month 6: endless summer

this month on the little dream farm

Still can’t believe we are mom and dad!!!! We took our baby boy strawberry picking with us the other day and it made this annual tradition Chris and I love so much that much sweeter!

Hey there old friend!

How has it been a month since we last gathered here together?

Surely I was just writing May’s Farm Note to you and now here we are saying goodbye to June in just a few days.

I’m fully prepared that the rest of my life will likely feel like it’s on hyper speed.

Just last week I was taking photos of our baby boy to mark his second month! We also just had his two month doctor’s appointment and we’re so happy with how he’s been doing.

Still mostly sleeping through the night. Breastfeeding is going incredibly well. I started pumping enough for Chris to be able to give him a bottle when I jet off to book club once a month or Mahjong with my girlfriends or head to pelvic floor therapy or when we have a long day out on the go.

Last week Chris began his paternity leave—the longest stretch he’ll go without working since he was 15 years old. He’s earned the rest and the time off…he’s been grinding away so hard for our little family and this farm for so long now—as far back as the start of last year when my back was bad and then all throughout my pregnancy and now that our son is here.

We are so lucky to have this long stretch of time together and last week we spent it getting some things organized here on the farm, this week we’ll spend knocking out a bunch of errands off the farm.

Just a few weeks ago we got hit with a not-so-awesome trifecta of stuff going wrong.

First the zero turn broke down way back out in the donkey pasture. We had to rent a utility trailer to hitch it to our truck and drop the zero turn off at a mechanic almost an hour south of us. Once I got down there, just me and the baby to drop the zero turn off for service, our truck wouldn’t start. We needed the help of a tow truck and a friend with a truck to tow both our truck and the utility trailer back to town. We woke up the next morning to the fridge being on the fritz and then just a few days later we got hit with a ridiculous hospital bill from our birth.

They say bad things come in three’s and that was four things so we’re hoping our bases are covered for the next little bit because that was an expensive week!

A man and his garden…

Here on the farm the fruit and veggie garden is coming in great! We’re growing snow peas, edamame, cucumbers, sweet corn, popcorn, watermelon, cantaloupe, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, beets, celery, leeks, onions, potatoes, mixed salad greens, romaine lettuce, pumpkins, tomatoes, and peppers this year and we’re having a lot of great successes so far! Chris and I have surely gotten a hang of this gardening thing in the last few years!

Back out in the Dahlia Patch there are a couple hundred plants coming up that’ll be ready to pinch this week. I’ve already strung up the first rung of corralling and this year we used our push mower to bag grass clippings from the lawn to spread as mulch over each row—that was a bit of extra work up front but will keep us from having to weed at all the rest of the growing season. The Dahlia Patch is looking so good this year—certainly the best we’ve ever done it so far and we’ve really taken all our lessons learned and applied it to make this an awesome year. I can’t wait for blooms and I’m hoping to get some family photos out in the patch this year…I know those will be so beautiful.

Very pleased with the Dahlia Patch this year…it looks like we’re professional farmers over here!!

Our farrier was here last week for the donkeys and said that Molly-Max is looking as good as he’s ever been—we always love hearing that. Him and Dominic are in the middle of their summer shed and will be sleek and shiny before we know it! I know you always like to hear how the donkeys are doing and we’re happy to report they’re both great.

We’re about to get a super hot week coming up here so we’re glad we’re mostly caught up on taking care of the farm chores outside so we can spend our time heading to the lake, swimming in our friend’s pool, and getting out for early morning walks with our baby boy!

With Chris having all this time off it feels like we have an endless summer ahead of us and we’re going to be spending the days stopping at the local library for books to read to our boy, heading to our favorite bakeries and coffee shops and farm stores where we can sit and take our time and enjoy being out during the week, and lots of little day trips to all our favorite places with our baby in tow.

Exactly one year ago Chris and I were making the decision to begin trying to start a family. Now here we are with our two month old planning summer adventures, we’ve booked our first family beach vacation for this summer, and we’re in the process of planning an international trip for later this year.

I’ve loved every bit of becoming a mom, and watching Chris become a dad has been beyond special. He’s the sweetest daddy to our boy, always kissing him and telling him how beautiful and sweet he is, making up songs and reading to him every day and creating such special little early experiences and memories for him. They’re sitting on the recliner together next to me as I write this while Chris is watching a World Cup game. Our son is a spitting image of Chris…it’s the most amazing thing.

Now and then I miss the way I used to share things on our farm’s Instagram account and writing this as a weekly Farm Note as opposed to a monthly newsletter. Those were such fun years for me, capturing so many precious moments, sitting in the morning with my coffee and writing captions for videos and photos and telling all kinds of stories about our life here on the farm, and connecting with so many of you on a regular or daily basis. Those were some of the most fun and creative moments for me and I’ve been toying around with how to maybe get back to that in a way that feels good to me in this new season of our life?

For now, I’m just fine being completely intoxicated by our sweet sunny son and fully enjoying being a new mommy. These last few months have been the very best days of my life.

Can’t wait to catch up with you again next month when we’re freshly back from our family beach vacation. We’ll look forward to spending time with you here on Sunday July 26th!

Take good care of yourself until then and if you have a second and would like to, leave a comment and catch me up on how things are going in your world. I always read every comment and I do miss hearing from many of you, too!

Until next time, big hugs from all of us here on the Little Dream Farm!

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Got a couple of faves to share with you this month!

1. I am reading this book right now before I watch the movie and I’m absolutely loving it so far!

2. I just re-ordered two more big bottles of this hyaluronic acid serum. I’ve been using it for years now on a freshly clean face followed by this moisturizer, which I’ve also been using for several years now. These are the only two skincare products I use day and night and my skin has never felt or looked better…even postpartum!

3. I have this oversized t-shirt in several colors and right now it’s my favorite thing to throw on with a pair of jeans and these Birkenstocks.

4. I got this pair of earrings and this pair of earrings and I have been SO pleasantly surprised at how much I love them!

5. When you want to get grime out of clothing—blowouts in onesies, the smell of milk out of burp cloths, the stink in gym clothes even after washing them…you need this enzymatic detergent. Hands down, it’s the best. I like to do a small load of the dirtiest stuff, put a scoop in the wash, run a hot cycle, and once the water fills I turn off the washer to let the items soak for about an hour. Then I just resume the cycle and let it wash. It saves everything from stains and stink!! Use it on smelly bath towels or sheets that could use a really good deep clean. Thank me later!