The Farm - As it is

I had my 10 year High School reunion last summer...the following fall I moved out and except for a couple summers I haven't moved home since.  A lot of things have changed since I was 17...this used to be the only sign marking our farm...

Now there is also this...

I grew up in this house, until my early teens it was much smaller, as a single bathroom between the 6 of us.  Dustin and I shared a room for a long time...I know, wierd by today's standards...and of course we fought but we were also partners in crime.  One of my favorite childhood memories is staying up late reading comics under the covers with him.

Hard to see in this picture, but your actually looking across our dugout at our machine shop/barn.  This is all new since I moved out, although I am proud to say I helped (ok, I mighta held the screws...but it still counts).

The cattle are still grazing so the barn is working double duty right now...

We only ever had one grainery on our homeplace growing up...these are ALL new...

And of course no farm is complete without is 'junk yard'...this isn't exactly new...and its hard to tell because of the snow, but its been cleaned up.  I think it looks pretty great to tell you the truth!

I'm a John Deere girl...born and raised...(Bill Boyce...I'm still waiting for my hoodie!) I think I was 10 and Dustin was 8 when we got our 'initiation' into field work.  I was totally spoiled and given the new tractor to drive, Dustin always got shafted with the older equipment.  I've spent a lot of time discing and vibra shanking land to prepare it for seeding, but my favorite is combining and harvest time.  I was a total Daddy's girl and I used to spend hours riding shot gun with Dad...sometimes I even got to drive lol. 

Things can change REALLY fast...the last time I was at the farm we didn't have a tractor with a loader...

Us kids used to ride shot gun in our tandems during beet haul...the guys always had awesome lunches, and they always shared lol. 

My first job EVER was hauling silage in a three-ton for a local feedlot...I was 15 years old, I made $5/hr, and I worked 7am-8pmish, 6 days a week.  It was only for August, but I learned how to back up using only my mirrors, I learned how to drive a split shift (although I never learned how to drive the tandem, which irritates me to this day...I've had it explained to me a dozen times...but I think its something I gotta feel/experience to understand... also have a hard time understanding the clutch in a modified...that irritates me to), and I learned how to hot-wire a vehicle.

AND...no farm is complete without the good ol' chore truck.  The one I grew up with was metallic green...and it liked Dustin better than it ever liked me...which meant I was reduced to string cutting and gate opening. 

Actually...come to think of it this truck doesn't like me much better...