Life with Our Farm Kids

   
     When I was pregnant with my son, I never thought about farming. We lived in a dry cabin, and the only thing that grew in the flower boxes on the porch was my dog who found them to be a cozy resting place. Over the next two years we found ourselves living next to a peony farm, on the corner of a dirt road, and the edge of a little slough. I have this clear memory from our first summer here of walking out with a drink for Brandon and looking down at Tuck, then 15 months, and saying, "Is it safe for him to be playing in that?" Brandon and Tuck were working on combining soil and compost to make raised beds. Brandon looked up at me smiling, "I hope so, he has been eating it too." That was just the beginning.

     If anyone just gagged at the idea of my child eating dirt mixed with compost, I'd stop reading now. Honestly, raising kids on our small farm has produced some of the most cringe worthy moments of my life. There has been dirt, compost, mud, grass, poo, and dare I say its possible they've tried to eat bugs? I wouldn't change a thing. Watching my dirt eating, chicken water bathing children grow on our little farm is amazing. There is so much that goes on here from mud to love that its hard to put into words, but I am going to try.

      At the moment, I'm finding mud to be the most pressing matter of hand, so I'll start there. It's spring here, which us Alaskans lovingly refer to as Break-up. Its the four week period where our copious amounts of snow disappear. Its warm, its beautiful, and its freaking wet. I am pro-mud myself. Mud is the smell and feel of excitement around here. First the road turns from ice to mud, and quickly followed is our driveway. If you want to see happy kids, just drive by and see my kids sitting in the mud puddle splashing, throwing, and attempting to eat every bit of it.

     While I get pretty excited about the mud, there is a major downside. Our house has these beautiful light colored laminate floors. I love them, until they suddenly get a shade darker. The amount of times I have yelled, "NO BOOTS IN THE HOUSE," is immense, but it will never be enough to stop mud from making past the front rug. Tuck gets it, he is five, and he knows to take those boots off, Cordelia is slowly getting it, but its hard to be mad at a muddy baby. She runs into the house from outside with her muddy boots on, searching for me. She smiles sweetly and gibbers about what ever happened outside, and then stomps around to demonstrate exactly what she and her brother were doing. Overtime I walk her back to the front bench, pull off the dirty little narwhal boots, and try not to think about how dirty the floors are. (The dogs are not much help here either between the goat pen, slough, and puddles, they track in as much or more than the kids.)

     Don't take this for complaining though. I am quite pleased with their love for the muddy outdoors. My daughter stands yearningly staring out the back window towards the slough as though she is a trapped animal whenever she is forced inside. They would go outside naked if I allowed it. Their love of our yard is perfect when we have to do morning chores and they follow me around buckets in hand. Its great when our house seems too stuffy and I make us all wander around the yard for an hour. It's amazing to see the old baby toys being pushed through the puddles and my son begging for a kid's rake at the nursery so he can be "the most helpfulest." I'll take it all, even dirt and poop stained jeans, over a kid begging for an iPad.

     It should be noted, the animals are the true stars in my children's eyes. We have a coop full of chickens and a pen full of goats. When it started with chicks, Tuck listened to the instructions on how to hold them, and did it carefully each time. He even instructed his friends on how to hold them. He learned their names, he learned how to put them in and out of the coop. This year he asked for more chores, because he wants the animals to be his job. Over the past few weeks we have worked on filling the chicken feeder, and opening the water bucket to be filled. Every day my son's capacity for growing and caring astounds me. I'm sure I'd see it if we didn't live on a farm, but here I get to listen to him chastise chickens for escaping while he was checking for eggs and sweet talk a shy goat to coming to him. Cordelia may only be a year and a half, but she already shows her love of the chickens and dogs with squeals. When we come home she greets every animal pen and then tries to convince me to hand her treats to throw to them. (She is very convincing, our animals are getting fat.)

    As a mom, its easy for me to try an contain the fun. When I watch my child crawling through the coop searching for chicks over a month's worth of poo and straw, it takes a lot for me not to pull him inside and make him wash his hands that instant. While they are pulling the wrong vegetables out of their garden, I want to scream and fix it, but thats not my job.  Regularly I must remind myself that I'm here to keep them happy, healthy, and hopefully raise them to be good people. Which can be hard, especially when we are so busy. We have friends and a life off the farm. Then we have chores and a whole life on our property we have to attend. Between everything, I want to teach them, to nourish their growing and love of life. Brandon and I do our best, and so far its been working. I like to believe that when my son is feeding a sick baby goat he is learning compassion. That when my daughter is plunging her hands in the dirt in search of potatoes she is learning to love the work. I want them to see that we love what we do, that its important to do the hard work along with the fun work.

    While a lot of raising our farm kids is magical, there is plenty that isn't. Our kids aren't perfect, and neither are we. Sometimes they forget that chickens are living beings who don't enjoy being squeezed. Sometimes the food doesn't get checked, sometimes they don't want to help with anything ever again. The next day always comes though, and the rooster always crows. Our bad days roll over into good ones and we try to forget what had made us so frustrated the day before.

   Its a balance. One I like to find while sitting in my big recliner cross legged and drinking a hot cup of tea after the kids are in bed. I look over my mud covered floors, my hand printed walls and windows, and admire the sun outside setting on our little kingdom.

A little sidetone: Yes, I do plan on trying to do this at least bi-weekly. I was in an overachieving mood when I said weekly. We are stoked, and I love to talk about our life, but its spring and this isn't the only idea we are working on putting into motion. Thanks for stopping by! We appreciate you taking the time to read our blog. Let us know if you have any ideas/feedback/ or want to hear about anything specific!  - Genna