From the Farm Friday : n u m b e r 3

THE GUYS ARE DONE COMBINING!! Yep it was an all caps exciting day on Tuesday when the guys finished wheat harvest. The rest of the week for Steve was spent doing odd jobs that were being put on hold while they were combining.

At the moment we have another 50 bushel bin that is going up. The thing that floors me on this is the fact that over half of the people helping build the bin are much younger than me! When I talked to them on Wednesday night it was a dad his 4 daughters and 1 son - their mom and youngest sister were on their way to help out. Oh and did I mention all the girls are wearing long dresses - yep they amazed me!!

The bins will store grain after harvest instead of taking it to an elevator

Friday Morning - almost done

The county fair is in town. 

Steve and I don't have kids but we have two nieces and enjoy watching them participate. They both showed cattle at the fair on Thursday and have a full weekend ahead of them taking care of their animals up there until they go home!

Do you attend a local county or state fair?


* Farm/Ranch ladies what happened at your place this week {linkup below} *

Off The Charts - 2015

A little over a week ago I attended a concert for some grammy winning artists {well 2-time grammy winning artists but who is counting} and I went for free!! Score right?! I know, I love getting into concerts for free but even better with this concert {technically festival} is Everyone got in for free!!

I am talking about the Off the Charts Music Festival (OTC) - a FREE Christian music festival held in Cavalier, ND. It was a two day event with music on Saturday and worship {with music} on Sunday.

I was lucky enough to win backstage passes from my local radio station, Life 97.9, and got to meet Moriah Peters and FOR KING AND COUNTRY!!! It was such a great experience so thank you to Life 97.9 and OTC for a great event and giving my friend and I a chance to meet the musicians. Moriah was an absolute sweetheart and took some time before her set to talk with a group of backstage pass people, she is a God Fearing woman and it shows 100% {I also got to educate her on farming a little so that was fun}. There were more people that showed up to meet Joel & Luke of For King & Country than there were for Moriah, so it wasn't as intimate of a meet & greet but still awesome to chat for a little bit and get our selfies & polaroids in!!

Christian concerts are such a different experience compared to other types of genres. You leave so uplifted and lighter - You leave with a sense of purpose and filled with the Holy Spirit and ready to spread God's word and take on anything life throws your way. Well at least that is how I felt when I walked out of the park that night!!

If you ever get the chance to see For King & Country in concert DO IT - you don't even have to know any of their songs, the energy they bring to a show is unlike anything I've ever witnessed!!

I had such an amazing time with my girlfriends in a small North Dakota town. I felt like I became part of a secret group that weekend and I can't wait to see what OTC has in store for next year…

What is your favorite genre of concert to take in? Have you been to a Christian concert?

From the Farm Friday : n u m b e r 2

Whoa that week flew by for me, how about you?!
Glad you are joining me for the Second edition of From the Farm Friday.

I took off for the weekend while Steve stayed home, keeping busy at the farm with combining. During harvest, doing stuff without Steve is common because he is usually very busy. I did happen to meet someone over the weekend who didn't know what combining was so I took that opportunity to briefly explain it and I will do the same here for any of my readers who didn't come from a farming community.

Right now on our farm we are combining spring wheat. The combine is a machine used to harvest crops and in this case, the wheat. The wheat is fed through the header and as it goes through the combine, the wheat kernel (grain) is separated from the rest of the stalk (chaff); the grain goes into the hopper and the chaff shoots out the back of the combine.

At our farm, one person runs the combine, one person runs a grain cart (used for the combine to dump the hopper while still driving, this saves time so the combine doesn't have to travel across the field to dump in a truck), and a truck driver. Steve has currently been the truck driver for this wheat harvest, once his truck is full he will either drive it to a local elevator or dump the grain in one of our storage bins.


The above video has some great facts about wheat!

I'm a huge pasta and bread fan so wheat is one of my favorites. Besides its food uses it is beautiful, we even incorporated it into our wedding details as decoration!

The guys have a little over 200 acres left for this wheat harvest, they would be further along and even closer to done but we received some much needed rain on Tuesday so it was an okay break.

Besides harvest my father-in-law has been busy making our backyard smell Really bad!! He has been cleaning out the feed lot behind our house by scraping up all the manure, loading it in the manure spreader and taking it to a freshly harvested wheat stubble field. I guess I'm just glad we have less shit in the backyard now, literally!!

I hope you all had a good week and continue it into the weekend.

Let me know, what is your favorite wheat product out of the following: Pizza, Bread, or Pasta??

*Fellow farm ladies link up below with any post from the week talking about your farm/ranch*

From the Farm Friday : n u m b e r 1

Welcome to the first From the Farm Friday where I will give a little insight to what has happened on the farm during the week.

Monday was a busy day for me at my job dealing with hail damage reports. None of our crops were hit with the hail but many producers in our area got hit pretty good last Friday evening.

Steve was busy at the farm on Monday too because they started combining wheat - Harvest 2015 is officially underway! As of last night, 500 acres of wheat to go. Now they have to push through the heat that is headed our way, forecast calling for 100+ degrees this weekend!!

Well that is all I have for a farm update this week - Short & Sweet.
If any other ladies have some farm talk on the blog this week feel free to link up below … I would love to know what is going on at your farm!

Beer & Fine Dining : Coteau des Praries

If you didn't already know, I live in a small town. A one stop light, small town. A small town where our fanciest dining is at a place called The Steak Out.

Not that there is anything majorly wrong with The Steak Out, it's just not fine dining. So, when a beautiful lodge 45 miles away offers a 5 course meal paired with a craft beer for each course, you jump on that and get your name on the guest list ASAP.

All of our men were busy so it was a girls night with our growlers and we had a blast! The beer was made by a new brewery in Fargo, Drekker Brewing Co. and the food prepared by Judd Eskildsen, chef at Toasted Frog, Fargo.

Everything about the venue, food and beer was perfect

The lodge is hosting a new event next Wednesday, August 19th, Tapas & Cocktails - sounds like something you want to go to right?! Well, if you decide to go I will see you there, listening to the live music of Jessie Veeder overlooking the beauty of North Dakota!!

Banquet in a Field - Intro to From the Farm Friday

On Tuesday I was invited to enjoy a fantastic meal in the middle of a field

- A Banquet in a Field -

The lovely Katie Pinke and volunteers of CommonGround made this event possible - CommonGround is a group of women who are passionate about agriculture and their main goal is to help consumers understand that there are real people behind the food they eat and it doesn't come from a factory! {I think this is a group I could volunteer for}

This was the 2nd Annual Banquet and it was held at Peterson Farms Seed. Guests were shuttled out to the field where the food and refreshments awaited. Live food plots were planted to showcase what crops can be grown right here in North Dakota and if that wasn't enough there were appetizers at multiple stations to showcase how delicious the different crops {and meats} can be!! {the potato croquettes were at the top of my list}



One Bushel of Duram Wheat makes 210 servings of Pasta || 96% of North Dakota's Barley is used for Beer

North Dakota grows over 2.7 billion pounds of Potatoes each year and has 30 Thousand Farm & Ranch families

My Farmer wasn't busy combining yet so he got to come with me to the event and enjoyed farm chat with producers from around the state - it is always nice to hear how things are going for others that aren't in your immediate area. I was excited to chat with a few bloggers who were also hanging out in the field for the evening!

Food was prepared by the husband/wife team: Tony & Sarah Nasello along with some NDSU BBQ Bootcamp cooks. Local FFA chapter leaders helped serve the food, including our hometown Lisbon member! As you can see from the images below the food was a.m.a.z.i.n.g!

Menu ||
Primo Piatto- Tony's Handmade Gnocchi Pomodoro 
Intermezzo- Chilled Watermelon Cube with lime juice
Secondo Piatto- Carved Beef Tenderloin with Horseradish Cream Sause
Contorni- Easy Potato Salad, Pickled Radishes & Beets, Rustic Italian Cucumber Tomato Salad
La Dolce- Sarah's Honey Vanilla Ice Cream (served in a Belgian Cookie Cup)

The seating arrangement was designed to engage people of non-agricultural backgrounds with those who lived and worked in it every day. At our table was Nancy Jo Bateman, the executive director of the ND Beef Commission, fellow blogger Amanda & her husband, and Peterson Farms Seed employee Kristi Schultz. Amanda and I took the normal jokes from our husbands for taking too many photos of our meal while we all enjoyed chatting about farming and current events!

Can't beat a ND Field Sunset

I want to give a giant Thank You to Katie for inviting me to this unique dining experience and I hope I can be part of it again next year! This event made me proud to be from this state and equally proud to come from a farm family while continuing on with my husband as the 4th Generation with his family farm!

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Even though I am immersed every day in farming at my job and live on the farm I still find myself not knowing much about what's going on around me at the farm. Well, that is about to change and I've warned Steven he is going to get more questions from me soon!! I am introducing From The Farm Fridays. This will include some kind of farm update from me every Friday - this could be short posts with photos of my backyard cow friends or long posts on harvest. I hope these will educate you and also keep me more informed with what is going on in my backyard!!

Thanks to Amanda for the photo 

*PS I will be inviting any farm ladies to link-up and join in on From the Farm Friday*

Have a great weekend and if you ate today … don't forget to Thank A Farmer!!

Homesick for Norway

On July 21 I thought maybe we would have been immediately teleported back to the beautiful country of Norway but instead we were still in North Dakota just wanting to relive our trip from one year ago. Every time Steven or I see beautiful landscape we say "I wish we were in Norway" … it was hands down the most amazing experience!!

Do you have a trip you wish you could relive again and again?