There's so many things I can't do with a baby

I like feeling useful. Soon after Taylor and I got married, his family needed my help during harvest. They taught me how to run the grain cart, and I truly enjoyed the feeling of having an important role in the operation.
When Taylee was born last summer, I took maternity leave during the fall harvest. And when wheat harvest rolled around this year, I knew it wouldn't work very well to still be nursing and trying to run a grain cart at the same time... so once again, except for a couple of small occasions when I filled in, I wasn't in the grain cart.

Once upon a time it would have bothered me not to get to play my part - to be an important member of the team working hard out in the fields.
But on those short occasions when I did run the grain cart this year, my mind wasn't fully on my task.  While it felt great to be back out there, working with my husband in the beautiful wheat fields, my new identity as a mom took precedence.
I wanted to be the one to feed my daughter, get her ready for bed, put her to sleep using the bedtime routine we've been working on...

Not driving grain cart is just one example of the way having a baby has changed my life, and while there may be a lot of things I can't do right now, it's ok because what I can do is be a good mom to my little girl and that, to me, is greater than anything else.

Plus I still got to help with one of the most important parts of harvest this year, cooking meals to bring to the field. ;)

Taylee loved crawling around in the food trailer when we took meals out to the field.

This past weekend we had a new experience around our house. A couple of months ago we ordered some broiler chickens to grow, and on Saturday we harvested them. We never had chickens growing up, so it was a first for me.

It was a neat experience, but the best  move we made was to order a chicken plucking machine beforehand.

Showing Taylee where the chicken strips
she loves come from. :)

We were a little late butchering
our chickens, so our birds
were large and in charge. 

We had seen a video of one on Facebook and decided it would be worth a try. I didn't expect it would work as well as it did in the video, but I was pleasantly surprised. It worked like a dream. After dipping the chicken in hot water, we stuck it in the plucker and in under a minute the bird was completely plucked. I took a video on Snapchat but I can't get it to upload properly to this site.


Roshel and I cut the chicken up into pieces like you'd buy at the store. I'd never cut up a whole chicken before, but after watching a YouTube video a couple of times I was able to get the job done. It felt good to learn a new skill, and I'm looking forward to trying some of our home-grown chicken.

Here is a recent Scripture lesson I want to carry in my heart -

Midean so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the Lord for help. Judges 6:6

The lesson that accompanied this Scripture talked about how God knows the thing we need the most is to have a relationship with Him, and He will do whatever it takes to make that happen - even if it means taking away all our earthly possessions so we have to rely on Him.
The thing I want most in this life is to serve my God, so no matter what it takes, I pray He will use any means necessary to make me entirely and truly His.

Hope you all have a great rest of the week!
Lyndee