Wife Hacks

Even though the days are technically getting longer, I haven't found myself being more productive and cranking out any additional work in a day's time. Maybe it's because I can't keep up with the mysterious chunks of mud that seem to find their way onto our kitchen floor; or maybe it's because 90% of my time in the house is spent having a staring contest with a brown eyed beauty over her shoddy eating habits. 

Whatever the reason, I find myself utilizing a series of, not Life Hacks, but rather Wife Hacks, that get me through the day and continue to keep me semi-sane as a Homesteading Optimist. On social media Life Hacks are quick 12-second clips on how to organize your pantry and send your kids to college in 6 easy steps. Life Hacks demonstrate 2-ingredient Thanksgiving meals in 15 minutes or less. 

Much the same, I have found my Wife Hacks to be simple, creative ways to save time and sanity around the farm and home. 


Kitchen Wife Hacks:

Dinner time can be a point of tension in our home. Cody has a taste palate that is complete opposite of mine. I actually enjoy kale and beans. He favors Velveeta and tacos. 
The few ingredients we agree on: 

1. Beef
2. Rotel
3. Rocky road ice cream

That's quite limiting when leafing through cookbooks and making out a grocery list. However, I've learned that a little bit of marketing can go a long way when preparing meals.

For instance, if I simply put a friend's name in front of the particular dish I'm making, it sounds more appealing to him. I mean, it's weird, but somehow it works. 

Last week we had Tyler Cates Chicken
John McCurry Parmesan Pork Chops and
Jeremy Haag Beef Stew
You can find full recipes at the end of this blog. 

Also, for whatever reason Cody doesn't trust any recipe I find off of Pinterest; probably because he understands that 70% of the things seen on the site are unachievable. He does - however - love the butter-enriched cowboy food that comes from the Pioneer Woman. So even if I'm cleaning out the refrigerator and creating some kind of Chef's Surprise casserole, I set out one of my Pioneer Woman cookbooks and prop it open so that it appears that I'm getting my direction from some fiery red head in Oklahoma. 
He never seems to offer suggestions when it is a Pioneer Woman recipe. 

Farm Wife Hacks:

I have an album in my phone of barn cats doing stupid barn cat things. So when Cody is on a 5-day run out west and asks how the barn cats are, I just pull a random picture from the album on my phone and send it his way to give him a little peace of mind that they're doing great. 

The trick here is to remember to delete all photos of certain cats once they hit life #9. Nothing confuses Cody more than sending him a picture of Sunny in the mud when Sunny was actually found frozen to a scoop shovel back in January. Not that I speak from experience. 

House Wife Hacks:

Cody is great about letting me know when he's an hour from returning home and then asking if he needs to pick up anything before reaching the homestead. Even though I know he is incredibly ready to just be home, this gesture is so helpful to me. Mostly because we're usually short on diapers or bananas, but also because it sends me into a series of Wife Hack actions:

1. Turn on all wax burners and ensure they're burning something that smells clean. Never - ever - burn something that smells like a food, because then there will be an expectation that a pan of sticky cinnamon buns/loaf of banana bread/warm sugar cookies are waiting on the counter. This breeds false hopes and dreams. 

2. Run (I use the term loosely) outside and feed the barn cats so they don't act like starving idiots and attack his truck when he pulls into the driveway. Our barn cats don't talk, but they are quite the story tellers. 

I'm not particularly proud of my Wife Hacks but they've gotten me through 3.5 years of marriage and 9 months of motherhood so I'd like to think they're worth something. Although my mother - a solid cross between June Cleaver and Judge Judy - would be absolutely mortified that I make meals with fewer than 17 ingredients. 

This is one of those weeks where I wrote strategically. Meaning, I know Momma and Dad are calving out cows like crazy at Bowman Superior Genetics and her chances of getting on the computer and reading this entry are slim. 

#LifeHack



Recipes:
Chicken
Pork Chops
Beef Stew

When The Barn Is Empty

One by one and pen by pen, barns are emptying out across America.

Auctioneers tap the gavel one last time at county fairs and the pot rolls away. First-time 4-Hers are consoled by parents and seasoned showmen still find it particularly tough to say goodbye. Perhaps because ten years passes much quickly than they ever imagined it could.

State fairgrounds clear out overnight as worn out show crews make their way across the next state line just before midnight. Junior shows or open shows, they chase a white line down the interstate to the next one.

Everyone, no matter the stock or the state, returns home to a similar scenario:

An empty barn.

When the barn is empty the pens will be cleaned out one last time. The last time, and consequently, the best time. For whatever reason, this is the time that no one – not even the family griper – complains about cleaning out pens. It’s not such a bad job when the barn is empty.

When the barn is empty the showbox gets emptied, too. Curled up ribbons, Capri Sun  straws, discarded show numbers, half empty aerosol cans, bottles and sprays, stale Combos and loose change: Each thing finds it’s place and the show box is shut up and moved to the corner when the barn is empty. It will be opened only once between now and next season – as the middle child searches high and low for his belt. 

When the barn is empty the alarm clock doesn’t go off nearly as early. Show kids feel rested…

….for a day. After that, they feel strangely unfulfilled when remembering that the barn is empty.

When the barn is empty show moms realize that they are finally basking in the light at the end of the tunnel. And for some reason, that light isn’t nearly as bright as it seemed two weeks ago when she wished so badly that the barn was empty.

When the barn is empty the aisle gets swept with no concern for chips or straw cluttering the way. Every piece will be just where it should be – for once. And sadly it will stay that way, no hooves dragging pieces in every direction, when the barn is empty.

When the barn is empty, it’s only then that someone can appreciate routine. Starting your day with great purpose at a certain time, ending your day doing what you enjoy at the same place every evening. There is a certain comfort in routine. A comfort you may not recognize until the barn is empty.

When the barn is empty favorite songs on the radio are replaced by talking teachers, blowers are traded in for bookbags and registration papers are replaced by syllabi. School starts in no time once the barn is empty. 

When the barn is empty dads have a hard time finding a modified to-do list for the kids. No rinsing. No feeding. No Leading. He’ll tell them to organize that and clean up this - and they will. He’ll reiterate that “it better stay that way!” - and it will. He’ll say, “don’t leave that wash rack water running all day!” – and they won’t. Daily instruction is different when the barn is empty.

When the barn is empty, the forks and shovels will finally be put exactly where they’re supposed to go. And they’ll stay there. The halters will be cleaned up, hung up and left to do nothing but collect cobwebs. And they’ll stay exactly as they should when the barn is empty.

When the barn is empty the fans are switched off, unplugged and slowly the blades cycle one….last………..time…………………dragging out goodbye.

When the barn is empty the lights are flipped off, with nothing but the sun lighting a path from one corner to the other. There is a strange loneliness in the darkness when the barn is empty.

When the barn is empty and the door slides shut one last time, it’s sealed like a time capsule commemorating competition, disappointment, passion, and pride; high hopes for the next great one, memories of the one that just passed through. If you do it right, you’ll have more than just ribbons and trophies to carry on that memory long after the barn is empty.

Rest easy and rest while you can. Because the thing about an empty barn - no matter what feeling moves through the hollow pens - is that it doesn't last long. 

Through The Lens: March in Indiana

I follow Nebraska Through The Lens on Facebook. I don’t know why I do so, or even how I found the page, but it is interesting to see what people deem photo-worthy and in what part of the state the shots hail from. Nebraska is a wonderful place where a lot of our friends call home. The work on the page is beautiful and inspiring and brings a certain light to Facebook that is generally lacking.

Snap back to real life.

This week I decided to emulate their inspiring NebraskaThrough The Lens example, dust off my camera and get out and enjoy the warmer weather.

Home Through The Lens, I thought I'd call this weeks blog.

I changed out of my work clothes and heard the weather guy on TV talk about the breezy evening we were experiencing.

Breezy?
I couldn’t even get out of the house because the grill had blown over, blocking the screen door, a patio chair had landed on top of it and the snow shovel was stacked as the cherry on top. I guess “breezy” was the PC way of saying windy as heck. I used one hair tie and seven bobby pins to get the mop outta my line of sight.

Once outside, I walked around the house and tried to find images of spring.

Home Through The Lens

In search of  beauty.

Inspiration.

Light.

Beauty? No. 

Inspiration? No. 

Light? No. 

Snap back to real life. Sometimes there aren't enough filters in the world to dress up this life. 

When I really started to study our place, all I found was a long list of things that need attention.  

This is what happens when you forget to store the summer rockers:

This is what happens when your house is lacking bleach water and some elbow grease:

I think this is my year to run the bucket loader.

And this is what happens when you have absolutely crazy neighbors:

Let me back up.

Saturday afternoon I was watching the IU basketball game (it was that or Dateline re-runs and you know I can’t watch Dateline alone) and folding laundry upstairs. Only minutes after watching IU win, a slow moving vehicle caught my eye outside. I watched our neighbor - we'll call him "Mike Craig" -  slowly pull his SUV through the hayfield gates that sit directly across the road from our house, and drive east through his field.

What in the world is he doing out there on a Saturday afternoon? I thought. Like any good/nosey/bored rural neighbor, I continued to watch.

Mike then got out of this vehicle, squeezed between his fence and the long row of wrapped hay bales that line the highway, and began shaking a can.

And then the red graffiti started.

I squinted, watched and began recording video on my cell phone as I slowly realized what he was doing. (I have since removed that video from this blog; my language wasn't suitable for ears belonging to young, impressionable people or my grandma.) He was intentionally spewing Pro-IU trash directly into my line of sight.

I opened the window and yelled across the highway, asking him to stop. I could hear his laugh from our second floor bedroom.

There was no turning back. He was adding exclamation marks to his art at this point. 

Now this Sweet 16 jargon is the first thing I see every day.

Living proof that March in Indiana is cut throat.

And I didn't even have a dog in the fight!

As it turns out, his creative graffiti was just the beginning.

The community must really like Mike’s “art” because since he painted the bales, vehicles have honked non-stop. In fact, on Sunday afternoon I laid down to take a much deserved (ha!) nap. Every time I was seconds from falling asleep, some idiot would lay on the horn as they drove by. Cody was out of town and I expressed my frustration with the constant support of the IU wall that had been built across the road from our property.

 

When Cody got home one evening this week he calmly told me that he may have figured out why so many people – cars, vans, semis, implements - were honking as they drove by our farm since last weekend:

I hadn't seen this portion of Mike's "art",  far enough down the highway that I couldn’t view it from our bedroom Saturday afternoon. Positioned precisely so that once people read this, their honk is perfectly timed directly in front of our place.  I'm going to lose my mind.  Is March over yet?

Maybe next week the wind will calm, my blood pressure will lower, the honking will stop, IU will lose and this place can get back to some sort of normalcy. I have legitimate concerns about what Mike will do to the landscape if IU wins again, but we can address that can of crimson spray paint when we get there.

March in Indiana: There is nothing like it.

Thank goodness, for the sake of Purdue alumni and fans everywhere, 

it only comes once a year. 

My evening wasn't a complete waste.

A couple shots of our beloved (depends on who you ask)  Shorthorn herd in it's entirety: