Many of my friends have husbands who farm. Only one of my friends has a husband that farms and also makes puff pastry, macarons, and créme brûlée from scratch and makes and serves his wife and friends a seven course meal for her birthday. Seriously. It was unbelievable. Here’s the proof.
Cheese Course: Camembert, English Cheddar, and Testan al Barolo
Appetizer: Pear, Brie and Jamón on Puff Pastry
Dessert: Créme Brûlée and Peanut Butter Macaron
Soup Course: Apple-Butter Squash
Fish Course: Scallops, King Crab, Pasta and Braised Leeks
Salad Course: Fig and Goat Cheese
Meat Course: Japanese Kobe Ribeye with Roasted Parsnips and Beet Tartare
It was so unreal and wonderful that I started laughing almost hysterically when he was describing how he preserved the egg yolk (not a dried apricot like I initially thought) for the beet tartare.
Delicious food, hours spent talking with friends, and laughter – truly a glimpse of heaven on earth.
All within a few feet of a combine
And all while Brad is sweating and suffering from jet lag in Uganda. I don’t think they have Pear, Brie, and Jamón over there.
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I do feel the fact that I didn’t get our Christmas card out in time for Christmas seems like a fitting picture of our year. We didn’t finish harvest until almost the middle of December and then Christmas came really fast.
Elliana was thrilled with getting new shoes and clothes for Christmas if that tells you anything about her age. Her favorite place to go is to her cousins’ where they love to ride horses. She even got to help move cattle on horseback this year. She was mainly shortstop and pitcher for her softball team. It was a tough season, but we still enjoy watching her play. Her sewing projects and scones qualified to go to the state fair for 4-H, thanks again to help from her grandparents. She started playing saxophone and really wishes that could replace her time at the piano. Her parents haven’t caved yet. She is now an experienced grain cart operator after her hours of help this harvest. She and Wyatt are participating in Bible quizzing this year, which has been a new experience for all of us. This year they are quizzing over the entire book of John. They each have a new chapter to work on for each month and are doing well for their first year.
Wyatt is a great big brother. He plays so nicely with Liza and William even if they’re playing something that isn’t his favorite. If Wyatt is home and no one is available to play a game with him, he finds a way to play a game by himself. He most enjoys playing basketball and has quite the imagination of what team he is on and what team he is playing. He gives a complete play by play if you take time to “go” to one of his games. I take it as a sign when he gives me a ticket. He’s competitive, so losing any baseball game this summer wasn’t a good thing; but he made great improvements at batting in his first year with a pitcher. He thinks he wants to be a fisherman and caught enough of a catfish with the help of my dad that we were able to fry it up and have a snack. His leaf collection made it to the state fair. It was educational for both of us. 😉
Liza and William shared a big birthday party in January. She loved it, but we’ve said that’s the last big birthday party we are going to throw. Liza enjoyed taking a trip to Texas with me this early spring to meet one of her new cousins. She was a great conversationalist and great entertainment in the tractor and combine during harvest. She tells us how it is and would run the house if we let her. She keeps us laughing and on top of our mental parenting gig. She is an excellent mom to her dolls and would take them and four diaper bags along everywhere we went if she could. She’d drive her toy cars or bike all over the neighborhood too if we let her, and does even if we don’t let her. Preschool has caused her to have a love for coloring and writing letters. She can write her name, but still chooses at times to write a random combination of letters that start with E because ‘why would I write my actual name if they told me to do it?’
Willie is a sweetheart and is an into everything one-year-old. He fell so many times this year, that he may have a permanent dent and scar in his forehead. He doesn’t say much for being almost two, so I have my work cut out for me. He is a thinker. When he wanted up on the couch in the basement, he went upstairs, found two stools, threw them down the stairs, put them next to the couch and got to the toy he couldn’t reach from the floor. He loves being outside, animals, books, being at the lake, combines, and is currently handling the loss of his pacifier better than expected.
Friday was a short day due to events we had to attend, so here is the picture when we stopped on Friday. 
Here is middle of the morning on Saturday. The arrow is the combine and the white line is 16 rows that haven’t been picked in front of it and 8 behind it. 
From the cab of the combine where I took this picture looking toward the large white section, it looks like this: 
The line you can see in the corn is where one of the tires of the sprayer went whenever Brad sprayed it.
Here is the picture at just over half done with the field. 
The hole in the field is where we actually had enough water to lay down the corn. 
Only two more fields to go!
I’m told it’s not as close as it looks, but I came an inch away from taking off the truck’s rearview mirror yesterday. Which would you rather have for loading a truck?
