Hello Friends – happy Friday!

This is a great Friday for me, because it is only ONE Friday away from our wedding! Whoo-hoo!

Farmin’ Friday takes place in Missouri this week.

{Missouri Valley Commission Company in Boonville, MO}

On Tuesday, we all went to Boonville to the livestock auction because Tuesday is SALE DAY! All of my sisters go to the sale each week with my Dad and I was happy to tag along.

In the summertime, the sales are usually smaller (and therefore less stressful) because most of the cattle were sold earlier in the spring or are now out grazing in pastures all across Missouri. Just like every business, the livestock auction has busy times of the year and slower times, too.

Since this is a slower time of the year, we had a little time to fool around after getting our work done. Naturally, this resulted in a sale-barn style contest between Savannah and I. Schyler took the video on my phone while we weren’t paying any attention. Here is a link to the short, comical video on my YouTube channel. I promise you will chuckle! And, if you’ve ever worked in the back of a sale barn, I bet you have pulled a similar stunt.

{Fencing on Thursday}

Dad and the girls are making some improvements to a small lot at Dad’s grazing farm. I helped him build miles (okay, maybe LOTS is a more accurate term. It felt like miles.) of fence here in high school & I love this little farm. Savannah and I both spent the first few years of our lives here. It’s a nice grass farm, excellent for grazing stocker calves. We have spent lots of time updating the fencing so that we have a good rotational grazing system. This system is very sustainable and makes the best use of the unique Missouri resources (sunshine, grass and water!).

I tried to help with the fencing on Thursday, but I am pretty much a pathetic wimp when it comes to this Missouri humidity after just a few months in low-humidity SD. I spent most of the day sweating, panting and feeling out of shape while my sisters all seemed to be hot, but fairing better than me.

Savannah is getting pretty tough and it is only June. By the time school rolls around again, she may have bigger guns than all the boys. I’m proud of her! 

Schyler is very helpful, too. Especially, for a 10-year-old. She wanted to demonstrate just how deep the holes we dug (BY HAND) actually were. This hole was 3.5 feet deep. Just enough to cover up all of Schyler’s legs. 

Like I said, I spent most of the time sweating & being very unproductive. Instead, I should have been digging holes. In my defense, it was 90+ degrees. I felt like polar bear who got dropped into the tropics and asked to run a half-marathon.

Not good.

I had no chance to acclimate. Not fair. To my body. To my mind.

Plus, I had a pathetic bowl of sugary cereal for breakfast. I burned through that after the first hour of fencing. If I had planned on fencing (rather than wedding planning & sitting on my duff) I would have eaten the following breakfast:

• one gallon of water
• one half pound of bacon
• two eggs
• three apples for snacks (10 am, 11 am, 1pm)

Instead, I ate:

• cereal
• iced latte from McDonalds

This was an epic fencing diet fail. I am convinced we burn about 7 zillion calories building fence when it is 100+ degrees (Notice how the temperature gets higher every time I tell the story. That’s because it kept getting HOTTER. I am not exaggerating).

Here’s another short video of me & Selestia double-teaming digging a hole before I began suffering from starvation & heat exhaustion as shown in the photo below.

(photo caption written by fencing crew: Sierra doing nothing. Again.)

Needless to say, the rest of the crew was doing just fine in the summer heat! 

We have to give credit to Sam, because he’s from the big city of Chicago. Savannah and Sam lived on the same floor during college and they became friends freshman year. Sam has turned out to be quite the fence builder within just a few weeks. Although, I think he hates digging holes by hand. I sure don’t blame him. 

Seriously though, check out Savannah’s GUNS. I think TJ (ex-military) is looking weak in comparison to my sister!

We all know that’s not quite true though! TJ wins. 

{Wedding Planning}

Working with my sisters this week actually resulted in a good balance between wedding planning/crafts and working. It kept me feeling sane, calm & (dare I say it) relaxed.

The most exciting thing we did this week for our wedding was pick out what wines we wanted to serve! John had absolutely zero interest in this portion of the planning, which meant the fun was left to me and a few fellow wine drinkers.

So far, we have decided on Riverboat Red & Moscato D’ Asti. I think we need to add one dry, white wine to round out the mix. I am making “vintage americana” labels for the large containers that the wine will be served out of during the reception.

Schyler and I are also making a couple 4 foot by 4 foot barn quilts this week. We just started priming them Thursday night. Of course, they too will be red, white and blue. I had this idea in the back of my head for months and months, but I finally got the courage up to do one myself after my cousins made one. Theirs was a gift for their Dad this year on Father’s Day. This photo was from Pinterest.

Thanks for reading! I hope you have time to watch this week’s videos here and here!

Have a wonderful, wonderful weekend.

Farmin’ Friday from last week: Cutting Alfalfa, Angell Family Holstein Round-Up