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the life of a farm kid

Sorry it has been a little quiet around here. I am having some computer issues. When I opened up my blog today I had hundreds of spam comments. Yuck. I think I mostly have them taken care of and I have a new filter that will hopefully help. Sorry about that! Also…and this problem is totally self-inflicted…I am out of storage space because I have way too many pictures on my computer and that means I can’t download any new pictures until I get some off. My computer is backed up but I am in the process of organizing/saving pictures on a separate external hard drive. I should have been doing this all along, but I usually like to do things the hard way. 🙂 Anyway, posts without pictures are boring (at least most of the time) so that’s why I haven’t been posting. I managed to download a few pictures from my phone today. Yay! Do you have any fabulous methods of saving and storing your photos? I wish I was a more organized person!

Today was a bring your lunch to the combine kind of day. Farm life is totally unpredictable. That has been really hard for me to get used to and I have to constantly give my bad attitudes over to the Lord. I am praying that He molds me into more of a gracious, flexible farm wife. I have a ways to go!

Today we were glad for unpredictable. Joel called to tell me they were harvesting soy beans and that he would need a lunch in the field. He said the boys could come ride for awhile. We were glad to get out of the house and the boys were pumped.

Levi helped me pack lunches for us all and we jumped into the combine for a ride. I rode along in the seat Griffin is sitting in…he was wanting so badly to sit there by himself. Always Mr. Independent these days. Griffin is starting to love tractors and the farm just as much as his brother. It is so cute how excited he gets!

Levi sat so quietly just soaking everything in. He even ate all of his lunch! I told Joel I was going to make him eat in the combine everyday. It was the most peaceful lunch ever!

Griffin sat in my lap because he was still trying to convince me (by yelling) that I was sitting in his seat. He ate all his lunch too. Seriously, it was the best lunch!

They both were taking everything in. Watching everything their daddy was doing. And Levi was asking a million questions. He wants to know exactly how everything works.

And when it was time to go home for naps, Joel said Levi could stay. Skipping his nap and riding in the combine?! He was in heaven. Just look at his smile. It is way past his bedtime now and he’s still out farming away. I try to tell myself that he misses his mama so much, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t. 🙂 His daddy is pretty great and he loves spending time with him.

Levi looked like such a big boy sitting up in the combine ready to help his daddy. I can almost picture him as a young man running the combine himself…really helping his daddy. The unpredictable part of farming can be frustrating but I am so thankful for these unpredictable times when my boys get to spend time with their daddy. Unpredictable can be good. I have to remind myself to keep that perspective. 🙂

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  • Brooke - Love all of these! Makes me miss KS even more. Hang in there farmwife!ReplyCancel

  • Melinda D. - As a farm kid myself, married to a farmer and raising three of my own farm kids- I can’t imagine a predictable life 🙂 My sister and I have talked about how boring it must be to always have the same job, day after day, after day, no matter what season it is. We love the specific farm seasons and I love being “on call” for my husband and father-in-law. And it has taught our kids to be very flexible 🙂 Enjoy it! It’s a one-of-a-kind life that less than 2% of our population gets to experience! Btw, hope your bean harvest is yielding better than ours 🙂ReplyCancel

  • Michelle from Oz - I could only laugh looking at the combine pics. And this is me who sent you a photo of a tiny John Deere in the middle of an Australian paddock. And you have a huge one like that at your place? I think you should run Farm Weekends so we City Slickers can come to a farm and get ourselves dirty and touch (and ride in??) such great machinery. I would even come all the way from Australia just to get a good, clear photo of some John Deere machinery 🙂 Loved the post Jess!ReplyCancel

  • Julie J. - Love your pictures from the day. . . hope somebody gives you advice saving and storing photos, because you won’t be getting that from me. ha!

    I had to smile when I read about both boys eating all of their lunches. I always pack Ori a decent amount of food when he rides with my dad and my dad always tells me Ori needs more. He always eats everything plus about half of my dad’s lunch. So funny! Must be something about the combine that makes our boys big eaters–you better get used to packing HUGE lunches for your boys ;).ReplyCancel

  • Jen - It’s so cute how excited they are to visit their dad. As a daughter of a farmer I know the feeling! My dad always has a toolbox on the floor of his combine and my brother and sister and I would take turns sitting on it. My kids now love to ride with their grand pop and uncle and guess who sits on the toolbox, me! I have great memories and hope my kids will have the same. I’m sure your husband loves when you visit him!ReplyCancel

  • Jody R. - I’ve been seeing lots of combines and tractors working in the fields the past month and on the roads moving between farms…lots of corn harvesting getting done before the first snow, which may be as early as next week. eek!

    I upload all my pictures to Shutterfly. It’s like my catastrophe backup plan. Then once I’ve moved them over, I move the photos onto the external hard drive. I have a folder for copies of pictures that I want to use in photobooks so I don’t have to go through all my folders looking for them. And then when I’m done with a set of images I can just delete those copies.ReplyCancel

  • Lora - I archive all of my photos on Shutterfly. Smugmug is also good! I archive weekly to keep up!ReplyCancel

  • Danielle - Hi, Jess! Such a cute post. 🙂 I am having the same issue as you with too many pictures and not enough space. We have a Mac and we really like the iCloud option of storing our pics and family videos. I especially love that it automatically syncs everything to our iPad and iPhones when/if needed. The problem is we have so many pics/files, that we continually have to buy more storage. I am not sure if that is a one-time fee for the extra storage, or if we have to continually pay…I would have to ask my hubby. 🙂 I also use Dropbox, which has an option of paying for bigger amounts of storage, too. But I think that is a continual fee. The benefit of using Dropbox is that you can access all of your pics/videos/files/etc. from any computer (pc or mac) anywhere. (Maybe you can do that through iCloud too???) And it has an option where you can share a folder among friends or family, which has made sharing large amounts of pictures much easier than through email. It really works well for accessing my school files from home and vise versa, too. I’m anxious to see other ideas people share. 🙂ReplyCancel

    Jess Reply:

    Danielle-Good ideas! 🙂

  • Lacie Hutchins - Brings back memories of going out to the fields as a kid! Then I got too old and set in my city girl ways! Too dirty in those combines! As for picture storage, I just have one thing I had to do because my blog couldn’t take anymore pictures. I have a photobucket account that I upload all of my blog photos to so that I can post them and not use up all of the space for pictures on the blog. I think Julie does that too! You probably ready do this, but just thought I would mention it.ReplyCancel

  • Kalyn - I upload all my pictures to a snapfish account and then I delete them from my hard drive. That way I always have the pictures in a save place and I will never loss them, even when we get a new computer.ReplyCancel

    Jess Reply:

    Ceri, Lacie, & Kalyn-Thanks for the ideas!

  • Emily Parker - I’m in the same boat with my pictures. I actually lost 2 years worth of images due to external hard drive failure. What I’m planning to do (like you I just need to DO IT though!) is have 2 external hard drives…only save the current months pics on my computer then at the end of each month move the folder to both of the hard drives AND i plan to burn a dvd of each month as well and store those in a case in a fireproof safe. Currently though? It’s all on my ancient computer! I gotta get the motivation!!!ReplyCancel

    Jess Reply:

    Emily-So sad to lose so many pictures! You definitely need to start saving!!

    • Jess - Emily-So sad to lose so many pictures! You definitely need to start saving!!ReplyCancel

  • Cathy - I wish we knew one another well enough for me to show up with my 3 yr old (Lars) and sit on the edge of the field and watch for hours (ya know – without it seeming stalkerish or anything! HA!)

    We live out in the country, not on a farm, but on the edge of a bean & corn field… and last week was “Combine week” at our house. It was nearly impossible to pull Lars away from watching 🙂 Makes me wish we DID live on a farm!!!

    Thanks for sharing your family with me!!

    CathyReplyCancel

  • Ceri - Snapfish has a picture mover program that when you plug your camera in it will automatically detect and upload them on to your snapfish account. The problem with that is that when its done it still puts them on your computer but they are not “turned” (windows recognizes that the picture is horizontal or vertical and turns appropriately.) Well hubby does not like this so we “battle” about it. My compromise is not to delete them from the camera but to upload them to the computer twice, once to do the snapfish, I then delete the album that was added with the non turned pictures, then re-upload them but cancel the snapfish move. And although it sucks to do it twice, its WAY better than sitting there trying to upload folders upon folders of photos…. my problem is hubby usually plugs the camera in so I have tons to still back up. When I do that, then I end the name of the folder with Uploaded so I know that those ones are backed up. Hope this helps! Good luck, keep us posted with what you figure out. 🙂ReplyCancel

  • danielle - Your boys are adorable!!! I remember my first combine ride it was amazing! We did not grow up on a farm though, just had a really nice farmer that did the fields around us and put up with pesky little kids 🙂ReplyCancel

  • W. - Those boys are so so so cute 🙂ReplyCancel

  • Brittin Olson - Wow I have never seen such a clean inside of a tractor! My husband used to mow dairy fields, and when the kids and I rode with him, we weren’t allowed to touch anything. haha. I love little farm boys!ReplyCancel

  • Mary Ann - Oh my stars!! That is just the cutest thing…those 2 boys helping dad. And Levi’s smile….priceless. My little grandson (2 1/2) is in love with tractors. He calls dump trucks, road graders, front end loaders, back hoes all tractors. We mainly see road construction equipment so he was in 7th heaven at the pumpkin patch because he got to sit on real farm tractors. Your life seems lovely and good. I admire your spirit and spunk and being willing to have an unpredictable schedule. I love your pictures and think you have a very sweet family.ReplyCancel

  • amanda - oh my goodness Levi’s head back eye closed ear to ear smile is ADORABLE! so much personality and sweetness come through in his body language.
    what a great way to grow … watching daddy work hard on the farm. so cute!!!!ReplyCancel

  • tonya - these are great, priceless, precious pictures!!! you totally need to get that first one w/levi headed to the combine with his lunch box printed for your house…it is perfect!ReplyCancel

    Jess Reply:

    Tonya-Thanks! I love that one too.

  • Arlene - I used 2 externals, one crashed. I used Picasa, it was always down. Now I use MyOtherDrive. It’s virtual and not only can I access it from any computer, I can also send links of specific files or folders to share with friends without giving access to all my information. It was a little complicated at first, but the best part is that you can mail them your hard drives and they will move everything over for you. This saved me literally weeks of backing up (I have over 70,000 pics). If you don’t need a lot, they offer free storage, too.ReplyCancel

    Jess Reply:

    Arlene-Thanks…I’ll have to check that out.

  • Jillian - Photo storage has been an issue for me for the last 2 years, and seems to always be a problem when I’m ready to upload pictures for a post! SmugMug was the best option for me – a yearly fee, but unlimited storage, print ordering, and… original file downloads. I keep my photos back up on there, and when I run out of room, I delete them off my harddrive. But, if I ever need a file for the blog (or whatever), I can download the original right to my desktop (and quality isn’t downsized, etc). I did a whole post on them (not sponsored – just a real, honest-to-goodness review) with a lot more details, if you want to read it, here: (http://earningourstripes.blogspot.com/2012/08/done-list-update-smugmug-review.html?m=1)ReplyCancel

    Jess Reply:

    Jillian-Thanks for the idea! I’ve never heard of SmugMug.

    • Jess - Jillian-Thanks for the idea! I’ve never heard of SmugMug.ReplyCancel

  • Stephanie - Your boys are such handsome fellows!

    I don’t take nearly as many photos as you do, and mine are not as high quality for sure. But something I picked up from a friend was to not save too many pictures that are super high quality unless I intend to blow them up to a really large size (which people generally don’t do of all 5000 or so pictures that they have). But in turn, I have really started to go through my pictures and choose the ones I LOVE and will remember and want to keep and only keep those. And otherwise, just delete the rest, or shrink them to a smaller size (blog appropriate, or 4×6 printing appropriate). As for storage, I still keep mine on an external hard drive. No fancy cloud storage or anything!ReplyCancel

    Jess Reply:

    Stephanie-I use an external drive too. Thanks for the ideas!

    • Jess - Stephanie-I use an external drive too. Thanks for the ideas!ReplyCancel

  • Heather - That is so awesome! My son (who just turned 2) would be in little boy heaven to be around that kind of farm equipment.ReplyCancel

  • Christina - So precious! And your kids are going to grow up really understanding and valuing a strong work ethic…that is a wonderful thing. This city mama needs to hop to it, and start helping her kids understand what it means to work hard! 🙂ReplyCancel

  • Jaime - I bet living on a farm is the coolest thing for little boys. I bet my kids would just die with excitement. Your boys are so adorable! It looks like a fun day for sure. Picture storage is a pain. I really only take pictures with my phone now…lame! I don’t have a fancy camera. 🙂 but I try at the end of each month…(when I pay bills) to save all my pics from that month on shutterfly. Then at the end of the year I can make a family album pretty easily too, grabbing my favorites from each month. That may be a super ridiculous answer to all of you awesome photographers. LolReplyCancel

  • Kelly - I know you’ve already figured out some of what you want to do photos wise but I just wanted to tell you that we use Backblaze. You pay I think $90 a year or every two years or something but it backs everything up automatically off-site so that if you have a fire or something and your computer & external hard drive are in the same place, you still have all of your photos/documents/whatever you set it up to save from your computer safe. Just wanted to pass that tidbit along in case it’s helpful.

    Also, been meaning to tell you this for a while but the 30 day challenge stuck this time more than ever! I have been reading Jesus Calling and more intentionally communicating with God and giving him my day since the last one! Thank you for encouraging/challenging us! KellyReplyCancel