Fall is here and boy am I crashing.   The summer was long and hot.. too hot and too wet.  Weeds overtook our pastures because the heat along with last year's flood sucked the life out of the ground.  We now have an operational tractor thanks to good friends who like working on engines and lots of dents on my Tahoe.  We decided I could drive a dented up vehicle and Andy could drive a tractor.  Seemed like a fair swap.   

Here is his new toy.  It also now has a loader with a bucket and grapple useful for moving bales of hay around all winter.  

It's officially an antique...  but it runs smooth and gets the job done.  It can pull the mower from the little tractor and Andy has already knocked down the weeds in the pastures.   This will be a huge help to us this year and next and help us keep atop of pasture management. 

Hay has gone through the roof and we are having to feed it already with the pastures so poor in nutrition.   So, we had to raise our milk prices by $1 per half gallon.  A very tough choice...  two weeks of upset tummy and fried nerves for me in the decision...  but really there was no decision.  It was do it, or not be here to provide milk all winter.  Our customers have been so supportive and understanding.  A few have dropped out but for the most part were immediately replaced by new folks waiting for milk.  I never fail to be amazed by how good God is and how He cares for us.  In reality winter is a really scary thought for me.  We have fifteen cows calving between Christmas and March.  We will have to be on top of things, watching these mamas closely to keep those new babies safe and warm.  It's gonna be a wild ride! 

Andy has been busy!  He is making amazing progress on clearing junk and debris from the "once a hay barn" reckage.   Tonight he was working on clearing out our basement so our junk can go down here.  We need to clear the area so we can demo the area and hopefully construction can begin soon.  I am really hoping we get a barn with doors that keep chickens out!  The old barn was open and a favorite roosting spot for about 20 chickens...  POOP CENTRAL.  All of Andy's tools were in there and the work benches were a constant source of needed cleanup.

I got the chance last month to dabble in event planning again.  The Nebraska Food Coop was in need of a fundraiser and I wanted to see the movie Farmageddon.. so an idea was born.  :-)   I threw out the idea to try to get a screening planned and to serve a dinner or something with foods from farmers in the coop and try to raise funds.  It worked out better than I could ever have imagined.  I got the opportunity to work with and get to know some amazing women as we planned and orchestrated the event.  We screened the movie at Aksarben Cinema in Omaha.  We charged $15 per person.  We had tons of amazing foods donated and the Top Chef team at the culinary school in Omaha wowed everyone!  The food was just out of site!  Gorgeous and delicious.  

The movie really broke my heart.  I knew what it was going to be about... but to watch what other farmers and families have been put through was just gut wrenching.  What a wake up call!  I hope everyone here has an opportunity to see this film.  As a nation...  it's time for us to stand up and say NO MORE! There are things we can all do.  Check out our Activism page I just created.  There are links there to petitions,  a House Bill being introduced, and a grassroots Ballot Initiative with ways we can all get involved. 

We had a little media blitz last month.  First the barn segments on the news.   Then two magazine article interviews, one about Farmageddon and one about raw milk laws.  I was invited to be a guest on The Morning Blend.. and Omaha morning program.  They have a Village Pointe Farmers Market segment every other week and I got the be the farmer that week.   Here is a link to the segment on The Morning Blend .  I found the experience scary and confusing.  No one warned me there would be no cameras.  I had this internal dialogue of "where are the cameras" followed by "look I'm on TV" and "crap.. pay attention!".  If invited again, I would be more relaxed and able to function a bit better.  It was just unnerving on the first go.. but exciting and fun too!
I was on the radio a couple of weeks ago!  I was invited to be a guest on Talk Back Omaha!  I very much enjoyed the experience.  Here is a link to the podcast if you would like to listen to the segment:  Talk Back Omaha Podcast

Other things going on family related:  Ashley has her first day of college today!  She was able to get a full ride scholarship to SCC in Lincoln.  She is taking her classes at the downtown location.   She has also signed her lease on her new apartment and is moving out this weekend.  Big changes.  

Hannah and Jamie are growing too fast.  Too fast!  Two pre-adolescent girls in one house is interesting... and loud.  They seem to fight a lot more lately.. and the DRAMA is off the hook!  Jamie is in the "project" stage.. spends her days cutting up little pieces of paper and whatever she can find and creating stuff.  Today the boys found a butterfly and Jamie saved it... fed it a pear and nursed it back to health.  The picture here was taken by Jamie of her butterfly.  Pretty cool shot I thought!  Hannah and Jamie have both been such fun all summer at the farmers markets.  Now, if we could get them to give the same attention to helping clean the house life would be almost perfect! LOL

 The boys are just busy busy busy.  Alexander loves helping with barn demo.. his job is to hold the magnet stick and pick up the nails.  The hard part is getting him to keep his shoes on while doing it! Michael is talking more now.. a relief.  He is suddenly using sentences and even relaying events and stories.  He told me the other day about a dream he had.  A bad bear was biting him outside. Poor little guy.  :-(  He woke up crying.  At least Mama was right there laying next to him and he settled down pretty quickly... but he talked about that dream all day. 

It seems like I am always working on this blog late at night... when the house is quiet.  it's 11:30 now... I better hit the sheets...  our day starts early around here.   My next project is to work on an online store for the off season.  We are planning on making monthly drops (maybe more often too) to the spots were we have been all summer at market.   I am hoping to create an online store where folks can pre-order what they want and I can drop it off.  Wish me luck!  It's quite an undertaking.... but a needed project.  

Nite nite... Don't let the bed bugs bite! 

Wanted to update everyone and give one place for pictures.   Friday night around 9m we think we had a tornado take out the barn right next to the house.  Very scary.  No warnings at all, not even severe thunderstorm.  It just came out of nowhere. 

This is what I saw outside my back door.  When we ran downstairs to the basement, I could see large items flying through the air but didn't stop to see what it was.    It was parts of the barn! 

We are so thankful...   we were all upstairs and we easily could have lost a kid or all of us had this thing hit the house.  Scary. 

Here is the driveway next to the house....  crazy.  

Standing and looking in what was the barn.... 

This beam was thrown across the farm, landing in the roof of the milk barn, and extending 6 feet inside the barn!

Check out my car!  That is a beam under my car!   Rubble all around the car but nothing in the car!  All I have are smashed rear view windows, scratches, and dents!  

I was shocked to welcome our fist hero helper at 7:30 am!  He was a workhorse!  Cleared most of the upper driveway and worked on the huge piece of shed in the swingset in an hour or two!  Amazing!

Thanks Rebecca for loaning us your husband!

Rex was here early too!   

Always the knight in shining armor that one!  :-)  

All the kids got into the action!

So many people showed up to help!   We really were amazed...  all day long it seemed like people showed up and other left.. it was constant stream of help.   The phone rang and text messages of support came in all weekend.  We really are blessed with wonderful friends and customers! 

Before dinner....  yard, driveway, and pasture cleared!   How incredible is that!  When I looked at the mess in the morning.. I figured it would be weeks of work!  

Got a phone call Sunday afternoon from Jim... one of our customers and friends.  He took some video footage and said they wanted to air it on the 9:00 news... was that OK?  Sure... why not.  So we wait and watch Fox 42 9:00 news and about died laughing at the video footage aired - about 30 seconds of Alex running around the barn naked as  a jaybird playing with one of his friends.  Geez.. I thought he stayed dressed all day Saturday!   Oh well...   so goes life.. 

Yesterday, another phone call.  Fox 42 wants to send a reporter out.  Is this OK?  Sure... what's another naked butt on TV gonna hurt?  Right?  It's gonna happen...  best not to fight it.  I can have those darned boys dressed and ten seconds later they are streaking.   But wait...  they are all at Cynthia's house playing!  Woo Hoo!  We can do an interivew without naked people!  What a concept...   sure come on over!  

Turns out they want to come because apparently the weather service says the winds were only 25 miles an hour.  Naturally he waits to tell me this till I am on camera and captures my response.    Seriously, the reporter was a super nice guy. :-)  I would love to kick the editor though. :-)  Why is it that they take 30 minutes of footage and choose the most bizzare comments to air.  Like me pointing out our junk... that wasn't even part of the interview.. I didnt realize I was being taped.  How funny.   I watch the news last night and all I could think was how silly we looked.. and how I need to loose a bunch of weight.   We did say some great stuff that actually made sense... but that didn't get aired.  LOL  Oh.. and of course they re-aired the naked boy footage.  GREAT. 

Here is a link to the news segment.. if you need a good chuckle..  CLICK HERE

I will leave you with a couple interesting shots Andy took...  I think they are pretty cool. 

Our love to all... and again THANKS SO MUCH  to everyone who came out to help, called, emailed, left gifts, expressed concern and generally showed us LOVE.