We Bought a Farm: Their last supper

We are processing our first batch of chickens tomorrow.

Ninety not-so-little-anymore-chickens.

By processing, I mean killing. And packaging. And selling. And freezing. And eating.

Today, we gave them their last meal around noon. When I returned at dinner time, I didn't feed them. They were looking for it. But it didn't come. I felt great guilt as I went to feed the layers and our second batch of chickens who are two weeks younger and just skipped right by our eight week old meat chickens.

It is an incredibly surreal feeling for me -- one filled with mixed emotions.

Here is what my brain sounds like right now:

I eat meat. I like meat. I have never had any thoughts about not being a meat eater. I believe that God created our bodies to eat meat and that it was part of his design. I recognize that these chickens were raised simply to be eaten. That was their mission from the moment they were hatched. And honestly, we couldn't just let them all loose and have millions of chickens running around our planet. I love Chik-fil-A. Chik-fil-A exists because someone like me raises and feeds and culls chickens. But why do they have to die so that I can eat?I really hate that they only get eight weeks on this planet. JB tells me that our goal is that they have only one bad day in their life. That the rest of their time is happy and healthy and clean and pure. But I hate going to bed thinking that they have to die tomorrow. Can I really do this? Can I really be a farmer's wife? How many times will I have to hug my little Sidge as he says good bye to a pig that suddenly dies -- tears streaming down his pudgy little dirt-smudged cheeks? Maybe my heart is not tough enough. 

There you have it. The truth behind this farmer's wife. I really feel like a fraud. A fake. I feel like my experiences each day are so out-of-body -- like I am looking at myself from the outside and thinking, "Is that you Wendi? Are you really wearing big ol' rubber boots and feeding chickens?"

I'm still dumbfounded that this is me. That this beach bum from Fort Lauderdale, Florida is now a farmer's wife in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. 

About to process chickens.

Tomorrow.

Egads.

P.S. To any of my vegetarian friends, as always I respect your differing opinions, but I'm not really up for a debate about meat vs. non-meat. To each his own in that regard. :)

The Berenstain Bears Storybook Bible

Who doesn't like The Berenstain Bears? 

This cute little board book by Jan and Mike Berenstain allows toddlers to have their own padded Bible -- designed just for them with simple text, bright art, and a padded cover. It's cute and durable and provides an overview of the Bible with eight stories from the Old and New Testament including: The Creation Story, Noah, David and Goliath, Daniel, the birth of Jesus, the good neighbor, Jesus in Jerusalem, and the story of Jesus' Resurrection. 

Each story ranges from 2-4 pages and is only 2-7 sentences long. 

A side note: the stories are told with bears acting the parts of the humans. 

A fun and sweet book -- perfect for your pre-reading children! I think it is especially targeted to children under 4.

P.S. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest and fair review.

We Bought a Farm: Warning from JB

From JB: Just a simple warning... When you grab a Brown Water Snake (Nerodia taxispilota), like I did while repairing a dam wall on one of our ponds, be aware that they are not venomous but can release a "foul-smelling musk" that will make your wife dry heave and will not wash off with repeated washings with soap, simple green, bleach, and even listerine!

From Wendi: I cannot possibly put into words the odor that was on my husband's hands. I was sitting in the passenger seat of our huge F-250, and I had to ride with my head out the window. It was SO BAD. I have never, ever, smelled anything that vile ever. My husband, was equally grossed out. (And he has to do and smell some REALLY gross stuff as a doctor!)

We Bought a Farm: Off to Grama's House We Go

Up until two weeks ago, we were leasing out our land to a neighbor to run his cattle. Those cows have now moved on to "greener pastures" (i.e. heaven) and the kids can now move around the farm without requiring supervision. Prior to the cows departure, we didn't let the kiddos out of the three-acres surrounding our house. We had a young bull and a lot of nursing mothers, and we therefore thought the kids shouldn't be by themselves.

But now that the cows are gone, we are allowing the three older kids more and more freedom on the property. It is so fun to watch them gain independence and tackle more and more of our land. We have about 40 acres of pasture and 60 acres of woods. Right now, we are not allowing them in the woods and allowing them on any pasture that we can see from the house.

Sidge is, right now, and by far, our most desirous of adventure. He would be outside all day long. He will go and sit in front of the pig/sheep enclosure and just talk to the animals. He helps with anything that he can. He will take his bow and arrow out and just take off on an "adventure." Two days ago, he asked if he could go to Grama's house by himself, and I let him go. He got some peanut M&Ms while over at her house which really intrigued his younger siblings.

So yesterday, we decided to let all three of them walk to Grampa and Grama's house by themselves. It is about a 5 minute walk (1/4 mile) -- all on our property and very secure. I texted Grama to let them know the kiddos were leaving, and she texted me to let them know they got there.

Here's a pic Grama took of the kids arriving from their first solo walk:

Isaac way in the lead. 

Sidge and Abigail. (I sent Scrubs with them -- you can just see him in the background.)

There are hard things about living on a farm. We lost a pig today. Sidge took it really hard. We have a chicken we think we'll lose by day's end. There are a lot of chores. There are a lot of flies.

But I cannot even put into words how wonderful it is to see my kids able to be outside like this -- to take long walks by themselves -- to spend time with animals by themselves.

We love this farm!

Happy sad

When I left Turkey in 2012, I wrote a blog post entitled: Things I will miss most about Turkey. It listed all sorts of things that hurt my heart about leaving that amazing country.

I LOVED TURKEY. I loved the Americans and the Turks and the culture and the language and the people and the food and the traveling. 

My memories of those two years make my heart leap when I think of them, despite the fact that it was a very hard two years for us. We had an unexpected pregnancy, an appendicitis while pregnant, I went into early labor, was shipped off to Germany for three months, and then dealt with PPD upon my return. In addition, JB's job was less than perfect with some huge drama that accompanied our time there.

There were many things that made leaving Turkey hard, but without a doubt, the hardest part of leaving Turkey was saying good bye to my housekeeper and great friend and surrogate mother and my kids (especially Abigail's) surrogate grama, Hatice (pronounced Huh-te-jah). 

Hatice with our little Abigail

The military is so cool in so many ways. My dear friend Rebekah who we were stationed with both in Eglin and the Azores, is now in Turkey. As I helped her prepare for this big move, I told her, in no uncertain terms, that she must include Hatice in her life. 

And so now, I see pictures like this on Facebook:

I still can't really look at that photo above without having to avert my eyes from Hatice's face. Seeing it, makes me just feel so full of emotion.

And I read things like this on Rebekah's Facebook page:

Hatice and I cooked and baked together. Side by side. Loving the same music. Loving the same activity. Vastly different religious beliefs, but completely at ease with one another in this relationship of trust that we are forming. Huge language barrier, but able to communicate what we need to. We laugh hysterically together over the various ways both of us are losing our minds. 

Women are women.


Her from scratch traditional Turkish dish is baking for dinner. My house is spotless and she is able to pay her housing bill. I am thankful for the provisions to be able to support her while she blesses us. 

Also, boy shoe clutter is solved with an ugly hacked together shoe shelf. She complimented me greatly when she said, "You. Man. Work the same. I no understand. You too smart." smile emoticon

Oh how those words make my heart so "happy sad" as Sidge likes to explain happy things that make him cry.

I am so incredibly blessed that Rebekah gets to experience Hatice. And so blessed that Hatice gets Rebekah in her life. Rebekah has help. She gets to help Hatice. Hatice has work. Which she needs so much during this trying time in Turkey.

But oh I miss her so incredibly much. Will I ever stop missing her? It's a different kind of miss than people in our life we say good bye to. I can see my Mom anytime I want even though she lives in another state. Hatice is not the same.

When I left in 2012 I wrote the following ...

Hatice. Just one word. Without a doubt, when I think of leaving, leaving Hatice is the hardest part. She has no passport. Her ability to visit us is nerely non-existant. I hope to see her again but am not sure I will. And far away from family, Nene Hatice has become Abigail's surrogate Grama. I will miss her so deeply it hurts me -- physically. She and I have agreed not to talk about it. Not to say good bye. We just have to pretend it isn't happening.

In some ways, seeing Rebekah's pictures reminds me it really did happen. 

Happy sad.

Be Kind

After dealing with depression, I now find myself having a lot more patience to people being in a bad mood. You truly have no idea what grief or sadness someone is dealing with. Cut them some slack!

H20

Does it ever end?

Some days I feel like I am putting out fires from the moment I wake up ...

Let me go back to 6am and share with you what I mean.

We have a great system in place to keep our dog off our furniture. I went through all the trouble of researching and finding this system, and then Isaac comes into my room this morning and informs me that Scrubs is sleeping on the nice yellow chairs we have on our landing upstairs:

Seriously? Can't the dog just accept his fate in his dog bed and make my life a whole lot easier? Now I have to not only cover all the sofas and make sure all bedroom doors are shut each time we leave the house, but I have to cover these chairs as well. 

Fire put out. New fire sprouting up.

For now, I have put a huge stuffed animal in each chair. I doubt this will cut it, but I'll humor myself for now.

Next up. Breakfast. By the time I made it into the kitchen to begin helping the kiddos with breakfast, one of them had already attempted to get into the cereal without my help.

Okay so that's not that bad. But here is the bad part. The worst of it is the horrible, terrible, awful, disgusting fly problem we are having at our house. Here is a picture of just one of our screens. (The flies are all over every single one of the screens on our house.)

This problem is so bad that I called a pest control guy to come out yesterday. We are killing dozens and dozens of flies in the house. Pest control guy gave us a few tips but said that it is just the season and there really isn't anything we can do. I talked to my neighbor who informed me that the problem is just as bad at his house so it isn't anything unique to our home.

We've been dealing with flies since we moved in, and it's been annoying to have to kill 2-3 every time someone opens the door. But this week we have had to kills over 50 at a time? I pay the kids five cents a fly (It used to be 25 cents, but due to ease of the kill, I dropped my rate.) Then I wipe down all the counters and vacuum. This is NOT sustainable, and I am actually counting down the days until our first frost.

This is the first time I have thought, during this farm journey: Can I do this? I don't like this feeling. 

Anyways, so while I was killing flies, I lost Hannah. Couldn't find her. When I did find her, you will not believe what that little chickadee was doing! She had gone into the cabinet, opened our Intern's trail mix, and was eating all the M&M's out of the bag. They were all over her face, and when she saw me, she immediately said, "I no need spanking." 

Sigh ....

So I moved the trail mix higher. Another fire (temporarily) fought.

I noticed we had some Amazon packages on the front porch. I had the kids bring them inside as quickly as possible to avoid more flies coming in. There were boxes of Kleenex which I had ordered for our guest room above the garage. I set one box by the door so I could bring it over the next time I went outside.

Two minutes later I look and Hannah has decided to pull every Kleenex out of the box.

"Hannah!"

"I no need spanking."

A few minutes later I walked into the bathroom to discover she had unwound the entire toilet paper roll. 

At this point, weary of putting out fires, I told my husband I was done. "That's it," I said. "I quit."

He grabbed Hannah and brought her upstairs and put her in her bed for a time-out.

Our Intern Dan then needed my help moving our chicken tractors.

When I returned thirty minutes later from moving chickens, JB was coming down the stairs holding Hannah at arm's length.

"I got pooper dooper," she said.

"And she decided to put her hands down her pants into the pooper dooper," JB further explained.

I looked at the clock.

10am.

And the day had just begun ....

The Glorious Table

I am so excited to be writing for a new blog called: The Glorious Table. They have quite a few writers so I will probably only have a piece go up every few months, but it is still great to be included. 

The piece I wrote this time is called: You Don't Know the Whole Story! Please take a moment to jump over there, read the article, and then share it with others.

Since today is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day, I find this especially appropriate!

Also, take some time to scroll down to read some other really great pieces on pregnancy loss and infertility including: 

Lucky Isn't Always What it Sounds Like

For This Child We Prayed

When Love and Loss Collide Can You Still See Beauty

Grief truth

New Clothes

If you know me, you know I don't buy my kids new ... anything ... if I can help it.

But I just had to buy some pajamas with zippers from The Children's Place for Hannah to wear in her bed because the spunky little sprite is stripping down to her birthday suit ... every single time I put her into her bed.

(I tried a sleep sack but she has figured out how to get out of that too.)

This
child
is
aging
me
fast.

P.S. Here is another idea a blog reader shared: escapejays

Here is a video of her attempt to put on a pair of her pants by herself. These were pants that she had just taken off, along with a diaper that I had found in a bedroom closet.

Smiles

We Bought a Farm: The Right Story for our Family

It was nearly two decades ago that my graphic-designer-turned-pre-medicine-husband informed me that in addition to becoming a doctor, he wanted to become a farmer.

If I'm being honest, this life still confuses me. I love it. And it overwhelms me. It's beautiful and muddy and has a lot of bugs and a lot poop and responsibilities and chores. 

But moments like this ... my husband and son discussing Sidge's dream of starting a magazine about "The world of animals" while in the middle of the duck pen, reminds me why we are doing this. We simply want to raise our children where the green grass grows.

That's it.

End of story.

And it is the right story for our family.

Okay Mom! Here you go!

My mom has been begging for pictures of her six (soon to be seven) grandchildren together. AD and her girls (and baby boy due in December) are here visiting for just a few days on their way to see her grandparents in North Carolina. Here are some pictures of our time together: 

Everyone coloring. (Except Hannah who has been sick and went to bed very early.)

With the cows that were leasing our land, now removed, the kids have the RUN of the place. Here are Sidge and Charleigh out on an adventure!

AD tried to get Isaac to do a sad face. This was the best he could do.

Here is silly.

And mad.

On the way back after helping me feed the pigs and sheep their breakfast.

Charleigh on the look out for coyotes!

Guarding the ducks.

Charleigh and Sidge are the best of buds and definitely pair up most frequently.

Hannah squashing Baylee.

Scrubs with Baylee.

We've been playing outside a ton. Flat Stanley is in this picture -- a requirement for Charleigh's Fall Break from school.

The kids hanging with the ducks.

Being silly with Baylee.

And sweet.

We took a trip to Yoder's for lunch -- we always take over a place.

Eating lunch outside of Yoder's. Going there for lunch is one of our favorite things to do.

Not our best half-of-the-family foto.

Mushrooms!

My hubby is a mushroom ... fanatic! He has written about his love on his blog in posts like: Why I love hunting mushrooms and Wild Mushroom Identification (and a project for kids!) and Shaggy Mane Mushrooms: Wild Harvesting in the Azores and Edible Wild Mushrooms in the Azores and Reishi (Ling Chi) Mushroom and Seventy Distinctive Mushrooms (7 part series) and Questions from readers: Mushroom Patches ... Are they safe? 

(See what I mean? He REALLY loves mushrooms!)

The other day, I left to take Abigail to ballet. When I came home, JB told me that he had gone on a mushroom hunt with the boys while Hannah was napping. He took some pictures and shared some details. It was such a fantastic homeschool activity that I thought I would share them with you:

Can you see the puffballs in this photo? I spotted them from our kitchen window and took the boys out to check them out.

Here's a closer look. See them now?

There were 2 large ones. We left the one on top to release spores. The one on the bottom was very malformed. There is a real small one on the right. We harvested the big one on the left.

Here it is. Calvatia cyathiformis. The Purple-Spored Puffball Mushroom.

The boys got to pick it together!

It's almost the size of their heads!

Calvatia cyathiformis. The Purple-Spored Puffball Mushroom. When the interior is still white, the mushroom is edible. The central white portion will turn purple as the spores mature and are ready to be released.

My Maken Hannah

I am in love with my youngest daughter. 

But I am continually BLOWN AWAY by who she is and how much work she is to parent. And I am continually BLOWN AWAY by how different she is from her older three siblings.

I have mentioned before that she gets into more things in ONE DAY then my other three children got into COMBINED in their entire childhoods!

She has cut tomatoes with a steak knife.

Colored on every wall in my house.

Disappeared more times than I can even count.

And put more things in her mouth then a good parent would have ever allowed.

And the newest example:

My first three children, never, ever, ever took off their clothes in their beds.

A few weeks ago, Hannah started taking off her clothes. I'd come back in and her clothes would be on backwards or inside out.

But today, she has decided that she  is going to strip off everything she has on every time I put her in the bed. 

When I walk into her room, she yells, "I maken Mommy!" (Her word for naked.)

I have tried putting her in a sleep sack and she outsmarted the sleep sack.

Tonight I will try putting the sleep sack on backwards.

If that doesn't work, I guess I'll have to invest in some 3T footed pajamas and try putting those on backwards.

I'm exhausted.

She's the reason I have resorted to Mountain Dew.

But man, oh man, the spunk and spirit in this child! She is really going to do something awesome in her life. 

And in the meantime, I am humbled as a parent.

She has humbled me.

And I love her for it.

I love feeling like I am not the only one!

Testimony

There is so much negativity out in our world right now -- here's to a positive story and the story of God's redeeming love.

How I feel about this photo

This picture has been whizzing around the Internet during the last week, and more than once, I have been asked my opinion of it.

(If you can't tell what it is, it is a baby surrounded by needles -- needles used to administer medicines to the mother in order for her birth to come to be.)

I have to admit that when I first saw the picture, I thought it was a bit odd. Not something I would have done. Even a bit strange.

But if I am being honest, as I have seen the picture more and more, I have to admit, that each time I see it, I have to fight back tears.

I am a bit surprised by this emotion. My infertility journey is now many years behind me, and it doesn't often "catch" me anymore.

But this picture does.

In fact, just this morning, as I was feeding geese, a scripture came into my mind. It was Joel 2:25. "I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten..."

While out on a date with my husband last week, I told him that this is the first year since we were first diagnosed with infertility issues in 2003 that I actually feel like the real Wendi again.

Each year since that initial diagnosis of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, I have spent time emotionally effected by hormones and drugs. First with four years of infertility and then with pregnancies and complications and depression.

But this year ... 2015 ... I am me again.

And I am me with a fourth child that was an embryo created in a laboratory in Rochester, Minnesota. She would not be here if it wasn't for those years and years and years of pain and disappointment. And if you get right down to it, none of my children would be.

I read a little back story on the picture above and was especially moved by the following quote:

"Didn't even tell my husband what this was, just handed him the phone. I saw tears form in his eyes as he probably also went through the memories of countless nights, over our four year journey, that he gave me shots."

This is how I feel when I think back on those years of infertility treatments. JB and I were emotionally and physically and financially and mentally spent during those long years.

But the baby in the center of our hearts?

Totally worth it.

Friday Funnies

While reading the book above, Hannah informed me that I looked like the biggest monkey playing the biggest drum. Lovely.

*****

After about a week of rain, Hannah informed me: "The rain is off."

*****

Sidge: "Here are my three favorite sports. Basketball ... if I have good people playing with me or I am good. Football ..."

Isaac: "But people can get pretty injured playing football."

Sidge: "Yeah. Well I don't like to play real football. Just kid-kind."

Isaac: "They can get thrown to the ground and stuff."

Sidge: "Right I know. Basketball, football, and soccer."

Isaac: "Football is dangerous."

*****

I'm constantly amazed at the things I say to my kids. This morning it was, "Please take that underwear off your head and put it on your bottom."

****

Sidge asked me this morning, "Does God laugh? I mean if we are being silly do you think he thinks it is funny."

Absolutely!