How We Do Things Series: Harvest

We have been so blessed to have perfect weather for combining this week! We have been able to get lots done and hope to continue to get lots done while the weather is nice.

I have been combining on and off since we started farming 18 years ago. Even though it's very busy, harvest is my favorite time of the year. It's a time where we get the crops safe in the bins and get to see the fruit of all the work that went into planting and caring for the crops. When the fields are combined we can breathe a sigh of relief as we don't have to be concerned of frost, disease, bugs, hail, wind, drought or too much rain. We know that the Lord gives and He takes away and even though He will always take care of us, it's hard to think that all our work could be gone in a flash

This year started off very challenging because we had lots and lots of rain making very hard to get the crops in. Mud bogging was the name of the game this year! But just when the crops were planted the weather changed and things started to dry. We were very thankful for that! Mark and I have always said that we would never complain about too much rain. At least when there is rain things still have a chance of growing compared to a drought!nbsp;

Even though we did have a fair bit of drowned out crop we are thankful for the yields we are getting, considering in spring we were wondering if we would even have a crop!

As much as I like to be out there in the action of the field I do miss being at home and being a homemaker. And as the season goes on, the kids miss us more and more too and eventually we end up with them all in the field with us! So to help with that this year I made a schedule.....yup.....another schedule! Every day the kids look at the chart and see who goes in Mom's combine, Dad's combine, with Jen in the grain cart, with Josh trucking and who stays home (they always have the option to stay home if they would rather). That way the girls who have to send meals out to the field know who's with who and what to pack where! Eventually everyone is rotated through the different "stations". Instead of scheduling by days of the week I did days 1-5 because farming/combining is not a Monday - Friday thing! So far this has worked out really well and I have enjoyed having different kids along each day. There is the odd day that kids jump in with Mark before we get them organized and then he has them for the day! Especially Josiah as he really love to hang out with his Daddy! He announces as soon as he's dressed each morning, "I'm going combining!".....even on Sunday :)

But this year I have a constant buddy....a buddy in training! 

Caleb is learning to drive the combine this year and he's doing a super, great job! As I like to do around here, I  am trying to work myself out of a job by training him! And hopefully next year he can take over for me! With all these boys coming up I figure my days in the field are nearly coming to an end! 

So here's a run down of how we do things:

In the morning, before we head out to the fields the guys grease, check over and fill fuel in the combines. Then one combine goes out to the field and takes a test of the grain to see if it is ready to combine. We bring it home, test it in the tester and then if it's dry we all start our engines and head out to the field. This could be before lunch or after lunch, depending on what the weather is like that day.

Everyday we have 5 main workers out in the field. 

Gramps (Mark's Dad) drives the Red Energizer Bunny (keeps going and going, when it isn't stopped that is!) Its a 1680 Case combine

Mark drives the Big Boy (9600 John Deere)

 Caleb & I drive the Lil Boy (9500 John Deere)

Jen drives the "Ford Tough" tractor pulling the grain cart

and Josh keeps very busy driving the semi (2001 Kenworth) and grain truck (1998 Ford).

When we get to the field we go up and down, up and down, up and down....I think you get the picture.....until the field is done! How long does it take to combine a field? Well that depends on how dry the straw is (the wetter it is, the slower we drive), how big the field is (average field would probably be around 150 acres), and if there are any breakdowns!

The combines, combine. Jen buzzes around and pick up the grain on the go. She empties the grain from the grain cart into the trucks and Josh dumps the grain into the bins. 

But not all the work is done on the field. The ones who stay at home (this year it's Megan, Kerri and Rebecca) have a very important role in all this! 

The home crew is also the go-fer-it. This is anything from getting parts from town, bringing needed items to the field (like diapers...hee hee!), transporting people, moving around vehicles and anything else that needs doin'!

And then of course there is all the household stuff that still needs to be done like taking care of kids, canning gardening produce, cleaning...yup, they are a busy bunch too!

But probably the #1 thing of the home crew is that they FEED US! Nothing worse than sitting in the field hungry with no food around! For lunch they make lunches and send them along with the crew. Lunches in the field are looked forward to by all the young-ins!  For supper the girls package it up divide it into boxes/coolers for hungry ones in each combine/ tractor and deliver it out to the field where everyone eats on the go. Josh often ends up on the yard so he gets fed there.

Some of the younger kids go home at supper time while the older ones get to stay until later on. They think it's a big treat to stay out in the field after supper. I think they feel all grown up working till after dark!

Our quitting time varies each night depending on the weather or the weather forecast, wetness of the straw and ability to keep eyes open! Quitting time can be anywhere from 10:00 or 11:00 pm till the wee hours of the morning. Once in awhile we even pull an all nighter....those are always great fun!!!!! Let me tell you from experience that there is not many times harder to stay awake then when you are driving a slightly vibrating combine, in the dark, going 2 miles an hour!!! Hand me the toothpicks please! My fear has always been that I would fall asleep and wake up combining someone else's field! It's never happened though :)

And when harvest is done, we are usually exhausted but thankful for the provisions God has granted us! 

And that's a very quick run down of our harvest season! Any questions?

Oh and BTW....to the question Sharon had about the bin video. "what is the square in the middle of the bin concrete?"  Sorry for taking so long to answer! The square is where we put something called "aeration". We cover the square with tin strips that have holes in them and on the outside of the bin there is a hole where we put a big fan that blows LOTS of air into the bin, under the tin strips and blows up through the holes into the grain. This gives us the ability to harvest the grain a bit wetter and helps it not to spoil. Not all of our bins have this, but it sure is handy! Thanks for your question!

How We Do Things Series...Vacations

Since we just took a vacation and it is fresh in my memory I though I would do a post on how we do vacations!!!

We have done vacations different ways over the years. We have tented, we have camped with a camper and we have stayed in hotels. 

I can't say I prefer one way over the other, they all have their good and not so good points, some are more work than others, but they all make great memories!!!

When we go on vacation as a family this is what we purpose to do....make great family memories. Now having such a wide variety of ages means that we have to be flexible and often creative in what we do.

Vacations are much more expensive than living at home.....but they are WORTH it!!!! When we go on vacation we want to be frugal with our money but we also know that doing stuff is going to cost money! And because of that we do things that we normally wouldn't do, all the while trying not to tear up for the money we are dishing out (not serious :) Saying that, we do try to find events and places that give good group or family rates. And if we happen to hit a holiday, there are often events that you can get in for free. As much as we like these deals they don't always happen and we have to pay full rate! One thing that we have found over the years is that a family rate doesn't usually mean it will actually cover our family! In fact, usually it is 2 adults and 2 children, which comes up a little short for us!

The last couple of vacations we have found a method of packing that has worked the best for us. We bought everyone duffle bags (smaller ones for the littles) and put name tags on them. These fit perfectly under the van seats, and uses up a space that often seems wasted. And believe me, we need the space. To say that we are a little cramped when traveleling would be an understatement! We have a 15 passenger van, with 13 passengers. Therefore we have only 2 extra spots to put luggage on since there is really no extra space behind the back seats. We used to be able to take out a seat or two...but we are glad we are so blessed that we can't anymore...it's worth it :)

We seat everyone in the same spot as we do when we normally go anywhere. Zachary and Jesse in the back, Caleb, Nathan & Josiah in the 2nd to back seat, Kerri, Brooke and Mikaya in the 3rd back seat, and Jennifer, Megan and Jaden in the front seat. We find assigned seating saves on squabbles, pushing and shoving, and headaches for Mom :) The older girls will sometimes switch around, they don't usually push and shove :)

When we camp we bring as much food from home as possible. Because we grow our own meat, that is what we try to stock up on the most. We have a nice sized fridge in the camper and a fridge that plugs into the van. The more food we can take from home, the less costly our trip is! Favorite camping meals? Hamburgers, Bqued Chicken Pieces, Bqued Steak (from home :), Sloppy Joes......just to name a few. 

And when we hotel it, then we make sure that we find hotels that have a free breakfast. That is worth a lot to us. We eat breakfast as late in the morning as possible and then have just a light lunch and a bigger supper. Usually for lunch we will just buy a couple loaves of bread, sandwich meat, peanut butter and jam/honey, chips, and some fruit. Some of our favorite (and least expensive) suppers when traveling.....Pizza, Burritos, Roasted Chicken (the meals you can get in a grocery store with salads). 

When we go to a hotel we try to fit into 2 rooms (3 this last trip because Josh, Rebecca and Andy joined us). We fit as many as we can on the beds, get a playpen for the baby and bring sleeping bags for the rest. 

While traveling, if the trip is long enough, we bring some things to entertain the kids. Books, coloring, a few toys. When we went to Alberta this last trip we hardly brought anything and the kids did great! We loaded up our Ipod with music and stories and we were good to go! I found it much less hassle to bring as little in the way of entertainment as possible. It also cut down on the car sickness for those who suffer from it. 

I think most people wonder how many times we have to stop for a bathroom break? Well, not too often. We make sure the drinking water is kept to a minimum and basically when we have to fill for gas, we take potty breaks. There is the odd time that a certain someone can't make it till the next fill, but for the most part that's the only time we stop. And when we stop, we hope that there is more than one bathroom (otherwise this lengthens our stop quite a bit :) and we get in and out as quick as possible. We also usually use this opportunity to let the babies and toddlers stretch their legs a bit.

I think that pretty well covers our vacation how we do it. Unless there is something you were wondering that I didn't think of? Let me know.

How We Do Things Series: Grocery Shopping

Well I have to be honest with you here and tell you that grocery shopping is not one of my most favortite things to do! I like to shop for clothes, kitchen gadgets and pretty much any other thing....but not so much groceries. I think part of the reason is it is kind of like housework...it can get monotonous and never ending! But just like housework I realize it is a necessary part and therefore I try to make the best of it!

I do most of our shopping in a Superstore about an hour from us. We try to get there once a week otherwise I have to do some very strategic packing to fit it all in the cart!!! Plus making meals starts to become challenging!

We have a fair sized pantry, and a second fridge to hold our groceries for the week. We have an extra of everything on the shelf. Because we live in the country we cannot just hop over to the store when we run out of something. If we do run out we usually just do without or borrow from our dear neighbors, Josh and Rebecca :)

We have a master grocery list that has all of the things that we use on a consistent basis. It is in order of all the grocery isles and catagories...therefore making it so that I don't run back for all the missed items at the end (although I still do manage to miss stuff ???)

When it is grocery shopping day (which has to be quite flexible because of farming....usually we double grocery shopping with parts runs!) we take the list, look through the pantry, fridge and freezers and take inventory :) We also have a pad of paper on the fridge which things have been added during the week that are not bought often (eg. spices, kitchen gadgets...)

We have a weekly meal plan so we go through the menu and check off any "not the norm" items we need for the week.

Our average grocery bill is about $400.00 a week. This number is less in the summer months when we have our own garden produce....and it's at it's peak late winter, early spring when we run out of  the previous years produce.

We grow our own beef and chicken and have our own eggs and milk so that saves a lot on our grocery bill. Other things we make ourselves is bread, butter (not enough to feed us, I still have to buy some margarine), yogurt, tortilla shells,  noodles, soup (I do buy some canned soup to add to some of our homemade soup and for casseroles). Very rarely do we buy cookies or cake mixes or things like that. Most of our baking is from scratch. We grind our own wheat/spelt for bread but still use some white flour for some baking. We also just started making our own laundry detergent and baby wipes.

We don't buy very much boxed cereal as it is only on the menu plan once a week. It is just too expensive and not very filling.....and I don't find it's the healthiest way to start the day! So it is kind of a once a week treat!

I was asked if we use coupons? Yes, but not very many. I just don't come across very many. I use the in-store coupons, and once in awhile I will get them from inside a product. I wish I could use more but not sure where to get them (if there is anyone in Canada who knows of a good website or something I would love to know!)

I do keep an eye on the flyer of Wal-Mart and Co-op for "deals" on things. If there are case or lot sales I stock up on the items we use a lot of (eg. soup, toilet paper, flour, etc) But Superstore is my favorite (close by) store because they have a lot of bulk items  and they usually have a free item when you buy a certain amount of  groceries...often it is a gas coupon or a gift certificate (that we use on next weeks groceries!) so that helps a lot! You also get points on your mastercard if you bring your own bags/bins.

When we go to the "big city!" a little over 2 hours from us, I like to shop at Costco and Real Canadian Wholesale Club. The items I stock up on when we go to the city? HUGE bags of flour and sugar. BIG Popcorn, Big Pails of Peanut Butter (haven't seen them at Costco lately though :(, Garbage Bags, Baking Cocoa, Yeast and Margarine.

Because we take the small car rather than the van (too much gas money!), we usually only take along a couple of children. They take turns. Grocery shopping goes a lot faster when we have some kids along because they love to get things and put them in the cart and help unload the cart when we are done. But if Mark and I haven't been out alone for awhile, we use this opportunity to go on a "date"! We have taken all the kids grocery shopping a few times.....let me just say I feel like a mother duck :) It's actually pretty fun! Unless the store is crowded :)

And that's about how we do grocery shopping!!! Did I miss anything?

How We Do Things Series...Toys

Toys, toys, toys!!! Seems like a never ending job to keep on top of that subject around here!

With this many occupants and this many birthdays, we had to find a way to manage toys before they took over our house!!!!

We used to have a play room down the basement and that is where we stored most of the toys, with the exception of “special” toys. Those get stored in the kids rooms. (But there is a limit to how many they can keep in their room). So our kids would spend a lot of their time in the basement playing with “toys”.

But as our kids grew and as God added more of them to our family, we started to realize that a lot of character training happens when children play together. And when our children were downstairs, out of earshot, we were missing out of a lot of training opportunities. It was then that we decided to move a bunch of the toys upstairs. Since then the kids have played upstairs, around us, within hearing range.

This took some adjusting, because I have to admit, I enjoyed the peace and quiet that came when our kids were playing way downstairs and I couldn't really hear them :) But when we moved all the action upstairs, the noise level rose and my tolerance and patience had to rise with it.

But we have never regretted this decision. It has been so valuable to have them play around us.. Not only is it fun to listen to (most times) but there are so many character issues we can deal with, before things get out of hand. Way less, “He said, she said.” “He did, she did!”

We have always tried to keep our kids toys narrowed down to things that will assist them in playing out real life skills. When we built the family room we finally got the toys organized the way I had been dreaming of for a long time. We have one shelf, with containers that are labeled with different toys. eg. Cars, lego, blocks, dishes, play food, people, farm machinery, ect. The children are only allowed to take a couple boxes off the shelf at a time and are to clean those up before they take out any more. The boxes have helped me be more organized in the toys that I buy, and it helps the kids to be more organized in their play and not make huge messes that are too overwhelming to clean up. We also have one box that has misc. type toys plus a toy box with baby toys These toys do not go on the shelf.

The board games are on the top shelf for the simple reason that everyone cannot reach them. I love to encourage our kids to play games, but I don't like all the lost pieces that happen when they have free reign of them. So this way I can somewhat moniter them.

We are very careful with the toys we let our kids play with. Like I said before we like to buy toys that assist in acting out life skills. In the same way, we don't buy toys that would encourage attitudes or behaviour that is contrary to our morals and beliefs as a family.

An example of a couple of things we have chosen to avoid would be guns for boys and barbies for girls. We have talked about guns and came to the conclusion that they only imply one thing and that is death. And we would rather encourage life. In watching little boys play with guns, rarely have we seen them simply shoot at targets, rather they shoot at living things. When they are younger, we would rather cultivate an attitude of kindness and caring for life. Now we understand the whole thing about boys hunting and all that, but we think that is something that they will learn easily enough when they are old enough and responsible enough to handle a real gun. So we choose to keep toy guns out of our toy box.

Barbies are something we have never had in our home. We teach our children to be modest and that beauty comes from the inside. We feel that barbies teach the opposite virtues. Instead we provide our little girls with baby dolls. We have been amazed at how baby dolls seems to bring out the nurturing side of little girls. This is something we want to encourage, as we hope that one day our girls will be able to experience the joy of motherhood.

When we buy toys for our children we ask ourselves if this is a toy that would encourage our children in the values that we have taught them. If we feel a certain toy encourages feelings, desires or emotions contrary to God's Word, we don't encouraging our kids to practice it in their play. If it's a cartoon character we would not let them watch on video, it is not something we allow in our toy collection.

We want to glorify God in every area of our family's lives. And the toys we allow our kids to play with is no exception. It is never worth lowering our standards just for the sake of entertainment.

And so here is my top 10 list of toys:

Lego

Building Blocks

Play Tools

Dolls, Doll House and Little People

Play Do

Play Kitchen, Dishes and Food

Farm Machinery

Puzzles

Plastic Animals

Board Games









How about you? What are some of your families favorite toys?

How We Do Things Series: Clothing

There are not many tasks that I procrastinate in but this one I do....every year!!!!!  Yesterday we finally got our winter clothes put away and have all the summer clothes on the shelves. Except for the toque and mitts of course. If you life in Manitoba, you know you never really put those away :)

Years ago we got rid of all dressers and drawers. I got so frustrated with broken drawers and clothes stuffed in that I asked my hubby to make shelves in all the closets for the kids clothes. He also made me a free standing cupboard with shelves for the baby room. The 3 older girls have shelves in their room. The 4 older boys have their shelves in their rooms.  The 2 little girls have their shelves in the laundry room. And the 2 little boys clothes are in the baby room shelves. The boys have a small rod in their closet for dress clothes, the girls have  a couple of rods under the stairs and a there is a rod in the baby room for the rest. 

We also have a storage closet in the basement that we store all the kids off season clothes (except the oldest 3 girls) in rubbermaids. We have baby girl and boy clothes in separate categories newborn, 3 mths, 3-6 mths, 6-9 mths...and so on up to 2 yrs of age. These clothes spend some time in storage, but all the other clothes are pretty busy getting rotated through from one person to another. Our biggest space is the one between Kerri and Brooke. I don't keep much of anything from Kerri, just some sentimental items. The only other break is from Nathan to Josiah (which I only keep favorite clothes, the rest I give to friends or donate). And now this year I decided to get rid of most of Mikaya's clothes as well....since the next two are boys. Other than that we can pretty much pass the clothes from one child to the next.

In the baby room I have hanging shelves (the kind you put on a rod), and that is where I put all the clothes that the babes outgrow...cause we all know they don't grow according to seasons. Then when we pull out the boxes the next season, we put all those away as well.

I am a thrift shop and garage sale junkie! So I am always buying clothes ahead of time for our kids. When I buy them I put them in the storage closet in a rubbermaid and when the season rolls around we go through those as well as their boxes. The main thing I buy is jeans because our boys wear out their jeans so fast. We rarely make it through a season where I am not pulling out more jeans from their storage boxes!!! Oh and pajamas are another thing that I buy. For some reason it is hard to find jammies when I need them, so if I see nice ones I usually get them!

I also like to keep an eye out for the end of season clothes sales in our local Superstore and Walmart.  I am pretty stingy though....it has to be less than $5.00 for me to get it. Usually I wait until they are 1 or 2 dollars. Sometimes I am able to get lots of deals....other times not so much. I will buy up lots of mitts at the end of winter sales because this is always something we need. On the farm our mitts wear out fast.

And then throughout the year we also get hand me downs from people that we know. We go through those as soon as  we get them, keep what we want, give away what we don't and then put what we keep  in the storage room. 

I used to have all the shoes in rubbermaids in the storage closet as well, but I found this was way too chaotic when I needed shoes for somebody, to go digging through the boxes. So I used those drawers that I detested for the kids clothes and labeled them with different sizes, sandals or running shoes. Now when I need a pair of shoes real quick I can just go to the right drawer and pick what I need. It works really slick for me. Plus it limits me to the amount of shoes I can buy. I have this thing for little kids shoes, not sure why, but I do. So now my space is limited....no more crazy excess of shoes!!!!

This year it took Megan and I two pretty full days to go through everyone's clothes. We also went through all the baby clothes which took a bit more time. But getting everyone to try on the clothes just takes time....that's all there is to it! By the time we are done with the clothes, I don't want to see clothes again for awhile. I am usually quite exhausted when we are done. Not sure why, not like it's that physically taxing!!!  But I breathe a big sigh of relief!!!!

We always start with the oldest boy, Caleb, because he usually has stuff in his box that he passes down. Then we go through the other 3 older boys. Next is the little girls because by now they are absolutely beside themselves with excitement to get their "new" clothes out! Then is the little guys. We only try the clothes on our 2 year old, Josiah....and that is enough. For Jaden, we just put what we think will fit him, on his shelves :)

Each boy puts all his clothes that are currently on his shelves and brings them upstairs where we turn our kitchen table into a clothing parlour! Then as we finish each boys clothes, we give them the new ones to put on their shelves. From Zachary down, we mark the clothes with the age of the child and an H for the clothes being for home and a G for the ones for good.

And that's pretty much our clothing journey! And when we were done getting the seasons clothes out we jump for joy!!!!

Another big task done :) Now we are just praying for some sunshine and warmer weather so we can actually wear these clothes :)

How about you. What tips do you have for storing and organizing kids clothing? I'd love to hear how you do things :)