Weekend Woes

We messed up last night. Well, actually, I messed up. Apparently, at the last t-ball game, amidst the chaos that is t-ball itself and t-ball pictures, there was a schedule change. So, when Anna and Joe showed up at the ball diamond, they were there, for the last batter, as our game had changed times.

I was supposed to know that.

It's now Saturday, the day when families are supposed to be fishing, swimming, grocery shopping, and the like, and it's 5:00, and Joe has just stepped into our "little porch," drenched in sweat from square baling hay in this crazy heat.

Thankfully, I'm not the one baling hay...I made a cake, but seriously. I have a love/hate relationship with the weekend. I know that this is supposed to be family time. Time to relax, time to regroup, time to spend together, but it is just another day for us. It's just another time when things have to be done. There's no grocery shopping together. There's no Saturday laziness. It's another day.

It's becoming obnoxious.

Sorry farmers, I'm a little annoyed right now. I'm sure that this is the life that we want. I'm certain that this is the profession Joe loves, but I'm also certain that there are aspects of this life that I cannot stand. While Joe takes care of all things farming, my job is to take care of most things kid (I say most because he does do a lot with the kids), but there are times when I cannot cram any more into my little brain, and I need a 9 to 5 dad with weekends off to step in sometimes and help me figure this life out. I'm blaming this t-ball incident on farming...can you tell?

Another weekend preconceived notion I have is playing around with the kids, doing yard work together, and generally hanging out on Saturdays. However, when Joe works all day outside, even on the hottest of days, even on a Saturday, when we are enjoying the slip-n-slide, why would he want to run around with the girls outside when he could and should be cooling off in the air-conditioning? Why would golf or fishing or hunting appeal to him, when he's out in the elements at all times?

The summer is getting to me. I'm feeling like we are just treading water...literally and figuratively, if you count the pool time we've had. I feel like our cup is running over with blessings, but we barely have time to enjoy said blessings because of hay and cows and wheat and the weather and a newborn and a toddler and our two active big girls and playdates and the like. When do we slow down?

More like, how do we slow down?

The simple answer is, "do less." Thank you, Mr. or Mrs. Obvious, but then we would be bored, right?

Honestly, I wish that Anna didn't miss last night's game because I wish I would have heard or written down or listened more carefully to the schedule change. I wish Joe could be around at 3:00 on a Saturday afternoon instead of after 5:00 because then maybe we could do something as a family, other than what we do nearly every night...however, with a newborn, a 2 year old and two other big girls, what can you do?

My expectations for what my family picture looks like and how and when we do things are high, I know, and farming is cramping my style! My hope is that I'll look back at these days and think, "wow, was I tired, busy and INSANE, but happy."

So let me vent for a bit, and then I will choose to be happy. Take that, farmer's schedule!

It's Always Something

In the fall of 2000 (loooong before I ever even dreamed about being a farm wife), it was downed corn, corn plants knocked over late in their life (thank goodness...because there were some kernels to harvest). I rode with my dad, since that was the only time we could see him that fall, in the cab of the combine. We drove roughly 2 mph, crawling through the field, picking up corn kernels with a contraption hooked on to the corn head of the combine that looked like a spider's legs. That was the year of my brother's wedding, where the guys leaped off the combine to come to the festivities, and then leaped back on, frantic in their pace.

In 2009, it was the rain, and rain, and rain. We probably should have considered an ark instead of whether or not we needed more dry storage that year.

Now, in a year that we have felt that we have dodged major bullets, the farmers are starting to get a little nervous. I have actually heard the sentence, "We could use a little shower," uttered a few times too many for me to know that now, we could really use a shower. After watching the radar this spring, and early this summer, and hoping beyond hope that the red and even pink blotches would not hit us or our family a little south of here. After seeing pictures of our friends' field (yeah, it's you, Andy...you made it again!), damaged by hail, although we wouldn't take something so extreme, the rain that accompanied that devastating hail would be welcome.

Our ground is in pretty good shape, thanks to some really good soakers this spring. However, the forecast is calling for extremely hot temperatures and no rain this week and even into the next.

Good for the pool. Bad for the farm.

It's always something.

Even last night, as Joe was wrapping up paperwork for his "other job," he mentioned that some of his clients were concerned about Japanese beetles. These are potentially devastating to a field.

Great.

So, this morning, as I'm writing, I am looking out at my grandpa's field. The one that looks really good. The one that's now taller than Joe, complete with tassels and little yellowish silks on the ears. The one that Joe used as a little agronomy lesson for me: if you notice that a corn field has ears and silks that are at a uniform height, that means that it has the potential to be good. There's some more to that explanation, but I forgot it. However, what I noticed was the semantics he used (because I am, in fact, a huge word nerd). What he said was the potential.

Always the optimist.

Today, even though my girls are psyched about breaking out the slip-n-slide, and we're looking forward to slathering on the sunscreen for the library's swim party, I will also be looking to the sky, hoping that these hot, hot temperatures will brew a pop up shower now and then during this week.

However, it can't have wind.

Or hail.

Or too much rain.

Because...it is always something.