In the Fields

Another month has gone by and it's time to join in with Our Busy Homeschool for another day in the life post. There will be one each month this year. You can find my posts for Jan. - June at the bottom of this post.

I chose July 21st to highlight this month because we spent almost the entire day at a local business picking berries!!

8:25 AM The house is quiet as I lie in bed and doze in and out. Noni just text to let me know she'd be at our house by 10:30. Peanut had actually slept most of the night, even YCJ wasn't out of bed yet. I spent the next hour or so dozing in and out and listening for the children to awake.

9:30 AM I get out of bed, dress, and do all the other things one does when they wake up to start their day. I go and wake up the children who are blessedly still asleep. The next 45 minutes is a bustle of activity as children do their chores, eat their breakfast, dress, and we say our morning prayers.

10:25 AM The children have been outside for about ten minutes when Noni pulls up in her big truck, having left the car home because the air conditioning in the truck works better. Within just a few minutes we're off!!

11 AM We arrive! Noni asks the attendant at the front entrance for ten pint buckets for picking. We find out there's no peaches thanks to the Polar Vortex and all of the apples are either late or stunted... this does not bode well for the fall. But, we're excited that there's tons of raspberries and black raspberries to pick!

We spend a little over two hours picking berries. There's a lot of the old "one for the bucket and one to eat" method going on and some of the campers get really into the picking process. I have to stick to the berries that I can see because early on I have a bee skitter down the length of my arm from my elbow to wrist on the inside. I have my epi-pen on me but prefer not to be stung if I can help it.

 I take opportunities to snap pictures as they come up. Noni and I are dressed almost identically only my shorts are a tad longer and the style of our tops is not the same. We hadn't planned it but it sure made for an interesting conversation. We both have a lot of the same style clothing actually. Also, we'd both thought about wearing a long skirt that day but decided against it for the same reasons... Long skirts and bees do not truly mix in a berry field ;-)

1:30 PM Having filled and paid for our buckets of berries we head into the shop that's part of the business. The children eyed the candy but were told they couldn't pick any out until after lunch. We stopped for a while to watch a gentleman fill some gallons of apple cider from the new cider press, the old one being in the building that is currently under construction...


2 PM We go into the restaurant that is part of the newer building that was finished up last winter for lunch. There's only one other customer in the entire place and he's more intent on working on something for the construction, he's one of the workers, than he's interested in what we're doing. The campers do almost as much dancing and singing as they do sitting and eating. I'm very pleased with how the restaurant turned out and find it very comfortable. I cannot wait to go back when we go to cut down our Christmas tree in December and sit near the fire in the center!

The children play outside for a little while and then we're off! One quick stop at the store on the way home and we're home at almost 4 PM. Grandma and Papa are there! We all visit for about half an hour before they have to leave, and of course we send them off with some fresh raspberries! Noni stays while the children ride their bikes outside but too soon she has to leave as well.


The campers played outside until nearly 6 PM. Only coming in with the promise of supper. Tonight we have soup, salad, crackers, and fresh raspberries.

Afterwards the children do their evening chores and Peanut gets the evening doses of her medicines. Tonight these include her migraine medicine, her antibiotics (for her ear infection), some allergy medicine (since her pollen allergies are acting up), and half a dose of Melatonin (to try to help her sleep).

They spend a few minutes goofing off and then Peanut gets a quick wash down with cotton in her ear so as not to allow water in. YCJ and ECJ take showers in the two bathrooms and then they're off to bed. YCJ spends a few minutes before her shower attempting to work through a page of one of the Boxcar Children books. I help Peanut through her evening prayers, listen at both ECJ and YCJ's door to make sure they are saying their prayers, and turn out the big lights in the main part of the house... I make sure that the nightlights are on in the hall and the kitchen and head into my room


By 9 PM all of the campers are settled in bed and two of them are asleep. ECJ spends about an hour reading and then falls asleep with his book in his hand, which I then move to his desk and cover him up while I'm checking to make sure that they're all asleep.


By 10 PM I've finished last week's square for a stitch along I belong to and am working in the bed on some squares for a competition I've entered for crochet. I'm not worried about winning anything, just glad for the inspiration for a Christmas gift for a family member.


Daddy and I both fall asleep sometime around midnight. Our day has come to an end and both of us have said our nightly prayers and gone to sleep hoping that Peanut sleeps through the night.

Follow the links below to see other days this year...      
Just Another Day (Jan.)
One Day in February
Project Days (March)
When the Order is Reversed (April)
A Day at the Zoo (May)
A Day of Summer School (June)

And for those of you who have yet to look us up on Facebook you can find us there by following this link . As yet it is the only social media account we can be found at.