At the Farm

Weston is from Nevada. 

 More specifically, he's from here, The Farm:

It was just sage brush back when they got it, when Weston was about 4 or 5, I think.  His parents did a lot to make it look as good as it does now.  

But they don't live there anymore; they live here at the ranch (well currently they live in Colombia).

Weston and I lived there during our first summer married, when I was a middle-sized prego (months 3-7) and would don my park ranger uniform for work everyday.  His parents still lived there then, as did his 2 youngest brothers and another newly married brother with his wife.  

Now one of Weston's brothers and his family live there.

They do a lot to keep it up and are such hard workers. 

 A lot of what they do is for their pumpkin patch that they do every October.  This October will be their 3rd year doing it.  Every year it gets better.

It is so fun to go and visit them there at their farm, and also to see one of his other brothers and his family that live about 10 minutes away.

We went there last week, Wednesday-Monday.  

We got in on Wednesday night when it was dark.  On Thursday morning, when the temperature and the sun were just perfect, we went out to check everything out. 

Weston went to help our nephew Kyle with his chore of irrigating the corn maze.

"Hi, Kyle!"

The reason why we went down to Nevada is because all of The Brothers Six had planned to hike Mt. Whitney together.  In case you did't know, Mt. Whitney is the tallest peak in the continental U.S.  It is about 14,500 feet hight.  

Jiles's by the little irrigation stream.

They left Thursday evening at 6:30, drove to the trail head, and started hiking at 2:30 a.m.  They summited at 10 a.m. and were back to the car by 4.  They hiked 22 miles, climbing 6000 feet.  Then they drove home and were back by 11:30 p.m.  Hi, crazy!  They were all awake for like 40 hours.  Sheesh! 

The hoop house.  They're growing  carrots and maters and green onions to sell at the pumpkin patch.  I think that hoop houses are pretty, with their symmetrical, geometrical, plant-growing selves.

Jiles in the pumpkin patch looking for the color orange.

Pretty pretty pumpkin patch.

Orange is good.

The drip lines service 12,000 seeds that were planted in June.

Pumpkin flower.

Girly feet and soft dirt.

1 1/2 more months.

Sweet hay slide.  I want to do this at the ranch.

tracks.

Uncle Daron's bee business has expanded.  Pumpkin honey = mmmm.

Playing with cousins.

Cousin Olivia in the barn with Molly.

Pretty sure that this was against the rules.  Lucky for Ezra, Phillip was feeling quite chill and not bucky.

Zoe figured out how to climb under fences.  Not cool.  But not to worry, I never let her leave my sight when we're outside.

Cousin Emma wanted to help Jiles take his boots off to go down the slide.  Jiles was not up for that.

Emma and Brigham (with the straw in his mouth - he was pretending to be a cowboy) are best buddies.

Top of the slide.

We had a lot of fun with the family in Nevada.  14 of the 17 cousins, all 6 uncles, 3 of the 5 aunts.  More on that trip later. 

Tonight all of those in our household are anticipating the first day of school.  

More on that later, too.

I'm off to join the slumbering crowd.  I have to wake up 2 hours earlier than normal (well, lately's normal), which is most definitely my least favorite thing about our kids going to school.