing.  After all, trees take time. We were very blessed that first spring to have been gifted an orchard, but much to my disappointment come fall, those were the only trees which had roots in the ground.

Okay, so one year won't make that much of a difference in establishing trees, right? Over the winter I began planning my landscaping layout so I would be ready to go once I could start planting.

The following spring I tried some saplings from our local NRCS spring tree order. The livestock tried those too.  The next year I thought that I should just purchase some taller trees that the livestock couldn't destroy.  After shopping around, I realized that idea would destroy our budget.  Although I did snatch up a couple $7 end of the season close out trees, I never thought that 5 years down the road I would still be dreaming of establishing trees on our property.

So this year, I changed my plan of attack. I managed to find a couple oaks and maples in the woods to dig up and move to the house. Two of them pulled through.  I was also given a gift to purchase some trees, so I placed an order for some smaller trees from the National Arbor Day Foundation and have tried to fence around them well for protection from livestock on the wrong side of the fence.

Even so, we are pretty treeless and a long way off from any sort of shade, as I don't foresee us purchasing any larger trees to plant.  Most likely, our children will probably be taller than the majority of the trees on our property for their growing up years.

The longer we are on the farm, however, the more Ethan and I both realize that this farm might be less for us and more for the generations that follow (if we continue to feel called here, are able to continue on that long, and here is where they wish to be).

So I am now planting my trees with, and for the next generation.

I found a wonderful source of seeds online at the DA Tree Store.  They are very reasonable and have a great selection.  I have ordered seeds for various evergreens from them, many of which will be for a windbreak. The kids and I learned about stratifying seeds (a cold treatment to mimic nature and break down the seed coat to allow the embryo to germinate) and started these seeds both indoors and outdoors this way. 





Last fall we brought home a bucket of walnuts from my parents, dumped them in the garden, covered them with mulch, and waited for spring.  The walnut trees that grew were then moved into various places in our woods, which is pretty void of walnuts.  Hopefully they will take off for the livestock and wildlife to enjoy down the road.



Since our walnut experiment went so well last fall, we have been collecting various nuts throughout the year this year.  The kids have helped me plant hickory seeds, buckeye seeds, various maple and oak seeds. and many other types of seeds and nuts we have collected.  We have even kept back some hardy fruit seeds from our area to stratify inside or start along the fence line of the garden.

To be perfectly honest, I would love to have trees to cast a cooling shade during the hot summer days.  I'd love to have a tree swing to sit on and overlook the pasture, song birds perched close by serenading our family, leaves for the kids to make nests in during the colorful crispness of fall, bare outstretched branches to collect the contrasting flakes of newly fallen snow.

Right now, however, our budget allows for some seeds. Some purchased, most collected. So I am trading my dream of tall, graceful trees for our family to enjoy for a dream of trees for the next generation to enjoy.

While doing this though, I am gaining.  I have gained precious and enjoyable times with our children as we have gone through the summer collecting seeds at the zoo, on walks with grandparents, visiting my home church, friends houses, parks . . .

Each of these nuts and seeds holds a story, and each of them are carefully marked as they are placed in the ground by little hands that are learning. Learning about stratification, learning about transplanting home grown saplings, learning about nuts and seed identification . . . about time together, about patience, and about investing in the future of others.

Follow The Beginning Farmer's Wife on Facebook for additional personal peeks at building a family farm.

Tools of My Trade
This is a great resource with wonderful illustrations.  If you are interested in starting your own plants with seeds, divisions, cuttings, layering, grafting, cultures, or more, this will be your go to book. When I first started propagating plants, I found much of my information on the internet.  I got a good start this way, but having this book on hand helped fill in the gaps for me.  Copies of this book can be found used or you can purchase a new copy from the link provided.

To Roll Out a Pie Crust

Two Saturdays ago we had our first major event (besides the Farm Crawl) on our farm, the Crooked Gap Farm "How Do They Do That" Class.  Our guests arrived at 9:00 a.m. and stayed until around 8:00 p.m.  It was a day full of tours, questions and answers, marketing discussions, and our insights on the mix of family, farming, and finances.

It was also a day full of Crooked Gap Farm food!

After I finished teaching school to our kids for the day, I spent the week before the event planning and preparing food for the 14 terrific individuals who were our guests, along with our family of 6.

Our Lunch was:

• CGF pulled pork sandwiches (on store bought buns)
• CGF tomatoes for the sandwiches
• CGF canned pickled banana peppers for the sandwiches
• CGF boiled potatoes, containing 3 different varieties of potatoes
• CGF buttercup squash
• CGF fresh cut carrots 
• CGF watermelon
• Harvest Cookies containing a CGF heirloom pink banana pie squash and CGF "Run of the Farm" eggs

(Thanks to Diana, from My Humble Kitchen, for the photo!)

Our Supper was:

• CGF Beef and Vegetable Soup with the following ingredients from our farm : our heritage grass-fed Dexter beef, beef broth, carrots, onions, potatoes, summer squash, green beans, yellow wax beans, and sweet corn.
• CGF cut carrots
• Homemade rolls, made with CGF home rendered lard
• Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp made with CGF strawberries and CGF rhubarb
• "Pumpkin" pie, made with a CGF heirloom pink banana pie squash and CGF "Run of the Farm" eggs, as well as the pie crust being made with our CGF home rendered lard.

Over the summer I have tried to involve my kids in as much of our food preparation and preservation as possible, and this week of preparing for our class was going to be a very full week of cooking.  I soon realized that that a lot of what I was cooking involved knives, cutting, and chopping, and I was having a hard time trying to figure out how to involve the kids rather than keep shuffling them away from my sharps. 

One afternoon during the kids' rest and independent time, however, was my pie making afternoon.  It was the perfect opportunity for me to teach some pie making skills to our 7 year old daughter so I pulled her away from her independent activities and had her come out to the kitchen.

One of the things that I tell my kids is that if you want to learn how to do something, watch first.  After you have watched the process, ask any questions you have bouncing around in your head.  Once you have done that, you may try it out.

I had 3 of my pumpkin pies to make so while I was mixing the dough, rolling out each crust, placing them in their pans, and putting on the finishing touches, Hannah watched on.  I could tell how eagerly she wanted to help me with the pies, but she patiently watched as I finished up the first, and then the second, and then the third.

After I was completed, I balled up my remaining pie dough and told her it was her turn, much to her surprise.

I have a little six inch diameter pie glass that isn't good for much besides making mini pies with leftover pie dough.  But, when you have a daughter, that reason is enough!

After all, my grandma taught my mom how to make pie crusts.  My mom in turn taught me, which led to me winning 3 champion trophies when I entered my pies in the pie baking contests during my 4-H years. I still use that same recipe (which can be found on our farm's recipe blog), and I hope that Hannah will some day pass it down as well.

So after finishing my three pies, I began my kitchen clean up and let Hannah work on her pie crust all by herself.  The only thing I helped her with was forming the ball of dough into a disk.  She tried, but it took a little more muscle than she could muster. After that first step, I continued to clean up around the kitchen, pausing long enough to snap some pictures of her work.

 

Hannah paid careful attention to the dough as she rolled it out, being sure to keep her pie mat and rolling pin dusted just enough that it wouldn't stick to the mat or the rolling pin, rolling it out easily and gently.  She did a good job not getting too much flour out either too, which would dry out the dough.

As Hannah rolled out her dough, she tested the size of her crust by carefully holding her pie glass upside down, looking for an extra couple inches of dough all around the glass.

Each time the pie dough wasn't wide enough, she worked the wider and thicker portion of the dough to the narrower portion.  She was careful to roll from the center of her pie dough so that she wouldn't pull up and tear the edges of her pie crust.

Once her crust was wide enough, she carefully folded it in half and scooted her pie dish underneath.

After the pie dough was reopened onto the pie dish, she carefully lifted up the outside edges of the pie dough in order to drop the dough down into the pie dish.  This lifting and dropping prevents the dough from being stretched or torn while it is being fitted to the pie dish.

Hannah then completed her final step of making her pie crust by pinching up around the dough around the outside of the pie dish and then trimming off the excess.

As you can see, there will still be a bit of pie dough scraps.  These scraps are perfect for rolling out again to be cut into pie crust cookies, which can be brushed with milk and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.  They are yummy to eat on their own or can be used to decorate your pies, as I did with my "pumpkin" pie.

As we talked about in our farm class, there are a lot of sacrifices that come with starting up a farm, especially when you are raising a family.  Days are full, bank accounts often aren't. It is hard to find time to get away as a family, and if that time was there, well . . . the money to do so might not be.

It is a choice that we have made.

I have also made the choice that I'm going to be purposeful in including our kids as we go through our days: To let them tag along beside us with our guests during our farm classes, even though it would be much easier on me to send them to a friends house.  To plant a couple extra cherry tomatoes plants in the garden, reserved for helping hands to snack from. And to make sure I plan my recipe to have enough pie dough for one last pie, a pie carefully formed by little hands in my small pie dish which I keep around for one purpose only.

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Tools of My Trade

 Linked is a set of 2 simple yet functional 6 inch pie plates dishes, perfect for daughters, granddaughters, or for making 2 smaller pies from one recipe. You also might be able to find some little 6 inch pie dishes at garage sales or second hand stores.

Although my particular pastry mat seems to be vintage now, there are many other pastry mats out there, sometimes even found at garage sales. The circles on the mat can be used as a guide for rolling out your dough the right size, but my favorite use for them is to contain my flour mess.  Cleaning is so much simpler when you can lift up your mat, dump excess flour into the trash, wash off anything that remains in the sink, and then finish your clean up with just a swipe or two of the dish rag across the table, creating no gummy messes.!

Ripening Tomatoes . . . and Cats

This week I set out to make a post about ripening green tomatoes. 

I was going to write about how I gathered all of the green tomatoes out of the garden before the first frost a couple weeks ago, about how I carefully checked them over to make sure they were all in good shape as to not spoil other tomatoes around them, and about how I have kept them out of the sunlight as suggested while waiting for them to turn red.

I was then going to mention how valuable these green tomatoes are, as I have already done one batch of 11 quarts of tomato juice from them.  I was also going to share how many quarts this last batch of ripened tomatoes produced (17 quarts). 

While I was sorting out the bright red tomatoes that were once as green as could be, my 4 year old asked me if he could help me.  Of course he could.  Why hadn't I thought to ask him? 

He edged in beside me and carefully started picking out the red tomatoes.  As he worked, he lifted up a tomato to his nose and proclaimed with a smile that it smelled like tomato juice.  He worked steadily as he clutched his stuffed cat with his other arm.

His cat. 

Two summers ago Isaac fell in love with the addition of cats on our farm.  He was 3 that summer and he spent his warm sunny days building houses for our cats. Two were gray, black, and white striped.  One was yellow. 

He had so much fun over the summer with these cats that we decided to work some cats into his November birthday. He received a little cat figure from the farm store to be added to their set of farm animals, as well as a little book with a cat that perfectly matched one of the darker cats.

His birthday celebration at home was going to be in the evening. We put the kids down for nap and rest time.  I prepared for when they were to wake up while Ethan went out to do some chores.

Not long afterward, Ethan came in quiet and long faced.  One of the darker cats had gotten up inside the truck, under the hood.  When the truck was turned on to be moved, the cat got caught in the belt.  It didn't survive. We decided to tell the kids the next day, after Isaac's birthday.

Isaac and our 1 1/2 year old spent many hours playing cats that fall . . . with their stuffed dogs. For Christmas, I gave Isaac and Jonathan each a stuffed cat.  Isaac, a yellow cat.  Jonathan, a black cat.  Isaac's favoritism soon turned toward our yellow cat, "Puss in Boots".

This summer the boys continued to smother our cats with love, as much as they could find them.  As the summer progressed, however, "Puss in Boots" started causing a little too much farm mischief.  We had gotten him as an older cat, and he had never learned to see our small farm animals as comrades, as kittens growing up on the farm would do.  It came to the point of him needing to leave our farm to live at a friend's house.

Isaac was heartbroken.

Still, Isaac and Jonathan continued to play with our remaining cat outside, and their little stuffed cats were constantly with them in the house.

This fall, while on a hayride, I spotted a small yellow kitten . . . a little yellow kitten just like "Puss in Boots". I knew the family who owned the cats cheerfully gave away kittens. With their permission, our new "Puss in Boots" spent the rest of the evening peeking out of my coat, waiting to head to its new home.

It didn't take me long once home to notice this little kitten seemed a bit lost penned up by itself as it was becoming acquainted with our farm, and our large dogs.  A quick message back to the family revealed that they did have a black kitten to match Jonathan's stuffed kitten, and they would be more than happy to add in a little calico female too if we would take it. 

And so arrived our 3 new kittens.  From the beginning, the kids have taken extra special care of them. Grabbing them up when vehicles were moving, shutting them up at night to keep them safe from larger animals, and sneaking out on the porch as often as able to smother them with attention.

Isaac's stuffed cat, now more flat and limp with love than plush, followed him around the house all the more.  I benefited from frequent hugs daily accompanied by thank yous for giving him his stuffed cat.

This past Saturday our farm hosted an all day event at our farm.  We had a group of individuals scheduled to come for an in depth tour of the farm, with 2 full meals included prepared from the produce and meats from our farm. We had been preparing all week, gotten up early Saturday morning, and we were very excited about the day ahead.

About an hour before our guests were to arrive, I continued to get ready inside.  Ethan headed out to move our truck and trailer.  And then he came in.  Straight faced.  Quiet.  A cat had ran right behind him when he was parking the trailer.  It had been hit. 

I asked him which one.

Puss in Boots.

We told Isaac.

I realize that cats come and go no matter where you are.  I realize that life is difficult no matter what you are involved in.  Sometimes, though, I just get tired of the struggles that farming, especially beginning farming, brings along.  The days that the kids feel heartache are the days that hit me the hardest.

So as Isaac hunkered down beside me, his one year worn with love stuffed kitty in his arms, wanting to help, enjoying the aroma of the tomatoes from our summer's labor, I was thankful. 

Yes, life on the farm is full of struggles.  But it is also full of lessons.  Lessons filled with the benefits of our hard work.  Lessons filled with working through life struggles and losses, knowing they will come again and come weightier as life progresses. Lessons that prepare and teach the kids how to navigate through this world.  Lessons for me in how to instil Hope to the next generation.  A Hope that sometimes needs an extra dose of patience and Faith in what is promised to come. 

The next time I have a project to do, I will try to remember to invite my little ones over to help me before they have to ask.