The Farmer Wife Workout

So...I'm chubby and this is a hard pill to swallow.  I don't say fat because that sounds hopeless.  Chubby still sounds like I have a chance at losing weight.  Even if I've been on this weight loss roller coaster for 20+ years. 

When I became Mrs. Fairchild I packed on 40 pounds and Mr. Fairchild lost 40 pounds.  Apparently I found every single last one of his. AND, because he started eating broccoli.  AND because I had to start eating cheese on it so everybody else would eat it.

Also my absolute love of cooking doesn't help either.  Nor does my love of dairy.  Ice cream rocks. 

The "ah ha" moment happened recently when I was trying to zip my pants by laying on the bed.  Maggie thought I was playing a game and she laid on the bed too. But I stopped because I didn't want her to do the "roll off the bed" like I have to.  She'd probably fall off and break her arm. 
So I figured I should start working out.  Today I chased cattle. Here I'm thinking, "the weight should be peeling off my body by running away from these cattle."  Especially when Ron climbed the fence and said, "get in there and chase them up!"  I finally realized one good thing, I won't die of obesity, only fright.  One of these days my body will be smeared against the tin on the side of the feedlot.  My headstone will read, "At least #40  didn't get hurt.  She had Suzanne to cushion her pummel."

I also started a workout tape at naptime, but it wasn't fun anymore after I was trying to march in place and "grapevined left" right onto a small lincoln log.  Ouch!

Now, Big D and I are going on vacation at the end of the week.   It's Monday today and I plan on losing 50 pounds by Friday. 
 
Okay, that's not realistic. 

I'll safely try for 30.  Maybe I'll be attacked by the cougar roaming around here and he'll eat my fat thighs and leave the rest of me to wear the same pants I did in high school. 

Sincerely,

"I can find a rainbow in everything" Fairchild Farmgirl

A Boy That Misses His Mark

I bet you thought that I was going to talk about Cody during these few weeks of deer hunting...

No...I'm going to discuss the perils and pitfalls of raising a little boy during potty training.  Just look at that face.  Could you really get mad at those cheeks and that sweet little chin?  I find it hard.  Even in this picture I just want to kiss that little chin.

Okay....I'm lying.  It gets easier day by day.  He's a wild man.  A peeing wild man.  He seldom lifts the seat and this morning, all blurry-eyed from my five precious hours of uninterrupted sleep I sat down in...(are you ready fro this?)....his pee. 

GROSS!

I'm on a "bottle of Lysol" a week habit, trying to get the pee smell out of my bathroom and it's not working.  I never had this problem in the summer because just like a well trained pup, he would ONLY pee outside.  Even if I begged him to pee in our bathroom.  He'd wake up in the morning, then from his room to the great outdoors ( usually the front step), only to come back in and ask what was for breakfast. 

Unless it was storming outside.  Then he reluctantly went on the toilet.  That was after standing at the door crying waiting for the thunder to pass.  When it was almost peeing his pants time, he gave up and went to the potty. 

No I'm wishing for warmer weather and a special on Lysol at the store.

Sincerely,

Fairchild "Always Check The Toilet Seat Before You Sit Down" Farmgirl

What You Want vs What You Can Have

Yesterday, Kara and I went down to the cities and had a lot of fun. We met Ash, her grandma, my friend Beth and her daughter Malory for lunch, then we took Ash with us and headed to my little sister's baby shower. 

I don't think I ever looked that cute pregnant.  My cousin Erica was there and they are due around the same time.  Both adorable. 

I even got to meet my little brother's girlfriend.  It was a great time. 

As hard as it was, I stuck to my diet.  I only screwed up a few times on my diet, I was proud.  I needed those few extra calories to help my brain figure out where I was when I got lost in Minneapolis 4 or so times.

After the shower, I spent a little bit of time with my siblings before I hit the road to head for home.  I was already excited to get closer to home and follow a oversized tractor and digger and not locked into a swarm of cars going who knows where (really, who knows where I was going...I was lost half the trip).

In Robbinsdale, we spotted an Old Navy in a complex of stores and my travel buddy said that we "just had to stop".  I was sure that my rural gravel hadn't ever graced the sides of the Mercedes parked next to our 2000 GMC pickup covered in it.  I actually wanted to wipe some cow poop off the bottom of my door and put in on the fender of the princess automobile in the next parking spot, but then I thought that I'd be arrested for a terrorist act or something so I thought,  "even though it would be funny at our place (cow poop is the source of many a good time here) it wouldn't be here".  So I kept on moving.

We got in the store and I have to admit, there was a lot of great stuff in there.  For me.  Sure for my kids, I looked at cute dresses for them, then put them back on the rack.  Knowing them, they'd love them too but they'd sneak out of the house while wearing them to chase the geese, pick up kittens or try to tame hogs in them and they'd be nothing but a stain in an instance. By the way, I speak from experience...hogs don't tame easy.

I never buy stuff for me.  It's a mom thing.  You take care of others first.  Mom comes last (sometimes even after the dog)...but in this non-Walmart store there was so many things that I liked!  When you live out here and you have eight kids...it's Walmart. (We have a love hate relationship, Walmart and I.)

As I was lured to an end cap with pretty scarves and sweaters, I thought of how I haven't bought a sweater since I was pregnant with Grace.  As I touched my favorite one, I remebered that I just bought Kara a pair of jeans earlier.  Oh well.  Someday.  After all, I have a transmission for my Yukon to buy. 

THEN I remembered my socks didn't match when I took off my boots at the shower and with my sister Jenn laughing at me, Ash yelled, "HEY!  That polka dotted one is mine!"  So I bought myself a few pair of socks and a pair of jeans.  I felt like I had won the lottery. 

Then the phone the phone rang.  "Hey guess what?  I lost reverse in the green pickup.  It needs a new tranny.  See you when you get home."

ARGH!


So I got in the last vehicle that we owned that worked and headed for home.  It wasn't the Mercedes next to where I was pulling out of, but it's a good one all the same.  After all, mine could haul hay and a ram sheep.  It can also push a Webb bull back in a feedlot pen with me safely inside it.  I don't suggest pushing a bull from the WEBB cattle company in on foot. 

With the cities in my tail lights and farm country in my left headlight (the right one just went out) we stopped at McDonalds for supper and laughed all the way home.  Especially about how I had to put oil in at Glencoe and didn't use a funnel and old trusty smoked like it was going to light up.

You know what? It's always nice to visit...even nicer to come home. Even to all this crap.

Sincerely,
The Thankful Fairchild Farmgirl


  

Cute Stuff

So in the morning Big D is taking Cody deer hunting, while Ash, Kara and I get to go down to Minneapolis to my little sister' baby shower.  YES!

The little cutie pictured above was watching me work on Sarah's present this morning when she asked,

"Mom, when are you leaving for Sarah's baby wash?"

I thought it was cute.  Have a great weekend!
Fairchild Farmgirl

When Ordering Fancy Coffee & Other Nonsense

Tonight Big D went and took Kara out on a daddy daughter date night.  They went to see Cody in a play.  D & I went last night and it was great.  We joked that Mr. Shy actually touched a girl. 

He probably has 10 girlfriends that we don't know about (he better not!).

So while all the other kids were throwing a fit that they couldn't go, I opened up my big mouth and asked them if they wanted to ALL (I know, I said ALL) go out for ice cream. 

After spiffing up the living room, spilling everything possible in the dining room, finding shoes;
 "I can't find any shoes!" 
"Wear your sisters shoes!"
"Me A BOY!" 
"Who Cares!"

Putting jackets on, taking them off, more spilling, more crying (why the hell did I have to mention this road trip anyway, wahhh!)

We were on our way. 

I get everybody out, main street is packed for our little town, so I asked the kids, "what do you do before you cross the street?"

Grace: " No running, no screaming, definately NO freaking out."
Me:  "How about just looking both ways?"
Grace: "Oh yeah we could do that."

We pile into a booth where I get strange looks like I'm crazy. 

Maybe.

Stranger:  "Are all these yours?"
Me:  "Nope, I run a Saturday night daycare. Of course they are."
Geez.

I take a second to admire my brood after I quickly order 6 small sundaes complete with chocolate sauce. 

I'm proud  of them.  They're cute. 

WAIT...they still had facepaint covering their faces.  They looked like train cars.  I'm sure people thought that I was a crappy mom.  One guy came up to Levi asking what was on his face.  All color went to what was showing of his cheeks, so his big sister figured she should do the talking. Grace couldn't have pointed out the expertly drawn hotdog in a bun that was painted on his cheek.  No, she had to show off his fairy eye lashes that were painted on.  That's our boy.

But the whole kicker of the night was this; 
"Mom, if you'd ever have more money we could get a calfachino." Grace said really loud.  (Yup, "Calfachino, forever a farm girl).  "So Rachel...do you know what's in a calfachino?"  She torted all smart.

"Yeah," Rachel said, looking around, acting like she was 4 going on 40.  "A chino with a calf in it."

Stepping in for Juan Valdez,
Fairchild Farmgirl

Shep Climbs Aboard The Ship

No doubt we miss having cattle dogs.  If only our cattle dogs could've spent their days doing their jobs down in the lots, that would have been fine.  I have to say, working cattle is not one of Fluffybear's finer points.  Although we have used her as bait to get a bull into a pen once or twice.  She's such a ding dong that she has no problem doing that. 

The first time we got this visitor pictured above we thought he came with the trucker that was here loading. 

"Take your dog!" Ron yelled as the trucker was leaving.

"It ain't mine, see ya" he said as he climbed into his cab.

"Great!" Ron said.  "Go get the pick up and drive around and ask people if they own him."
"Great!" I said, as I loaded up this super sweet dog.  He's super sweet, but I had zero time to be galavanting around the county with said dog. 

Luckily, the first place I stopped was down the road and he belonged to them, our friends Paul and Diana.  Paul took one look in the bed, "SHEP!  What were you doing?"  The dog lowered his head, knowing he had done wrong.  Then he slunk out of my pickup and laid down in front of the house. 

That wasn't the last time we saw Shep.  One night about 11 PM we got in a load of cattle from out by Aberdeen.  It was a warm night with just a hare of a breeze from the south.  Those old cows did not want to get out of that truck for anything.  Were tapping on the sides of the semi, were "hep, hep hep" (that's what we cattle people say to push cattle.  It's a universal language.  I also sport a cross between a yodel and Indian yell that works too).  When all of the sudden there's high pitched barking coming from under that semi trailer and wouldn't you know it, those cows started to unload.  What took us 1/2 hour with no results took the nieghbor dog just under a minute.  When the last old honery cow got off the trailer, the driver shut the gate and said his goodbyes and pulled his rig out of the driveway back towards highway 212, following right along side the rear tire was Shep, running home.  His work was done.

He hasn't been back since, I went over there to drop off some chickens and he wouldn't even come up to me.  He obviously associates me with getting in trouble which is too bad, he's a real sweetheart and I'm a dog lover.  I told Ron, that's the kind of farm hands we need.  Come to help and I don't even need to bake them a pie or get them a pop.  Just do their work and head for home. 

See you around Shep, we'll be getting a load in in the next week or two from Montana...if your not doing anything bop in and help.  You're much appreicated. 

Happy trails and don't forget to give your old pup a scratch behind the ear today,
Fairchild Farmgirl

Sunday Shorty: Out Of The Mouths Of Babes

Today was another fine day at Fairchild Farm Pumpkin Patch.  As usual, the star of the day was good ole Fluff dog.

She was in her moment of complete bliss, surrounded by kids and laying in the corn box as kids laid on her, buried her in corn, hugged her, etc.

I took one look at her and told one of our customers, "Fluffybear thinks she's in Heaven!"

Grace pipes up with this, "Well, that would make two dogs in Heaven.  But the one before her got killed and went to the burn pit first."

Happy Trails and don't do anything you think your kids may tell someone about,
Fairchild Farmgirl

PS That dog got put down after she bit our Rachel three times, the last time almost ripping out her eye.