July 2023 – The Farmer's Blogger

Hello friends!

Oh my goodness, what a whirlwind few weeks! I haven’t been home on the farm a whole lot, so now I’m more than a little behind. Lots to do, lots to do!

Well, to start, we had the Fiddle Fest and Parade. It was a hoot, my friend was visiting and we were at the park almost every night listening to music. There were some really great acts! We also went to this lemonade stand that had watermelon lemonade and I’m still thinking about it. It was so tasty we went back almost every night. It was a smaller fest again this year, but bigger than the last couple years, so I’m hopeful we are headed back in the right direction. The parade was pretty fantastic, you could tell that’s where a lot of the effort went, they had lots of different organizations and community groups, as well as some bigger corporations involved. It was a lot of fun! I helped with the float this year, but mostly kept out of the planning, letting my cousin take the reins. She absolutely nailed it, it was so adorable. The theme was “coming home” so, being the float for a Christian organization, she chose to make a stairway to heaven showing the “pathway home”. It was a pretty big hit. Of course, the candy throwing always helps too.

Here is an “In Progress” shot, most of my finished shots have little ones in them, so they aren’t really shareable

While my friend was here, we did a bunch of other things too. We found an army/navy surplus store in Boise that was really cool. My friend got an incredible deal on a backpack, and I found this cute little Belgium surplus shoulder bag… or, at least, I’m using it as a shoulder bag. It’s technically a claymore satchel, or so I’m told. It’s kinda a black hole inside, I need to make or buy a little bag organizer, but it was a great little garage sale-ing bag, and for $12 I can’t complain at all.

We did a ton of garage sale-ing too! I got some neat stamps, a couple books, a few video games for Christopher, and a monitor for $3. I have to buy a power cord for it, and it may be junk, but I thought the gamble was worth it. I’ll keep you posted when I find the right cord.

I got totally lucky, the Fourth of July, or Independence Day, fell on a Tuesday this year, and my company let us have it off. I had a little pto squirreled away to dip into, so I took Monday as well, combined with the fact that I currently work 4 10s and usually get Friday off as well, yours truly finagled herself a 5 day weekend using only one pto day. I’ve honestly never been so proud, and it was much needed, because between visiting friends, helping family, the festival, and one very injury heavy day helping to pull a buddy’s landscaping company out of an oops (it’s a long story), I was jonesing for some time off. Of course, my boss found it hilarious that I managed a 5 day weekend approximately 2 weeks before my actual preplanned week long vacation. It’s been a pretty fantastic July for yours truly.

The Fourth itself was pretty low key, we don’t launch fireworks because of the animals and the high fire risk being butted up against rangeland. Being up on the hill though means I have a great view of just about every legal fireworks show in 20 miles, and several of the not so legal ones too. So, I mostly eat picnic foods, dress in red white and blue, and watch the valley paint itself in colors when the sun sets. We did make toaster oven smores which made my mom exceedingly happy and still respected the burn ban.

I’ve also had that vacation from work, which was much needed. Funnily enough, it meant falling way behind on blog admin-y type stuff because I had no desire whatsoever to be at my desk, and I completely forgot the concept of filming things. Honestly, it was a nice little break even if it means some of the posts upcoming might be a little lean.

I’ve loved my little week off of work, I like my job a lot but like anything, after about 50 hours of it every week, one tends to want a break. It doesn’t help that I am currently heading a particularly nebulous project and its driving me a little mad. But hey, that’s life.
I spent most of my vacation just relaxing. I worked on some projects here and there but I am learning about the idea of rest as productivity and am treating myself to actual breaks instead of “I’m off work so lets shove as many catch up projects as possible into the space” when I can because I don’t really want to be worn out and over whatever breaks I get by the time I get back to work. The repairs, renovations, and improvements were all still there when I got back to it, and to be honest, some are still rolling over on the to-do list each day. It’ll all get done eventually. Or it won’t and then clearly it wasn’t that important anyway, ya know?
Anyways, I know this ones a little shorter, but since I am kinda buried in work catchup and blog catchup and life catchup, there’s not been much to write about, unless you’d like a detailed list of all the laundry that has personally offended me as of late. But I am so grateful I can occasionally take some “drop everything” days that the every growing todo list is 100% worth it.
Until we chat again my friends!

Hello Friends!
This time of year I always get super nostalgic. It’s funny, you would think that Christmas time would be more in line with those feelings but for me, June and July always were the best time of year. It was the time of year that I got to come to my uncle’s farm, we were out of school, the Fiddle Fest happens, Fourth of July, and the sun is always up and it’s always warm.
This time of year, I am always tempted to pick up writing again. Pick up writing, Amanda, are you aware of what you are doing right now? Yea, I know, but I mean fictional writing, like a novel. All I wanted to consistently be, all throughout school, was a mystery writer. I’m not sure why, other than I truly love Nancy Drew, Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and the like. I think I just wanted to write brave and daring adventures. I spent a lot of time as a kid writing stories, and this time of year always reminds me of it because the beautiful weather in this valley was such a huge source of inspiration and motivation as a kid. I’ve joked for a long time that I am truly solar powered, and moving here has really proved it. Remembering that little girl who was so sure she was going to get published really makes me think about taking it on again, reviving an old idea or two, and just seeing what happens. Maybe it’s just a little longing for those summer afternoons on the porch scribbling away, oblivious to everything but my own little world.
It’s been an extra reflective summer for me this year so far, and in a lot of ways it’s been really good for me, a strong reminder of all the amazing parts of my life that I should be appreciating more, and it’s been a little bittersweet remembering some things that are completely different now. I’ve had lots of reminders of Seattle and the PNW lately, for example, and they are good memories, but there’s a twinge of homesickness to them too, even if I don’t really want to go back.

I often talk about the things I don’t miss from my childhood stomping grounds, and those things are very true. I do not miss the rain, or the gray, I don’t miss the traffic, or the very isolating attitude of the people there. I don’t miss the crime, and I don’t miss the defining high school and college years that happened there. Don’t get me wrong, I had lovely high school and college experiences compared to some, but those aren’t times I would particularly go back to in their entirety, even if I look at them mostly fondly.
But I do miss the dragonflies and frogs from my childhood home, and listening to the tugboats in the fog. I miss the plethora of food, especially seafood, the mountain, and the science center. I really miss my friends and the barns there sometimes, even though I know 98% of my friends moved around or shortly after I did, and the barns that I did most of my riding at have all been torn down and replaced with widening highways, park and rides, and apartments.

And that’s the thing right? Nostalgia for a bygone age is blind to the changes of time. My favorite restaurant has closed, the barns are gone, heck, the school I completed high school in has completely changed and is totally different. My 4h group didn’t get enough attendance and had to shutter when we all grew up, the church I went to has none of the original pastors, and many of my adopted grandparents there are now angels looking down. I know if I went back, there would be tears, because it isn’t the home I grew up in. And in my case, the town I grew up in, well, it’s a lot worse for wear.
I also worry that going back would be hard, because it’s the last place my mom was healthy, pre-strokes. She started having them shortly after the move, so for me, who didn’t move until a little later, there’s almost two different people, and I think some of that childhood nostalgia is just missing who my mom was. She’s doing so much better now though, so don’t worry, even in the time since I’ve started the blog she’s grown stronger and more independent.

But, whinings and pinings aside, I think nostalgia can also hit for a time or place you’ve never been. Sometimes I get almost a homesick heartache for Weiser, a town I have known since I was little, but only been a part of for the last five years. I’m not homesick for Weiser itself, I can go in whenever I want to go explore, but I think I get a little bittersweet about what Weiser was, as I see a town that needs a little extra love to get itself pulled back up, but who just doesn’t seem to have the energy anymore. I hear all these stories from the old timers about a town with lots of soul, that had events and opinions and was known all over, a town that has a rich history and earned its title as the county seat, and I wish I could have seen it. I really do. You know the movie Cars? You know that throb you get in your chest when you watch the residents fight for their little town? That, that’s it, that’s the unearned nostalgia I am speaking of here.
And I think, finally, there’s a feeling akin to nostalgia that hits when you do something for yourself that would have made the child you proud. Like what we spoke about at the start, I look back a lot at the middle school and high school Amanda, who was struggling so hard to be a decent rider, and who frankly, was in a perfectly safe, fine environment, but not the right one for her to learn to to be a horsewoman, and sometimes I wish I could show her us now. Sure, I still ride with a nervous disposition, and I get frazzled really easily. I am a lot more busted up now, and sometimes I get called into work mid-ride, but she wouldn’t care. She’d be amazed that we own horses, that we moved to a farm, that we ride bareback AND took on a rescue horse, and that we actually find peace and calm in our sport again. I’ll be honest, I still have days where I hear my old trainer in my head “Amanda, some people are just not meant to ride horses, you are not meant to ride horses” and, some days, I still believe her. In fact, I’ve heard her a lot lately, especially with Nellie. But most of the time now, I just feel bad for that little girl, who had so much school pressure, peer pressure, and couldn’t find a foothold in a sport she so loved. I am really proud of that girl for persisting so that I could be where I am now. Not just with equestrian sport, but with school, with medical stuff, with everything that just seemed so hard and now is just “life”. I don’t know what you call this, I’m sure it’s not quite nostalgia, but I think that its close. And as I grew up a little more each year, that feeling becomes more important. Who cares what others think, 13-year-old Amanda would love me.
Anyways, I wanna know, if you feel comfortable sharing, where do you find those “heavy chest feelings”? Do you long for places you miss? Times you won’t ever see, either past, future, or simply paths you didn’t take (those get me a lot with Mom’s medical stuff, lots of futures and alternatives I never had to consider before)? Do you wish sometimes you could just go back and hug your past self, child or not, and tell them they get so much better? Have you done something recently to make your past self happy?
Or am I just a highly emotional mess with too much quiet time behind a screen? That’s fine too, I’ll fully own that if that’s the case. Someone has to be haha.
A little bit heavier today, but it’s been on my mind a lot, summer is my favorite season, and some of that is thanks to the look back I get to do each year, anyways, thanks for letting me ramble on.

Until we chat again, my friends!