The LaRue life...: May 2015

Okay before I get into anything I have to tell you the funniest thing in the entire world. I named this post #laruefarm because i'm mostly going to be talking about our farm but also because I just discovered that Jon says POUNDlaruefarm. hahahhahahhahha im literally dying. okay back up- let me set this scene for you.

the other day we are in our room, i'm getting ready to shower, Jon is laying on the bed looking at my phone and I hear him say, "what does pound laruelife, pound laruefarm even mean?" and I was like what on earth are you talking about? he turns the phone around to show my instagram, and points to the caption- #laruelife # laruefarm. I about lost it. HE SAYS POUND INSTEAD OF HASHTAG. I married a grandpa. hahhahahhaa okay i'm done teasing. I love Jon and i'm so grateful he is my husband, he brings so much joy to my life, I don't mean to make fun of him because we try really hard to be very respectful to each other in our marriage but sometimes things like this are said and they cannot go unnoticed. (for example, one time we were driving to utah and we passed that HUGE bull statue on the side of the freeway, the one between tremonton and brigham and i said, "are there bulls that are really that big?" obviously without really giving it much thought, and of course Jon died laughing and now asks me that every time we pass it. so we're even now.)

so yeah.just thought that needed to be shared. pound i love my husband.

ANYWAYYYY-YOU GUYS! Summer is fast approaching and the reality of living on a farm is quickly smacking me in the face! It's more like a love tap though, and I DO feel loved. Like, could we live in a more beautiful place? I really don't think so.

The rainbow literally began and ended in my backyard. is this real life?

So i've probably mentioned this before. but the previous owner of the house we bought was divorced, and you could tell by the very neglected yard and house that there hadn't been a woman there in a few years. So it's been a lot of work. Obviously all the flowers were dead and the fields and yard themselves have even been pretty dead.

Now let me back up here a bit. I grew up in Chicago right? Your yard is like . 25 acres (if that) and you maybe have one tree and a teeeny garden if your mom is awesome (like mine) and maybe a flower bed or two. Regardless of that I pretty much never did yard work.(or any labor of any kind) There wasn't much to do for one, and I obviously had better things to do like swim in my neighbors pool. So growing up i NEVER did yard work. maybe weeded like once for .50 cents. and then we moved to Utah where people do service projects all the time for old people, and turns out I have reallly poor work ethic and I steered clear of those most of the time (horrible I know, I like service projects now, no worries.) anyway, all in all what i'm trying to say is honestly if you added up all the yard work, weed pulling, planting, blah blah blah all of that combined that i have done in my lifetime (up to this point) you'd probably get about 3 hours. SO PATHETIC I KNOW. anyway. so one friday afternoon I was feeling really motivated, I don't work fridays, but Jon does so I thought I'd go weed the crap out of our front flower bed and blow his mind when he got home.

well this is what i had to work with-

After FIVE HOURS of slave labor, this was the result

(This "after" picture was taking about 2 weeks later actually, so some more little weeds grew back)

But talk about progress! Are you proud?! I only finished half the flower bed too! I was done after 5 hours though, lets be realistic.

Now to make this actually the worst story ever, my neighbor came over the other day and told me those huge green weeds that I spent 5 hours removing were actually hollyhocks. WHICH ARE FLOWERS. I almost passed out from the tempest that was raging inside of me due to the thought that I might've spent 5 hours actually putting some effort into something, BUT to be honest I'm not sure if they are hollyhocks or not because after my internal meltdown (I tried to keep most of my emotions inside, I only threatened to kill like 3 people while the neighbor was still there) I looked up hollyhocks online and they looked a little different.. plus when we first went to look at this house back in august of 2014, there were no flowers ANYWHERE so... I'm not sure if they are actually weeds, or if they are indeed flowers that just haven't bloomed yet, or didnt bloom last year due to lack of water. WHO KNOWS. either way, I got work done, and we possibly have half a flowerbed full of flowers. I guess only time will tell.

On to the next part of our farming extravaganza-The field.

We live on a 16 acre lot, about an acre of yard, 2 acres of pasture where we keep the horses, leaving about 13 acres for our hay field.Which was pretty pathetic when we moved in. We had a really nice neighbor come over and plow it all up and we planted a crap ton of seed. Real nice fancy stuff so we can feed our horses quality hay through the winter, and also sell the rest for some mulah$$. So in april we started looking into getting the pump turned on so we can start irrigating. Lonnggg story short, our beautiful pump (which we were told was a 10 horsepower, only a few years old, had good pipe and watered the field perfectly all summer last year) was actually like 18years old, 25 horse, had corroded pipe and had broken during the middle of summer last year. So we dropped a nice chunk of change on a brand new one. Don't you love unexpected expenses? We were very blessed to have had enough in our savings to pay for it though, and we fasted and prayed a lottt for rain. And it has rained AT LEAST once a week since then. We have been soo blessed praise the Lord!!

So anyway last night we finally got everything all situated and were able to begin irrigating. Setting up the pipe the other day was a lot better than I anticipated (remember the 3 hours of yardwork/labor i did in my life?) Turns out you kinda have to help when you live on a farm. and I LOVE IT! I'm gonna be so ripped by the end of the summer.

Sometimes I laugh because we are the majorly poor new farmers in the area (if you can't tell by our field) But we are really enjoying it and it's hard when you start from scratch! Our millionaire neighbors across the street have given us some really good advice and have provided the "grass that's greener on the other side" (super literally) to give us something to aspire to. lol

I actually really enjoy looking at their field because it's always so beautiful and green and gives me something nice to look out my front window at! I never feel discouraged that they're grass is greener to be honest. Especially considering their resources! I am happy they are doing so well and happy I have a nice view :)

Speaking of resources, see those big pivot sprinklers? That's what the rich farmers have, and that's what Jon's new job is about. He designs those. Pretty cool huh?

Also check out the seeds I planted!! yay!! the dogs got a hold of them one day and I lost quite a few :( but some were saved!! yummy veggies and flowers, can't wait!
We are soo self sufficient