Farm Crawl 2010!

Farm Crawl 2010. It is still incredible to me that our farm booth was ON the crawl this year. In 2007 I was newly pregnant with Blueberry Girl, Lil'Bug was two, almost three years old, and we lived cityside, still dreaming of living on a farm. At that time being on a farm seemed like a very far away dream.

In 2008, we attended Farm Crawl with the intent to meet our new neighbors. We had a closing date on our farm and moving and planning and farming was just a few months away.

In 2009, we had too much farm work to do and actually loaded our first harvest of four pigs onto a trailer to haul to the butcher in Milo- so we missed the Crawl!

That brings us to now.....2010 Farm Crawl. We were invited to set up at the dairy where we get the whey for our pigs. It made sense. We have a wonderful relationship with Lois (I might be her biggest cheese fan EVER). The girls, while I was still doing "bucket runs,"  adored playing with her goats and cats and chickens.We wanted to show off our farm products well, so we practiced the table display a few times, bought cards and a banner (the logo was designed by a friend of mine), and hoped for good weather.

Farm Crawl for us began much earlier in the day. We were greeted by some of our hostesses at the far end of the field! Last Spring these ladies were just kids (baby goats) and Lil'bug would play with them while Lois and I loaded whey buckets. It wasn't long after that just Lois was loading the buckets and I was relegated to stacking empty buckets!

Lil'bug helped set up the table display. Here she was explaining how much she has grown this year.....or that she's a really tall robot. :) Mostly she helped keep Blueberry Girl from eating the crayons.

We got the display and our banner affixed to the table.....just in time to start greeting customers.

We had other plans for the girls that didn't work out, so they played with us and each other all day at the Farm Crawl. Mostly. They also played with all the other kids, entertained anyone who'd pay attention, gave mini tours of the chicken area and hay bales, fetched and served water to anyone who would take it (they LOVED the Sponge Bob cups that were being used).

 They also talked to people about our farm and then caught frogs, toads, and.....

....a lovely Iowa milk snake. We've never caught a wild one. Neat that it was actually AT a dairy! Lil'Bug plans to add this to her documentation project for Iowa Herp Net.

The girls shared a snack while there was a very small lull in traffic.

Then Blueberry Girl pretended to be a chicken and took a dust bath. They had so much fun that we never had need to stop working and take them out for a break.

It was a very good day for a Farm Crawl. We were thrilled and grateful to be included. Thank you so much to all the friends that came out to see us and support our efforts. Thank you to all the hard working farmers that organize and put this event on every year. Thank you to our current and future customers who are making our dream of running a small family farm come true!

Farm Crawl!

We'll be at the Farm Crawl in southern Iowa tomorrow - hope to see you there!

Last Few Weeks in PIctures

Lots of farm visits, lots of friends, lots of exploring, frog catching, running, playing.......and then we all were down with a stomach bug that I am still convinced might have been food poisoning. Then we were all up and back at it again. And that's life on the farm! Days like this have us running hard, but the laughing and smiling are what rejuvenate the heart. Thank you to all who have brought us joy this summer and this lifetime. :)

Family Farm, Picking Apples

We made apple picking a family effort on weekend. Usually it is just me and the girls, but our wonderful friend Amanda said we could clear her entire, yummy, loaded tree and I needed help with the high branches. We still did not completely clear it and will have to make various trips for windfall soon. Also, not all these apples are for the pigs, as the girls have voted they are the yummiest apples ever. They are also storing amazingly well.

I love that our farm is a family effort. 3 generations working hard here. With many hands it didn't take long to gather three laundry tubs of apples. We'll head out this Saturday as well for our next round of picking. So grateful for these wonderful sources of food for our pigs.