Our Little Family Farm

I am a city girl and I married a country boy.  For the last twenty years I have heard from Tucker how nice it would be to have some land to have some horses and chickens and a large garden and "space" and we can teach our kids how to work and then enjoy the fruits of our labors.  Some of his "country boy" has rubbed off on me and I happen to agree with the majority of his country thinking with a few exceptions.


Two years ago we moved from our one and a half acres to ten acres.   Did I mention I was a city girl?

To all the city girls who are married to country boys and they insist that taking care of a pasture of 8 acres isn't any different than taking care of a one acre pasture, have him do his own laundry.  Then, after a few weeks, lovingly smile and compliment him on doing such a fantastic job with his laundry.  He will probably reply with something like it "isn't that big of a deal."  Then you can sigh with a great sigh of relief and say, "Oh, that's good to hear.  Then it won't be any different when you do the rest of the seven family members laundry along with yours."  I may be a city girl but, I wasn't born yesterday.

All jesting aside, and although I'm a bit out of my comfort zone at times, I love it here.  Mostly, because Tucker and the kids love it here and the rest of me loves it because they're here.  It's fun to see the chickens free ranging in the yard and then to see the kids herd them into the coop.  Cameron absolutely loves our horse, Big Red, and ever since we've had them here, Big Red, gets a hello and a kiss before I do when he gets off the bus.  If I can't find Cameron, I haven't looked out by the horses.

We started our garden.  We'll see how this year will go.  Last year was, well, unmentionable.  I started  some flowers, tomatoes, cantaloupe, pumpkin, zucchini and cucumbers inside.  The zucchini and cucumbers didn't transplant well and we had to start over and plant seeds outside.  The onions, corn, potatoes, peppers, green beans and watermelon have been planted.  We need to go down and buy some strawberry starts and plant peas, lettuce, broccoli and red potatoes.

I enjoy being out in the garden with the kids and teaching them how to prepare the dirt to plant and then water and weed and I think the kids like to have a garden and the satisfaction of being able to watch their hard work grow.  I remember my mom and dad doing the same thing with me, in our "city" backyard.  We were just on a smaller piece of land behind a fence and boy were those tomatoes, corn, strawberries and peaches fresh from our yard, out of this world!

Cute Chicks.

This spring, we bought some new baby chicks.  Kenna was so adorable in the store carrying chirping chicks around in a small little box while I bought the feed.  She had this same cute look on her face, half shy and half proud, and everyone she passed by had to stop her and take a look at what she had in her box.

 McKenna LOVES her pajamas.  She will have a bath in the morning and will run in and get another pair of pj's on.  She did this one Sunday morning and as time ticked by to go to church I could see we were all going to be late so I grabbed a dress put her into the car and thought I'd dress her there.  Well, needless to say, we walked into Sacrament meeting late with McKenna wearing a red dress with her purple and pink Curious George pajamas on underneath.  Tucker just smiled on the stand, realizing who really won the battle that morning.

Prom and Pinewood Derby...

Macey was asked to the Senior Prom by one of her friends Corey O'Dale.  No she is not a senior, she will be a junior next year.  I am trying to stretch out the time as long as I can while she is counting the days.  She said to me the other day, "I'm gonna be 18 next year..."  Father Time stop the clock! Please!  She had a great time.  Grandma J helped us out and modified her dress and sewed the bolero jacket and the sequined sash.  She looked beautiful and her siblings were all there to gawk and probably made Corey ready to run!

I had a great surprise today as I opened up my photos on the computer!  The prom pictures and pinewood derby pictures, which to make a long story short were not deleted by mechanical camera download error.  Somehow after long hard searching and then giving up not willing to pay someone $50 or more to retrieve them, they appeared silently and brightened my day over a month later!

Braden loves scouts and he loves even more planning and designing his pinewood Derby Car.  Tucker asked him if he wanted a car that would win or a car that looked great.  Looks won.  So did his car!  He won a few races and won the "paint and detail award."  Why is it that the brick looking cars win the derby every year?  Last year it was a "stick of butter" and this year it was a "Wii remote."  Go figure.  Anyway, he loved working on it and spending time with his Dad while doing it.