Well friends I had to look at the date on my computer screen tonight and was floored that we’re already a week and a day into September. I know we’re here, but it’s crazy is it not?
One minute were chillaxin with the kids having a bonfire or reading a book, then the next minute we’re getting everyone on the road to school and getting a load of laundry before I head out to sub for a different school with a literal jug of coffee. Oh and Ron is out working or doing something for our farm.

September is like Christmas. You know it’s coming with all the commitments and everything but until it’s a week before its hitting, you’re just hanging out and BAM! It hits you like a bus.

A school bus. This year, we have a senior, a junior, a sophomore, a freshman and a sixth grader. We just sent Grace back for her second year of college.

Right now, we’re knee deep in watching the boys play football, going to Tedd’s practices, I’m subbing for Deuel, CCD starts this month in Clear Lake for us, and Ron’s getting ready to help in harvest. I’m also gearing up for a monster of a fourth quarter in my business.  And would you believe we entertained the idea of another foreign exchange student? My kids want another one, and I kind of did for a hot minute. Then the first week of school hit and I now know better. Not with my schedule…maybe next year.

Also, I’m hitting the Minnesota public library system pretty hard with my needle felting classes. Shout out to the Worthington Library where we had a full class and some fun ladies had joined who read this column. What a ball! This month I only have one library (Lamberton) but then I have ten in October. So much fun! I sure have met some wonderful people. If you’d like to have a class for a library, a group you belong to or a work team building/fun day, get a hold of me. We have fun.

Other than that, we’re trying to get the summer/fall work done around the house and farm. This past weekend we scraped paint on the porch and balcony and finished painting the first level porch. If you’re familiar with an “American Foursquare,” then you know our house.  It’s a big one with an upper balcony that sits over a large porch. It’s neat upstairs on the balcony because there’s a great view of the farm, but as I was scraping the ceiling of it, I have to say the thought crossed my mind about having someone else paint it. It’s scary up there and I’m not a heights person and neither are four of the six kids that are here. Levi being the natural born dare devil, was finally offered $150 to paint it.
He was interested, but we’re still in the scraping phase however and that kid...he was sitting on the railing, hanging out trying to scrape the outer edge of the roof that’s painted. I couldn’t look anymore, so I went downstairs to make dinner. I also reminded him that the ground doesn’t forgive if he fell. In my mind I see someone else doing it, you know, a professional that has a harness or something other than the luck that my kid thinks he has an endless supply of.

One more exciting thing, they should be finishing up my wool at the mill so I can FINALLY get some dryer balls, and kits in bulk made. The most wool I’ve ever sent out is about 200 pounds and got 150 pounds back. But now this, twelve hundred pounds plus or minus went to the scouring plant in May. Five hundred ninety-two pounds got sent from the plant in Texas to mill in Wisconsin. I’m super curious to see the pounds I get back and just to see all that wool into roving is going to be crazy. Also…I need to figure out how it’s getting back here. Ron is hinting about going to pick it up…that may be another story for you next month. Stay tuned!
Until next time,

Fairchild “that’ll be a lotta dryerballs, you betchya!” Farmgirl

Suzanne Fairchild is a freelance writer who lives on a farm in southwest Minnesota with her husband and children. She can be reached at rmf@itctel.com.

It can't be August! It was just July 1 and you can't tell me any different. Although, I guess we did have a full July which made it go by so fast. Here's the skinny on what's been happening. We took our senior daughter to SDSU, we also looked at some horse boarding places in case she'd want to have her horse close, (side note: we need to start a boarding facility, that's where the cash is at) we also are looking into some places that she can apply to work at next summer/fall. We're getting ready to move Grace up to Watertown she's transferring to Lake Area. The other kids are working like crazy to supplement their winter school months, car dreams and college savings accounts.
Tedd and I have been selling out of our flowers each week at the market, and rightfully so; how could you not buy from a sweet kid who can tell you about our wildflower hunting Friday morning escapades to put in our bouquets? Or the fact that he knows the names to all the flowers that we raise and pick in the wild?
As for here at the ranchero, we've been doing a little operation clean up around here and that started with the old Ranger Crew side by side. If we're not using it, well, get rid of it. I will say, I was a slight bit sentimental when they were loading it on the trailer. The times that we loaded all the kids on it and took it to the park or just took drives on it, hauled calves in the box from the feedlot, well it was a good ride. But we're sick of putting money into it. I will say though, my new motto is to throw my hand in the air, pointing eastward to Marshall and yell, "to the scrapyard!" We actually sold the side-by-side to a person, but one son is hauling a few cars down for scrap and we have to bring another sizable pile down. If I hear, "well scraps not worth a whole lot," I'll either be questioning my marriage or sanity. Kidding…maybe.
However, the most exciting thing this month besides taking the kids out to see the new movie Twister and going out for supper was the purchase of a new to us riding lawn mower. We have been mowing our lawn with a push…and mostly it's been me, let's be honest. Every time I ask a kid, they're mentioning to me about the steps that I'm always wanting to get in on the daily. Confession time: I really love doing lawn work, so it doesn't bother me a whole lot.
On our summer bucket list was to take the kids somewhere before school starts, but with football starting, some school shopping left, Grace going back to college, and some more college visits with our junior and senior, it's not looking great. We also haven't painted the porches and trim yet on the house and I am telling you, we need to do it! That and wash the windows and casings. Have you ever really looked on the outside of your windows lately? Ours are covered in spider webs and fly poop…well not covered, but you get the gist, it's grody and needs a power washing, as well as the siding too.
But I will say, I'm very excited for fall. I love football, chilly days, soup, all the things. I'm also going to sub for my second year across the border in South Dakota. I LOVE it. The kids are a blast and the great thing about subbing is, it's always different. The only thing I would love, is to be able to sub in Minnesota, but since I only have an Applied Science degree and not a Bachelor's degree, I can't. So for now, I'll stay in South Dakota. But if you have the credentials and you are thinking about it, do it. Subbing is a blast, and working with students is really rewarding. My favorite is the high school kids… those pre K-6th graders are tough on this old lady, but I do still love to see all those smiley faces.
Back to the grind. I have been thinking about all the years that I've done monthly articles and I love sharing my life with all of you. You, my readers, make it all worth it. Have a great month!

Until next time,
Fairchild "enough of this sap… send it to Marshall!" Farmgirl

Suzanne Fairchild is a freelance writer who lives on a farm in southwest Minnesota with her husband and children. She can be reached at rmf@itctel.com.

What? It's July? Believe me, I'll be equally stunned come August first, but wow…July always means that summer is half over and fall is looming.
Speaking of July, how's your garden coming? Our flowers are nothing short of stunning and I mean it. They're growing great, but so are the weeds. I've finally got buds on the dahlias and I cannot wait to see what they look like. We grew about 90% of our plants from seed, so it's been pretty cool to see what they look like.
Even though we have a great crop of plants, we are still planting stuff. I can't help it, it's like a sickness and I'm not even kidding. Tedd, the youngest that I'm gardening with will go past the office and if he sees me looking at seeds, he gives me a talking to that usually amounts to the usual 11 year old talking to their mother and I order the seeds anyway, but when he saw the 2,500 carnation seeds and cupcake zinnias, he started to complain.
"Mom! These aren't even going to be ready by frost. You need to stop!" That I do son, that I do. So I digress, I did promise him after the gomphrena seeds came, that they were the last. For sure. I mean, I'm not going to lie to him, right?
The vegetable garden was kind of an after thought…I mean we are having so much fun with the flowers and Tedd has become a self-proclaimed "flower farmer," that we didn't think that those boring old veggies would be any fun at all. But when Ron came in for a late breakfast and told us that he had finished retilling the vegetable patch for a third time and he wanted it planted "today," we thought we better. We also had 45 minutes to plant before the rain came. I don't know who had a bigger sigh, Tedd or myself, but we got it done. We put in so many beans, we will be eating and selling green beans for weeks.
 Oh and back when planting up at the house had commenced (the veggie garden is behind the bunker next to the field), we put in some potatoes in some mineral lick tubs. Well we are happy to announce that they have grown, looked beautiful and all harvested. We had some great meals, and we even sold some at market. Last Saturday, Tedd came with me to the market where he sold our beautiful daisies we grew with royal blue centers and dwarf marigolds. This week he doesn't have much to sell up in Watertown, but in Canby for the first market, he's got some beautiful gladiolus to sell. We're trying to decide if we just sell the spears separately or as bouquets with other flowers.
Tedd's older sister's ran the Clear Lake farmer's market for us while we were in Watertown, and hopefully we'll have enough flowers for Clear Lake and when we start selling in Minneota. I will say this: what a learning curve flowers have been! Vegetables have been pretty easy throughout the years (except onions…man I cannot grow them!) but flowers, are a new game! It has been so interesting. I've been loving it, and really Tedd has too. I think for him, it's been loving the money he's making, since all his siblings have jobs and regular paychecks. They come home with something and he's wanting to get something too. I'm just glad that he's a hard worker like his siblings, he enjoys gardening, I've got a gardening buddy and he's got a savings account…because the first week he went wild and spent $40 on snacks for him and his siblings. He was like their very own sugar daddy.

Until next time,
Fairchild "wait until green bean harvest hits, then you'll know work" Farmgirl

Suzanne Fairchild is a freelance writer who lives on a farm in southwest Minnesota with her husband and children. She can be reached at rmf@itctel.com.

Dear gentle reader… okay, I've been watching too much Bridgerton on Netflix but I digress! Do you know what month this is? I mean besides Part two, Season three of Bridgerton? I turn the big 50 in June! The 16th to be exact. You know, I may not have posted a usual birthday, but 50? It's got me kind of excited, to be honest. Let me tell you why.
First of all, I did have three things I wanted to do before I turned the big 5-0, 1. Go down to Texas-check. 2. Lose 50 pounds-didn't. Chocolate is my love language. However, I'm getting better about it. 3. Really work on the yard this year (I would be happy as a second-rate Better Homes and Gardens)-check. Still have some things to finish up, but it should be done by my birthday weekend. In the words of Meatloaf; "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad".
This first 50 has been pretty great as far as I'm concerned though have I made mistakes? Yes. A little about me, even though we grew up poor, I had a pretty decent childhood back in those days. Why? I grew up without social media and a phone stuck to my head. Remember those days? Weren't they pure bliss looking back?
I literally had no one to compare my life to. All the families around us farmed and had it tough back in the late 70's and 80's too. Honestly those days shaped me into who I am. As kids on the farm, my brother Andy and I grew up close. We'd make forts under the lilac and rose bushes, and play hours of basketball. My sisters would join in on cow poop fights and my mom would make campfire meals for us in the summer. We always had cats and a dog to play with. We moved to town and made new friends and had new fun.
Then I tried college, wasn't for me. I was kind of a gypsy for a while, going from job to job, then got married. Then my first best friend/child was born and we grew up together. We had the best times just her and I. Seven years of marriage, her dad and I were divorced.
I then moved out to the Canby area. Southwest Minnesota has been good to me. I still am happy that I moved out here when I did. After all, I got to marry a great guy, adopt two kiddos and have six more after that. Yep, I feel blessed to have this first 50 years under my belt.
Now, what's in store for the next 50? Not sure. I love that the kids are getting older, I've been thinking about what Ron and I can do together, just us. Although, with our baby going into 6th grade…that's going to be a while.
On to what I want for my birthday…a good cake, like from the bakery. With all my kids over to help me eat it. Here's to however long we all get to live on this round ball. Just please, try not to take anything for granted, work hard, live, play and love harder.
Until next time, Fairchild "this is what I want for a cake…" Farmgirl

Suzanne Fairchild is a freelance writer who lives on a farm in southwest Minnesota with her husband and children. She can be reached at rmf@itctel.com.