Farm Camp

So Reuben and I are trying our hand at farming. Even though I quit my job almost a month ago, I am still working ten hour days. However, this time I am loving it. I get tired and want to see my kids, I go inside the house and see my kids. Or sometimes, they come out and ride on the tractor with me. It is awesome! I come in at night dead tired, but I love this kind of work. Now we just have to figure out how make money at it. Here is the general plan: we farm the area in the Bogle compound immediately behind my folks house and on the opposite side of the barn. We start a farmer's market across the street from Snedigar on Saturday mornings, and grill corn and sell watermelon every night during baseball season. We will also try to get in with some of the independent restaurants in the area and grow produce for them. Reuben and I will do most of the work, along with other family members, but we are open to service projects from scouts and singles wards. Sounds awesome, right? Now here are some of the problems that we face to make it all happen. We do not own the land that we want to farm. The family does, but we do not. So far, no one has said anything, but I figure once we start plowing the other fields, they will start asking questions. Anyway, we need to acquire a portion of the land to make sure the family doesn't sell it to anyone else. The land costs way more than is really reasonable to farm, so if anyone wants to buy land and let me farm it, you got my number... The other thing is housing. That a different story altogether. I'll save that one. Anyway, right now we are picking peas and carrots (even some purple ones), broccoli, cauliflower, 2 different kinds of lettuce, radishes and more swiss chard than we know what to do with. If you have any recipes that use chard, send them my way. Reuben and I just planted our summer crop with basil, a couple of different dry beans, 3 kinds of tomatoes, 4 kinds of cucumbers, 3 kinds of watermelon, bell peppers, and 3 kinds of corn (2 ornamentals and one sweet corn). Also, our artichoke plants are looking pretty healthy and our purple cabbage is starting to head. We have plans to plant several varieties of pumpkin on the south end and having a U-pick pumpkin patch since that side is easily accessible from the park. We will plant those in early june to have some ripe by mid-october. We will have a couple regular orange varieties and a white one with 3 or 4 heirloom varieties of various colors. Right now, we really need to sit down and actually put a business plan together. We will have to schedule plantings and harvestings around markets and then take special orders and plan the layout of crops... at that point it gets to be a lot of the actual work and less of the play-in-the-dirt fun, but that is how you make the money. If anyone has anything special they would like us to grow, we'd be more than happy to do it. Just give me at least 4 - 5 months notice. This ain't fast food. Reuben and I seem to work well together, and even though neither one of us really knows exactly what we are doing, we sure get a lot of it done. We took an old trailer and got it fixed so we can use it. Reuben put up a gate to keep dogs and playful children out. Our current project involves a stainless steel sink and counter top that we put wheels on to make it portable. That way we can move it around and clean the produce right at the point of picking. We will just hook it up to a hose and have a drain hose that runs the water right back into the garden. That way none is wasted. We have several more projects in mind that will turn the garden into a more permanent farm, including a greenhouse and workshop, but they are all on hold until we figure out if we can buy the land or not. We have seen some pretty awesome land deals up by Snowflake that make a lot more sense to farm, but one of the reasons we want to do this is to preserve the history of the area where we grew up and to remind people who it was they made it possible for them to live in Arizona. No one here knows anything about the history of this area, because they are all from somewhere else. I remember as a young kid riding my bike through the Basha's complex to Dad's office to play games on his computer. He had this sign hanging on the wall that said "Don't knock farmers with your mouth full." I never understood it, thinking it meant to knock, like on a door. Anyway, now I understand. I guess this farming project is also a way for me to spit in the eye of all these jerks out here who think the old Goodyear water tower is just an eyesore. If you're not grateful for the farmers and ranchers who made this place what it is, at least recognize their contribution and respect the fact they they did something you were unable or unwilling to do. Okay, so all you english teachers out there, get off my back. I'm to tired to hit "Enter - Tab" to start a new paragraph. So, we are trying to find a name for our farm. My original idea was to do Bogle Family Farms or Bogle Bros. Farms, and try to ride a little bit of the Bogle Farms coattails, but I'm not sure Reuben is to keen on that idea. He suggested a name that his mom always wanted to use: Belly Acres. Funny, but not the best for a produce farm. Reuben then suggested Fleur de Lis Farms, but there is already a Fleur de Lis Farms in Gilbert. So, right now we are nameless and open to suggestions. In the meantime, I just call it farm camp, since it is kind of like summer camp for retarded 20-somethings who think they are farmers. Pictures coming soon, or just check the team Craghead blog.

Fun in the Snow

We ventured up to Flagstaff this weekend. It was so much fun playing in the snow. We were able to stay at my sister in law, Shanda's, parents cabin. It was so nice because it backed up to a hill were the boys could go sleding. Here are the boys getting ready for a ride on the sled. This is one of my favorite pictures. I love the action photos that show the love that Tom has for his boys. They are all ready for a fun day in the snow.
Here I am with the boys. We loved riding on the sled. Brecken even went down by himself.
Here is a pic of Shanda and Brecken. (Sorry Ty I didn't have any good pics of you and the kids.) We had so much fun spending time with Ty and Shanda. Thanks for the fun weekend guys.
Brecken and Karsten making snow angels. They also loved eating the snow. I made sure to teach Brecken only to eat the white snow.
It was a fun weekend. The snow is so beautiful. We had a great time. Not everything went as planned, but does it ever. For example, Flagstaff was apparently sold out of childrens snow gloves. We had to put mittens on Karsten and wrap them in plastic bags. He did not seem to care and they kept his hands dry. Also, rain boots work really well for snow boots! We also had so great adventures. There was a huge pile of snow, about 15-20ft tall. Tom and the boys slid down on it on their bums. Brecken went by himself, then of course Karsten had to do it. I about died but he made it down with no bumps or bruises. We had a great time in the snow!

Happy Valentines!

Happy Valentines Day! I hope everyone is enjoying the day of love. I love Valentines Day. It is so much fun seeing people wear red and celebrating their love for each other. First of all red is one of my favorite colors so it is fun to see everyone wearing it. Second, who wouldn't want to celebrat how much they are loved. On monday we spent family night making fun Valentines for our special loved ones. Here are a few of my favorites.Brecken made all the Valentines. He made this big heart valentine for me. I love his decorations with sparkly puffy paint.This Valentine was made for Grandma Patti. I especially love the doilly. This Valentine was for his Papa Kurt. His is a picture of Papa Kurt. What an artist! We did not do much for Valentines but it is fun spending time with my family. We made lots of other Valentines but they were given away before I took these pictures. Here is a family photo taken today. (I have a premade Valentines scrapbook page that I need to fill.)

I hope everyone is enjoying the special day of love. Have a Happy Valentines and enjoy the ones you love.

Boys

I had a little more time on my hands so I decided to make another post since most of you are to scared to comment on my other post. I have no idea who professor howdy is but hopefully I have gotten rid of the problem. Otherwise I will have to go private and I am not sure I want to do that. Anyways here are some fun pictures of the boys playing pirates together. I love that Karsten is finally getting old enough to play with Brecken. They love to play pirates and knights. I especially love when Karsten dresses up in his pirate hat and sword and goes after Brecken. It is not always fun and games though. Brecken thinks it is fun to tease his little brother. Little does he know that Karsten will one day beat up on him.

Ps. Brecken is doing great at going on the potty. Now we only have Karsten!

Update

This weekend Tom and I watched Elise's kids. We went from 2-5 kids. Brecken loved staying the night at his cousins. We had a few trips to the park. Here are some pics from one of our trips. Here is Brecken and cousin Zo
Karsten loves going down the slides. He thinks he is so big.
Having fun driving the bus.
I also finished reading the fourth Harry Potter. I never really got into the first book because I saw the movie. By Elise's advice I read book 3 and now 4. They are great. If you haven't read Harry Potter yet, you should!

This is Tom's last week at UPS. We are so excited to have our Dad and Husband back. We are not sure what is ahead of us yet but we will figure it out. At least we will get to spend more time together as a family!

Spiderman Goes Potty!

Since Brecken turned 3 we have been trying to get him to go on the potty. He went for one full day about six months ago then wanted nothing to do with it. I guess I needed to find his "currency." While we were at his cousin Kylie's house, she was starting to try the potty. She had a neat little doll that went potty on a toilet. Brecken of course wanted one. So we went to the store in such of a doll. I knew Tom would never let Brecken have a doll. I told Brecken he could find a toy but he only could have it if he went on the potty. After searching and searching he found this Spiderman costume. When we got home he wanted to wear it but he couldn't unless he went potty. He said, "He couldn't. He didn't know how." After an hour of not letting him wear Spiderman he decided he would go on the potty. He knew that if he wanted to wear Spiderman he needed to keep it dry. He was dry all day. Saturday he had one accident and even pooped on the potty. This may seem silly but this brings great joy to my heart. I love seeing his little underwear in the laundry! He has only been potty trained for a few days but no more diapers!
I love this little boy. He is so loving and funny.

Hats, Hats, Hats!

Karsten is almost 17mths and loves to wear hats. Any hat lying around he will get and put on. I thought I would show you the few he choose this week!
A little construction while he rides his bike.
He love this hat. This is Grampy's hat. Grampy is always leaving it out and Karsten is always wearing it. Here he is enjoying Curious George while wearing Grampy's hat.
This is one of his favorites too. I love when Karsten wears his pirate hat. He usually has his pirate hat on and a play baseball bat in his hand. He pretends he is a pirate and runs and hits you with his bat. (We have swords too but for some reason he prefers the bat.)
Hats are not only his favorite. He also enjoys wearing these googles. He is so cute. He brings them to me several times a day to put on him. I love Karsten so much. He has so much personality. He is, as his 4 yrs old friend Tatum, called him "Brave." He loves climbing to the highest slide at the park and going down all by himself. Over Christmas break in one week he had two bloody noses, a bloody lip, and a burned wrist. I know before he is two he will probably have broken something. I love this little boy. His life will always be exciting!