Harvest Time!

The potatoes are running! So far so good down on the farm, the Arco farm is off to a slow start but will get there once we get through the first few days of adjusting and get a routine going. The potatoes I saw looked great, and tasted great today for Sunday dinner, I think we must be doing something right! Here are a couple of shots going into the cellar:you can barely see a red light at the end of the cellar, this is a REALLY long cellar, those potatoes were traveling a long way!

And out in the field, a couple of wind rowers:

And one digger way back there chugging along!

A couple of cousins doing a little farming. We were glad to have so many around for the weekend. We took advantage of all of these "BIG" kids and had them help dig some test plots, Ryan dug them (by hand) and the kids gathered up all of the potatoes. Fun times!

Sydney, Justin, Kaden, Emma, Megan, Alaina, Kegan, (Ash was in the front)

Gonna Have to Post

Even though it is boring around here......OK we are totally going into the most busy, crazy, scary, tiring time of year for us, but it is no longer exciting, just sad.... I have been a working mom the past two weeks and my house shows it! I am not good at holding down a job away from home and holding down the home too! I don't know how anyone does it, hats of to all the workin moms! So we, me and my little kids have been farming like crazy, but not as much as Ryan;

Ryan is gone, I have officially kissed him goodbye until November.... His current schedule is: 1:00am start baling, 8:00 am rush down to the farm to try and dig potatoes, 8:00 pm Home, eat dinner, shower, sleep, REPEAT! How can a person do this? I don't know, all I do know is I need more than 4 hours of sleep per night, and for a week running, he is so exhausted, poor man! It has only just begun! I told Emma she needed to be quiet because Dad was sleeping, she said, Oh I would like to see Dad I haven't seen him for a while, (3 days I think). I wish we didn't have to go to school, but we do...

The girls are enjoying school, I cant believe we are finishing up our 3rd week already, time flies! They both are working on spelling tests and reading a lot. I think they play with each other most recesses, which is fine with me. They are such big help, they can totally whip this house into shape in no time, I love my good cleaners!

Justin is mean. Claire is always saying "Justin, mean" and he is, he goes out of his way to be mean to her, I don't quite get this boy stuff. He and I have discussed much in our HOURS in the swather. He knows exactly what he wants for his birthday and Christmas and he has told me when I need to go buy it and how I should wrap it and hide it. He is funny, he really wanted to get his sandbox in, but not yet....can you dig a sandbox in November?

Claire is potty training herself, she told me to "shoo mom" when I was helping her in the bathroom. (we are always shooing kitties out of the house) I had to do a double take, I asked her again, and she told me again to shoo. She is AWESOME in the training dept. Not even ONE accident today???? Can it be real? She is still very quiet but talks a lot. She uses whole sentences now, takes after her sisters!

Today was our last day in the swather, Ryan keeps threatening that I will have to run the baler, fortunately I have a primary meeting in the morning so I cant learn tomorrow. I finished swathing in record time today, (well it took me two days to do one field, so record time for me!!) I somehow managed to swath up two skunks, now that is ROTTEN! This field had tons of wild life, 4 skunks, 1badger, 2 coyotes (we called them Swiper the fox, they were really orange colored), and 4 deer (3 bucks) And of course our favorite, the cows, they would run to the edge of the pasture to see all the wild life too, funny cows!Who knew! We saw more wildlife on our own farm then we did on our trip through Yellowstone! I hope we are really done swathing for sure this time, we will see what the harvest season brings on!

BYU-I or BUST!

This girl is going to COLLEGE! How exciting, I wish I was going with her! Good Luck Danielle! We will miss you!!

Flying kites in Idaho

Kite flying has never worked very good for us, you would think with all of the wind we have it would be perfect, but it is a very inconsistent wind, I have noticed especially when we are trying hard to make kites fly. When the wind finally did pick up it came with a BIG rain storm and we got soaked trying to get the kites back down! Oh how fun!

Would YOU trust US?

We are pet sitting for the weekend, this is a picture of the kids with ALL of their hands IN the fish bowl, the poor things were/still are scared to death....almost, not really death! Fortunately all of the little fishies are still alive, I am positive that we have over-fed, over-stimulated, over-changed their water, etc! They are pretty hearty little fish, I hope they can survive us til Monday when our cousin owners get back!

Justin the Hairstylist!

I found Justin fixing Claire's hair the other night, I am not sure who did a better job, Justin doing hair, or Claire doing makeup! I am pretty sure I had a post kind of like this last year after Ash and Emma went to school, they are my little baby watchers and must have already gone to bed for the night when this one happened. At least they were being nice! I was glad it wasn't my "good lipstick" until I realized it WAS my good lipstick, RRRRR!

Last summery haircut

This will probably be the last hair cut we do outside this year, sob, sob! It is so much easier to clean up outside! We just let the wind take care of it!! It was a perfect night for a haircut too. Here is the handsome boy!

Swather Operator For Hire

I am headed out to swath again this morning, I don't know if I can handle another 9 hour day in the tractor, I only have Claire which will help a lot. Justin went with Ryan, he wanted to wear some pliers this morning, I will have to take a picture of him with his pliers and plier case on his belt, he is turning into quite the little farmer. I don't think I am such a good farmer, I keep thinking I will get fired after my crazy driving and swervey rows, but no such luck, Columbia View Farms would have fired me by now, but not Telford Farms, we must be DESPERATE!! We are off!

Claire lately

Lately Claire has been getting into everything! I didn't think my little princess was going to turn into a terrible two year old.....but she is. She LOVES to color, on everything, including her face and body, the pantry door, the walls, etc, etc.



I'm not sure where she found a binky, but she sucked it most of Sunday afternoon, I didn't ask questions, she was happy!

She is also dressing herself. She is such a girl, well, such my girl. She loves clothes! She dresses herself, her babies and even barbies, she is really good at it most of the time.

Jammies on top of her play clothes, she never wants pants on, she is constantly taking them off and then will find something else to wear around for a while, she is into all of the kids dressers, she even was putting on Jaci's clothes last time we were at their house. I am pretty sure Justin just BARELY figured out how to dress himself, must be a girl thing, a clothes horse at such a young age.......

Claire is also counting to ten, and on, but not in any right order, she is talking a lot, but is very quiet. She is at a really fun stage, I wish she would quit growing!! I am not ready to have my baby be so big!

Workin!

We have been WORKING this week. My poor little kids are SICK of the swather. This one time thing has turned into an all week thing. I think Ryan is wearing out his resources! I am tired! I do enjoy getting to swath by myself, now that is totally different, but my poor kids cant stand to be in the tractor ALL DAY! Here are a few happy moments, there are only a few!!! One cool thing; we get to eat lots of junk food!

Claire's favorite spot, it only lasted one round, but she keeps trying to get up in front of me and then she laughs because she knows she is in my way!

Big brother taking care of little sister.

Now there is a happy moment! Both sound asleep, and at the same time no less!