Corn harvest

The harvest has begun.  We started chopping the corn last Friday, and continued today!  A few more busy days to come!

Before chopping

Here are some pictures from today.

Josiah at the top of a silo

It's almost that time of year!

There's just something about these images that make me giddy!

It's almost that time of year!  Fall harvest!  (They only chopped a little bit today to open up better access to the silage bags, the real thing won't happen for a week or two)

I love spring and fall, and for some reason, the harvest in each season is always a highlight, even though it makes for long hours and tired workers.  It's so weird, because I don't normally like or adjust well to changes, but I like these changing seasons.

Maybe it's seeing the "fruit" for the labor that goes on every day here.  Seeing how much God blows our minds with His faithfulness and a better harvest than we expect.

Busy spring

Well, it's been a while, again.  I've been having some technical difficulties along with a busy life in general. 

The laptop is "my" computer to write on and it has a lifetime worth of photos on it, so that is my blogging computer.  But it decided that it no longer wants to work correctly.  Which is so frustrating that I just have to walk away from it.  So, I'm not sure what's going to happen with that thing.

Some things in life that have happened since I last wrote, which was February 21, wow that long ago!  Crazy! 
-I caught up to Josiah again, we are the same age for about nine months every year. 
-Somebody special got engaged!  One of Josiah's sisters (Kristen) will be getting married in September!
-I started doing something completely insane!  I started doing the Insanity workouts (seriously, some days I just want to lay on the floor after these workouts.  They are as crazy as their title).
-I went to Orange County, CA for a Brave: Love meeting.  It was super great!  We talked about Deborah (Judges 4-5) and I had a great time with Charise (Josiah's other sister) both in CA and then back in St. Louis where she is in med. school.
-The view from the North-facing windows of our house have changed dramatically.  We've had a lot of construction happening around the dairy these past few months.  I'll have to go out and take pictures some time of everything.  We also chopped down some trees.
-We had a baby shower for my sister.  She's due in a couple months and I am excited (/terrified) to be an aunt for the very first time!
-The rye harvest is complete.  Now it's time to plant the corn!

That's all I can think of for now.  Hopefully, I'll write again soon and have pics to go along.

What I learned in August

Link up with Emily Freeman's What we learned in August post.  A little late I know, but better than never.

So much!!  A lot of what I learned happened during or after The Circuit Riders School in Lancaster.  We had such a great time that week, learning a lot!

1.  I have a voice.

2.  I shouldn't judge a day by the weather.  We were taking Josiah's family out to water ski and it was quite breezy and a little chilly, but it was mostly sunny.  There was a small craft advisory for the area where we were heading, but we managed to find somewhat smooth water.  It was one of the most fun days of water skiing that I have ever experienced, plus the people that we were with were great too!  And the sky was amazing!!

3.  I am what my name means: strong (and courageous), not on my own, but God makes me who I am.  This post has new meaning to me today.

4.  I love milking cows.  Who ever thought this is what I would end up doing?  I have a BA in psychology, but I milk cows, and walk around the farm like a tough farm girl.  :)

5.  I can't wait around for someone else to do all the work (in relationships, in sharing Jesus with other people, in everything), if God called me to do it.  God has given me a voice and He will give me the words to say.  I just need to be more focused on Him than I am on myself or fear of man.

6.  People are really hungry for Jesus!  You read the news and see all this bad stuff happening, and why would someone do something like that?  Because they were bored, because they have no hope, because no one loves them, etc.  Clearly, there is a hunger.  Maybe they don't even know what they are hungry for, but it is Jesus.  There are so many other things that people try to fill themselves up with, but that hole was really created just for Jesus.

7.  I have the freedom to dream!

8.  God loves me.  I had a fresh revelation of His love during this month, and it had to do with something as simple and small as a shoe.  I'll post about it one of these days.

9.  If I'm not making the effort to go forward, I am drifting backward.  Another thing I'll be posting about soon.

10.  I've lived on a farm my whole life (except when I was at college), but I never knew what it looked like when they filled ag-bags with silage instead of putting it in an upright silo (I've never seen a bunker silo filled either).  I have now experienced that for the first time.

Harvest is now

It began today.  Another season.  Another harvest started.  This year we're doing something new, something that I have never actually seen being done in my life (I think they are quite common, we've just always had upright silos or grain bins).  We are putting up 4 ag-bags for our silage.  Two will be finished today and hopefully two will be done tomorrow (hoping the rain holds off).

Such a beautiful day for working in the fields!

Praise the Lord for a great harvest!  The harvest is now!

"When he [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field'."  ~ Matthew 9: 36-38

Harvest workers

"Then he {Jesus} said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few'."   Matthew 9: 37

It's funny how a familiar passage can strike you in a way you had never thought about before.  I've grown up on farm of some sort for my whole life.  A crop farm at my parents' home, and now a dairy farm with my husband and his family.

"Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”  Matthew 9: 38

Jesus talks about the harvest a few times throughout his ministry.  When harvest is ready it's important to get the crop in and done.  And in order to harvest, you need workers who are equipped for the harvest.  Without workers, the crops wouldn't be harvested and would probably spoil/waste away in the field.  And without the crops, the animals wouldn't be able to be fed and people would also go hungry (either if they are eating the crop or the animal).

Send out the workers Lord, so the world will not starve or waste away from the lack of You!!