August didn’t feel much like summer this year. It was mostly dry, but the warm temperatures didn’t come until the end of the month.
From Aug. 11-15, I took the boys and Anna into Wilkie for Vacation Bible School. I was teaching the faith section, and little Anna was my helper. The kids all had fun, and I enjoyed getting to share the faith with kids of different backgrounds and knowledge levels.
Gregory started cutting the hay in the Landis ditch on Aug. 12. After Vacation Bible School we would rush home to see what Gregory might need and then head to the garden to see what we could accomplish there.
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On Aug. 16, we loaded up the kids and headed to Unity for the Reiniger family reunion. They haven’t had a reunion for more than 20 years, so while there were quite a few familiar faces for me, there were also many I had never met and quite a few that Gregory hadn’t met either.
They calculated that there were 579 descendants of John and Mary Reiniger, but a baby was born that weekend and happily bumped that number up to 580. It was a fun time with plenty of playtime for the kids and a good opportunity to visit with people we don’t see very often. On Aug. 17 we went to mass at Landis and then went back to Unity for brunch and some final visits before everyone went their way again.
On Aug. 18 we were blessed with a visit from “The Aunties.” My friends Michelle and Lacey made their annual trip to Canada to visit their godsons and the rest of the Eppichs. They were only able to stay a few days, but it was an action-packed three days. There was a lot of playing, garden work, crocheting, hiking and even a campfire in the backyard before they headed back on the morning of Aug. 21.
On Aug. 24 we took the opportunity to slow down a bit. After mass and brunch we took the kids out to the pasture to ride and check the cows and pastures. The boys are all getting to be better riders. Joseph is willing to take on new challenges, James is starting to ride on his own and Ian is balanced enough to sit in the saddle on his own while I lead his horse. In one pasture the cows were nowhere to be found, so James and I checked every bush and draw. Finally, we found them along the lake bank enjoying the breeze and the little bit of shade from the trees. We’ve now dubbed that pasture “hidden herd pasture.”
On Aug. 26 we took two balers and worked on the ditches toward Landis. We had a good day but didn’t quite get it all finished. Gregory had a friend come and help him a bit with a tractor the next morning, so we didn’t get out until the afternoon to try to finish baling. By that time, it was too dry and we had to quit and come back the next morning.
The next morning things were working better for the hay, but the balers were not co-operating. Gregory almost lost a tire on his baler. Luckily, he caught it in time to go home for parts and didn’t wreck the tire. Before he could get his baler fixed, my baler lost a chain. Once all the parts and pieces were gathered together, we worked together to get both balers going again. Before long we had all the ditch hay baled for 2025.
We drove the balers home, and then Gregory went to start swathing the organic barley. And just like that, harvest was here! Gregory worked on the barley and then swathed the sainfoin patch. It wasn’t good enough to harvest this year, so I baled it for feed. Gregory then moved right into the oats. He was trying to get the oats in a swath before the wind shelled it out. He’s quite happy with the crop that is there. He has to get the finishing touches done on the combines and the trucks before we can get to combining, but all will come together with time.
