Happy Spring, Friends!

We are so excited to be kicking off our 2nd year as a small family farm! We learned A LOT last year growing our pasture raised meats! Thank YOU for supporting us and being willing to buy some of your meat from a local source! That is how we change the way meat is raised in our country…one small farm at a time!

Thank you for helping us accomplish our mission to revitalize the local family farm!

Well ya’ll…its been a little while since this blog has been active. But don’t worry, the farm hadn’t gone anywhere! The loooonnnngggg winter had us begging for Spring, and now it is HERE!!! 🌼🌸🌻☀️
Here is what is happening this year on the farm:

🐮🐮Highland Beef cows! We successfully calved one baby bull calf in April. (Meaning, we woke up one day and he was already born! 🤣 This farm thing is tough!) They are being raised for beef, but I think are turning more into Isaiah’s best friends, so we’ll see how that ends up… right now we have:
5 momma cows (Hilda, Candy, Bangs, Isabella and Felicia.)
1 Bull (Oliver)
4 yearlings (Minnie Mouse, Daisy, Bubba, and Ralphie)
1 Baby Bull (Donald)
Anyone want to take a guess on who named all the babies?? 😜👧

🐔🐔Pastured Poultry!! Isaiah spent the winter reading up, researching, and building chicken tractors to prepare for a couple rounds of meat birds! They arrived in the mail the 3rd week of April and are now out on pasture soaking up the sun and keeping the ticks at bay! 🙌

🐓🍳🥚Laying Hens!! These ladies run the place and we have LOVED having some farm fresh eggs again! I’m usually the least picky person when it comes to food, but let me tell ya…I could barely stomach eating the eggs from Walmart!

🐷🐷Piggies!! A trip to pick up 4 feeder pigs somehow turned into 12 piglets arriving back at the farm! 🤔🤣 Isaiah is still working on getting them fence trained so they can move around the pasture to break up the ground where our cows spent the winter. When they get out they remind me of the toddler room at church. 🤣🤣🤪

We are still debating between 🐑Lambs and 🦃Turkey. (Meaning, isaiah wants both and I want neither.) we’ll how the compromising goes…

Campfire season is here and we love getting to stay up late on the weekends and chat around the glow of the fire! Come on out one night if you need some friends!

I love the freshness that the beginning of a year brings! Not only do I have to put more thought when I’m writing the date on a check, I also put more thought into life. What is the purpose? Why do we do what we do? And WHHHYYYY do we live where the wind hurt our faces! (Sorry. Still working through emotions of surviving another winter of -20 degree days.)

If you have been on social media for longer than a hot minute, then I’m sure you have seen people’s “Word for the Year.” It’s typically something inspiring and motivational. I’ll be honest that I haven’t pick a word. (The rebel in me actually LOVES to go against the flow every now and then). But I do have a thought that I believe God has begun to stir in my soul.

It’s the thought of distraction. I live such a distracted life. There is something clamoring for my attention 24 hours a day. And all too often I try to focus on EVERYTHING while accomplishing NOTHING. Not every distraction is a “bad” thing. In fact, many distractions are “good” things.

But this idea of trying to “do it all.”

Multitasking.

Spreading yourself so thin into so many different directions but trying to still excel in all of them.

Being all things to all people.

Looking down at my phone and missing what is happening around me.

Social media is an excellent example. I love interacting with people. I love making people laugh. So with social media, I find myself spending HOURS trying to interact with HUNDREDS of people. (Many of whom, I have never had a personal face-to-face-sit-down-at-a-coffee-shop type of conversation with.) I know their profile picture and what their Facebook wall looks like. But I don’t know THEM. And while I feel the pull to interact with all of my “friends” and impress the general public, I don’t have intentional conversations with very many of them.

I’m being challenged to rethink my view of social media.

We all want to be known. We want someone to notice us. We LONG for community. So what an answer to prayer for many people to get to log in and have access to a wide spread community. We are “known.” We got a “friend request.” We are in a virtual community! But yet, something is missing.

Depth.

The depth of knowing someone deeply. Seeing their emotion in a face to face conversation takes more effort than “liking” a status.

The depth of walking through a painful struggle with someone in person besides the simple “praying for you” comment you can leave on their wall.

The depth that comes from sitting around a table sharing a meal and laughing over a funny story or corny joke.

The depth of having a debate of a very controversial political subject in person. Beyond just bolding arguing your viewpoint on a Facebook thread. But instead, hearing a person’s reasoning for believing one way or another while sitting across from them changes everything.

I miss that.

I’m too distracted with trying to impress hundreds of strangers that I too often let the opportunity for a deep relationship to form with a few close to me.

But the masses are addicting. I won’t deny that I LOVE the adrenaline I get from a post that gets lots of “likes”. I feel important. I feel loved. I’m continually looking down at my phone for those feelings. But it doesn’t last.

What happens when I take the time to sit down with a new friend over coffee and hear their story? When I look up and talk to someone face to face. You better believe I am more invested in that one persons’s life than if i had simply “added them on Facebook” and left our friendship at that.

The few I look up to are life-giving. I may not get the same adrenaline rush as when I get 100 likes on Facebook or Instagram, but my soul is FULL after a face to face conversation.

Who are your “few”? Do you have those relationships right now? Who do you find yourself looking up and across the table to? Or have you substituted the virtual friends you look down at a screen to for them.

What if we spent more time and effort into connecting at a deeper level with a few people than wasting time and effort impressing hundreds of people at a very shallow level?

Can we move beyond always looking down at our phones and start looking up to the faces around us?

I know I’m tired of being distracted. I’m making steps in my life to move away from impressing the crowds i “look down” at to getting back to the basics of connecting with real authentic relationships I “look up” to. In the mean time, however, I’ll post this blog and continually check back to see how many “likes” and “shares” I get.

Join me on this journey of looking up

-Grace

 

 

This winter is CRAZY cold! This week, in the frozen tundra of North Dakota, the actual temperature hasn’t gotten above 0 degrees. In fact, with the windchill, -45 has been NORMAL!

This. is. not. normal.

HOW WILL WE SURVIVE??

The truth is. We might not. In fact, the likelihood of me surviving another winter in North Dakota is getting slimmer and slimmer. Maybe because each year gets colder and colder. Oh well, until I book a flight to a tropical destination, here are some of my tips to surviving a North Dakota Winter.

1. Start a new hobby

Cleaning does not count as a hobby. My kids can make a mess faster than I can turn around! If I dedicated all day ery day to a clean house in the winter, I’d FOR SURE go insane! My newest hobby has been trying to figure out my new Cricut Maker I got for Christmas!! I’ve definitely branched out of my creativity box on this one! So far I have made a crooked greeting card, some DOT number decals for Isaiah’s truck, and a vinyl cut out of a table and mixer for JL’s new dollhouse. But then again, I have ALL winter to figure it out and get so crafty, you won’t even recognize me! Big plans, people. Big plans.

2. Play a game

I’m not talking the kind of game with wires and screens where you race or kill each other. I’m talking cards made out of paper, and writing scores down with pencil on a scrap of paper. The kind of game where the competition level reaches new heights and brings out all kinds of rivalries! Our two player go-to game is Mille Bourne It’s easy to learn. Completely in French. And you never know when you might get a COUFERE! The adrenaline is real! What are your current favorites??

3. Invite a friend over

Your house will never be spotless. It might forever be “too small” or “not decorated”. You will always have an excuse for not inviting people to your house. Ignore those excuses and JUST DO IT! Make the call (or in this day an age, the text) and reach out to a friend who has the same amount of cabin fever as you! Put a pot of Major Dickason’s coffee on (because you are always cold anyway) and enjoy a good ol’ face to face conversation.

4. Try a new recipe

Nothing crazy of course…because who wants to run to the store for a special ingredient in the kind of weather? NOBODY! I had a can of pumpkin in my pantry (always keep pumpkin on hard. Always.) and tried out this Pumpkin Bar with Cream Cheese Frosting recipe and so far we have successfully eating 3/4 of the pan in one day! I’m following the bear’s strategy of storing fat for warmth this winter. So far we are right on track for NOT DYING!

5. Take some intentional time and play on the floor with your kids

Winter naturally slows us down. We get sick days. We get snow days…in North Dakota that only happens when the roads officially close down in blizzard conditions. Instead of being on your phone all day or working from home, take a couple hours and play with your kids. What are their current interests? What fascinates them? JL’s current favorite is playing “school” “house” and “horses”. Seeing her eyes light up when I get down on the floor and play one on one with her is irreplaceable. I need to do it more. We all do. Take advantage of the slower season to be intentional with your children.

These are just a few tips I’ve tried the past few weeks to spice up winter. Of course, if none of those work for you, you would always try to make a baby. What’s nine months from this week? September babies? We’ll know where you came from!

Leave some feedback on your winter survival tips and keep watching the blog for new articles posted daily. (Who am I kidding? That won’t happen. Let’s go with “sometime”. maybe “soon.” We’ll see.)

Grace