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.

Well friends, I fulfilled a bucket list item this week.
Ron and I picked up our daughter Grace on her last day at SDSU and went to San Angelo, Texas with 1,200 pounds of Canby, Minn. wool! This was to be washed at a scouring plant, one of only two scouring plants left in the U.S.A. To say I'm passionate about the U.S./ Minnesota/South Dakota wool industry is an understatement! I know, I'm a weirdo but oh how I'd love to see us using more natural fibers for clothing and other products!
At the San Angelo plant we learned so much! First off, their parent company is Bollman Hats out of Pennsylvania, where they make all sorts of wool felt hats. San Angelo buys wool for them as well as washes it. Check out Bollman Hats, it's a neat website. We also learned that major companies (like Pendleton) buy their wool out of China - cheaper and the Chinese do not paint their sheep-numbers on the sheep's back. You would think that if American farmers knew this, we could figure out a new way to number so we would not import as much. Or is importing wool a necessity for trade agreements etc? That would be interesting study, wouldn't it? So, if your kid is taking on a project in college for grad school or if you're looking for a project to do on the weekend, design this for the U.S.
I asked the lead guy who was giving us a tour what the 10-year outlook for scouring in the states looks like, since there's only two scouring plants left in the U.S. He said a lot of scouring would probably go to China because it's half the price and they can carbonize wash wool...using sulfuric acid that eats the vegetable matter out of the wool turning it to ash. The U.S. doesn't allow it going into any drains, so it's banned in the U.S. Which is a great thing, we don't need that. Which begs the question: China, this is bad for your environment (and ours for that matter) why do you do it?
Back to the scouring plant: I was totally fan-girling like I had just met a famous person. It was 92 degrees and we were sweating something fierce but I didn't care. I've been waiting for three years to be able to afford this trip, and now that my wool business is getting bigger and the minimum quantity of wool was 1,000 pounds incoming, this was my next logical move.
He did offer to sell me wool next time so I wouldn't have to haul it down, but in my mind, it was pretty special to bring wool from right around my area there. But his reasoning was since they like to wash 40,000 pounds at a time, not only would it be nice not to haul it, but it'd be cheaper because now they'll wash mine and have to clean out 100 feet of wash line before starting someone else's.
Anyway...we did some other super fun things, stayed at some nice hotels, last night we treated Grace to an amazing supper, another highlight was Pioneer Woman's Pawhuska and all the shops there. Now on the way home, figuring out how and where to start my finishing mill so I can make signature wool items, and you know single handedly bring the U.S. wool industry back. If you have any ideas drop them in an email, because if Ree Drummond from little ole Pawhuska, Okla. can do it, I can too.

Until next time,
Fairchild “lets get our thinking caps on” 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.