Here’s another one of those posts that I just didn’t get around to when we did it weeks ago.  You know my reasons {…and the perfect little knit gray hat…the dark gray booties…and all the other shopping and preparing going on for Baby C.}, but I still wanted to post these photos here since this little blog keeps track of our family’s life.

I will say that cutting down a Christmas tree is just not that big a deal if you own a Christmas tree farm.  We see them every day.  I’ve been trying to think of a way to make it more special and I think the next time we plant {late winter} I’m going to let MM pick out a liner from the batch as HER tree.  We’ll put a special tag on it and let her take care of it for the next four years as it grows.  And then when it’s time to cut it {and she’ll be almost 7–ACK!} she’ll get to use the saw herself and help her daddy. 

But until then we just go out in the fields and cut our trees…or three…down.

If you want to cry all you have to do is go back to 2009 and 2010 and see how much my little one has grown. It’s crazy how quick they go from a little baby to a toddler talking in full sentences.

My grandmother has a huge old scuppernong vine that is always loaded with fruit starting in August…which MM calls “cup -of-nines”.

And boy, does MM love to eat them.

She’ll sit there and let you feed them to her all day long {you can’t eat the outside…or at least you’re not supposed to {but my mom does}…or the pit on the inside}.

We received our first frost in these parts a couple of days before Halloween so imagine our surprise when we noticed some good fruit about a week later.

MM loves picking anything–blame it on those farming roots–and wanted her a basket.  I obliged thinking she’d have just one or two scuppernongs in the bottom.

Uhm, yeah, I was wrong.  How about five or six POUNDS?

This little girl was in heaven.

My grandmother, Ruth, was picking green beans…gallons upon gallons of green beans.

My mother, Denise, was harvesting the peppers and trying to keep them sorted hot and mild.

I was searching for ripe watermelons among the vines.  Black skin.  Green-veined skin.  Crimson inside.  Some that are yellow.

And my daughter, Mary Margaret, was investigating the vegetables, the bugs, and the mud.  Every few minutes running to catch a bird or butterfly that passed by.

I have the clearest picture in my mind of this morning.  These three wonderful ladies and I all together doing something we love.  How I wish I had my camera so I could capture this memory.

Four generations.

I feel so blessed.

In other news, will you please take all of a five seconds {seriously, just five} and vote for MM and I at Cottage Mama?  We made the top five in the ‘Playdate Outfit’ Sew Along and would love to win!  All you have to do is go to the website, look at the left-hand sidebar, and click on ‘Natalie.’  Thank you in advance.

In more news, you’ll notice a little extra something on this blog.  I’ve joined the BlogHer network and am very excited about that!

Around these parts it’s all about the garden right now.  Picking, selling, cooking, canning.

Just a teeny tiny part of our garden.

There are radishes to turnips.  Squash to zucchini.  Cucumbers to green beans.  The list goes on and on.  And there’s so much more getting ready to come in too {Oh, the corn!  Oh, the watermelons!}.

And don’t forget those berries.

Or sunflowers.

Every year this is the time where there is so much food around here that I don’t even know what to do with myself.  I feel this sense of urgency to preserve as much as I can for winter–I think I have such an “old soul” that I have a tendency to forget there are such “modern conveniences” as grocery stores where you can get corn year ’round, HA!

I’m sorry I don’t have more to say, but next week I promise to post a tutorial on making our “famous” green tomato relish {that keeps selling out no matter how much I make} and a little road trip post on my aunt & uncle’s organic blueberry farm.

Until then I have some blackberry jam {we’ve *only* canned six cases this week, ha!} to get out of the hot water bath canner.

Don’t forget to like our page, Four Generations of Farming Women on Facebook!

Yes, her birthday was in January.  And her birthday party was in April.

{Well, she did have a birthday party on her birthday this year with family too.}

My birthday is in December which means that not only is it Christmas tree season {meaning my family is crazy-busy on their farm}, but it’s also cold.  As a kid I hated it being so cold and it left you with just two options for your birthday party in my hometown: the church fellowship hall or the roller skating rink a couple of towns over.  {When I was 8 years old I caught my big 1980s poofy bangs on fire as I was blowing out my candles at Skate Country.  My Aunt Jackie put the flames out, but not before it singed my hair and eyebrows.  I’m not sure if I ever told you or not, but thank you, Aunt Jackie!}  But I digress.

Anyway, I say all this to say, I knew that if I ever had a child with a winter birthday that they would be given the option of delaying their party to spring or summer so they could enjoy it.  I’m still jealous of my cousin Jessica who had the perfect mid-June birthday and got to enjoy *my* swimming pool for her birthday party every year.  Just sayin’.

And without further adieu, here are the pictures from the party…

The party was held at my family’s farm, but mostly took place in my grandmother’s front yard under a big pecan tree. I had a table set up {at little person height} with the cookies on it and next to it was a big wash pan of iced-down drinks for kids and parents. We had a great big stack of family quilts and when it was time to eat we just lay on the ground in the shade of the tree and we had a little picnic.

I kept this party super cheap–the only things I really bought were the cookies, drinks, and a bag of candy {I’ve been collecting the other prizes over the last year and I got the eggs for 90% off a few weeks after Easter last year}.

Here are the prizes for the Easter egg hunt.

And what would an Easter-themed party be without pictures of the special girl with the Easter Bunny? The ceramic egg she painted a few weeks ago at a pottery place–it’s our new little tradition. Didn’t she do a good job?

All the flowers came out of my parents’ garden {which I planted, hmph!} and are in vintage milk jars.

We hung paper pom-poms from the tree. I bought these two years ago for like $2 each and have used them now at three parties and they’re still going strong.

But since it wasn’t really MM’s birthday I didn’t do the cake thing–she’d already done that in January, and just chose to do Easter-theme cookies instead.

The egg holders {I’m sure there is a “correct” name for what they’re called, but I don’t know it!} came from C.’s gradparents. They hold four eggs from our chickens–two blue {Ameraucanas}, a white {Cochin}, and a brown {Rhode Island Red}.

For the first thirty minutes or so we let the kids feed bread to the goats and cows. Once it looked like everyone had arrived we got in the hayride to go to the back field for the Easter egg hunt. {Side note: there were WAY more kids than I thought there would be so we had to take two hayrides which meant some extra waiting time. I’ll know next time to keep the hunt in walking distance!}

Some of us chose to put our baskets on our heads to wait. Whatever does it for ya’.

I was helping get everyone in the hayride when I realized I hadn’t seen MM in a while. I kinda got panicky before someone told me she had already hopped on the hayride and was waiting to go! …yes, someone goes on a lot of hayrides.   …and yeah, she was ready to get the Easter egg started too!

We lined everyone up the best we could {this is less than half the kids}. Another note to self: next time do one field for 0-2 and another field for 3 & 4 year olds. The older kids are much more suave at hunting eggs than my two-year old who liked to stop and examine the contents of each egg before going on to the next one.

And then they were off.

After a successful hunt {the eggs not only had candy in them, but also Silly Bands and miniature farm animals…not to mention prize eggs}, we all loaded on to {two} hay ride{s} and went back to my grandmother’s front yard.

We ate cookies and a certain birthday girl got way too many presents and was way too spoiled.

And it was a really fun day & I think we’ll make it a tradition–birthday party or not. Here’s a few more pics I snapped…and check out Allison’s blog for some great ones of the party.

Looking through the eggs {300+ of ‘em} before we went to hide them.

That’s her and her “boyfriend” Grant–she even gave him a kiss too! You may remember him–he was the Indian she was hugging on at Halloween.

It was on my family’s farm and C. was the best man and MM was the flower girl.  And let me tell you, I stressed about her being a flower girl since she’s only two…and a “young two” at that.

We talked about “throwing ped-els” the week before and practiced walking down the aisle towards Daddy for a whole day.

Here she is at the rehearsal…it was a long way to walk!

We talked about the Easter Bunny loves watching little girls throw petals in the pasture & that he was hiding behind the trees watching her. Crazy? Oh, yeah. But she totally ate it up.

She didn’t really get the whole throwing the petals as she walked down the aisle thing. Instead she chose to throw them out once she was standing at the front.

The day of the wedding she did such a good job & stood up front the whole time. When it was time to walk to back down the aisle she wasn’t so sure so her daddy carried her.

She was so happy with herself and spent the whole reception dancing-dancing-dancing the night away with everyone.

Sometimes I take a series of pictures of MM and there are just no words to describe them.

Take today’s pictures: her in her overalls, ‘Taylor’ doll in her front pocket, safety goggles on, and a saw…

…she was ready to do something.  I’m just not exactly sure what.

And then she started working on her tricycle–loosening those screws with a plastic screwdriver is hard work.

She totally cracks me up.  Everyday is something different and new with her.

In other news, my mom was staring at me while I was outside taking these pictures.  I could feel her staring so I asked her what she was doing.  She exclaimed, ‘Oh my gosh! You’re so gray-headed! Like, almost completely gray-headed at the temples and front!”

Talk about making you feel good. HA!

Last week we went to visit our newest goat.  It’s a fainting goat kid and not yet weaned, but we were all just dying to see it.

When it was time to go MM ran around getting all her essentials–her sippy cup, her potty seat, her purse, her cell phone {my mom’s old non-working phone}, and her camera {a point-and-shoot film camera from high school}.

You know, just the basic necessities.

Anyway, once we got to the other farm it became clear to me that MM is honestly a “mini me”.  She barely looked at the goat before whipping out her camera phone and taking a quick pic.

She needed a brush to go visit the new goat apparently. Duh.

And then out came the big guns.

Look how it’s turned around backwards. Preciousness.

She just stood there for five minutes clicking away. She loves her new goat, Thursday {yes, that’s its name}, and all she wanted to do was take pictures of it.

To bad the camera didn’t have any film in it!

…I really need to get her her own little digital camera.  I bet she’d get some interesting shots!

It is important to note that this picture is taken at the beginning of the day when C. was still happy to be married to me…and to my Christmas tree farming family.

And here he is at 3pm–with three hours left in the day. He is wondering why in the world he ever married a girl with ties to a tree farm.  Other guys are sitting in their lounge chairs wearing pajama pants and eating trail mix while he is about to die from lifting tree after tree after tree.  This right here is true love, folks.

The reason for his exhaustion? A parking lot that looked like this (around 100 cars at any time).

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. I need to explain how it all works. First you are greeted and get a saw and some bread to feed the animals.  {Can you tell the workers value tips? HA!}

Then you go out into the field, cut the tree of your dreams, and bring it back up to the baler. Because I couldn’t stray far from the register, this is the best picture I could get–four families coming back up–and down–and up the hill with their tree.

You bring the tree to the baler where C. and Tom straighten up your cut–if needed.  Most of ‘em need it since not many people who cut down trees are professional lumberjacks…and that’s okay!

Then we drill it if you have a stand that warrants that. We check it out from all angles to make sure it is perfectly straight.

It gets bailed and then the other guys take it out to your car and tie it on top.

And that’s how it works.

Of course, I’ve got a couple random photos. My dad putting up the wagons.

The guys watching the Auburn-USC game while bailing trees.

A bonfire to keep warm by…and to roast marshmallows on. {Notice the ground underneath…yep, it got roasted too and we had to get out the hose.}

And what would this post be without Santa in it?

So that’s how I spend my days during the holiday season.  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

As a person who has a Fraser Fir in their house {we also have one of our homegrown trees too} I know the importance of a fresh tree.  There’s nothing worse than a dried out tree whose needles fall all over the floor.  I’m not a fan of sweeping, you know.

These trees were handpicked from a farm in the North Carolina mountains.  We can’t grow Firs in Georgia; on our farm we grow Cypresses.  So we get them from the closest place that does–about three hours north of us.

They come in on a big tractor trailer and the guys separate them by size {6/7′, 7/8′, and 9/10′…and some are bigger} into different piles.  We had a couple of 11′+ this year that easily weighed two-hundred pounds each–those were easy to separate!

We put some in the shed.  We’ll water them down and cover them with wet burlap and you would be amazed at how moist they stay!  Here it is at the beginning…and in the middle…and at the end of unloading.

The rest we take out to our farm and either put them in the Fraser lot or put under the shed out there.  To do that we have to load them in the tractor and take them across the field.

So, yes, lots of unloading, sorting, loading, unloading going on today!

What was so nice is that we had an extra helper we hadn’t planned on.  MM decided to lend a hand!  Here she is taking one of the tabletop trees and trying to load it on the trailer.  She was worn out after just one tree, let me tell you.

It took a few hours and a lot of golf cart horn honking by a certain someone, but it all got done.

We are now officially ready…or not…for the season to begin on Saturday. Merry Christmas!