Fun Fabulous Fall!

I absolutely love fall.

I love the cool mornings.

I love the changing leaves.

I love playing outside with my kids.

I love pumpkins and gourds and seeing everyone's decorations.

I love that it freezes and I'm allowed to let my garden go.....all I have to do now is pick the underground stuff.

It's just a wonderful time of year; I only wish fall lasted three months instead of the hot summer.  That's just me, though. 

Today's a bit warmer than it has been lately.  We're making good use of the weather outside; we started cross-fencing a pasture by our house.  (Cross-fencing is just dividing the large pasture into smaller pastures so that we can rotate our cows next year...it helps prolong the life of the grass.)  We've been digging holes for railroad ties this morning.  Now the kids are napping.  They were so tired; they sort of cried and whined their whole way through lunch.  I was glad to send them off to bed; they were sleeping within minutes. 

We've also been busy with many other things this month...or at least Matt is every day....I help when I can or he really needs assistance.  He's been combining beans and fixing machinery; we've been hauling manure and hauling cows home together.  I'm so glad all the cows are home now.  It's so nice to know we only have one pasture to go and check and that if we need to give them a bale here and there, we don't have to spend half a day bringing hay down to my pasture. 


Clarence has enjoyed his first two weeks of preschool...(It's only been 4 half-days, but he loves it!).  He rides the bus now with cousin Tucker.  He's picked up about 7:50.  He gets to school, they play, then go eat breakfast as a class, then come back and brush their teeth.  Then they get to make projects, play in the gym or outside, and read books.  He really loves school; he's always asking me when the bus is coming again to get him for "cool".   Of course, as soon as he gets any free moments, he's working on his pen.  He recently moved it over by the horse pen, and has moved the panels around to make a chute.  He's decided it's going to be a calf pen for the little calves.  He's just constantly working on it to perfect its usefulness, I guess.  :)  He even has a bale of nice green alfalfa spread around the pen.....what he's expecting to come and eat it, I'm not sure. 

He spent the night at Nikki's on Thursday.  He noticed all the leaves in her yard and told her, "You need clean you yard up." So they went out and taked for a bit.  They made a big pile of leaves, and Clarence pointed to the raked part, "That look so nice."  He's such a little perfectionist! It makes me laugh!


Adina's having fun at home with me while Clarence is gone at school.  We just hang out and get a little bit of work done, then it's time to go and pick him up.  People keep asking her if she wants to ride the bus, and she replies, "maybe yater"...meaning that she's really not ready yet.  "Maybe Yater" is her answer for when she doesn't get to do something today, tomorrow, or for a while.  She understands that "maybe later" is a ways away, so that's how she responds.  She's into playing with her Barbie, Ariel, putting on lip gloss, brushing her hair, and wrapping up her babies lately.  She's also really into training her kitties, too.  She loves playing "out-hide baby hihees".  I love listening to her talk.  We can really have a pretty full conversation these days, which is nice for me...I understand better what she wants. 


I started teaching piano lessons in St. Vincent last week. I've got 20 students up there.  I'm hoping it'll be a good year with everyone willing to practice and move along in their books.  :)  I'll also be teaching some lessons in Lancaster on Monday evenings, but I'm really glad I split the days up...it would get to be such a long day if I hadn't.  I'm not really sure how things will work after the baby comes and I decide to teach again...I guess I'll just cross that bridge when I come to it.  Just pray that it'll all work out ok, I guess.

Well, hope you're enjoying our fabulous fall!  Pray that we get some rain soon....it's so dry everywhere!

Excitement

It's been a good start to the week.

Sunday began with our first day of Sunday School. All went well, and the kids had so much fun.  After church, Mom and Nikki each took a kid.   Matt and I went and had lunch with Pat and Laverne (the people we bought our farm from), then came home and canned tomatoes and spaghetti sauce.  Yay for having a helper who was willing to peel tons of tomatoes.  He literally saved me hours.  Thanks, Matt. :)

The kids were so excited when they got home that night because Grandma Juli had let them borrow "Gunsmoke".  It's all they've been watching since they got it.  And they love it! It's black and white, but it's all they request.  It makes me laugh.  Matt loves it, too. He'll find any excuse to come in and watch a movie with the kids before bed. :)

Clarence started out yesterday by being privileged enough to ride in the corn chopper with Donald Burton.  Donald and his crew came out yesterday and chopped our corn.  Clarence was lucky enough to get to ride for three hours in the corn chopper.  I asked him how many rows he did.  He held up his hands, and said, "Five, five, five, five, five rows."  (That's a lot, I'm thinking.)  I wonder what he and Donald talked about?  Any guesses?

I'm guessing farming, cows, haying, chopping corn, etc.  Anything and everything that could have to do with the farm.  Donald even gave him pop and candy. What a lucky boy!

Tonight he had his pre-school open house.  We went to the school, found his room, his cubby, his nametag, his locker, and met his new teacher.   He had a lot of fun (and Adina had fun tagging along).  We read a book together, then had a snack, then went outside to play with the other kids.  I know he's going to have a great time at preschool. 


Today we spent a few hours cleaning up our toy room.  It was a disaster, to say the least.  Anyway, now we can easily walk in the door, through that room, and go right into the kitchen, rather than going around the long way.  It's lovely.

Adina found so many cool toys she had forgotten about.  She found one of my grandma's old purses full of dishes Nikki, Amanda, Savannah and I used to play with at Grandma's house.  She added her own little collection to the purse, threw it around her neck (that's how she carries it), and has walked around with it on all afternoon.  This morning she even picked 8 tomatoes and added to her purse and random collection.  Thankfully Clarence told me about them so I could take them out before she squished them and made a large, disgusting mess.

That's all the excitement I have...not as much as I thought, but it's all fun, anyway.

Oh, one more.  The baby's been moving for the last two weeks, and it's so much fun to experience it again!    Now I can even feel it on the outside sometimes.  I'm excited for when the kids will actually be able to feel it.  It won't be long now!  I'm 21 weeks along right now.  Baby's due January 20th, although I'm sure I'll have my c-section the week before...I'm kinda shooting for Jan. 15th, which is my brother's birthday.That would be fun!

Hope you're having a super day and week! And yay for cooler weather!

Clarence's Daily/Weekly/Monthly and Adina's new obsession

Here's what I can remember from some funny things my sweet little boy has said recently.  He continually cracks me up with his conversations, his addiction/obsession with the farm, and his love of helping his dad and grandpa.

C: Grampa Lowell? You got any minner and salt blocks? I need some. Bye.
(This was his imaginary phone conversation with my dad in the car one day.)

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C: Mom, you need get those matoes out of my wagon. I need to haul 'nure.

Me: Can we just leave them in there until I'm ready to use them?

C: Okay, but I need to haul 'nure.  Morrow you can get them out.

Me: Ok....(but I'll leave them in there as long as he forgets about them.)

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Last week, we found Clarence at the foot of the deck with two chairs turned over on their sides, the cushions for the chairs on the ground, a garbage can, and the wagon, all in a circle. 

Me: What are you doing, Clarence?

C: Going camping, Auntie Mary's fair.

Me: You are at the State Fair?

C: Yeah, camping.  Dina, lay down and sleep.  (Then he lays down with her on the cushions and they pretend they're sleeping and camping.)

Later on, I saw he had Ruby in his "pen."

Me: Clarence, be nice to Ruby.

C: She's my heifer, I need to load her in the trailer (his wagon).

Me: Ok, but if she wants to get out, make sure you let her.  You have to be nice.

C: I be nice.


.......

After Matt got home and saw his mess, he said:

Matt: Clarence, come with me; I have some panels you can have and you can make a real pen instead of making a mess right here.

C: Ok... (He's so excited about the possibility of real panels!)

Matt: (Goes to the barn, comes out with six sheep panels.)  Will these work? Where do you want me to set them up?

C: Mom! I got panels! 

Me: Set them up by the sandbox.

C: Yeah!

Minutes later, after Matt had the pen all set up, Clarence had a rope around Ruby's neck and was leading her over to the pen.

Me: What are you doing, Clarence?

C: I need to get this black pig in the pen.

Me: Oh, now you have a black pig named Ruby?

C: Yep.

From this poing on, Clarence has spent countless hours at his pen, opening gates, getting dogfood to lure the puppies and Ruby in, bringing the baby kitties out there, etc.  He's obsessed...it's his own little pen to do whatever he wants with (as long as he's nice to the animals).

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Adina's been really busy lately.  Her black cat, Regan, had kittens about four weeks ago.  She's been faithfully petting and training those five cute kitties ever since.

She begs to go outside to see them.  She'll pet them, wrap them in blankets, carry them around in buckets (nicely), and feed them.  She absolutely loves them!  And, I'm so thrilled that we now have nine TAME cats right out my front door.  Oh, and I forgot to mention that Rocks, the gray cat who had kittens in May or June is going to have another batch any day now.  I'm so excited..........

Anyone need any tame kittens?

Adina's a great cat-tamer! She's taught them a lot of tricks! And they are eating catfood already.

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We've had such a fun, busy summer. I can't believe school's already started and we're back into having schedules to live by.  Clarence starts three-year old preschool on Sept. 18th. He has it Tuesday and Thursday mornings every week.  He's really excited about it - the fun things they get to do and seeing his friends a couple times a week.  It's hard for me to know he's already old enough to be at school a little bit, and that he'll be riding the bus!


We have two pastures north of our house that have ponds in them.  Dry ponds.  We had to bring the cows home from those pastures this last week...we even had them dug out - 8 feet down, with only mud and dry dirt coming out...no water.  We've been checking one of the ponds, and thankfully there is water coming back into it slowly from an underground spring.  This might allow us to bring the cows back up to those pastures in a couple weeks.  Hopefully!  Please pray we (and all the other dry areas around us) get rain and plenty of snow this winter.  If we don't, it'll be hard to feed the cows next summer.  Kind of a scary thought.


Well, off to do something productive before my 'nure spreading helper, Clarence, wakes up from his nap.  Adina's at her friend Payton's house today, because she's a difficult little girl to entertain in the tractor for an entire day.  Plus, she's so excited to go and play with her friends, that it's fun for me to bring her there because I know she'll have tons of fun.   It's all Clarence ever dreams of, though.  An endless amount of farm work to do.  He sits and talks to me about working his cows, feeding them oats, combining his beans, combining his sunflowers, etc., all of which is imaginary or has to do with his toy cows in the house.  He's a funny and interesting little boy!