Life at Our Farmhouse (July 2019)

July is typically one of my favorite months of the year.  Summer has really arrived, baseball is over and so our schedule (in theory) slows down a bit …. and it kicks off with July 4th!  Independence day is one of my favorite days of the year.  You could say it’s a bit of my patriotic heart and the fact that I love celebrating the history of our nation with family in a nearby town.  It’s good stuff.

Packed into July was a trip to upstate New York, twice.  We also ventured to Canada, spent a day at a nearby campground and had a successful garage sale at my sister’s house.  And towards the end of the month, we did get a few things done outside the house.

Like I said, July 4th is my favorite.  We typically spend the morning at a small town parade and then have a big lunch at our friend’s house.  It’s always a hot day, but a fun one at the same time.

Besides all the delicious food, my mom made her sugar cookies and they were a hit.  Always a party when these cookies are around.

Just before July 4th, we had a super strong thunderstorm.  We lost power for about 12 hours which was some kind of miracle considering the damage to the high power lines.  The picture only shows one of the 12 power lines that snapped in half.  I thought we would be out of power for days….

And losing power would have been a problem because we were gearing up to take my oldest to a two week all boys Christian wilderness camp in upstate New York.  I worked at a nearby camp for a few years when I was out of high school and knew that if I ever had sons, I would want them to go to Deerfoot for camp.  It’s a beautiful place and I’m so grateful my oldest had the opportunity to go.  We sure missed him!

While the oldest was gone, we stayed pretty busy.  My youngest wanted to do a Robotics camp like his big brother so I signed him up for one.  Woah.  It was impressively hard.  I have a whole new appreciation for kids in robotics.  We also went to a nearby campground for the day while my brother’s family was there and finally held a successful garage sale at my sister’s house.

It turns out you get way more traffic at your garage sales when you live in a community.  Ha!

While at my sister’s we celebrated my niece’s birthday with this cake!  Isn’t my sister amazing!

Make sure you check out her recipes here.

And then we were back to New York to pick up my oldest son.  We made a vacation out of this leg of the trip with my parents.  We visited the Erie Canal and a family owned dairy.  I love my ice cream.

Near our Airbnb we found Pixley Falls and I think my kid could have stayed there all day throwing rocks into the falls!  New York is such a beautiful state.

One of the unique things I like to do when I visit towns in new states is venture to their cemeteries.  We stumbled onto this beautiful cemetery in the town where we stayed.  I love the history that can be found.  Cemeteries never creep me out, instead I feel like I’m surrounded by the names of people in history.  I live in an old house after all, maybe that has something to do with my love of ordinary people living their lives a century ago.  Anyways, this cemetery was gorgeous.

And then it was time to pick my boy up!  He had a great time!  I think I have another son who will want to go in the future when he’s old enough.

This is turning out to be more of a life on the road – than life at the farmhouse.  Welcome to our summer!  🙂  On our way home to Ohio we stopped at Niagara Falls Canada.  You can’t tell from these pictures but it was so crowded and overly-commercialized that I honestly will probably never go back to the Canada side.

The falls are beautiful but the awe that hits you when you see it, quickly fades as the noises and buildings take over.  It’s just too much stuff too close to the falls.  It’s sad, really.  I’m glad we went, but I’m looking forward to visiting the American side the next time.

While there we went to a cemetery.  (Surprise.)  It was located on a War of 1812 battlefield and we enjoyed learning the history.  The boys loved this huge old tree that a local person told us was over 300 years old.  I love running into local people when we travel and chatting with them about the area.

And of course a stop at the museum was a must.  They had British uniforms the kids could try on.  Kind of ironic since this post started with my sharing about Independence day!  We’ve now come full circle.  🙂

Back at the farmhouse, my dad mowed our back pasture which was very much needed.

My brother sprayed his beans…. and our grass.  It’s a good thing we’re related!

I’ll forgive him since he came and sprayed the super tall weeds that have grown up our fence line.  The weeds are terrible this year!

All it was a great month with all the traveling. Sometimes it takes getting away to really enjoy where you live.  It’s always nice to come home to the peace and quiet of the country.

How was your July?