I Heart Spring

Spring is in full swing around here now.  The first sprigs of lily of the valley started blooming this week!

It smells amazing.  There are a lot of blooms that haven't opened yet, so I'll be enjoying them as they open over the next several days.  I couldn't resist cutting this first bloom and bringing it inside to enjoy.

The peonies are getting closer to blooming, too.  We've had 2 1/2 inches of rain in the past 5 days (after a very dry winter and early spring) and are getting lots of sunshine today, so I think they will do great.

Come on, bloom already!  I'm impatiently waiting to drool over you! :)

Not to be left out of the spring excitement, Harlee got herself a haircut today.

In the winter, when we don't shave her, her whole body is the color of her head.  But once we shave her long fur off, her undercoat is much lighter.  In the past, she has not been such a fan of getting shaved and would sit there and shake while I did it.  But today she seemed to enjoy it and even rolled over onto her back to let me shave her belly.  I think she liked the way it felt?!  Silly dog.

I don't know if shaving her helps her feel cooler (it probably does, since we get rid of all the dark fur) but it makes finding ticks on her a lot easier, and it keeps her from shedding so much when she's inside, and it makes bathing her easier when she gets all muddy, so that's reason enough for me.

Several people have asked how Harlee and Cassidy are adjusting to each other.  Actually, they've both done much better than I anticipated.  I was not at all worried that Harlee would try to hurt Cassidy in any way, but I was worried because Harlee does not like loud noises and tends to get really scared by them.  I figured when we brought the baby home and she cried, Harlee would get scared and run.  Instead, Harlee usually wants to stay pretty close, and if Cassidy really gets to wailing she will look a bit annoyed, but not scared.  Sometimes if I leave the room and Cassidy starts crying, Harlee will come find me and look at me as if to say, "Will you come do something about the tiny human causing all this noise?!"  

I was also worried that Cassidy would wake or startle when Harlee barked (which she does any time the mailman, FedEx man, UPS man, or any piece of farm machinery drives in our yard).  Instead, Cassidy usually sleeps right through Harlee's barking.  I'm not sure how, because she is a really light sleeper, but for some reason she seems to be able to totally tune Harlee out.

So overall I would say they are doing much better with each other than I thought they would!  I hope they'll become friends when Cassidy gets a bit older. :)

New Life

Every year at this time I remember exactly why spring is my favorite time of the year.  And spring on the farm is extra wonderful!  Here's a peek at everything coming back to life in our yard.

The lilac bush is starting to bloom.  I think a few cold nights have kept it from blooming as much as it would have otherwise, but I'm happy to still have blooms.

The peonies are up and growing and LOADED with blooms that haven't opened yet.  I can't wait for them to open, and unless we get more cold weather that damages the blooms, I think we are going to have a lot of them!

The lily of the valley is coming up too, although it seems a bit slow.  I need to go pull all the dead stuff from last year out, that would probably help it grow faster.  But there is a pretty good reason I'm not getting much yard work done these days (see last picture below).

And by far, our favorite new life on the farm this spring is sweet baby Cassidy, who joined our family on March 19th.  She's a very good baby and is rarely fussy, but we are still a bit sleep-deprived. :)  Hopefully in the next few weeks we will get into more of a routine, but for now we are taking frequent naps (when she lets us) and enjoying lots of baby cuddles.

Spring

It's been an early spring on the farm this year, which means the wheat has started growing like crazy.  The other day I took Harlee out for a walk on our road, and it didn't take long for her to make her way into the wheat field.  I'm not sure if she likes the fact that it's cool there (compared to the pavement), or softer, or just the right height for her to bound through, but it's quite obvious when you watch her that she is at her happiest when she gets to run in the wheat.  Here's a video I took on my phone:

I went digging in the dead foliage of last year's day lilies and found new growth sprouting!  I pulled out all of last year's dead foliage and this is what I found:

And our lilac bush has started to return to life too:

I cannot wait until it starts blooming!  Although last night we had to cover it because it got down to freezing, and a couple of even colder nights are supposed to be on the way this weekend.  I really hope we can protect it during these chilly nights so it will bloom.

All in all, I'd say we're happy that it's spring! 

Getting Ready

It's hard to believe it, but Baby Girl is due in one week from today!  My last day of work was January 15th, and I have had the past two months to prepare for her, which has been so amazing.  I have not been sleeping well at night, so it has been really nice not to have to get up early for work.  I usually manage to sneak in a nap at some point during the day too.  

Besides sleeping, I've had time to get the nursery ready.  Painting the nursery turned out to be quite the ordeal.  I had originally wanted gray walls with yellow and mint green accents.  I knew I didn't want to have to repaint or redecorate before future babies use this nursery, so I wanted to stay with something gender neutral instead of going crazy with the pink for this girl.  

Because I knew gray paint can be a bit tricky, we bought the little sample jars of two gray paint colors I liked and painted them both on one wall of the nursery.  One of the grays looked blue to me once it was on the wall, which is what I was trying to avoid.  But the other one looked like it stayed a true gray once it was painted on the wall, so we bough a gallon of that color and jumped in.

Luckily The Farmer had the great idea to start by painting the closets.  Neither of us have done a ton of painting, so he figured it would be good if we started in the closets and made our mistakes/got some experience there, where it's less visible.  There are actually two closets in the room, and after we got the second one painted I knew I did not like it.  The gray looked blue!  I don't know what made the difference, but it was a very blue gray that would have been perfect for a little boy's room, but not for this Baby Girl!  The Farmer was very patient with me and agreed to get different paint.  Rather than try my luck with gray again, I decided to go with a mint green for the walls and use gray and yellow accents in the decorating.  I like how the mint paint turned out MUCH better.

Here is her crib:

(Ignore the tag hanging off the front that we haven't cut off yet, haha.)  

The artwork above the crib is a set of prints I bought on Etsy and is 3 verses from Psalm 139.

Instead of a changing table, we bought an old dresser we found for sale and The Farmer put a LOT of time and work into stripping the horrible paint job that it had when we bought it, sanding it down to bare wood, applying MANY coats of primer, and finally repainting it.  It turned out so cute!  I wish I had taken some before pictures of it, because it was quite rough before all his work.

See that little bit of pink on top of the dresser?  It's a tutu I made for Baby Girl, I'm hoping to use it as a prop for some of her newborn pictures.  Here's a close up:

For the baby shower that my aunt and cousins threw for me, they asked people to bring a favorite children's book instead of a card.  It was such a cute idea, and Baby Girl now has quite the library started!  I hope she will love to read.

I have one more order on the way from Target with a few more last-minute things we need, but all in all I think we're ready for Baby Girl to make her arrival any time!  

Better Late Than Never

Well this post is like a year late in happening, but oh well.  I recently found my digital camera that's been lost for a year.  (It was in a bag with extra lighters from our wedding...I had stocked up to make sure we had plenty to get all the candles lit before the ceremony.  Not sure why I threw the camera in there as I was packing for the move to the farm?!)  All the pictures I had taken on our honeymoon in Cancun were on the camera, and it was so fun to go back and look at them today!

We stayed at the Valentin Imperial Maya in Cancun, Mexico.  Neither of us had ever been to an all-inclusive resort like that before, so we didn't have anything to compare it to, but I thought it was great. 

There were two huge pools at the resort.  The  main pool was full of people all day, there were tons of activities scheduled there (water volleyball, dunk contests, aqua Zumba, etc.) and music blasting and all the entertainment you could ever ask for.  I didn't take this photo (it's on their website), but here's a shot of the main pool:

There was another, quieter pool that was equally as gorgeous.  This one was for people who didn't want all the noise and activity and just wanted to lay out and soak up the sun, or sit by the water and read, or just float lazily.  This pool ran right past our room.  We literally walked out our patio door and in 10 steps we were in the pool.  I stole this photo off their website; it's taken from the far side of the quiet pool looking back towards the building where we stayed:

The beach was just a few steps further from the main pool.  It was gorgeous and everything you think of when you think about a beach in the Caribbean, but I didn't take any pictures there during the day because it was always full of people.  

One morning, we had booked an off-site excursion for the day and had to be ready for the shuttle to pick us up early in the morning, so I talked The Farmer into getting up a little bit early so we could walk down to the beach and watch the sunrise before we caught our shuttle.  It was beautiful, even though it was pretty overcast that morning.

Our excursion that day included a stop in the jungle to go repelling and zip lining, snorkeling through an underground cave, then on to some Mayan ruins at Tulum.  Here we are in our repelling/zip lining gear:

The Mayan ruins were beautiful, as was the beach they overlook:

The grounds at the resort were so beautiful!

And the beach view wasn't bad either!

Especially since I got to experience it with this guy! :)

It was a great trip.  Probably not one we'll repeat any time soon, but a very welcome sunny and warm getaway in the middle of a cold, dreary Kansas winter.

Snow Days

Well it was certainly not a big storm, but we finally did get some snow last week.  

Of course the camera on my phone didn't do it justice, but for a while the flakes coming down were huge.

While the flakes were beautiful, it did make a very dreary day.

I've been trying to get in at least a short walk most days, and I had gone for a walk about two hours before the snow started.  I'm glad I wasn't walking in it, but it was already quite cold at that point and I didn't think my legs were ever going to warm back up.

It had been snowing for a couple of hours by dusk, so The Farmer and I got in his truck and went to look for deer.  If you look closely in the picture below, you can see two of them standing in the field.

It was pretty while it lasted, but I'm happy to report that today the sun is shining and my daily walk with Harlee was nowhere near as cold.  By the end of the week they are forecasting highs in the upper 50s and maybe even hitting 60 degrees, and while I'm still hoping for a good 6 inch snow at some point this winter, I am looking forward to the gorgeous weather and already thinking up excuses to be outside later this week. 

Speaking of Harlee, she's kicked out of the house until The Farmer gets home because as all this snow melted it left a lot of muddy ditches, and that is Harlee's favorite place to run to on our daily walks.  Her paws are usually the lightest part of her body, sort of a light tan, while most of her body is dark brown, but today after our walk she looked like she had brown paws.  No way I'm letting her back in the house like that.

We have this amazing, deep sink in our laundry room that is perfect for plopping her in and washing her off when she gets into muddy mischief (which is a common occurrence), but with my big baby belly I'm not sure I can lift her into it and get close enough to her to wash her off good.  So she's stuck outside until The Farmer comes home and can get her into the sink and wash her off.  Poor dog, she will not be a fan of that.  Oh well, at least it's nice out this afternoon and she's been able to get some fresh air.

The Adventures of Harlee Dog

Last night I took supper out to the field and of course my trusty sidekick Harlee went along.  When we got to the field I let her out of the car and she ran around sniffing every inch of ground and every milo stalk in the field.

I was parked at the edge of the road, near the grain semi.  The tractor had pulled up to the semi and was unloading the grain from the grain cart into the semi.  I figured I'd stay a while and ride in the combine with The Farmer, but the combine was out in the middle of the field.  I decided to jump in the tractor with the hired guy and ride with him out to the combine.  I sternly told Harlee to stay and hopped in the tractor.

Since we were pulling a huge grain cart behind the tractor, we could not see behind us but I figured she'd stayed close to the semi at the edge of the field.  We drove the tractor clear to the other end of the field and turned around to meet up with the combine and begin unloading the grain from the combine into the grain cart.  As we turn around, who comes running around the side of the grain cart?  That would be Harlee dog.

She was panting hard and had run quite a ways by the time we crossed the whole field.  I crawled out of the tractor and was going to jump in the combine with The Farmer, but first we had to figure out what to do about Harlee.  The Farmer didn't want her to keep running through the field because the milo stalks are taller than her and he was afraid she'd get lost in them.  The only option was to put her in the combine with us.  

Now one of the things Harlee hates most is getting picked up, even by me or The Farmer.  Several weeks ago she followed The Farmer in the tractor when he was planting wheat, and by the time he realized she was following him they were a mile from the house.  So he picked her up, put her in the tractor, and she rode with him in the tractor all afternoon.  So when he tried to grab her to carry her up the combine ladder, she was having none of it.  She knew what he was going to do and took off.

The Farmer told me to crawl up the ladder and wait at the top, because Harlee usually wants to be where I am.  He figured she'd be more likely to let him catch her and bring her up if I was waiting at the top.  So I crawled up the ladder to the small platform outside the cab.  The Farmer crouched down and tried to talk all sweetly to Harlee.  She came running back to him, but stayed JUST out of his reach.  As soon as he tried to grab her, she took off.  You could tell she thought it was a fun game, and she would get tantalizingly close, only to dodge his grasp as soon as he tried to catch her.  Meanwhile I was on the platform laughing my head off.

Well eventually The Farmer did manage to catch her and carried her up the ladder and put her in the cab of the combine with us.  She flailed all the way up the ladder, but as soon as she got in the cab she calmed down and was happy as a clam.

 Here she is riding on the floor of the combine.  She just stared out the front windshield and looked pretty pleased with herself!

 We rode for close to 3 hours, and she really did great the whole time.  When I finally decided it was time for us to go home, The Farmer had to carry her back down the ladder and she was NOT a fan of that, but all in all I think she was pretty pleased with herself for getting to ride with us.  And even though she was a little booger to catch and carry, I think The Farmer was glad to have some company in the combine with him.