The Vuck

      We are very excited in my household because tomorrow we get to pick up our new pickup. No the one pictured above is not the one we are getting. I found this one in Vesta MN and though it too funny. I found out later it is my father-in-laws cousin who makes these one of a kind vehicles. With 5 kids currently I had to take a picture and send it to Paul saying I found the truck that could fit us all. We decided to call it a vuck. Van + Truck = vuck. The truck that we will get tomorrow is a new Chevy Silverado and it is beautiful. We have never owned a new vehicle in this family and I just hope the kids, and Paul, can keep it nice for a little while.
      Paul and I are able to get this amazing new vehicle because we had the great pleasure and honor of representing Minnesota Farm Bureau at the national competition in Excellence in Agriculture. We feel so blessed that we were able to earn first place with a prize of a new truck. We have been waiting years for a truck or our own never really being able to justify the high price tag that comes with one. God had a plan and it looks like our patience and hard work as payed off.
      Stay tuned for pictures of our new truck, not vuck, coming soon.

Great lengths

Mary has been growing her hair out for some time and we decided it was time to donate her long thick locks to Pantine Great Lengths who will make the hear into wigs for cancer patients. Great Job Mary.

  This is only the second time Mary has had her hair done in a salon. She said she was glad this was the last time we would have to bush our the long easily snarled hair. She sure wont miss all the pulling each morning.

    The stylist put her hair in two ponies saying that each one was as thick as many peoples single ponytail. Mary was calm seeing her hear cut off.

Each ponietail measured aobut 11inches. Bye Bye long hair and snarls.

She looks so cute with her shorter hair and it should be so much easier to care for. You are going to help make someone going through a tough time in live very happy Mary. Good job.

Blessed to have a Mess

    This morning I was walking through the house and looked in my mudroom and though what a mess! These are rubber and snow boots everywhere, piles of hat and mittens, snow pants and farm coats and town coats all over the place. I then stopped and thought to myself "I my not like the mess but I am blessed to have this mess".
   Often the farm is not a clean place and many of the jobs are dirty and stinky. And there are those extra messy times of the year when the snow is melting or the rains are falling when mud seems to cover everything and I start to feel sorry for myself and my house thinking that I will never get it all cleaned up.  Even though mud puddles may cover my floor I need to remind myself that living on the farm is worth it. We have the opportunity to work out in mother nature helping raise wholesome food. We have pride in and take good care of what has been entrusted to us. Farming may be a dirty job but we feel blessed that we are able to do it.

Critter Class

Paul is helping organize a FFA Ag Bowl competition in our area the end of this month. One of the competitions will be wild life identification. In order to conduct the test Paul sent away to a company that loans our animal pelts for this purpose. The box arrived the other day while Paul and I were our working with the cows. The big kids who had just gotten home from school for the day opened up the box and were scared to find it full of fur. They told me they thought there was a bear in the box.

    Later that night Paul went through the box with the kids and they had a little critter lesson. All of the pelts are from animals found in Minnesota and many of them were types of animals they kids have seen on our farm. Paul is a wonderful educator and knows so much information about these animals after teaching about them for many years in the classroom as an ag teaching. He told the kids interesting fact about each animals and the kids commented on how soft, colorful, or large the animals were.
    I then had the kids pick out their favorites and I took a picture of them.  

         Mary choose the largest and smallest pelts the coyote and the white weasel. She named the weasel Herman. He is very soft.

   Simon choose the water loving animals with a otter and a beaver round. The otter was surprisingly long.

    Rose surprised us by choosing the skunk. She called it "Rosie's Stinky". She begged to take it to bed but we were finally able to convince her that the skunk would be happiest sleeping in the box with his other animal friends.

    It was a fun evening and makes me so thankful of all the wonderful experiences my children get being exposed to agriculture and nature. They were able to name all the animals by sight and some facts about them by the end of the lesson. They also learned that trapping and preserving these animals pelts is a part of natures way also. Hunting helps the animal population stay within a manageable level so there is enough food and resources for the rest of their species to be health and make it through the harsh winters.