These Summer Days

Hi, there! I just wanted to pop in and share some glimpses of our summer.

Of course, these are the beautiful moments, but they’re just as real as the times when I’m cranky and nothing is going right (no one grabs a camera in those moments…). So, I’ll leave the cranky days to your imagination and welcome you into the beautiful ones. 

Even in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, our lives overflow with blessing. The screen door slams as kids run in and out, the walls are dotted with sticky popsicle fingerprints, bouquets of Queen Ann’s Lace and wildflowers decorate the table, grass stains and berry stains abound. Knees are skinned; bug bites are itched; lightning bugs are cupped, named, and released; bathing suits are soaked and hung out to dry and soaked again.

This is summer on a farm with kids. We have so much to be grateful for.

Instead of getting a pandemic puppy, we got pandemic chickens. In April, twenty-two chicks joined our well-established home team of seven hens. The integration has gone surprisingly well. They aren’t laying yet, but soon we’ll have to gather the eggs in an actual basket. (I don’t think our typical practice of gingerly carrying the days’ eggs in our pockets will work when we’re hauling 29 eggs down the lane.)

Little League pulled together a short summer season to make up for the one that was cancelled in the spring. One of my favorite things about the season is that Malachi learned how to slide. I love those satisfying, effortless slides into Second, Third, and every-so-often Home, the dust puffing up like fireworks.

My other favorite thing about the season was that Ryan occasionally took Malachi over to the field early in the morning to work out together. They’d come home for breakfast energized by hard work, camaraderie, and improvement. One morning, I took the little siblings to the field so they could give it a try, too.

Our victory garden is teaching us the phrase “fruits of our labor”. This is THE first summer we kept a schedule of working in the garden every morning and, wow, does it pay off! In years past, our garden would be a vibrant, vicious jungle by now but here we are, in late July with a gorgeous, well-cultivated, no-machete-needed garden!! Ryan and the kids did the lion share of work. I pitched in whenever I wasn’t needed by the baby, the dishes, or my morning coffee. 😉

In May and June, we planted, watered, and weeded. Now, in late July, the transition from weeding to harvesting is tangible. Our baskets are full of sugar snap peas, cucumbers, green beans, and beets. There’s more to come, Lord willing! The tomatoes will ripen soon. The pumpkin and watermelon vines are full of adorable babies.

Speaking of babies, a foal was born at a neighboring farm. Lia grabs a walkie-talkie and rides her bike over to visit as often as possible. The opportunity for Lia to love this foal is one of the blessings I continually thank the Lord for, over and over.

Oh, and!! We celebrated all of our men and their sweet summer birthdays. It has been a good summer indeed.