School Starts Already?

This sure has turned out to be one of those years that I will tell my grandkids about.  Those years that we all hear over and over again from our grandparents.  Wheat harvest starting in May in Southeast Kansas is unheard of and to have our corn all picked before the kids go back to school, well that’s unbelievable.  It has certainly made this summer really short for me.  I don’t feel like I have spent much time at all with my kids.

School starts on Wednesday and I will be the mother of a fourth grader and an adorable first grader.  (Good luck getting them settled back into a routine teachers.)  Our school does “Back to School Visits” to most of the student’s houses.  We personally have never had one of these visits until this year.  Our third grade teacher from last year contacted me to see if we would be home.  I replied no, but we were picking corn relatively close to town with the boys.  These 2 awesome teachers came out to the corn field to bring our first grader his back to school packet.   

He felt so special and we feel blessed to have these 2 teachers educating our kids.  The Farmer stopped by the house that afternoon to find the Fourth Grade back to school packet on our door.  Wow!   No visits in the past and now 2!  We were sorry we missed the second one.

Since I was running the combine most of the week, my mother in law agreed to go pick up all the enrollment forms for me.  She brought them to the shop one night while we were working on the combine and waited for me to sign everything and then took them back the next day.  I feel pretty lucky to have family that will help us out to keep the machinery going.  The Farmer even cooked supper one night!  Ok, he only stopped and picked it up on his way through town, but at least everyone got to eat before 10:00 pm. 

 

My parents had the not so fun job of watching the boys after the fair.  The week after the fair is always set aside to write thank you notes to all the businesses and individuals that supported you at the fair.  My child HATES to write anything, so getting him to sit down and write 10 Thank You notes is like getting a cat to take a bath.  Somehow my parents accomplished the task and I am very grateful for that.

Corn harvest wrapped up late last week and I spent the rest of the weekend trying to reclaim my kitchen from a pile of dirty dishes and trying to find the bottom of the mountain of laundry that had accumulated over the past 2 very busy weeks.  Our harvest was disappointing, but our corn yields were double the production of last year (remember we were in a drought last year as well).  We are still praying for rain as the soybeans are still holding on to hope somehow.  

 We have a good chance of rain on Thursday-in fact, the best chance we have had in months.  If you are so inclined, you might say a prayer that we might get some rain to help the soybean crop out. 

I did have a dermatologist appointment on Thursday.  I am happy to say that she did not find anything that really concerned her at all.  Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers as I have dealt with my Basal Cell Cancer scare.   

 The plans for this week are to finish installing a water tank below one of our ponds, so the cows can get to some quality water without getting stuck in the mud.  We are also going to start weaning calves again and pregnancy testing the cows.  Any cows that are not bred or did not produce a good calf this year will have to go to town.  Right now, we are trying to select the less productive cows to cull, so hopefully we will have enough feed for the rest of the herd.

Have a great week everyone!

-A Kansas Farm Mom