A little help from our friends....

Sometimes life seems to get in the way. Even when you are farming. Maybe I should say especially when you are farming. My car has been out of commission for a couple of weeks now and we were depending on that of my mother. Unfortunately, this car is also out of commission for a couple of days. Which makes our lives a little bit interesting. 

Thankfully Aeryn and I are blessed to have wonderful friends in Jay and Lilly who have fed the cows for us for the past couple of evenings. It is another chance that I can reiterate the point that it really does "take a village". Not just to raise children. But to succeed. Never would Aeryn and I have been able to set out on this venture without the help that Jay has given us. (And the land that we are using of course) 

Aeryn and I stopped into Jay's classroom the other day, and on the way out she saw a sticker on his door that simply stated "No farms, no food". She looked at me and grinned a little bit. I like that she understands the meaning of this. I also enjoy the fact that she is realizing the benefits of raising our own food and is willing to work hard to help me achieve this goal. 

Without farms, we ARE without food. Or more importantly without American farmers, we are without food that is nutritious or that the majority of America can afford. Aeryn is learning every day that buying local is better for both our bodies, and our community. I will work to support this mindset in my child. 

Back to the grind...

Aeryn is now back from summer camp but has been so busy getting ready for the fifth grade she has not had a chance to make time for blogging. Even though I have informed her that it is "her turn". That's okay. I have lots of thoughts to share.

It is now the end of August and we have had our cows at the farm for four months now. Though it seems like it has been much longer. Aeryn loves them more every day. I think they even may have missed her when she was at camp.

We have moved the girls into a different pasture. It has been suck a long hot summer trucking water to them was getting to be a bit of a chore. One that we could not keep up with. So now they are in a beautiful pasture with a pond and more green grass than these four girls will ever be able to consume. And they LOVE it. We moved them over the day before Aeryn got home from camp.

Aeryn loves their new pasture. She likes to feed them at the edge of the pond so that she can watch the ducks play while the cows are eating. Though she may not be doing that much more after having to fish a feed bucket out of the pond with my mother's umbrella. Silly girl had left the buckets their over night and one fell in.

I love going with her to watch her feed. Though it happens less and less lately with my work schedule. She can stand anywhere in the field and call to the cows and as soon as they hear her voice they come running. A couple of evenings ago we could see both Roseanna and Lola from where we parked but we could not see the twins. Then from up near the pond we see a little head poke up and then look back for her sister. All of a sudden Rachel comes barreling down the hill out of the pond, water flying everywhere! Apparently she had been taking an evening swim and we had interrupted her. Fortunately she decided that coming to get her dinner was not an event event to be missed.

Cheshire Fair 2012

Aeryn has had a very hard time keeping up with blogging. As have I. Apparently blogging does not fit as well into our lives as we had thought but we are going to keep at it. Eventually we will get better and will be able to look back on our sparse beginning.

So here we are at the beginning of August. Amazingly we have survived our first show with our little herd and Aeryn is VERY pleased with the results. When Aeryn gets home from summer camp she will be writing out thank you's to all of our wonderful friends that made this possible.

What an adventure the fair was! Nancy and Robert kept Alex busy while Mary, Aeryn and I dealt with the animals for the most part. And it was so tiring. Aeryn worked her little tush of every day to make sure that her animals were clean, fed and watered. I have never seen her take such responsibility for something before.

She also got to spend lots of time with one of her very best friends. Rhyan became my second daughter for a week and it was a lot of fun. Nothing like sleeping in a tent with a toddler, three other adults and two giggling girls!