Taking A Look Back

I have thousands of photos from our time here at Adoni Acres Family Farm, all of which are in our family scrapbooks.

Call me sentimental, but I gathered some photos to take a look back at our years here – and I think it has been a very good thing for me to do!

I never ever want to forget how incredibly much the Lord has blessed our time here!!

SO many memories. SO many fun experiences. SO many blessings!

This will be just a very small peek into life here over the last seven and a half years as I reminisce!

Right after we moved here in 2009, we jumped into farm life with both feet.

We started fencing,

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building chicken tractors,

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putting in amazing gardens,

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canning,

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getting our hay cut and putting it up,

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and we even bought our first cow and named him Fleck!

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The next year, 2010, brought SO many good things to our farm.

It really takes my breath away seeing all we did that farming season!

We cleaned and prepared the land and barn,

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and hosted the most beautiful wedding in May!

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our master gardener expanded our gardens,

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we canned over 100 quarts of tomato products,

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we started our egg business,

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we raised twice as many meat chickens,

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we had kitties coming our of our ears,

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we were gifted two baby goats,

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our farm was constantly full of fun, fellowship and friends,

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we dealt with some flooding,

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and as always we enjoyed the gift of the views most of all!

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The farming season of 2011 did not disappoint!

We added a new pup to our farm crew,

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had 85 gals join us to celebrate Kayla’s graduation,

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raised 400 meat chickens because our customer base grew,

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put up endless produce from our gardens and canned hundreds of quarts as well,

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added a sign at the entrance of our farm,

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cleaned out a neighbor’s old barn before it was torn down and brought home a huge load of straw,

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added herb garden beds,

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more apple trees,

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more cows,

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and after prayers for a source for free apples was answered, we put up 65 quarts of apple sauce!

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Believe it or not things got even crazier in 2012!

I can’t wait to reminisce about the next four farming seasons – but I think I will make that another post!

We are taking pieces of the farm with us when we move – like our farm sign and the top piece of our corn crib – but these memories are the most important thing that will go with us when we go.

I try to picture us driving away from here for the last time, and I honestly know that we will not have the grace to do so until we need the grace to do it. So I push those thoughts away, and focus on these blessed memories instead!

We can’t wait to see what is in store for us next!

Sometimes God’s BEST is in the waiting!

Waiting we are! And I want to make my Lord proud of how we waited!

Adoni Acres, you were a dream come true!

We pray you will be enjoyed by whoever comes after us as much as we enjoyed you!

Changing

We went for a family walk tonight, and once back on the farm we enjoyed being on the porch while the littles played!

All five of the horses are in the paddock right now, so I asked Addie Mae to take some photos of Zara!

Can you believe how much she is changing?

She is SO beautiful and super sweet!

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The littles were running around, riding the tractor and scootering on the sidewalk.

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Speaking of change – we have just been in awe lately of our sweet baby girl!

Between the CBT treatments Eliza took about seven weeks ago, and the additional therapy we have been doing – this girl is just not the same girl anymore!

I catch myself just staring at her, watching her closely, and listening to the explosion of words she has now!

I am not able to even find the right words at the moment – it is just such an emotional thing to try to explain!

Our sweet baby girl! She is starting to THRIVE!

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What a privilege it is to be her Mama.

I am just not worthy!

Praise the Lord with us!!

Grandpa and Grandma

We had a visit from the kiddos Grandpa and Grandma on Tuesday!

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I wish I would have taken more photos! I remembered to just as they were leaving!

We went for our traditional drive through the country, and then stopped for coffee and ice cream at the Coop!

We also stopped and visited Addie Mae at work!

It was such a nice day together!

We all met back at the house for dinner.

After dessert, we headed to the porch to say goodbye and get some photos!

I took this photo four times right in a row! Any guesses to which face was different in all four photos?! It was not Clyde’s! Guess again!

That precious boy with the huge dimples on the left was the one! Holding still is not his thing!

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Goodbye hugs and kisses all around!

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We love you so much Grandpa and Grandma!!

Thank you for visiting!!

We miss you already!!

It was a wonderful long weekend for us!

Hope you all had a great one too!!

Independence Day!

After our camp out Sunday night, and relaxing morning around the camp fire Monday morning, we got ready for a family from church who were joining us for dinner.

They brought over a stack of giant Dutch Blitz cards that you play in the yard!

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What a hoot! They were on teams and had the littler ones running to the middle with the cards that needed played!

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Grant and Lane blitzed several times in a row!

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We ate a yummy dinner, enjoyed some fellowship, and then headed to Viroqua to watch the fireworks.

Tate and Eliza were SO excited!!

It was such a nice night, even though it was a little bit cold!

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We rolled back in to the farm super late, and got everyone to bed.

When I left to take Addie Mae to work on Tuesday morning, I found someone else who had been up too late the night before!

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O’Malley didn’t even flinch as we walked by! Silly cat!

When I grabbed these photos off of my phone, I saw many, many more that need to be scrapbooked!

My storage was in the red and almost full!

So I will need to get back to this little scrapbook of mine soon!

I will add here that we have just been in awe of our littles over this long weekend. They have been stretched in many ways, and have handled it all better than we could have ever asked them to! We are so thankful for how far they have come! God has been SO good to us!!

We also have some other exciting news about where we are praying we will be able to move to that I hope to be able to share soon! God is hearing our prayers, and we are excited to see how He sees fit to answer!

Hope you all had a great Independence Day too!